one playoff win in the Super Bowl era. One playoff win in the past 6 decades. :lmao:
Hold on...in all fairness you are leaving out the players/teams that existed BEFORE the Super Bowl era who also failed to win in the playoffs that took place back then. You really should be including every team and player since Slick Willy became the person in control, which happened in 1963. That's 3 full years of additional ineptitude.
The fact is 1961 and 1962 were the last back-to-back seasons with playoff wins.
There is absolutely an undeniable connection here.
And this speaks to the incredible greatness of Barry Sanders, that he was absolutely THE MAN and deserves to be considered the greatest individual player in NFL history, as he basically was the reason why the Lions defeated the Cowboys in the only Lions playoff win. He was the only one able to power through the Slick Willy Curse.
That's right, it should no longer be considered the Curse of Bobby Layne, because the Lions managed to win playoff games after Layne departed, including the 1962 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers who had Bobby Layne as the QB.
And yes, I fully understand that the playoff wins in 1961 and 1962 were in the "Runner Up Bowl" played to see who would be in 3rd place...but it nonetheless was called "The Playoff Bowl" and qualifies as a Playoff Game. Yes, it was also called "The Toilet Bowl", "The Loser Bowl", and other similar names...but the players were paid to play in it and earned more money if they won than if they lost. One might argue it was more like today's Pro Bowl, but it wasn't because it was the actual teams playing and not two groups of Pro Bowlers created from multiple teams. No, it was a playoff game. Not as glamorous, perhaps...but how glamorous is that win for the Lions over the Cowboys since they ended up losing to Washington in the following Conference Championship game?
If you wish to change "Playoff" to "Championship" Game, then the Lions have not won one of those since 1957...a full 10 years prior to the Super Bowl. In this regard the Bobby Layne Curse would apply...but we really need to remember to include these 10 years prior to the Super Bowl in our "Lions Ineptitude" comments, and remove the 1991 Lions Playoff Win from the calculation and say the Lions have not won a Championship Game since 1957. Because, let's be honest here...winning a Wild Card PLAYOFF Game is not any better than winning "The Loser Bowl" when failing to win the following Conference CHAMPIONSHIP Game.
