Detroit, MI
Mitch Albom: Brave new world for Detroit Lions as they wrestle with when to pull stars
Za’Darius Smith gets biggest ovation of all Detroit Lions before game
Detroit Lions starting defense is introduced before win vs. Jaguars, Nov. 17, 2024 at Ford Field, with Za’Darius Smith earning the biggest ovation.
First, the excellence. The Detroit Lions entered Ford Field on Sunday and landed in one of those movie-like treasure chambers, where the gold is stacked as high as sand dunes.
Everywhere they turned, it was jewels and gems. Seven straight touchdowns. A franchise record 645 yards of offense. A final score of 52-6 over the Jacksonville Jaguars, thanks largely to a defense that treated the visitors like Popeye treats a spinach can: squeeze, pop, gulp.
But.
There’s always a little “but,” right? This one has come up a couple times this season. And it’s why it’s not easy being Dan Campbell these days. Call it “The Preservation Question.”
Here were the Lions deep into a game that was already decided, late third quarter, first-and-goal, 5 yards out. Jared Goff dropped back and waited for a receiver to come open. One second. Two seconds. Brock Wright, his tight end, was wiggling free in the end zone.
Goff spotted him. What he didn’t spot was an unblocked 6-foot-7 defensive end, Arik Armstead, charging towards him from behind. Armstead is a former first-round draft pick of the 49ers. He has 34½ sacks in his career. He was within a few feet of an easy No. 35½ when Goff let go of the ball.
Armstead pulled up — thankfully — and merely shoved Goff from behind, and Goff jogged away harmlessly. But had the quarterback taken two seconds longer, had he pumped before throwing, he would likely have taken the full force of the hulking Armstead blindly into his spine.
And that could have changed the season.
It didn’t. Wright caught the pass and the crowd went berserk for the touchdown— yet another touchdown, on a day when the Lions broke the franchise record for margin of victory (46 points.)
And there’s the dilemma. Goff’s TD toss took the score from 35-6 to 42-6. It wasn’t needed to secure a win. It wasn’t needed to put the game out of reach. This is the conundrum Campbell now faces with these new, sparkling Lions.
When is it time to take your best players out?
Pull-your-stars conundrum
“This is another one of those bizarre things that (we’re) running into,” Campbell admitted of the pull-your-stars issue, after the record shattering win moved the Lions to 9-1 but also saw them lose their defensive anchor, linebacker Alex Anzalone, for 6-8 weeks with a broken forearm. “Normally this doesn’t happen. This is like the third time … this season.”
So how does he decide?
“There’s a number of things,” Campbell said “you want to know that you finished on a good note. You found a rhythm, you keep the rhythm. OK, now the time says, ‘let’s get ‘em out.’
“What’s hard is (that) you’re playing pretty good, then you take this dip and then it starts to taste bad… and does that bleed into the next week?’’
You could tell by how he answered that he was grappling with the issue. That’s because there is no perfect answer. Especially here in Detroit, where this is all new and there is irony in a fan base that spent decades waiting for a team to be worth watching now wrestling with pulling its best players early.
But the Lions this year are after something bigger than a pile-on victory against an also-ran like Jacksonville. They want a Super Bowl. And the reality in the NFL is that while it’s “team-team-team” 90 percent of the time, there are moments where the mantra must be “star-star-star.” Certain players and positions just tilt the balance disproportionately.
No easy solution
On Detroit, that starts with Goff. First and foremost. The Lions lose him, their 2024 dreams are gone. Yet there he was Sunday, not only at 42-6, but again in the fourth quarter, leading a nearly four-minute, 95-yard drive and making it 49-6. He wasn’t replaced until less than 10 minutes remained in the game.
That may sound like a lot of time. Maybe it is. On the other hand, Goff could have sat at halftime and the game would still have been won. And he definitely wasn’t needed to make a 36-point margin a 43-point margin. More than a few Detroit fans watching no doubt were saying, “Why is he still in there?”
Campbell, obviously thinking a lot about this, came back after another question to add a thought.
“Man,” he said, “I do not want to let the fear of injury take away from our identity. That will always be most important for me. The minute you start worrying about injuries that’s when bad things happen.”
That’s true. It’s also true that sometimes they happen anyhow. Anzalone, a key to the defense, was lost on a routine play just before halftime. And of course, Aidan Hutchinson is gone for the year already, as are several other excellent players.
Unwavering attitude
But a Campbell-coached team will be a Campbell attitude team. And he knows better than all of us. He’s proving that with the wins. Sometimes, he explained, it’s a question of bodies. You must have ready players to put out there. For example, Campbell said, he’d sometimes like to yank Penei Sewell out of games that are well-decided, but backup linemen are in short supply.
So it’s play hard, right to the end. Don’t expect to see many early departures of Goff or other potential irreplaceables like Jahmyr Gibbs or Amon Ra St. Brown.
For his part, Goff said, “I don’t think … there is a right or wrong answer to that. It’s quite the luxury to have in the NFL to be able to take out players ever.”
True enough. But the nervous Detroit fans who still can’t believe the Lions are rolling out incredible performances like Sunday’s will likely want to err on pulling the chips off the table. That’s why we’re watching and the players are playing.
“Did you know Armstead was charging behind you on that touchdown?” Goff was asked.
“No,” he admitted, “Was he close?”
Too close for some. Not for others. Meanwhile, the Lions continue to blow away expectations with a team that Campbell described as “the right balance of electricity and … sledgehammer.”
If only we could build a steel cage around some of them.
Mitch Albom will talk Lions football and other sports Monday with Bernie Smilovitz in a special live event at Emagine Royal Oak at 7 p.m. Proceeds go to charity. Tickets at Emagine-entertainment.com.
Detroit, MI
Bruce Campbell announces cancer diagnosis; ‘Fear not,’ he tells fans
Treatment will delay the Royal Oak-born actor’s plans to tour his new film ‘Ernie & Emma’ this summer.
Royal Oak-born movie star and cult hero Bruce Campbell announced on social media on Monday that he has been diagnosed cancer — a type that is “treatable” but not “curable,” he said.
“I apologize if that’s a shock — it was to me too,” the “Evil Dead” star, 67, wrote in a message posted to Instagram.
He went on to say “I’m not gonna go into any more detail,” and he didn’t. He said the public announcement had to do with scaling back appearances on his schedule, including tour dates behind his latest film, “Ernie & Emma.”
Campbell planned to show the movie June 5 at the Redford Theatre; as of Monday night, that date is still on the Redford schedule, but Campbell wrote in his note he plans to get “as well as I possibly can over the summer so that I can tour with my new movie ‘Ernie & Emma’ this fall.”
The movie is written, directed by and stars Campbell as a man who goes on a journey following the death of his wife. Campbell produced the movie alongside his wife, Ida Gearon, and filmed it in Oregon, where he now lives.
Campbell told The News in January he dedicated “Ernie & Emma” to his childhood moviemaking pals, including Scott Spiegel, who died of a heart attack in September 2025.
“It’s a callback to the carefree days of Super 8, where we could do whatever the f–k we wanted to do,” Campbell said of “Ernie & Emma.” “So I thought, ‘All the boys are responsible for this,’ so they’re all in there.”
Campbell got his start making movies around Metro Detroit with his childhood pal, Sam Raimi. Campbell starred in Raimi’s “Evil Dead” trilogy and has since appeared in most of Raimi’s films; Campbell makes a brief appearance in a photograph in the background of an early scene in Raimi’s latest, “Send Help.”
He’s also an author; Campbell’s autobiography “If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor” was published in 2001.
In his post on social media, Campbell thanked fans and said he was not out to elicit sympathy.
“Fear not, I am a tough old son-of-a-bitch and I have great support, so I expect to be around for a while,” he wrote.
agraham@detroitnews.com
Detroit, MI
Michigan State Police sends message to drivers after trooper involved in hit and run:
“Slow down and move over” is the message that Michigan State Police is sending to drivers after one of its troopers in a parked patrol car was struck while investigating a crash this weekend. The driver of that vehicle fled the scene.
Michigan State Police tells CBS News Detroit that we’re two months into the year, and it has had six incidents across the state where patrol cars were struck by oncoming vehicles. One of those incidents occurred on Sunday evening.
“Could have been much more tragic,” said MSP Lieutenant Rene Gonzalez, First District public information officer.
Gonzalez says on Sunday, an MSP trooper was near M-10 and Schaefer Highway in Detroit, simply doing his job, when his patrol car was hit from behind.
“Trooper was out there, and he was investigating a crash when, at the time, a Jeep SUV drove into the rear of the parked vehicle,” Gonzalez said.
The impact slid the trooper’s car into a concrete wall. The 29-year-old Detroit woman driving the Jeep SUV struck the center median, got out of the vehicle, and ran away.
“Not sure why they did it. Maybe not paying attention if they were distracted. They’re attempting to locate her at this time,” said Lt. Gonzalez.
The trooper walked away with minor injuries. Gonzalez says this incident is an example of why Michigan’s Move Over Law was put in place many years ago. The law, which went into effect in 2019, requires drivers to move over into the next lane and reduce their speed by at least 10 mph when emergency or service vehicles — police, fire, rescue, ambulance and road service — have their lights activated.
Drivers who are not able to move over are still required to reduce their speed.
“Trying to do our jobs, however, people are not paying attention. The law is easy. It’s simple. You see us, you see our lights activated, you have to slow down ten miles below the posted speed limit, and then if able, move over to the next occupied available lane,” Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez says crashes like this can be deadly and often avoided.
“One life lost over something that was a totally preventable crash, it’s way too much. We’re asking that you slow down and move over when you see our lights. It’s a simple message that we’ve been pushing out for years,” he said.
Sunday’s crash remains under investigation. Michigan State Police detectives are still working to track down the 29-year-old suspect.
In the meantime, police are out enforcing the Move Over Law.
Detroit, MI
Rex Satterfield’s 1956 Bel Air takes 2026 Ridler Award in Detroit
The impact and history of autos in Detroit, The Motor City
Here are some facts about Detroit’s auto industry.
Rex Satterfield hoped to see his 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible snag one of the BASF Great 8 finalist spots at this year’s Detroit Autorama. But winning the Ridler Award — one of the highest honors in the custom car business — was something he didn’t foresee.
“It’s just overwhelming right now,” said the man from Russellville, Tennessee, as he left a ballroom at downtown’s Huntington Place and made his way back to the show floor on Sunday, March 1. “We weren’t expecting this.”
Getting a car recognized as one of the BASF Great 8 vehicles is a win in and of itself as they are considered the “absolute pinnacle of custom automotive craftsmanship worldwide,” according to the show. The cars undergo an intensive judging process.
And this effort had an unexpected and emotional complication with the passing in December 2024 of the original builder, Jeff Wolfenbarger, who was battling cancer even as he continued working on the car named “Elegant Lady.”
Kevin Riffey of Kevin Riffey’s Hot Rods and Restorations in Knoxville stepped in to finish the work Wolfenbarger started. He’d had two other cars in the past make the Great 8. He said the goal with this vehicle was straightforward, calling it a “purpose-built show car.”
From its prominent spot at the front of the show floor, “Elegant Lady” sported a creamy exterior, dubbed Light Coffee. The car carries a 1,000 horsepower Don Hardy race engine. The gauges, wheels and gas tank are custom, and the dash is from a 1956 Pontiac.
Satterfield plans to show the car around some and enjoy the moment with it. He said he’s been a car guy since he was a little kid.
The Ridler Award, named in honor of Detroit Autorama’s first publicist, Don Ridler, comes with a $10,000 prize. It was awarded on the final day of this year’s Detroit Autorama, which ran Friday, Feb. 27-Sunday, March 1. This was the event’s 73rd year.
Eric D. Lawrence is the senior car culture reporter at the Detroit Free Press. Send your tips and suggestions about cool automotive stuff to elawrence@freepress.com. Become a subscriber. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters.
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