At the time, it seemed like a long and daunting task.
The daunting part was accurate. But long? Not so much.
Three years into each tenure, the Lions are just days from the team’s first playoff appearance since 1999.
But oddly, there aren’t any handshakes or pats on the back going around the Allen Park headquarters.
“I don’t call it a sense of satisfaction,” Lewand said of making the playoffs for the first time in 12 years. “If you get satisfied, to me, I equate that with a little bit of complacency. Martin has been great at saying that, whether it’s the draft or free agency, there isn’t a finish line for us.”
Actually, the Lions are treating Saturday like the starting line, which is a good approach by a team still getting used to success.
“This is the start of the second season for us and that’s all it is,” Lewand said. “It’s a chance to compete in the second season for us and we haven’t had that in a long time. “
It’s the same type of forward thinking that got Lewand, Mayhew and Schwartz through the first two seasons, when winning wasn’t part of the plan.
The Lions won two games in 2009 and improved to 6-10 in the second year, thanks to a 4-0 finish to the 2010 season.
But through the losing, and the
“That is a characteristic of successful organizations,” Lewand said. “They have the discipline to stay within the framework of their plans and I think it’s one of the great characteristics Martin has and Jim and a lot of us in the organization (have). We focus on the task at hand and not on external factors that might influence us in one direction or the other.”
Schwartz said the very same thing a couple days after clinching a playoff spot with a victory over the Chargers back in December.
“Probably the most difficult thing to do in the NFL is to stick to a plan when you’re not winning,” he said. “Too many times, people haven’t accomplished what they want to accomplish because they’ve turned back at the first sign of storm. Or the first cloud's on the horizon; ‘Hey, let’s turn around and go back.’"
The Lions stuck to the plan and one of their first rewards is a date with the Saints in New Orleans on Saturday.
That's nice, but according to Lewand, it's nothing to write home about.
“If you sit back and say ‘boy it’s great that we broke this streak or that streak’ and some of the negative things, that almost is a sense of accomplishment,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve accomplished what we set out to do. We haven’t accomplished our goal. Our goal is to win a Super Bowl championship.”
