Shortly after succeeding her mother as principal owner of the Lions three years ago, Sheila Ford Hamp called a close college friend for advice. He had gone on to run a multi-national company, and Hamp respected his leadership style. She asked him, "If you were me, how would you think about this job?"
"The first thing you need to do," he said, "is find your noble cause. Once you’ve done that and you get a few people to buy in with you, everything will fall into place."
After a lot of thought, Hamp said this week in an interview with Fox 2's Dan Miller, she decided her noble cause "was the city of Detroit, the fans, the state, everybody who has supported the Lions for so many years. And how can we bring (them) a winner?"
First, Hamp needed to snuff out the losing. She took the first step in this direction by firing Bob Quinn and Matt Patricia midway through the 2020 season. And before starting the search for their replacements -- for the men who would define the next era of Lions football -- Hamp called a man who had defined the last era of Lions football worth remembering: Chris Spielman.
Hamp had long admired Spielman, going back to his days as an All-Pro linebacker for the Lions in the early '90s. He has a way of bringing people together. Hamp had dug into the organization and saw too many people -- too many so-called leaders -- working apart. And for all the "wonderful things" she saw her mother Martha Ford do during her seven-year tenure as owner, Hamp also saw "many things that maybe she and I would have thought about differently."
She decided the Lions "needed a culture shift" from the top down, starting with more collaboration. The tone would be set by the next general manager and next head coach. She asked Spielman, at the time working as an analyst for the NFL on FOX, if he would join her noble cause. He immediately said yes.
Ultimately, a search crew that also featured team president Rod Wood and COO Mike Disner interviewed 12 candidates for GM and eight for head coach. When the Lions found Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell, "all four of us agreed, these are our guys," said Hamp. Would anyone disagree now? Entering their third season in Detroit, Holmes and Campbell have established the Lions as favorites in their division, which they haven't won in 30 years, and legitimate threats in the NFC, which they haven't won ever.
"We were hoping they would work well together, which of course has worked out beautifully," said Hamp. "A bit of an arranged marriage, so you never know for sure, they work so well together it’s actually a joy to watch them."
Things weren't so bright early last season. After the Lions started 1-5, dropping their record under Holmes and Campbell to 4-18-1, Hamp publicly stood up for her GM and head coach. She said she believed in their plan and in the direction of the organization. Her loyalty wasn't blind. Hamp, 72, is a frequent presence in the team facility, regularly sits in on meetings covering everything from scouting to game-planning and watches the club's progress closely. And progress was what she saw last year despite the early results.
"I really could see what was going on, I really believed that," said Hamp. "There were a couple games we lost by three points, we were very close. Then we went and lost the next game and maybe I thought, 'Whoops,' but no, not really. I could see what was going on and I felt great about our leadership, and I obviously still do."
After losing at home to the Dolphins in Week 8 in a game in which they were shut out in the second half, the Lions closed the season on an 8-2 run -- their best 10-game stretch since the last time they made the playoffs (2016). They capped it off by sending Aaron Rodgers, uhm, Packing in one of the most-watched Sunday Night Football games of the year. A team that didn't have a single primetime game on its original schedule last season has four of them this season, starting Thursday night against the defending Super Bowl champs.
"It’s fantastic, it really is," said Hamp. "It’s so exciting. The fact that we’re playing in Kansas City the very first game of the NFL season, obviously the league thinks of us differently. The amount of national games they’ve put on our schedule is exciting. We didn't have any last year, so it’s really wonderful and I think we’re up to the challenge."
So do the players in their locker room, which is suddenly rife with talent. With a roster built through the draft, the Lions have cornerstones at every position. They've added reinforcements through free agency, especially this offseason when they spent big to fix a broken secondary -- which will get an immediate chance to prove itself against Patrick Mahomes.
At each level of the defense, Detroit has building blocks in Aidan Hutchinson, Jack Campbell, Brian Branch and Kerby Joseph -- to name a few. And at each level of the offense in Penei Sewell, Jahmyr Gibbs, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Sam LaPorta and Jared Goff -- to name a few more. These are players either in or entering their primes, none of whom were here when Holmes and Campbell were handed the reins by Hamp.
"I’m happy that we've been able to pick the right people," said Hamp. "And I wasn’t sure, I’ve never been in this sort of leadership position before. I didn't know if that was going to be the case or not, like anything new you try. But I’m so pleased and certainly could never do this alone. I have a lot of support."
Before Campbell had coached a game in Detroit, he said he had visualized a Super Bowl parade down Woodward "and this city going crazy." He is of the belief that you have to "start at the end and work backward," something he learned in New Orleans under Sean Payton. Hamp has envisioned that scene herself: "I can’t lie and say I haven’t," she smiled.
"First things first, but I really have thought about it, said Hamp. "And it would be the most wonderful thing, the city, our fans, my family, all together, holding that trophy up."