David Montgomery felt at home in Detroit from the moment he arrived last spring. The Lions running back is from Cincinnati, "blue collar, same kind of people, and I get put in a place where it feels so familiar it’s hard not to feel at home," he said.
Penei Sewell is from an island in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean and says the same thing. He embraced Detroit as soon as he showed up three years ago as the Lions' first draft pick under Brad Holmes, and Detroit has taken him in as one of its own.
"The love here in Detroit is something special," Sewell said. "Every time I step out in the community, they show love. No matter what type of reaction they give, they’re all close to the heart."
Sewell won the city's heart by competing like a madman as a 20-year-old rookie, and standing up to Aaron Donald at a time the Lions were still getting pushed around. Now he's an All-Pro right tackle and the Lions are one win away from the NFC championship game. They took down Donald and the Rams last week.
Montgomery, who spent his first four seasons with the rival Bears, has won Detroit's heart by putting every ounce of his 225-pound frame into every one of his carries. He plowed his way to a 1,000-yard season and a career-high 13 touchdowns behind Sewell and the rest of the Lions' elite offensive line. He said when he got here that he had more to showcase, and the man has stood on it.
After Montgomery rushed for 57 yards and a touchdown in the Lions' long-awaited playoff win last week in a raucous environment at Ford Field, he said he'd "never heard nothin' like that throughout my entire life of playing ball, and having the fans come like they came was ridiculous." On Tuesday, he told the whole world, "Damn, I Love Detroit !!!!" And on Wednesday, Montgomery learned exactly how much this team means to this town.
He said he was pumping gas when a woman approached him and thanked him through tears for the Lions' first playoff win in 32 years.
"You take a wide spectrum, you take a step back at all of the problems and things that people go through at home, it’s cold out there, it’s a lot of people ain’t got homes, and I’m pumping gas in a nice car and we just won a game and she’s crying telling me thank you," Montgomery said.
Montgomery said he "just simply hugged her and told her, 'You shouldn’t thank me. I’m just here to be the best version of myself.' I really just thanked her for being a long fan, as I could tell, she had been a fan for awhile and I had just got here, so I just thanked her for being committed to the process."
The 26-year-old Montgomery said it "gives you perspective on how much value and how much this sport and this game parallels this city and how the city feels about it. And it makes you realize that it’s way bigger than what you expected it to be. It also makes you look at it like, you gotta go harder."
Stories like Montgomery's abound. Taylor Decker, who could fill a book with tales of failure as the Lions' longest-tenured player, prefers to tell the uplifting ones. He recalled that when he arrived for OTA's last spring and grabbed an Uber from the airport to Allen Park, his driver was so fired up with the way the Lions ended last season -- and even more fired up to have Taylor Decker in his backseat -- that they wound up spending an extra 10 minutes talking ball in the parking lot of the team facility.
On Wednesday, Decker said he saw videos of fans crying in the stands after the Lions beat the Rams to flush decades of anguish. He said he heard about the eldery fan who's currently in hospice and dyed his hair blue for the playoff run like Amon-Ra St. Brown.
"Stuff like that, it’s just beautiful how much our sport means to people," said Decker. "And like I said after the game, I’m just thankful that I get to be a part of those special moments for people, because the fans driving our game to be what it is is allowing me to have special moments and memories. Man, it’s going to be fun to have another home game. That was the best environment I’ve ever been in, by the way. That was incredible."
A native of Ohio and product of Ohio State, Decker says Detroit is where "he's become a man." He was drafted here at the age of 22, and now he's a 31-year-old husband and father. He said after the Lions ended last season on a high note by beating the Packers at Lambeau Field on national TV, he received a lot of messages like this one: "My dad's been a fan for 60 years. And for like once, he was happy at the end of the year."
"I feel like I can try to put myself in their shoes, but I can’t," Decker said after last Sunday's win. "I’ve been here or eight years. There’s people who have been fans for 60 years. I just hope it brings them joy because our sport's special because of the fans."
The Lions didn't wait 30 year to host a single playoff game; they're hosting another Sunday against the Buccaneers -- who, until this season, had won the Lions' division more recently than the Lions. Nor did they wait 32 years to win a single playoff game.
"That’s not enough," said Montgomery. "Let’s not be content with what it is. We won, that’s cool, but we want more."
In other words, said Sewell, "let’s wait with the thank you’s, because we got a lot left."