In their farewell to the season, the Lions are leaving behind a faceless, nameless team that few people knew or cared about outside their own locker room.
Their persona had all the charm and emotional grab of the tax code, except for one critical difference. You could beat the Lions most of the time.
Their image was losing -- losing big, and losing for a long time.
In the span of a month -- and with a lot of hard, dedicated work leading up to it -- the Lions have forged a fresh identity. They are admired in many quarters of the NFL as a team with resolve and determination -- and talent. Don't forget the talent.
They kicked aside the old Lions, letting a new breed step out by ending their season with a four-game winning streak.
And they have an identity -- a defense with a front four that bears resemblance to the Fearsome Foursome of old, and an offense with talent and big-play ability.
The finished product was better than the 6-10 record when their season ended.
At his season wrap-up press conference on Monday, coach Jim Schwartz talked about the defense's improvement, assembling complementary players on offense, and the team's resilience.
"There is something to be said for the team being consistent throughout the year," Schwartz said. "We didn't have that game where we lost 45-3. Even our worst loss of the season (45-24 to the Patriots on Thanksgiving Day), we were within seven with 10 minutes left.
"We didn't finish that game as well as we finished other ones, but we were in every single game.
"There was never a game where we didn't have a good game plan, the players weren't ready to play, we got outclassed early and couldn't finish the game.
"I think that we're well on our way to being the multidimensional team that we envision that we want to be."
The quarterback: Matthew Stafford's absence from the lineup did not make Schwartz's heart wander. Shaun Hill and Drew Stanton filled in admirably while Stafford missed 13 starts because of two injuries to his right (passing) shoulder, but Stafford is the quarterback of the present and the future.
Schwartz has never said so publicly, but it's obvious he thinks the Lions' could have been better than 6-10 if they'd had Stafford for the full season. He often referred to the Lions playing "without our quarterback."
"I know this," Schwartz said Monday. "He played three games for us. He won one (against the Redskins) and left the other two (Bears and Jets) with the lead.
"When we started this, he was the guy that we were building around. He's very, very important going forward. You can never put too high a value on a quarterback.
"What would have happened this year? I don't know. I just know that he played three games, and he played well for us. We just need to keep him healthy and have him out there for 16 games rather than for three games."
In his weekly interview on the Mitch Albom Show on WJR-760 in Detroit Monday afternoon, Stafford said he will fine-tune his off-season workout program.
"I'm not going to overhaul my whole off-season program or anything like that," Stafford said. "It was just an unfortunate event. I'm going to prepare the same -- maybe do a couple things here and there that are a little different."
Stafford was hurt in the opener against Chicago and missed five starts. He returned for a 37-25 victory over the Redskins and was hurt again late in the fourth quarter the next week against the Jets. The Lions had a 20-17 lead when Stafford went out. The Jets tied the game on a field goal and won it on another field goal in overtime.
Stafford did not second-guess coming back, saying he knew the risk involved.
"I took the right approach," he said. "I took a couple of hits in the Jets game that set me back again."
Net gain: Winning the last four games accounted for as many victories as the Lions had in the previous 45 games. They were 4-41 from Game 16 of 2007 through Game 12 of 2010.
That span included losing the last game in 2007, going 0-16 in '08, 2-14 in '09 and 2-10 in the first 12 games of 2010.
The stats show how the Lions competed hard all year. They were minus-7 in points differential, 17th best in the league.
That represents a dramatic improvement over their points differential of the previous three seasons -- minus-232 in
