Detroit Lions Look For Redemption in Return to Lambeau Field

This Sunday, the Detroit Lions will suit up to play the Green Bay Packers on the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field.

Lambeau Field is not a friend to the Lions. They haven't won a game there since 1991, chalking up 17 straight losses while surrounded by cheeseheads.

This year, though, there's something extra going on.

The Detroit Lions' final game of 2008 was an away game against the Packers. Do you remember what happened to the Detroit Lions in their final game of 2008?

They do.

A little more than half the Lions' roster has been turned over from last year, so this doesn't apply to them. But as for the holdovers?

Don't think for a moment they've forgotten the feeling they had in the freezing cold air at Lambeau Field as the final seconds ticked away on their last chance to save face.

It was a cold day for the Lions in more ways than one. That was the day 0-16 went from a rumor, a murmur in the media, an abstract number, to an inescapable reality.

Kevin Smith remembers that. Cliff Avril and Ernie Sims, too. Dominic Raiola definitely does.

Now, it's true that they had to lose to 15 other teams to get to that point, but Lambeau Field is where it culminated.

That's where that sickening feeling struck them in the pits of their stomach. That's where they could only stand there, speechless, knowing it would be another eight months or so before they could even attempt to remember what winning felt like.

With a 14-game road losing streak, a 17-game Lambeau losing streak, and memories of 2008 looming, the Lions returning to the place where the clock struck 16 could be like a death call.

Or it could be a new beginning.

Head Coach Jim Schwartz has done a fine job distancing this Lions team from last year. For starters, he's new. Most of the rest of the coaching staff is new. The offensive and defensive schemes are new. The starting quarterback is new. Half the roster is new.

Most importantly, the Lions have a number other than "zero" in the win column.

Though Schwartz will deny it, and any players who lost 16 games last year will deny it, the Lions have a great deal at stake this week.

And those players know it. This is their chance to really, truly put December 28, 2008 behind them.

A win, however unlikely, snaps both of those nasty double-digit losing streaks, and gives the team a win in the very place where they showed they couldn't last season.

And maybe they'll show that the new Lions really aren't the same as the old Lions.