1958 Detroit Lions season

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1958 Detroit Lions season
Head coachGeorge Wilson
Home fieldBriggs Stadium
Results
Record4–7–1
Division place5th NFL Western
Playoff finishDid not qualify

The 1958 Detroit Lions season was their 29th in the National Football League. The defending NFL champions failed to improve on their previous season and finished at 4–7–1, fifth in the six-team Western Conference.[1]

Hall of Fame quarterback Bobby Layne, age 31, was traded after the second game to the Pittsburgh Steelers for Earl Morrall and two draft choices.[2][3] This supposedly led to Layne "cursing" the Lions, allegedly saying that Detroit "would not win for fifty years." The story is considered a hoax, as no contemporaneous account exists and Layne himself denied saying it. (Real or not, the "curse" bedeviled the Lions franchise for the next half-century, and beyond: as of 2020, 62 years after the trade, Detroit has not won another championship, and indeed has won only a single playoff contest in that time.) Meanwhile, after losing their first two games without Layne, the Steelers finished at 7–4–1, their best record in over a decade.

The Lions won only one game in the first half of the season, then spilt the final six games. It was one of the poorest performances by a defending league champion in league history.

Schedule[]

Week Date Opponent Result Record Attendance
1 September 28 at Baltimore Colts L 15–28 0–1–0
48,377
2 October 5 at Green Bay Packers T 13–13 0–1–1
32,035
3 October 12 Los Angeles Rams L 28–42 0–2–1
55,648
4 October 19 Baltimore Colts L 14–40 0–3–1
55,190
5 October 26 at Los Angeles Rams W 41–24 1–3–1
81,703
6 November 2 at San Francisco 49ers L 21–24 1–4–1
59,213
7 November 9 at Cleveland Browns W 30–10 2–4–1
75,363
8 November 16 San Francisco 49ers W 35–21 3–4–1
54,523
9 November 23 Chicago Bears L 7–20 3–5–1
55,280
10 November 27 Green Bay Packers W 24–14 4–5–1
50,971
11 December 7 New York Giants L 17–19 4–6–1
50,115
12 December 14 at Chicago Bears L 16–21 4–7–1
38,346

Game summaries[]

Week 10[]

1 234Total
Packers 7 070 14
• Lions 10 077 24
  • Date: November 27
  • Location: Briggs Stadium, Detroit, Michigan
  • Game attendance: 50,971

Source:[4][5]

Standings[]

NFL Western Conference
  • view
  • talk
 W L T PCT CONF PF PA STK
Baltimore Colts 9 3 0 .750 8–2 381 203 L2
Los Angeles Rams 8 4 0 .667 7–3 344 278 W3
Chicago Bears 8 4 0 .667 7–3 298 230 W2
San Francisco 49ers 6 6 0 .500 4–6 257 324 W2
Detroit Lions 4 7 1 .364 3–6–1 261 276 L2
Green Bay Packers 1 10 1 .091 0–9–1 193 382 L7

Note: Tie games were not officially counted in the standings until 1972.

References[]

  1. ^ 1958 Detroit Lions
  2. ^ Livingston, Pat (October 7, 1958). "Layne takes over as Steeler QB". Pittsburgh Press. p. 27.
  3. ^ Sell, Jack (October 7, 1958). "Steelers get Layne for Morrall". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. p. 1.
  4. ^ a b Johnson, Chuck (November 28, 1958). "Packers clinch last place by losing to Detroit, 24 to 14". Milwaukee Journal. p. 19, part 2.
  5. ^ Pro-Football-Reference.com
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