Lions Have Changed Everything So Far but the Mind-Set of Fans

ALLEN PARK, Mich. — When Jim Schwartz, the new coach of the Detroit Lions, quoted Shakespeare on the day he made the rookie Matthew Stafford his starting quarterback, his choice of source material was painfully appropriate.
“Hamlet.” A tragedy.

The Bard was probably not imagining 0-16 when he wrote about the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. But as the Lions prepare for their home opener Sunday against the Minnesota Vikings with one blowout loss to the New Orleans Saints already in their pockets, Schwartz, the progeny of ultracompetent football mentors like Jeff Fisher and Bill Belichick, has been plunged into an alternate universe, where the Lions have struggled for so long that one fan compared watching games to self-flagellation.

“We watch for the humor,” said Rob Mizgalski, 44, who lives in Warren, a suburb north of Detroit. “We love the first pass of the game being intercepted. There’s no anger. It’s beyond that. There is a point where you accept it, it’s like when you know the marriage is over. It makes life a lot easier.”

Schwartz swears nobody in his vast network of football friends told him he was crazy to take the Lions job; they told him it was a great opportunity. Now that he is here, he feels a responsibility to field a team in which the economy-battered city can take pride. During minicamp, he even took top rookies with him to sign autographs at a truck assembly plant in Dearborn, Mich. But Schwartz is also pragmatic enough to know there is nothing he can say, no billboard slogan persuasive enough, to change minds like Mizgalski’s until the Lions manage to win. Instead, Schwartz has changed just about everything else he could, focusing on his bottomless job: where to go when you’re starting, literally, from zero.

A new coaching staff was hired. Uniforms were redesigned. Weight machines were replaced by free weights. The seating chart of the locker room was rearranged. Parking spaces were assigned. The practice schedule was upended.