The Detroit Lions kick off the 2024 NFL season in an unfamiliar role — Super Bowl contender.

The team has never played in one and hasn’t won a league championship since 1957. They came close last season, leading for most of the NFC title game before the San Francisco 49ers came back to win, 34 to 31.

Die-hard Lions fans have endured more than 60 years of dashed hopes and dismal play, during which one family has owned the franchise — the Fords.

Author Bill Morris has written a new book, “The Lions Finally Roar.” It focuses on the team’s history of failure and its more recent success.

A door closes, a window opens

William Clay Ford, a grandson of Henry Ford, bought a share of the team in the 1950s and became the sole owner in 1963.

Morris says frustration motivated Ford’s interest in the Lions.

“I think it was a sort of reaction to a rejection he suffered inside Ford Motor Company,” Morris said.

William Clay Ford designed the Continental Mark II in the 1950s. Morris says Ford was immensely proud of the car. But at $10,000, it was too expensive for most consumers.

“Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Liz Taylor all wanted to have one for themselves, which they bought, but not many other people did,” Morris said.

The author notes the company lost about $1,000 for every Mark II it made. William Clay Ford’s older brother, Henry Ford II, killed the project. Morris says that was a major blow to the younger Ford, and a big reason why he took an interest in the Lions.

“He saw that as a fallback and a way to make his mark, since he couldn’t do it inside the Ford Motor Company,” Morris said.

A dynasty of despair

William Clay Ford owned the Lions from 1963 until his death in 2014. During those 50-plus years, the team had 13 winning seasons and won a single playoff game.

Morris says Ford cared deeply about the Lions and wanted them to be successful.

“The players, for the most part, adored him,” Morris said. “He was, personally, a very likeable man, and people who knew him loved him.”

The problem, Morris says, was that Ford hired a string of executives — including Russ Thomas and Matt Millen — who were not good at their jobs.

“He had never really run a business,” Morris says. “He had a knack for choosing the wrong people and sticking with them for reasons that nobody really knows to this day.”

Read more: Why do the Detroit Lions wear “Honolulu” Blue?

New owner, new hope

After Ford died, his wife Martha became the sole owner, but the team fared no better on the field. Mrs. Ford relinquished control of the Lions and passed it on to her daughter, Sheila Ford Hamp, in 2020. The team won five games in Hamp’s first year. She fired head coach Matt Patricia and general manager Bob Quinn and brought in a new regime in 2021.

“Chris Spielman, a former Lions player came in,” Morris said. “Then they came up with a general manager, Brad Holmes, and a coach, Dan Campbell, who were really smart choices as it would turn out.”

At first, it didn’t look like it would work out. The Lions lost 10 of their first 11 games in 2021 and started 1-6 the following season.

Morris says, like her father, Hamp remained loyal to the people she hired despite the rough start.

“She walked into the practice facility in the middle of that season and said, ‘I understand it’s going to be tough, and we’re going to stick with these guys,'” Morris said.

After that, the team won eight of its last 10 games, finishing 9-8 in 2022. The next year, the Lions claimed their first division title since 1993 and won back-to-back home playoff games for the first time in franchise history.

A liability becomes an asset

Morris says while loyalty may have been her father’s weakness, it’s been Hamp’s strength so far.

“She stuck with the right people, unlike her father, who stuck with the wrong people,” Morris said.

The book arrived in stores on Sept. 3, 2024. The Lions open the 2024 season against former franchise quarterback Matthew Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams at Ford Field on Sunday, Sept. 8. Detroit beat L.A. in last season’s playoffs.

It’s apple season in Michigan, and farmers across the state are ready for another good harvest.

The Michigan Apple Committee says growers expect to produce about 30.5 million bushels this year. This would be the third straight year that the apple crop has been above average.

Apples are early this year

Diane Smith, executive director of the Michigan Apple Committee, says this year’s crop is ahead of schedule.

“I don’t remember us ever really being 10 days early like this,” she said. “I think they’re starting on galas, which is unheard of. We usually start on galas after Labor Day.”

Smith says warmer than normal temperatures in late winter and early spring caused apple trees to bud earlier than usual. But that should not hurt the quality of the fruit.

“We should have some really good sugar content in the apples this year,” she said. “We had some really good warm days, and we’ve had some really cool nights, which lends to that flavor profile that you expect out of Michigan.

Smith says this year’s apples should also be larger than usual due to the early growth.

Apples are big business in Michigan

Michigan has almost 15 million apple trees and more than 700 family-run apple farms, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Smith says the state grows about a dozen kinds of apples commercially.

“We have, of course, the galas and honeycrisp,” she said. “But we also have some newer varieties that people might not know about, like ambrosia and evercrisp.”

Michigan is the second or third largest apple producing state, depending on the year.

“We kind of flip back and forth with New York state,” she said. Washington produces the most apples in the country.

Smith says consumers can buy Michigan apples at about 200 farm markets and cider mills across the state, and more than 12,000 retail groceries nationwide.

Political conventions are highly polished productions, but that wasn’t always so. The Democratic National Convention in 1968 was the last one with any real drama.

Matt Grossmann, director of Michigan State University’s Institute for Public Policy and Social Research, says the 2024 DNC mirrors the ’68 event in some ways.

“Superficially, there are some similarities,” he says. “It’s in Chicago, it’s going to have a lot of protests, and it involves a nominee who didn’t run in the primaries being elevated to the presidential position.”

Grossmann is referring to then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey. He won the Democratic nomination after President Lyndon Johnson decided not to run for a second full term. Humphrey faced division within the party, fueled by protests against the Vietnam War. He eventually lost to Republican nominee Richard Nixon.

Similar, but different

But Grossmann says Democrats are more united now than they were in ’68. President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the ticket in 2024. Grossmann says Biden’s support helped unify the party.

“The people who did not want Biden to step aside, I think, have quickly come around to Kamala Harris as the nominee,” he said.

Shortly after Biden’s endorsement, several potential challengers fell in line behind Harris, including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Grossmann says party rules require that a candidate have the support of at least 300 delegates to be considered for nomination. He says Biden’s late departure from the race created a narrow window for someone other than Harris to run.

“There wasn’t really much of an opportunity for anyone else to contest the nomination without the rules changing substantially,” he said.

Conventions still matter

Harris and her Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, had already won their nominations before their parties’ conventions began.

But Grossmann says conventions are still important. They give politicians seeking higher office a chance to boost their prospects on a national stage. He cites the 2004 DNC, where delegates heard from a young Illinois state lawmaker who won the presidential election four years later.

“The 2004 convention is when Barack Obama came to prominence,” Grossmann said. “So, they can make for rising stars.”

Maintaining momentum is hard

Grossmann says conventions do give candidates a short-term boost, but he expects the race to tighten before the November election.

“The average bump in the polls out of a convention has been three or four percentage points, but that bump has receded in the weeks following,” he said.

Polls had Harris leading Trump by an average margin of 3% going into the convention.

Read more: 

• Support for Harris surging in key swing states ahead of DNC, polls show
• DNC hosts first ever panel on Palestinian human rights
• Michigan delegates at RNC want to lower the temperature of political discourse

The 2022 election left Detroit without Black representation in Congress for the first time in decades. After the results of last week’s Michigan primary, that’s unlikely to change in 2024.

Incumbent Shri Thanedar defeats two challengers

When Shri Thanedar won the Democratic primary in Michigan’s 13th Congressional District in 2022, he defeated eight Black challengers. Together, those candidates received more than 70% of the vote. But no single one earned more votes than Thanedar, who was born in India. His 28% was enough to earn the nomination and ensure victory in November in one of America’s safest Democratic districts.

This year, Thanedar faced just two Black challengers: Detroit City Councilwoman Mary Waters and attorney Shakira Lynn Hawkins. Waters ran on the promise of restoring Black representation in Washington, D.C. and accused Thanedar of ignoring constituents.

“I have never ever seen so many people who were unhappy with representation,” Waters has said. “Nobody, not one person said to me, not then or now, that they were satisfied with the representation they were receiving.”

Invalid signatures knocked one candidate off the ballot

A third Black candidate, former state Senator Adam Hollier, filed petitions to run against Thanedar. Hollier ran in 2022 and had the backing of many prominent Democrats and faith leaders. But Thanedar challenged Hollier’s nominating petitions, citing possible forgeries. The Wayne County Clerk examined the petitions and determined Hollier did not submit enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot. 

Duggan endorsed Mary Waters over Thanedar

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan announced his endorsement of Mary Waters at the Mackinac Policy Conference in May. But even with his support, she couldn’t raise enough money to overcome the wealthy Thanedar, who relied mostly on his own fortune.

This time he won with about 54% of the vote. Thanedar says when he talks to constituents, they say their main concern is neither race nor ethnicity, but how he can help them.

“It’s not about who I am, my race, my skin color,” Thanedar said. “For them, it’s someone that will help them. Whether to close the economic gap, whether to create those skill sets so they can get a good paying job, whether someone can lower health care costs.”

Thanedar’s opponent in November 2024 is a Black Republican, Martell Bivings. It’s a rematch of 2022, when Thanedar beat Bivings by an almost 3-1 margin. Bivings spoke to WDET’s All Things Considered host Russ McNamara about why he’s running for Congress again.

Detroit’s other member of Congress, Palestinian American Rashida Tlaib, won the general election in 2022 and had no primary opponent this year.

James-Marlinga rematch set for November

Michigan’s only Black representative, Republican John James, faces a rematch in November with former Macomb County Prosecutor Carl Marlinga, who won the Democratic primary in the 10th Congressional District. James beat Marlinga by less than one percent two years ago, but Marlinga says he’s counting on Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, to help him flip the seat.

“We have a ticket that’s just designed perfectly for the voters of this county,” Marlinga said. “Macomb County is known as the home to Reagan Democrats from years ago. We tend to vote Democratic but we are suspicious of extremes at either end, right or left.”

That may be true in local races, but in national elections, Macomb County is former President Donald Trump’s territory. The three-time Republican nominee won 53 percent of the vote in the county in 2016 and 2020. Macomb County voters also favored now-Rep. John James in his failed attempt to defeat Gary Peters for his U.S. Senate seat in 2020.

GOP eyes return to Senate

Michigan will have an open Senate seat this year with Democrat Debbie Stabenow’s retirement, and the GOP is counting on former Congressman Mike Rogers to flip it in November. It’s been 30 years since Michigan elected a Republican to the Senate. But Rogers, who easily won the 2024 primary election, says his economic message resonates with factory workers in Macomb County and the rest of the state.

“I spent a lot of time with folks in the factory who are saying, ‘this thing scares me.’ They should be scared,” Rogers said. “That’s why we’re going to win. So this is a sprint. We know we’re in it. It’s going to be tight. There’s going to be eight gazillion dollars flowing into this state.”

Rogers and his Democratic opponent, Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, have already raised millions of dollars in what pundits say will be one of the closest and most expensive Senate races in the country. Slotkin, who has proven she can beat Republicans in close races, says voters want someone who can work both sides of the aisle.

“I understand what it’s like to be cynical about politics and not expect a lot from your elected officials,” Slotkin said. “I understand the bar is very low for many elected officials. My plan is to leap over that very, very low bar.”

It’s a toss-up right now

The latest polling gives Slotkin a slight edge in a head-to-head match with Rogers. In a New York Times/Siena College survey of 619 likely Michigan voters taken between Aug. 5-8, 46% said they would vote for Slotkin, 43% chose Rogers and 11% either said they didn’t know or refused to answer. The poll’s 4.8% margin of error makes the race a toss-up.

In the end, the only poll that matters is who wins the Nov. 5 general election.