The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team based in Detroit, Michigan. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference (NFC) in the National Football League (NFL), and play their home games at Ford Field in Downtown Detroit.

Originally based in Portsmouth, Ohio and called the Portsmouth Spartans, the team began play in 1929 as an independent professional team, one of many such teams in the Ohio and Scioto River valleys. For the 1930 season, the Spartans formally joined the NFL as the other area independents folded because of the Great Depression. Despite success within the NFL, they could not survive in Portsmouth, then the NFL's smallest city. The team was purchased and moved to Detroit for the 1934 season.

The Lions have won four NFL Championships, the last in 1957, giving the club the second-longest NFL championship drought behind the Arizona Cardinals. The Lions are one of four current NFL teams that have yet to qualify for the Super Bowl. The 2008 team became the only team in NFL history to lose all 16 regular season games since the NFL went to a 16-game schedule in 1978.

Detroit ( /diˈtrɔɪt/) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan, and the seat of Wayne County. It is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people, and serves as a major port on the Detroit River connecting the Great Lakes system to the Saint Lawrence Seaway. It was founded on July 24, 1701, by the French explorer, adventurer, and nobleman Antoine de la Mothe, sieur de Cadillac.

In 2010, the city had a population of 713,777 and ranked as the 18th most populous city in the United States. The name Detroit sometimes refers to the Metro Detroit area with a population of 4,296,250 for the six-county Metropolitan Statistical Area, the United States' eleventh-largest, and a population of 5,218,852 for the nine-county Combined Statistical Area as of the 2010 Census. The Detroit–Windsor area, a critical commercial link straddling the Canada–U.S. border, has a total population of about 5,700,000.

Known as the world's traditional automotive center, "Detroit" is a metonym for the American automobile industry and an important source of popular music legacies celebrated by the city's two familiar nicknames, the Motor City and Motown. Other nicknames arose in the 20th century, including City of Champions beginning in the 1930s for its successes in individual and team sport,The D, D-Town, Hockeytown (a trademark owned by the city's NHL club, the Red Wings), Rock City (after the Kiss song "Detroit Rock City"), and The 313 (its telephone area code) Detroit became known as the "great arsenal of democracy" for its support of the U.S. role among the Allied powers during World War II.

Ndamukong Suh (pronounced /ɨnˈdɑːməkɨn ˈsuː/ in-DOM-ə-kin SOO, born January 6, 1987) is an American football defensive tackle for the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the University of Nebraska, and earned All-American honors. He was chosen by the Lions with the second overall pick of the 2010 NFL Draft.

As a college senior, Suh became one of the most decorated players in college football history. He won numerous awards including the Associated Press College Football Player of the Year Award, Bronko Nagurski Trophy, Chuck Bednarik Award, Lombardi Award and Outland Trophy, and was recognized as a consensus All-American.

Suh was born in Portland, Oregon. He attended Grant High School in Portland, where he earned Parade magazine high school All-America honors and was voted the 2004 Portland Interscholastic League Defensive Player of the Year and was a Class 4A first-team all-state selection.

Considered a four-star recruit by Rivals.com, Suh was ranked sixth among defensive tackle prospects in the nation.

John Joseph "Joey" Harrington, Jr. (born October 21, 1978) is a former American football quarterback. He was drafted by the Detroit Lions third overall in the 2002 NFL Draft, where he played for most of his professional career. He ranks third all-time in Detroit history in pass completions, with 986. He played college football at the University of Oregon.

Harrington also played briefly for the Miami Dolphins, Atlanta Falcons, and New Orleans Saints.

Harrington was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, where he has resided his entire life. He graduated from Central Catholic High School in Portland, and finished his high school career with more than 4,200 yards and 50 TDs rushing and passing.

His grandfather and father played quarterback for the universities of Portland and Oregon, respectively, and upon hearing of Joey's birth, legendary Oregon Ducks' coach Len Casanova jokingly sent his parents a letter-of-intent.^{[citation needed]}

Harrington is a graduate of the University of Oregon, and was a three year starter on the Oregon Ducks football team. In his senior season at Oregon, he threw for 2,415 yards and 23 touchdowns, and he finished his college career with a 25-3 record (including bowl wins against 12th-ranked Texas and 3rd-ranked Colorado), 512 completions in 928 attempts (55.2%), 6911 passing yards, 59 touchdowns, 23 interceptions, and 210 rushing yards and 18 scores on 145 carries. A Business Administration major with a 3.23 GPA (twice earning honors with a 3.34 GPA), Harrington's 7,121 yards of total offense rank third in University of Oregon history.