Surviving members of 1957 Detroit Lions title team rooting for playoff history to repeat

It’s been 66 years since the Detroit Lions won an NFL championship, and two of the surviving members of that team are rooting for the drought to end while enjoying the symmetry of the current team’s playoff run.

Hall-of-Fame linebacker Joe Schmidt told the Free Press on Tuesday that he has followed the Lions’ season from his home in Florida and is rooting for the team to beat the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC championship game this week.

The Lions play the 49ers at 6:30 p.m. Sunday at Levi’s Stadium for the right to go to Super Bowl LVIII.

“It’s about time and like I say, I’m happy for the owners there,” Schmidt said. “They deserve it and it’s good for our lovely town there, it’s good for the people and it’ll bring happiness to our Detroit people.”

Schmidt played 13 seasons for the Lions and spent six more years with the franchise as head coach.

NOT EASY ON THE HEART: 82-year-old Lions fan says he watches games on delay to control blood pressure

He was part of the Lions’ last two championship teams, in 1953 and ’57, and remembers beating the 49ers in San Francisco’s old Kezar Stadium in the division title game on Dec. 22, 1957, for the Lions’ last road playoff win.

“I’m 92 years old and I have some difficulty thinking back, sort of visualizing what happened and so on and so forth,” Schmidt said. “It takes me a little time, but I eventually get there.”

The Lions trailed 24-7 at halftime of that game but rallied for a 31-27 win after hearing 49ers players celebrating at halftime through the walls of the locker room.

They beat the Cleveland Browns a week later, 59-14, to claim their third championship in six years and have not played for a title since.

“It was only a 2-by-4 wall with drywall on either side with vents that were between the two (locker rooms),” Roger Zatkoff, a linebacker on the 1957 Lions team who passed away last year, told the Free Press in 2017. “You could hear the guy buying his wife a fur coat, another one buying a car, another one had to get his championship tickets. The game was over as far as they were concerned.”

Jerry Reichow, who played the 1956-59 seasons for the Lions and spent most of the rest of 60-plus years in the NFL as a player and scout with the Minnesota Vikings, said he’s rooting for the Lions to win the Super Bowl, like he always does when they’re not playing the Vikings.

“I’d like to see them win this year, cause we’re not in it,” he said. “I like them. Like I say, I like what that coach has done up there.”

Reichow said he admires the way the Lions have built a tough, resilient roster, similar to the one the franchise won with in 1957.

Buddy Parker quit as Lions coach days before the ’57 season, leaving assistant George Wilson to take over, and Hall-of-Fame quarterback Bobby Layne broke his leg late in the year and missed the Lions’ last two games. The Lions finished 8-4 in the regular season that year, tied the 49ers for the West division crown, and won the championship with Tobin Rote at quarterback.

Reichow said Lions coach Dan Campbell has “turned that team into some tough guys.”

“They’ve changed so much, the Lions have in the last two or three years,” said Reichow, who retired from the Vikings after the 2019 season. “All of a sudden they’re a physical team and it’s all because of that coach I think.

“They’re not like the Lions were before. These guys are a lot more physical, so I think that coach is a physical guy. Just look at him and he looks physical. I think they got a good chance, just because they get physical, teams – if you’ve got a physical team, can whip on you in a hurry.”

While the Lions’ culture and fortunes have changed under Campbell in his three years as coach, Schmidt, who still has Lions season tickets he usually gives to his nephews, said Detroit deep down remains a football city that deserves another championship run.

“I’m happy for them. I’m happy for the Ford family. I think the Ford family are very good owners and it’s too bad that Bill’s gone to the maker,” Schmidt said of former Lions owner William Clay Ford. “But I think they deserve a winning team and they handle it pretty good and they have always been in my opinion, positive for the Lions and positive for the league and players.”

Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Members of 1957 Detroit Lions title team rooting for another run