What was your favorite Pride of Detroit moment in 2017?

My favorite thing about Pride of Detroit—from when I was just a lowly commenter, up until the day Sean Yuile promoted me to managing editor—has always been the community. Detroit Lions fans need each other. The warmth of this site has always helped me survive the cold, cold winless winters. That’s proved to be especially valuable ever since I moved far away from the confines of Ford Field.

And part of what makes Pride of Detroit so amazing is the harmony among the community (most of the time). We can be contentious at time, but it’s mostly respectful. We share inside jokes (“I’m agree,” “Great article, Sean,” etc.) and have a wide variety of views and talents across the community.

That extends to the staff, too, and I think 2017 was quite possibly our best year in terms of talent and overall enjoyment from Pride of Detroit. So here are the nominees for 2017 Top Pride of Detroit moment.

The Detroit Lions adopt Toto’s “Africa”

We’re now in Year 3 of recognizing the ballad “Africa” as the Detroit Lions’ Victory Monday song, but in Year 2, we made amazing progress in spreading the love. The Detroit Lions Twitter account took notice of our affinity for the song and made sure we knew they shared the same love.

First, they actually played it at Ford Field during early warmups:

Just two weeks later, the Lions took things a step further. They created a video welcoming Lions fans into 2018, and they made sure Toto’s chorus would kick in just as the clock struck midnight:

They even ended up using “TOTO AFRICA” to announce the hiring of Matt Patricia, but since that technically happened in 2018, you’ll have to wait until next year to count that.

Chris Perfett makes the perfect argument to get rid of Matthew Stafford

Before Matthew Stafford signed his record-breaking NFL contract, sports talk radio was all abuzz about the franchise quarterback’s future. With everyone in the know projecting said record-breaking deal, many sports pundits believed the Lions would be wiser to spend their money elsewhere. Handing a quarterback who hadn’t won a playoff game that much money was ludicrous, according to their overly simplistic logic.

So Chris came to me with an idea. Respond to these ridiculous sports talk topics with a post that properly represented just about every Lions fan who wasn’t still stuck in the early aughts of “SOL.” And Chris did so perfectly.

Fuck Aaron Rodgers

Back in October, the Detroit Lions had just come off a wacky, embarrassing loss to the New Orleans Saints. The locker room was frustrated, having lost three out of their last four games after an impressive 3-1 start. However, that same week something happened that would change the trajectory of the NFC North for the rest of the year: Aaron Rodgers broke his collarbone.

But Lions cornerback Nevin Lawson didn’t want to hear about it. When asked about how Rodgers’ injury could affect the Lions, Lawson just wanted to focus on what’s happening with his team. “Fuck Aaron Rodgers,” Lawson told reporters.

And so it was born. From then on, in about 50 percent of articles, there would be at least one comment that simply said, “Fuck Aaron Rodgers,” no matter the context.

Matthew Stafford Madden Simulation

In the midst of all the Stafford contract drama, our own Ryan Mathews decided to conduct a very important experiment. In order to see Stafford’s true NFL value across the league, Ryan decided to trade Stafford to every other team in Madden 18 and simulate a full season. The idea was to see if he was truly capable of winning in the postseason or even the Super Bowl.

What followed was a hilarious, well-thought-out article. It was so good, in fact, that a few other SB Nation blogs were inspired by the idea and did their own versions.

Lions Court

If the walls in the POD Slack Room could talk, they’d be screaming for us to shut up about all the petty arguments. We like to argue about stupid things, so we decided, why not argue about things in front of an audience?

Mike Payton struck up the idea to create Lions Court, an organized post where two Pride of Detroit staff members would go toe-to-toe in a courtroom-esque argument. I would be the judge, making sure the two stayed in line, and the commenters would be the jury. We only ended up doing two of these in 2017, but considering the popularity of the format, you’ll see more in 2018.

Here are the two from 2017:

• Payton vs. Reno (high profile free agent RB vs. high draft pick)
• Payton vs. Mathews (Russell Wilson vs. Matthew Stafford)