2021 Detroit Lions season
92nd season in franchise history
The 2021 season was the Detroit Lions' 92nd season in the National Football League (NFL), the 20th playing their home games at Ford Field and their first under the head coach/general manager tandem of Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes. The Lions finished 3–13–1, failing to improve upon their 5–11 record from the previous season. The Lions began their season 0–8 before tying with the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 10, in which they nearly beat the Steelers in Pittsburgh for the first time since 1955. However, the Lions would not win a game until Week 13 against the division rival Minnesota Vikings, ending a 15-game, 364-day winless streak. In Week 14, the Lions were eliminated from playoff contention for the fifth consecutive year. They finished the season at the bottom of the NFC North for the fourth consecutive season. However they ended the season on a high note, upsetting two playoff bound teams; the Arizona Cardinals in Week 15 and the top-seeded Green Bay Packers in Week 18. Their .206 winning percentage was their worst since 2009.
This was the Lions' first season since 2008 without longtime quarterback Matthew Stafford, as he was traded to the Los Angeles Rams in exchange for quarterback Jared Goff and three draft picks on January 31, 2021.
Stafford would go onto win his first Super Bowl in Super Bowl LVI with the Rams later that postseason.
The public source identifies “2021 Detroit Lions season” as 92nd season in franchise history. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Detroit, Lions and season.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “2021 Detroit Lions season”, the useful work is to connect “92nd season in franchise history” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q104869606. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2021, 1955, 2009 and 2008.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “2021 Detroit Lions season”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow 2021 Detroit Lions season primary sources, 2021 Detroit Lions season archive and Detroit research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “2021 Detroit Lions season”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “2021 Detroit Lions season” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.