'Peyton's Places' tries to exorcise curse of Bobby Layne on Detroit Lions

Real or imagined, the Curse of Bobby Layne has hung over the Detroit Lions franchise for more than six decades, and now Peyton Manning has enlisted Hollywood’s help to try and break it.

Manning, the Hall of Fame quarterback and ESPN personality, explored the curse that has loomed over the franchise since the Lions traded Layne to the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1958, in the latest episode of his Omaha Productions series “Peyton’s Places.”

The episode, titled “The Curse of Bobby Layne,” debuts Sunday on ESPN-Plus and features appearances from famous Lions fans Jeff Daniels and Keegan-Michael Key.

Layne famously cursed the Lions to 50 years of bad luck after the organization traded him one season after its last championship in 1957. Layne quarterbacked the Lions to titles in 1952-53 and was the starting quarterback for most of the ‘57 season before he broke his leg late in the year. He was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1967.

The Lions have won one playoff game in the 64 years since the trade, and have suffered some of the NFL’s greatest indignities.

SHAWN WINDSOR:Lions owner Sheila Hamp met with media to tell fanbase: 'There, there.'

They were the first franchise to go winless in a 16-game season. They lost first-ballot Hall of Famers Barry Sanders and Calvin Johnson to early, and in Sanders’ case surprising, retirements. And they’ve lost games on controversial non-catch calls, by taking the wind in overtime and when their quarterback ran out of the back of the end zone for a safety.

“The Curse of Bobby Layne” features highlights — lowlights? — of all those moments, and shows old footage of Layne claiming, “I tried what they referred to as a hex” after the trade.

“Well, it hurt me, naturally, when I was traded to the Steelers from the Lions,” Layne says in the clip. “We had been very successful in Detroit.”

Layne’s curse has been the stuff of legend for decades. His son, Alan, told the Free Press in 2017 he never heard his father say anything derogatory about the Lions, though ex-teammates of Layne’s said they believed in the curse.

Key and Daniels, both of whom grew up in Michigan, said they think the curse is real, and Daniels helped Manning try to break it by reciting incantations over a bathtub filled with one of the hard-partying Layne’s drinks of choice, whiskey.

JEFF SEIDEL:Enough talk, Detroit Lions. Time for Sheila Hamp, GM and head coach to show us something

“It really was it,” Daniels said of the curse and its effects on the Lions. “It has to be it. There is a curse. If you take the curse out of there, we have to accept the fact that we’re this bad. It’s easier for us who are die-hard Lions fans to go, ‘There is a curse.’”

The Lions, owners of an NFL-worst 1-5 record entering Sunday’s game against the Miami Dolphins, last won a playoff game since January of 1992 and have not made the postseason since 2016.

NEAL RUBIN:Frustrated Lions fan could throw a book at the TV — but writes one instead

Daniels, who sang some of his song, "The Silver and Honolulu Blues," about the agony of being a Lions fan, compared the Lions’ playoff drought to a soldier going without sex for three years while at war.

“Now I get it,” Manning joked in the episode.

“This town hasn’t been having sex,” Daniels said.

The episode runs 24 minutes and evokes both laughter — stay till the final credits, when Joey Harrington catches a stray as Manning and Key joke about Manning’s six-touchdown performance on Thanksgiving against the Lions in 2004 — and heartache.

“We hit bottom, and then we hit bottom again and then we got a hammer and hit ourselves in the head a few times, and then we hit bottom again,” Daniels said. "Down in the deep darkness of my Lions fan soul there is hope. If and when the Lions can get deep, deep, deep into the playoffs, this place will go nuts. It's been a long time. "

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