DETROIT – Sixteen years ago, Michelle Alessandri of Dearborn Heights, Michigan, gathered with family and friends outside Ford Field for a Detroit Lions tailgate, as she always did on Thanksgiving.

The team was on its way to an 0-16 season, the first in NFL history at the time. High in a nearby prison sat the city’s former mayor, convicted of two counts of obstruction of justice (he later also served a federal sentence). A nearby casino had just filed for bankruptcy and the city government would soon follow suit. General Motors, headquartered further down the road, recently received a $13 billion emergency loan from the government to stay afloat.

As the pushers were packing up the turkey, dressing and desserts to go in, a downtrodden man walked by in need of something to eat. They made him a plate.

He took a few bites but didn’t seem too impressed before remarking to Alessandri, “It’s kind of dry, isn’t it?”

The pushers could only laugh at the chutzpah.

Welcome to Thanksgiving in Detroit.

For years, America groaned that the early National Day game was populated by the humble Lions. The franchise invented the concept in 1934, trying to capture crowds of parade-goers downtown to watch the team. They stayed because the television networks realized that who was on Thanksgiving didn’t matter in terms of ratings. An enthusiastic audience would be watching, so why waste a good game on the time slot?

But the Lions, aside from a few seasons of Barry Sanders brilliance, were the team no one wanted to see.

There was a 66-year stretch where they won just a single playoff game. Six or seven wins was often considered a good season. Former QB Joey Harrington was a former first-round draft pick who never played for a winning team in Detroit but once described his time there as the franchise’s “heyday.” He had a point.

Thanksgiving was often Detroit’s only national television appearance, with a score of 37-45-2 on the holiday. The Lions are just 4-16 over the last two decades and are currently on a seven-game losing streak.

However, it is a new day. The city and the area around Ford Field are far more developed than in the past – luxurious high-rises and crowded restaurants and bars. And the Lions are much better, too – not just at 10-1 and a Super Bowl betting favorite based on an NFC Championship Game appearance, but also with a dynamic offense and one of the most exciting teams in the league.

No one, perhaps strangely or perhaps appropriately, represents the spirit of the team and the city quite like a blonde-haired 30-year-old from Marin County, California, who came here against his will.

Jared Goff is his name and you will hear him singing everywhere, not just at Ford Field or Detroit itself or even Michigan State, but wherever everyone who once lived in those places lives today.

“JAR-ed Goff! JAR-ed Goff!” is not just a salute to the starting quarterback, but a rallying cry for an abandoned city and fan base, an incredible act of bravery.

You’ll hear it at Lions away games, of course, where Honolulu-clad fans have started flooding the stands, but also at Detroit Red Wings or Detroit Tigers games across the continent. Or weddings abroad full of Michiganders. Or among passing fans in a faraway bar, at the airport or in a store.

It’s not “Let’s go, Lions.” It’s not, “Let’s go, Detroit.”

It’s “JAR-ed Goff.”

It’s a chant that emerged last January when the Lions hosted (and won) their first playoff game since the 1991 season. The Ford Field crowd before the game wanted to recognize its current QB over its former one, Matthew Stafford of the Los Angeles Rams.

Stafford was a hero here too, but was dumped for a series of draft picks in the Lions’ recent rebuilding attempt. Goff, the former No. 1 overall draft pick, was used as a nearly worthless add-on in return. He had his moments with the Rams, but had become an interception machine that the team didn’t believe could win a Super Bowl.

Then he became the catalyst for that wild, victorious ride in Detroit, the perfect symbol of it all. The fans that day last January wanted Goff to know they believed in him.

“The people here are special, man,” Goff said after that playoff win that led to a berth in the NFC championship game. “I am grateful. It meant a lot. I love these guys.”

Once rejected and beaten down, Goff is now riding high and getting the rest of the country to believe in his team, which just happens to represent a long-rejected and beaten-down city that desperately wants the rest of the country to believe in them too.

Instead of regressing or giving up, Goff found a second life among like-minded people when he arrived in Detroit. Instead of resisting leaving sunny, glamorous Los Angeles for the industrial Midwest, he found a home.

He’s better than ever, a real MVP candidate this season. It’s worth repeating that this is one of the greatest stories in the NFL.

“Seeing us come from where we were, seeing ourselves where we are, and the fans experienced that,” Goff said. “This place is special to me. Like I said, these people are special.”

And so the Lions will be back on TV this Thanksgiving – as usual at 12:30 p.m. ET – hosting Chicago. Only this time they are the favorites with 9.5 points. Only this time, hope won’t focus on avoiding embarrassment. Only this time America will be happy to watch, because everything has changed.

“JAR-ed Goff,” they will no doubt shout – the unlikely centerpiece of this unlikely renaissance, a far cry from the desperate and hungry criticism of a free piece of turkey in a parking lot outside the home of a winless team in a broke, broken city.