DETROIT — Gone are the days of fans wearing brown paper bags, God forbid someone actually spot them attending a Detroit Lions game. Now, welcome to the era of earplugs.

These days, Ford Field, the Lions' home stadium since 2002, is the place to be seen — this weekend's playoff ticket prices are approaching record levels — and the place to be heard in the Detroit sports scene.

Ford Field has become one of the NFL's most-respected and daunting homefield advantages, which could pay serious dividends in the coming two weeks. The Lions earned the No. 1 seed in the NFC and now need just two wins in Detroit, starting Saturday night against the Washington Commanders, to reach the pinnacle of the sport (the game that has eluded the Lions for, well, forever), the Super Bowl in New Orleans on Feb. 9.

"It joins the list of what the great places are in the league: Arrowhead (in Kansas City), Seattle jump to mind right away ... the Superdome (in New Orleans) belongs on that list," said Mike Tirico, NBC's play-by-play man for "Sunday Night Football," whose last four games at Ford Field were the two playoff games a season ago, and the regular-season opener and finale this season. "Each game had something special to it, and the atmosphere was just incredible from start to finish in all those games. But nothing matches what it was for the wild-card game last year, that Rams game. That's in my top 10 of all the sporting events I've ever covered, for the energy, atmosphere and emotion of the crowd."

That sentiment comes from Tirico, a veteran sports broadcaster who has covered some of the biggest sporting events in the world, at some of the most historic sports venues.

Last season, Ford Field hosted its first NFL playoff game for the Lions, and it just so happened to be against the Los Angeles Rams, the team that traded for longtime Detroit quarterback Matthew Stafford, and won the Super Bowl with Stafford. The Lions acquired quarterback Jared Goff and a whole lot of draft capital in that trade, and Goff led the Lions to a 24-23 win for their first playoff victory — and first playoff win at home — since January 1992 at the old Pontiac Silverdome. It was before the win over the Rams where the roaring, "Ja-red Goff" chants began. The decibel level topped 133 for that game, the loudest on record at Ford Field.

That record lasted all of one week. It was broken in the Lions' 31-23 playoff win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, as the decibel level eclipsed 134. Those are literally ear-damaging levels.

"I thought the loudest place I have ever been a part of, coaching-wise, was the NFC Championship, 2018, New Orleans," Rams head coach Sean McVay, who won that game with Goff as his quarterback, said on an episode of the "Pardon My Take" podcast earlier this year. "It was so loud, you couldn't hear anything. That was the loudest, by far. And Detroit was way louder. It was sick. It was a sick atmosphere. Credit to Detroit.

"It was great. I loved it."

The atmosphere, if not the outcome.

'Detroit is very electric'

The Lions have won 19 of their last 23 games at Ford Field, including seven of nine this season (the two losses were to playoff teams, in the Buccaneers and Buffalo Bills). That includes the two playoff games last season. The noise, except for when the Lions are on offense, is practically constant, starting during raucous pregame introductions, continuing when celebrities (Eminem, yo) are shown on the video board, and, of course, reaching peak levels for the big plays.

If it's not a house of horrors for opponents, well, it's pretty darn close.

"I heard Detroit is very electric," Commanders rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels told reporters this week. "So I'm excited for their fans to come out and bring some juice because I know it's a very passionate fan base. Obviously, rightfully so, with the team that they're having.

"I know it's going to be loud in there."

The Seahawks, famously, have what they call the "12th Man," a nod to the crowd that can actually impact a game.

Lions fans, too, have done their part, and the statistics prove it. While the home crowd is dead silent when the Lions are on offense — thus not impacting the communication between Goff and his teammates — it's damn-near deafening when the opposition is on offense. And that makes life miserable for the opposing offense.

During this season's nine home games, foes have been flagged for 12 false starts and three delay-of-game penalties.

"Communication is big," Commanders head coach Dan Quinn said when meeting with the local media earlier this week. "The crowd noise ... it's an absolutely fantastic place. It'll be lit."

And that's the expectation for the divisional round, for which tickets on StubHub have been selling for an average of almost $1,000, nearly twice the price of the second-best-selling game of the weekend, between the Rams and Philadelphia Eagles, nearly three times Houston Texans-Kansas City Chiefs, and nearly four times Baltimore Ravens-Buffalo Bills.

Looking ahead (not that the Lions dare to), tickets for an NFC championship game at Ford Field could set record prices for any NFL game outside of the Super Bowl (especially if it's against the Rams again).

'Something special going'

It's a nod to a Lions fan base that has never been bigger and louder. It packed downtown in April to the tune of more than 700,000 people for the NFL draft, a record. (Imagine, then, what a Super Bowl parade would look like.) The Lions have a season-ticket waiting list in the tens of thousands, beyond the 65,000 who pack Ford Field week in, week out.

"They're amazing," Lions receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown said. "We're gonna need them this week even more.

"We got something special going. The fans, they deserve it."

Said Lions offensive tackle Taylor Decker: "They've been waiting for this for maybe 40 years. ... I've been waiting maybe nine — they've been waiting their whole lives. ... You can't tell me that Ford Field is not gonna be the hardest place to play. ... They just show up in droves. ... Fans, they drive our game. It's incredible, man."

Now, it's worth noting that the Lions were true road warriors this season. They were 8-0 away from Ford Field, the first team since the 2020 Chiefs to go undefeated on the road. But playing at home, especially when the stakes are highest, certainly is an advantage (not to mention, it can provide a local economic impact in the tens of millions of dollars). Las Vegas, typically, has valued NFL homefield advantage at nearly three points. In last year's NFC championship game at San Francisco, the Lions lost to the 49ers by three points, 34-31.

"(We) wanted to have everything run through Detroit," Goff said.

Anthony Bellino has been working at Ford Field since 2011, back when he was selling merchandise at a kiosk. It was that season that the Ford Field crowd first showed some serious signs of life, when the Lions started 4-0, and then hosted the Chicago Bears on "Monday Night Football," winning the "Motown Showdown," 24-13, to improve to 5-0.

The last two years, it's been like that "MNF" crowd for every game, and Bellino, the in-game host at Ford Field since 2016, has the ear-ringing on his postgame drives home to prove it. There are times when he's standing on the field and can't hear the person standing right next to him. He wears an in-ear piece to communicate with his director. The volume is almost always all the way up.

"It's incredible. It's unlike anything else. People ask of all the different places I've worked, what's the best, and there's literally nothing that beats the Lions," said Bellino, a radio host on WJR 760-AM who also has worked, over the years, for the Tigers, Red Wings and Michigan football and basketball, among others. "It's indescribable.

"It's almost as if the fans have never taken a day off.

"It's been consistently bonkers."

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