DETROIT — The 2024 NFL Draft is set up downtown, serving as the glitzy center of the football universe this weekend. Just blocks away sits Ford Field, where the Detroit Lions won two playoff games in January.
And yet, if you really want to know why Detroit — long marketed as “Hockeytown” and historically an incubator for churning out elite basketball talent — is currently America’s football boomtown, you need to head out to the neighborhood fields and high school stadiums across this sprawling city.
It’s there, far from the spotlight and celebrities, where the NFL comes from — and they are coming in quantities that not just outpace the rest of the country and exceed historical norms but, per local coaches, are likely to increase.