FRENCHTOWN TOWNSHIP (AP) — Rob “Lion Eyes” Gonzales stood on a swath of the turf from Pontiac Silverdome in his basement, sporting his signature shades with blue frames and leaping lions on silver lenses that obstruct his view.

“For years, that was a good thing,” he joked Thursday.

No one is laughing at the Detroit Lions anymore.

The Lions, one of the NFL’s worst teams for much of its 90-year history, are Super Bowl favorites for the first time and long-suffering fans are loving every minute of it.

Detroit will kick off a potential run to its first league title since 1957 against the Washington Commanders on Saturday night at Ford Field.

It’s the hottest ticket in Motown — and the NFL.

The average ticket price is $836, according to Vivid Seats, and that’s more than $300 more than tickets in Philadelphia and about three times more expensive than it costs to watch games in Kansas City and Buffalo.

Just two games other than the Super Bowl since 2010 had a higher average price for sold tickets, according to the secondary-market ticketing site.

Brittany Sayles, assistant principal at Ann Arbor STEAM, said she potentially could sell her pair of $400 tickets for $1,500 each.

“I remember some games when I couldn’t go, I couldn’t even give tickets away,” said the 39-year-old, season-ticket holder from Detroit. “Now, everyone is asking for tickets.”

Sayles has raffled off tickets to staff at her school in the past, but she is not going to miss witnessing the divisional round or the first NFC championship game played in Detroit if the Lions avoid an upset against Washington.

“This may not come again in this lifetime,” she said.

A lot of fans never thought they would see what has happened to the most popular team in a sports-crazed state.

The Lions made their NFL debut in 1934, following a four-season run in Ohio as the Portsmouth Spartans, and were a powerhouse in the 1950s with three championships in a six-year stretch.

After the franchise won its last NFL title in 1957, it had only one playoff victory until last year’s breakout.

Detroit won two playoff games in one year for the first time since its last league championship before losing a 17-point, third-quarter lead at San Francisco in the NFC championship game to remain one of the four teams without a Super Bowl appearance.

The Lions started the season with unusually high expectations and lived up to them.

They have even become a popular team with people that don’t have local ties thanks to a high-scoring, trick-play heavy offense and charismatic coach Dan Campbell, who memorably said his players would bite kneecaps of opponents at his introductory news conference four years ago.