ALLEN PARK, Mich. – A year ago, inside the Detroit Lions' locker room after the final game of another lost season, Don Muhlbach stood off to the side talking about his unknown future. His beard graying as he hits his late-30s, the longtime, long-term long-snapper didn’t know whether he’d be back or not.
As he enters another final game of another lost season with a still-unknown future, Muhlbach isn’t sure what will happen.
The Texan is a rarity in the NFL and at his position. Long-snappers usually are the most little-known people on the roster. In Detroit, where Muhlbach has missed only one game since the 2006 season, he has taken on the status of a folk hero.
He’s the last of the Matt Millen-era players in Detroit and the final member of the winless 2008 team still playing for the organization. He has been with the Lions for the worst of the worst and for the 2014 season -- the best year the franchise has had in the past 20 campaigns.
Muhlbach is the constant, as players come and go around him, he has always been there doing his one very specific task very, very well.
But as season No. 17 comes to a close, he doesn’t know if Year No. 18, during which he would turn 40, will come. With a new head coach and new general manager combined with a younger player in Steven Wirtel on the practice squad waiting in the wings, Muhlbach's return is not a given. He knows that.
So with all that in mind, does he even want to return, to be part of a rebuild yet again as the Lions try to get it right for the first time since the 1950s?
“I’ve done it before, so maybe I can help with it? I don’t know,” Muhlbach said. “I do feel like I want to get this thing going in the right direction before they get rid of me. So I don’t know. All I know is right now my body feels pretty good.”
Muhlbach has been through everything before -- except winning a division title or playoff game. He has made Pro Bowls (twice) and snapped for Pro Bowl kickers and punters. For years, he has had a locker right near the team’s other very-tenured veteran, quarterback Matthew Stafford.
He has seen all the changes -- from retirements to releases, from consecutive winning seasons to too many straight losing seasons in a row.
Muhlbach isn’t the only Lions player facing an uncertain future after Sunday. Almost every player on the roster -- from Stafford on down, other than a few with very long-term contracts -- is a question mark for 2021 and beyond.
Roster turnover is typical. Muhlbach knows it. Everyone in the franchise knows it. Some players are cut. Others retire. Some, like receiver Marvin Jones, head toward free agency after five seasons and leave a legacy if they depart; Jones will be in the Lions' top 10 in receiving yards and touchdown catches.
“This process might be different than when I got my first contract, you know. It’s still pretty much the same,” Jones said. “You still look at the teams, the needs of the teams, but maybe this time around you look for different things in terms of what I want and how I want to finish my career.
“I think pretty much I would do the same thing I did last time, but this time it would be about, more, other things. So I think that’s going to be the situation, and I’m excited to get there.”
Most players, when they reach free agency, approach it like Jones. See who is interested. See what’s available. Make a decision. Then again, most players play positions of shorter longevity than Muhlbach.
So it has offered Muhlbach perspective. He has been the guy who has stayed year after year, regime after regime. If he returns, he’ll be playing for full-time head coach No. 6 (eight if you count interims) and general manager No. 4. At this point, Muhlbach isn’t sure if he would want to play elsewhere.
He’s still figuring out if he wants to play at all -- something he’ll discuss with his family -- but he still thinks he’s snapping at a good level. He believes he can still play in the league. Now it's a decision of whether he wants to return and if whoever the new bosses are want him back.
But over 17 seasons, life accumulates. He has shared a locker room with Calvin Johnson and Reggie Bush and Ndamukong Suh and Stafford. He has mentored many young players who have had careers a quarter as long as his.
And that’s what he’ll take with him if Sunday against Minnesota is it for the man who will play in game No. 260 of his career, the second-longest tenure in Lions history behind his former kicker, Jason Hanson.
“I don’t know about memories but it’s the guys who have come through here,” Muhlbach said. “That’s what I know I’m going to miss, talking to other guys who have retired and have gone on.
“It’s all the different players that have come through the locker room here that have all left a mark on me and just meant something to me, which I’ve been here to have that many memories and that many people that I’ve gotten to know.”
