Meet the new Boss: TE's dad not a Lions fan anymore

All week long, Tom Coughlin has been repeating the same thoughts on the upcoming opponent. They're not as bad as their record, he's told them since Monday. They're not the 0-16 team of two years ago, he's said. They have some very good offensive playmakers and some scary defensive stars, and they are an opportunistic bunch.

In short, he told them, these are not your father's Detroit Lions.

At which point tight end Kevin Boss would have been well within his rights to raise his hand and dispute that. These are, in fact, his father's Lions. And they're his, too.

Boss grew up in Oregon, but his father, Bob, was raised in Michigan. Livonia, actually, a suburb of Detroit. So he grew up rooting for the Lions and passed that affinity down to Kevin.

Some people inherit receding hairlines, some a crooked nose. Kevin Boss inherited the worst football team of the last half-century.

But Sunday he gets to play against that team. And his father will be in the stands watching and rooting. For only the second time in his life, he'll be rooting against the Lions.

When Bob Boss attended the Giants' 2007 game in Detroit, it was with a large group of family members. "One of my relatives said, 'So who are you rooting for?' I was like, 'Duh!' " the elder Boss said this past week. "It was a no-brainer.

"You root for your kid's team at whatever level they're at. Throughout the game, there was never even an inkling of support for the Lions. It just wasn't there, didn't happen."

Bob Boss said his love of the Lions was passed down to him. He recalled going to a few games at Briggs Stadium and said he can recall his father getting tickets for and attending the 1957 NFL Championship Game. "I think they won that one," he said jokingly, well aware that the Lions did in fact trounce the Browns, 59-14, that day and have never returned to a championship game of any kind since.

The Bosses moved to Oregon in 1983, about a year before Kevin was born. "It's one of those things where I remained loyal to Detroit sports and Kevin became infected by it," Bob Boss said. "Kevin became a real sports fan. He followed the boxscores of football and basketball in particular. He was a real fan."

While Bob Boss had at least the vague memories of the 1957 title, there wasn't much for Kevin to hang on to. There were a few Barry Sanders posters around the house, Bob said, but for the most part, the Bosses enjoyed following the "Bad Boy" Pistons while Kevin was growing up.

Kevin's first sport was always basketball, and Bob figured he'd grow up to be more like Bill Laimbeer than Jim Gibbons.

"He always was going to be a basketball player, and then when he went to college to play football, we went 'Huh? OK,' " Bob Boss said. "He played a lot of hoops growing up. His senior year, they won the state championship. That's still one of the highlights."

Eclipsed by the Super Bowl XLII victory?

"They're not far apart, to be honest with you," Bob Boss said. His son caught a 45-yard pass from Eli Manning early in the fourth quarter to set up the Giants' first touchdown in that one.

One thing about the Lions did stick with Kevin Boss, and that came from watching Sanders.

"I remember we always would appreciate Barry because whenever he would score, there was no dancing in the end zone; there was just a little flip of the ball to the ref," Bob Boss said. "I think Kevin really embraced that notion at some level. Barry modeled that behavior well, like he's been there before. It's just not his [Kevin's] nature, plus I think he has some respect for the game. That's part of it for him, anyway."

Eventually, Bob Boss' dedication to the Lions began to wane. A combination of distance from the team plus what he lovingly calls "their mediocrity" made him a marginalized fan. And then, four years ago, he became a Giants booster when Kevin was selected by the Giants in the fifth round of the 2007 draft.

Still, there's a part of him that is attached to the Lions.

"You find yourself coming to their defense if any outsider ever really chastised them," Boss said. "You would come to their defense, but you would still have to laugh."

After today's game, he's hoping to join in on the laughing at the Lions. That's what he's flying all the way out here for. To see his son and his new favorite team play against the team he and that very same son used to sit on the couch and root for every Thanksgiving.

"When we saw that one was on the schedule, that was a for-sure," Boss said. "We knew we were going to go to that one."