The Detroit Lions are currently enjoying some of their best years in the Super Bowl era. With back-to-back division titles, an appearance in the 2023 NFC Championship Game and a 15-2 record last season, there are few better times to be a Lions fan. But while the past couple of years have been great, there’s another run that was a close second.

The Lions were in the thick of the NFC playoff picture, making three wild card appearances from 2011 to 2016. While Detroit wasn’t a contender on the same level they were now, it’s one of the more significant stretches of success in recent years and was led by prominent names such as Matthew Stafford, Ndamukong Suh and Calvin Johnson.

Those three players left Detroit a while ago but another figure remained in the NFL for the past decade. On Tuesday, that name decided to walk away from the league and close the book on a career that lasted for 25 seasons.

Former Lions executive Martin Mayhew Retires After 25 Year Career in NFL

According to The Athletic’s Matt Burrows, Washington Commanders general manager Adam Peters announced that former Lions executive Martin Mayhew has decided to retire from the NFL. Mayhew had an extensive career in the NFL, first as a player with the Buffalo Bills, Commanders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but his most prominent role came with the Lions from 2001 to 2015.

Mayhew joined Detroit after spending one year as a personnel intern in 1999 and spent his first three seasons (2001-03) as the senior director of football administration under Matt Millen. Mayhew was promoted to senior vice president and assistant general manager in 2004 and assumed the role as general manger before the 2008 season.

That tenure didn’t start out well with the first 0-16 season in NFL history but it resulted in the right to select Stafford with the No. 1 overall pick in 2009 and Suh with the second pick in 2010. With Johnson already on the roster from the 2007 draft, the Lions made their first playoff appearance in 13 seasons and won 10 games for the first time since 1995 during the 2011 season and returned in 2014.

While Mayhew was fired after a 7-9 season in 2015, Detroit returned to the playoffs with the majority of the roster he built in 2016.

Mayhew spent the rest of his executive career serving with the New York Giants in 2016, the San Francisco 49ers from 2017 to 2020 and was the general manager for the Commanders from 2021 to 2023 before serving as a senior personnel executive and advisor to the general manager last season.

While it didn’t produce the same highs that Lions fans are experiencing today, Mayhew’s run as general manager was a level of relevance Detroit hadn’t seen in a long time.