Let's go back to early June, to the sun, the warm sun, to green leaves and green grass and to the last days of minicamp, where the longest tenured Detroit Lions player held court some 50 feet away from a practice field.

The NFL schedule had come out not long before, and the league had given Detroit’s professional football team its prime-time stage on opening night against the reigning Super Bowl champs.

Taylor Decker was pumped. The opening night slot on Thursday meant some folks wanted to watch his team play. He was talking about the days when few did.

“Not to be grim,” he said, “(but), I’ve been here a (long time). We’ve just been (expletive) on, kind of the butt of jokes. I don’t want that. That's not fun to be a part of. So, I’m just going to continue to work and put in everything I can.”

He has. His team has. The jokes are long gone.

It’s hard to fathom how much has changed since early June. The Lions were a team on the rise, no doubt. They’d finished the previous season on an 8-2 run and had beaten Aaron Rodgers in his final game in Green Bay.

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But they were a 9-8 team, and while there were reasons for optimism, it was still just optimism. They hadn’t done it. Hadn’t won a division in 30 years. Hadn’t won a playoff game in 32 years. And no matter how many signs pointed to a playoff-contending season, it’s one thing to imagine it and another thing to witness it.

Consider it witnessed, as surreal as it remains, even five days later, five days removed from one of the more emotional — and meaningful — sporting events in the city’s recent history. Heck, in its history period.

We can say that now. It’s not hyperbole. It's why so many fans were crying Sunday night at Ford Field ... for a wild card game, why they were hugging, high-fiving strangers, telling their stories on social media after the game.

Someone had lost their father the year before. Or their mother. Or their brother.

Someone had bought season tickets for decades. Someone used to go when they were little, holding their dad’s hand, and now they were back, 40 years later.

On and on it went, the stories, the memories, the joy, the relief. And here, seven months after he stood in the warmth in Allen Park at minicamp, stood Decker again, this time in the practice-field locker room, and he can’t get enough of the stories.

“It’s beautiful how much our sport means to people,” he said Wednesday. “I think I saw a picture of an ... there was an 85-year-old lady, I think she was in hospice. She died her hair blue (like Amon-Ra St. Brown did). Just stuff like that.

"I’m just thankful that I get to be a part of those special moments for people because the fans driving our game to be what it is ... is allowing me to have special moments and special memories. That was the best environment I've ever been in, by the way.”

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Yet the journey is so much longer for Decker than seven months. When he met with reporters that day in minicamp, he was five months removed from his viral postgame interview after the Lions had lost in the final seconds to Buffalo.

It was Thanksgiving. They were 4-7. They’d started 1-6 then won three in a row and had given the Bills a great game, only to lose by a last-second field goal. Despite the crushing loss, Decker promised his team hadn’t lost momentum. That it was different.

“This isn’t the (expletive) same old Lions,” he promised. “We’re gonna go out there and we’re gonna get our respect and we’re gonna earn our respect.”

He was prophetic. They did. They won five of their last six.

Still, his journey goes even farther back, way beyond last season’s turnaround, and the anticipation this past summer, and the twelve wins this season, and the division title, and the prime-time games, back to when he didn’t ever know whether he’d see a night like Sunday.

Through all of that, through the losing, coaching changes, and Matt Patricia days, Decker kept grinding, hoping, and speaking after the toughest of losses. He was accountable. He was present.

This week, he reflected on all that time, on the eight-year run that’s led him here, to the NFL divisional round, to the right to play for the NFC title game.

"That's one of the beautiful things about sports,” he said, “to see things through. I'm just proud I got to be part of something special. You just never quit. You just ... I don’t know if it was how I was raised, or something mentors that instilled something in me, but it’s never an option to quit or give up if you just want to keep trying to work toward your ultimate goal.”

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And?

“I took a ton of pride in it.”

The practice. The film study. The lifting. The grind. Week after week. Season after season.

The Lions never gave up on him, either. Why would they? He’s one of the better left tackles in the league. He helps anchor one of the two or three best offensive lines in the league.

Besides, as tough as the losing was, he didn’t want to imagine winning anywhere else, he knew what this place could be, knew what it was, knew that if he and his team could only give the fans a little more, they’d get it back a hundredfold.

He takes pride in this, too.

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“We're at the point where we get to play in this game because we earned it,” he said. “It wasn’t dumb luck.”

Yeah, they got a little help from Green Bay to host another playoff game. But upsets happen every playoff. The Lions earned the right to be able to benefit. This is what he means. They won 12 games. They navigated injuries. They bounced back from tough luck in Dallas.

Now, they can dream, at least a little, and think about what’s out there if they beat Tampa. He knows it won’t be easy against the Buccaneers. He also knows this team, his team, has locked in every week all season. That they’ve been focused.

“You have to keep your perspective of what’s right in front of you,” he said, even as he admitted he has dabbled in the dream pool of where this season can go, dipped his toe in it for a moment, if you will.

Because: “If you go out there and lay and egg, it doesn’t matter.”

But if you win? If they win? Well, that’s historic stuff, and another huge step on the journey, a place the longest-tenured Lion has thought about for almost a decade.

No wonder he's dipping his toe ...

Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Lions' Taylor Decker glad he stuck it out through the losing