The 2024 NFL Draft kicked off in a big way as Eminem made a surprise enterance in front of over 150,00 fans in his hometown of Detroit. He was with Detroit Lions legends, including Hall of Famer Barry Sanders. Front Office Sports first reported that Eminem would be part of the festivities, and the NFL Network and ESPN hinted they had a big surprise planned for Detroit’s first-ever NFL Draft.
The surprise comes after Eminem appearing in a draft commercial with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. In the commercial, Goodell said he wants to go to “8 Mile” which is a reference to the 2002 film staring Eminem. At the end of the commercial, Eminem tells Goodell, “It was just a movie man.”
Eminem is a big supproter of the Detroit Lions
The appearnce also comes after the Detroit Lions appeared in the NFC Championship game first time in over 30 years. The 15-time Grammy Award winner is huge Lions fan and gave an emotion speech to the Lions faithful beforfe the playoffs.
“This is the story about what a football team can mean to a city. For far too long, Detroit has been on receiving in of losing seasons and bad punchlines,” he said in a video before the Lions’ playoff game vs. the Los Angeles Rams, per Southpawers.com. “You try to shut out the noise but after a while it starts to live in your head. This means, when a dude like this [Matthew Stafford] comes into town, the conversation changes. We finally had a reason to feel good about where his team was heading. He was all in and so were we until we weren’t. Maybe we weren’t patient enough but we let him go to a city in a team that was in different kind of rebuild and then we sat home and we watched him win it all. It was a true Hollywood ending.”
“So, for us, back to the lab again, rebuilding, once again. But wait a minute! Something felt different for this time and this guy [Jared Goff], with a little help from this guy [Dan Campbell] made us all realize that maybe history was not repeating itself. It’s all come down to this, for a city, its team and their fans who have been waiting for this night for 30 years. Two teams and two players forever linked. Detroit don’t get a whole lot of Hollywood endings. But tonight, we have a shot. And we get our shot…well, you know what comes after that.”
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