It’s amazing how sometimes a headline becomes a thesis statement. I will defend said thesis in just a moment. I was stoking my fire and as usual, really pissed about the Detroit Lions this year with a touch of loathing for the Detroit Tigers season and a little disappointment with the Detroit Red Wings beginning of their season.
Even the Detroit Pistons 3-0 couldn’t cheer me up until I saw even Lions slappies start to complain the “direction” of this team (writer’s note…downward, always downward).
I see some slappies even bring up the thought of “The Fords should sell our beloved Detroit Lions”. Then they say Dan Gilbert of Quicken Loans and the Cleveland Cavilers should buy the team and I laugh at the slappies again. With that being said, I would agree with that assessment and in fact wrote an article for another site years ago that stated “Matt Millen is only a symptom of the problem”.
I listed the parade of coaches some heralded, some no names, and of course Wayne Fontes, the Lions answer to “Don Damned Shula”. I listed the issues with offense like “in forty-five seasons, when your franchises best quarterback is Greg Landry, you have problems”. I listed the problems with defense, coaching, all kinds of things that are symptoms of the real problem which was glaringly obvious to me.
If your team has won one playoff game in forty-five plus years, the real problem is the one constant. So, if I noted this over a decade ago that possibly it isn’t always Rick Forzano, Tommy Hudspeth, Steve Mariucci, Don McCafferty, Russ Thomas, Matt Millen, Tom Lewand, etc. fault, why would I tell the slappies to not necessarily celebrate if the Fords sell the team? Have I gone mad? Am I being a hypocrite and I deeply love the Fords? Has my anger clouded my usual impeccable judgment? No, no and perhaps but no, there is a valid reason I tell you to worry.
The NFL is a dying creature.
The moment that Roger Goodell finishes leeching the blood out of the game, the moment that doctors realize 300 pound men hitting each other in the head over the course of 60 minutes is bad and gets legislation behind them, the minute that more Chris Borlands leave the game after one year, the moment television networks bids for your games become lower, the second owners don’t make the outrageous profits off the blood, sweat, toil and tears of another human being: that’s when the NFL will be administered last rites.
That’s when the Ford family will sell.
The late William Clay Ford bought this sorry franchise out from a conglomerate in 1963 for the princely sum of five million dollars. From that moment to the day he died in 2014, the Lions grew from that five million dollars in 1963 they are now worth 1.44 billion dollars. Mind you, this makes them still a “paltry” football team but a nice cash cow for a family whose real claim to fame was utilizing the assembly line to perfection. Pretty much ensuring that the Ford family will hold on to the Detroit Lions until one can no longer squeeze blood from a turnip.
So what is it? Do you hope that the Detroit Lions can eke into a Super Bowl in your lifetime with the Ford family in charge, or figure that the Lions could win the last Super Bowl when no one gives a damn?
Tom Shepherd is a native of Michigan and now resides in California and is a veteran of the Untied States Navy.