Barry Sanders reveals why he quit one season before breaking the NFL’s biggest record

The Den
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This video is making the rounds on the MSN feed.

Just a few different personnel decisions might’ve made a difference.

  1. Taking Renaldo Turnbull instead of Andre Ware. Had that been done, the Lions don’t trade a No. 1 pick, which turned out to be 8th overall, for Pat Swilling who was in declin, and perhaps instead take HOF OT Willie Roaf.

  2. Taking Aeneas Williams instead of Reggie Barrett.

  3. Taking Randy Moss instead of Terry Fair.

The lesser moves:

  1. Taking Jon Jansen over Juan Roque.

  2. Taking Terrance Mathis (who was from Detroit), over Jeff Campbell.

The emotional/leadership moves:

  1. Keeping Chris Spielman instead of trying to save money with Pepper Johnson.

  2. Letting Kevin Glover depart in free agency after he just made the Pro Bowl for the third year in a row.

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I am convinced this is the #1 reason.

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He also wanted to win and we refused to trade him. Imagine the magic bean haul we could have got for Barry.

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Probably not as much as we would have liked after the Herschel walker deal. Not to mention Detroit teams in general have a pretty crappy track record when it comes to trading super stars and getting a ransom in return.

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Did pretty well trading Stafford :wink:

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That kind of positivity related to a Brad Holmes trade is unwelcome here!

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Imagine all the ways the Lions would have fumbled it

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I can’t watch that. I can’t deal with AI slop voices anymore

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With that regime that would have consummated that trade absolutely. A Brad Holmes type would have made the best of results out of that would-be trade

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As an “old timer” I think one of the the things that also hurt was the negative comments from fans and press at that time. Barry can’t really come out and say that publicly (and wouldn’t, he’s a class act) but man that had to hurt. Some people were blaming him because of the negative yardage plays and avoiding contact. There was also a lot of talk that he was promised a certain amount of carries in a game and that he was force fed the ball regardless of the situation or score.

You combine the emotional blows with the team decisions and it made for some very hard times for Barry. People want to say Barry quit the NFL, but people quit on Barry a LONG time before that.

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You are convinced (me too) because he’s admitted as much over the years. It was the last straw. Folks were imploring him to just walk upstairs and express to the brass how strongly he felt about keeping Glover. But he wouldn’t do it. Not his style.

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As of now the Rams still won that trade if you value winning. In the long term, that’s yet to be seen

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Yea my point wasn’t about winning the trade. It was how much we got for Stafford compared to getting nothing for both Barry and Calvin, who also both wanted out.

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I figured he quit because of that gawd awful playing surface that was the Silverdome. Astroturf, shoddily spread and glued onto concrete. Brutal. Might as well have played in the parking lot.

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I don’t think I could have stomached Barry in another uniform. Would have ruined my childhood.

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It would have been tough for sure seeing him play with Marino and win the super bowl. But he deserved that chance IMO. 10 years with the Lions giving it his all. We owed to him.