Matt was able to “Get out of Alcatraz,” according to Mike Florio.
Barry and Calvin wanted out, and the org was not cool with those requests.
One of my themes with supporting Matt has been Detroit’s terrible history. Well, Matt isn’t the first to ask out. He isn’t the first to say, “I’ve given it my all here, I want to finish elsewhere.” But he was the first to be granted it.
This makes me really reflect A LOT on Sanders and Calvin and their careers. And as painful it would’ve been, at the end of the day, it was PETTY AS HELL of Detroit ownership, and they should’ve granted them their trades.
I wonder how the forum would’ve reacted to those players, and frankly, it makes me worried for the future (then I injected myself with @BigNatty’s optimism).
Don’t want to make this about Matt, but I wonder what it would’ve looked like if Barry and Calvin went elsewhere. What would they have done elsewhere? How would you have handled it?
And the worst part to me was they both just retired when we refused to trade them and we got zero for them in return. We essentially screwed Barry and Calvin and us at the same time. Both Barry and Calvin could have brought in first round picks in a trade to help the Lions improve. The Lions ownership got what they deserved and the the fans suffered the most because of those terrible decisions.
At least this time around, we finally did right by a star player in trading Stafford. And it worked out for both teams. Rams got a chance for a super bowl and the Lions are loaded with draft capital for once.
Barry was the most entertaining football player ever, would have been a dream to see him play even one more season, probably with Marino. They wanted him.
Nate… we are fans not members of the detroit lions organization. They f us fans overs too by pissing off barry and calvin. They screwed all fans by making these guys so upset they retired. Allow the guys to play for some other team is better than early retirement. Generational talents gone too soon. Its like a marriage that doesnt work anymore. The lions killed the marriage and instead of allowing a divorce they made the spouse die instead. Well I couldn’t think of a better analogy of course barry and calvin are not dead but you understand what i am saying. But WE didnt cause this. The lions f up organization did.
The success and great play Matt has had
Has made me feel some kind of way towards lions - bitter angry
That they let pushed retirement for those guys and as fans we lost out on seeing them play.
Goodness I really hope Sheila is different
But I’m just not convinced lions aren’t run on a money in / money out budget formula which may not be enough to truly show you are wanting to win and make it the highest priority.
I remember fans chanting Barry who at the silver dome and we all know how people here thought the problem was CJ in their feud. The only crime both guys committed was being really good at football and being drafted by the Lions.
Thinking about this at the same time OBJ is preparing for a Superbowl, you can’t help but think that, yeah, there should have been a professional courtesy where the losing for a competitor is a “get out of jail free” card.
Then again, nobody forced them to sign their contracts.
You are not screwing someone over by enforcing a contract that they willingly signed and accepted. We the fan base was screwed over because we let two premium assets leave the organization with no compensation in return.
Not only that, I am certain it had a chilling effect on free agent negotiations. If you can’t take care of your stars, why do I want to enter that mess?
We did this to ourselves (the front office), and we have paid a price for standing firm. Now we let Matt go and I wonder if we become more attractive to younger players that have enough years to impact a rebuild? We still won’t get the win now free agents because we are not at a point where they see us competing yet.
To me, the difference between what Matthew did and what Barry (and Calvin) did is that when Barry and Calvin wanted to retire, the Lions were a competitive team. Yeah, they barely missed the playoffs in 2015 w/Calvin but they were right on the cusp (ARod Hail Mary and the incorrectly ruled fumble out the back of the end zone vs SEA cost them a playoff spot). Barry was a FG away from going to the playoffs his last year. With Stafford, who was about 3 years older than either of the other two, they were CLEARLY looking at a tear-down/rebuild. And I also like the way Stafford handled it better. I think. I have heard interviews with Stafford where he said if they had said no, he’d have keep playing. He wasn’t going to sulk off into the sunset. People might say “how would you know what he would have done” and that is a valid point, but I really don’t get the sense that Stafford was about to retire like these other guys.
I think sheila would be different than who was running things back then. old man ford was very stubborn and could hold a grudge. Remember when the fanbase wanted millen fired, and all the NFL talking heads talked about how terrible he was at GM so ford signed him to an extension?
both barry and calvin ‘dissed’ him and he wasn’t going to let them go easily.
That’s my understanding also. I have always understood it was a mutual decision, and if the Lions did not agree he would have still played out his contract.
This inept organization stole the joy of playing football away from these guys. Football is fun and the Lions organization ruined that for them. Guys want a chance to win or at least be competitive and the Ford’s have shown no interest in that until maybe now with Sheila. People overuse the term “generational talent”, but my goodness, Calvin and Barry were physical marvels that the league hasn’t seen.
This is a weird question to me. It’s like debating whether, as the Titanic is sinking, we should have prioritized the old women from third class over the children from second class. They all died, man! It’s moot!
What I mean is, if we’re imagining hypotheticals, let’s imagine… NOT being on a once-in-a-century disaster. Or put more simply, if the Lions are still such a shit sandwich that hall-of-fame players ask to finish their careers somewhere else, how much difference does it really make how the organization responds to those requests? As fans, we’re still following a team that’s so terrible it’s star players all want to leave.
I don’t have to imagine hypotheticals for that, I lived through it! Are we so pathetic we can’t even imagine alternate histories better than “Our star players still want to leave, but we’re nice about it”?
I think this is why the current management of the Lions is so important. They want to change that culture. It’s been around forever. Anybody remember when Ron Jessie played out his contract with Detroit and signed with the Rams? Roselle awarded the Lions Cullen Bryant and he promptly sued the league NOT to play for Detroit? They Lions were planning on drafting Deon Sanders until Barry declared for the draft. Deon stated he wouldn’t play for Detroit. They drafted Barry and he didn’t sign right off because of Russ Thomas lowballing him. Joe Schmidt was building a good Lions team but I read he even retired because he was sick of fighting with Thomas trying to get good players. Then add in the ineptitude of the organization.
Honoring Stafford’s request for a trade and making amends with Calvin can (has) help with player relations. DC is getting rave reviews from players, now they need to build a winner. Maybe then the curse of WCF will be broken. Calvin and Barry are huge stains, but they are not the only ones.
