It's beginning to look a lot like WCFs dead hand is still at the rudder

Let’s change it to a silhouette of Barry Sanders, and market the emblem as somewhere between Michael Jordan and Batman-type symbol.
Instead of “Jumpman” they could call it something flashy that pertains to football.

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I vote to move those initials from the shoulders to the towel that drapes from the ass of WR’s. That’s more appropriate.

Hey talked to Jon. He snapped this photo up in the press box last week. Looks like the OP is right on this one. We have to do something about these two guys

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Jukedman
detroit lions football GIF

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I like it. JukeMan!

We’ll rip it from this image

Football’s equivalent of Nike’s “Air” campaign.

Lion following goes up, as we gain a bunch of popularity due to our Oregon-like cutting edge awesomeness with our uniforms.

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I was just reminded, since I had forgotten, that Bill Parcells reached out to the Fords and said he wanted to coach here, but wanted to make personnel decisions.

And was ripely told " Nope! We got this!"

F------ F— the Feckless Feeble Wastrel Ford Family through all time until we all speak Mandarin or are wiped out by colonizing space aliens that look like demons and devils!!!

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He would have been my number one pick for a coach, back then. Unreal.

My number one pick was Marty schottenheimer. He may have been one of the unluckiest snake bitten coaches of all time in the playoffs, but his teams were always the most physical team on the field. He was rarely ever out coached. His teams were just punishing on both sides of the ball. I would have loved to have seen what spielman, blades, porcher would have done on his defenses.

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Marty was a Lions assistant! He was a LB coach in the late 1970s. And just a couple of years before him, Bill Belichick was a Lions assistant – Tight Ends Coach, I believe.

Going back even further, Don Shula was a Lions assistant.

And don’t forget Kevin Colbert. He was in the Lions front office in the '90s; lost a power struggle with ineffective bean-counter but Willie Clay Ford buddy Chuck Schmidt. Colbert went on to become GM of the Steelers and build teams that won multiple Super Bowls there. One of the most stable, successful franchises in the league.

The pieces to turn this around have been here since 1957. It’s part of the Ford ownership legacy that they weren’t recognized and seized upon.

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Just stop with the Belichick stuff. He was here in 1976 & 1977. At the start of his coaching journey. He wasn’t the guy who took over the Patriots. Sorry, just not any type of reasonable comparison.

And?

So the Lions couldn’t have noticed he had “the it factor,” and worked to keep him moving up their ranks, to coordinator and beyond?

No less than three all-time NFL coaches worked early in their careers for the Lions, and were allowed to move on from the Lions. Empirical fact.

Actually, make it four. I’d put Chuck Knox on that list, too.

And what about the experience they all gained from going elsewhere? Working under other HCs, like Parcells. Their failures, like Belichick in Cleveland.

If those guys never leave the organization, they never have those experiences, never learn from them.

Seeing different organizations, different methodologies is a huge, important part of the learning process.

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Seriously though just think of how far off we are from even the best Lions teams of the past 20 years and they couldn’t even win a playoff game. We had three stars on our team with Calvin, Suh, and Stafford. We don’t have a single player on this roster who is a face of the franchise guy. We had those guys plus Larr Warford, Tate, Ansah, Suh, Fairley, Levy, Glover Quinn, and Slay. All those guys were pro bowl players at one point. That isn’t even mentioning the other guys who were still pretty good like Rob Sims, Reggie Bush, Raiola, Rasean Mathis, Ihedigbo. etc. You compare the roster we have now to that and it is glaring just how far away we are.

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This brings a tear to my eye. Holy shit that was fun to watch. Wish we could have snuck Barry and Dre Bly onto that roster (from their prime)

Sometimes I wonder if it all boils down to a simple analysis like this: the 2011-2014 window we had included as its foundational players Matthew Stafford, Suh, and Calvin Johnson. All who were drafted between 2007-2010. Fast forward to now. What does our window in 2023-2026 in terms of talent on the roster? Stafford, Suh, and Calvin were all top 2 picks. For our foundation right now we have Hockenson, Okudah, and Sewel as top eight picks overalll. Anybody else see a difference in talent? I don’t hate those players. But it terrifying to compare the two situations.

To me 2011 was our superstars. 2014 was a better team and it was because Mayhew went out and got us a coach. He got us Golden Tate. He made an underrated move in getting Fernando Bryant as a vet corner. And he drafted Darius Slay in 2013 who made a leap into a pro bowl level corner in 2014. He screwed up massively though in drafting Ebron. And that’s the one move we remember most.

The good news for us is we will likely have a top 2 pick this year. And we have extra 1st rounders in the next two drafts. Those picks are going to be massively important. We need some superstars. Also, Holmes comes from an organization with penchant for developing talent and trading for their superstars when the time comes. So it wouldn’t surprise me here if that happens here too.

This sure does sound good.