I remember when Barry retired, there was some talk of the then Jimmy Johnson led Dolphins being interested in trading for him, but old man Ford said “no way.”
Apparently, the same thing happened with Calvin Johnson–Martha wouldn’t trade him:
The interview reveals that Johnson would have played elsewhere, meaning the injuries weren’t bad enough to force his retirement following the 2015 season. He just didn’t want to play for that Lions team under then-coach Jim Caldwell and a different management regime.
There were rampant rumors that the then-Oakland Raiders were a prime player for Johnson’s services if the Lions let him free. When Johnson was asked about that possibility, the Hall of Famer smiled and said, “Man, I would’ve went anywhere.”
Johnson let the team know he wasn’t going to play for the Lions anymore. When he asked them to release or trade him, they refused.
“We asked would they release me or let me go to another team,” said Johnson. “They wouldn’t.”
Maybe, the trade of Stafford means that the Lions new ownership finally realizes that there are no “sacred cows” and just because a player leaves, doesn’t lessen their legacy as a Lions player. After all, even all-time great players like Jerry Rice, Joe Montana, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, etc., all set the precedent otherwise.
I don’t understand the refusal to trade Megatron. We could have potentially got a 1st rounder for him, instead he retired and we got nothing, that’s just stupid management in my opinion. Everyone lost in that scenario including the fans.
So glad we were willing to trade Stafford and got a king’s ransom for him to boot!
Really love Matt’s game, but I do think we got a great haul for him. He’s got a lot of hard miles on his body. Goff is young, and the draft picks are younger. We will dramatically improve this roster next offseason.
Coaching is a massively big deal. Couple that with the fact that Holmes amplifies the impact of rooks (cuz he’s a competent, intelligent, professional, bald-headed, MF’r)! This team is going to do very well in the not so distant future.
Lmao. Throwing out the man’s key attributes I see. Honestly, he’s been here, what… 5 months? Can any of you imagine that man with hair? I damn sure can’t.
I also would much rather have made a quality trade. CJ deserved better.
What was our cap situation like his last year? I guess I’m asking @deadstroke, was it even a possibility?
CJ retired in 2016 and was due a base salary of $16M and we only had signing bonus amortization of slightly less than $5M allocated to 2017 (and nothing in 2018 or 2019). So when he retired in 2016, we saved $11M against the cap . . . so a trade before June 1 would have resulted in the same savings. A trade after June 1, would have resulted in a $16M savings in 2016 and a $5M dead cap hit in 2017.
Wood could not have handled the CJ situation any worse than he did. He wasn’t qualified to run an NFL team then and probably still isn’t. What the incompetent buffoon did was save the Lions $1M and alienate CJ. Well done Mr. Wood.
Yeah, but that was Martha. Now we got Sheila, who is one BAMF.
I’m pretty sure this is Sheila, pretty big difference then Martha!
This Sheila would have gotten 7 first rounders and 2 all pro hall of famers for CJ while saving cap money and providing additional resources to fight the crime of Detroit, all through her front office that is hidden by a waterfall…
If he was only a figure head, that would be great, but he’s involved in the football side of things, despite having less experience with it than most on this forum.
He was involved:
Firing Mayhew
Firing Lewand
Hiring himself to replace Lewand
Hiring Ernie Accorsi
Hiring Quinn
Hiring Patrica
Handling of Calvin Johnson’s Signing bonus payback
He is the one most responsible for what has happened since 2015 and it’s second only to Millen. If he was a figure head (everything non-football), that would be fine, he wouldn’t be as incompetent.
