A HARSH -- BUT ACCURATE -- 

TAKE ON THE LIONS

Drunk driving mug shot of Lions Prez Tom Lewand, Jr.  His Dad is a prominent politico and was he long-time attorney for the William Clay (aka "Alkie") branch of the Ford Family.

Mad Suh is Gone? Blame the Manchurian President 

 

• EDITOR'S NOTE:  The Lions are probably the worst run franchise in the NFL, if not all of professional sports.  The irony is that they have many natural advantages over the Packers, yet they are perpetually in turmoil while the Pack is perpetually in contention. 

 The Lions are in a large market, they play in a top notch stadium, and they are owned by one of the great industrial families in American history -- the Fords.  However, it is the ineptitude of the Ford Family  that has undermined the franchise at every turn.

 

 

 

By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
March 8, 2015

 

Seventeen years ago, the greatest offensive player to ever lace up cleats for the Detroit Lions suddenly retired on the verge of training camp after giving the team virtually no warning that he was going to quit in the lead-up to either that year’s NFL Draft or free-agency period.

 

Barry Sanders  had had enough of the losing under William Clay Ford, Sr.‘s bumbling and incompetent ownership and his strong dislike for the dictator running the organization (Bobby Ross) led to a spiteful departure to London and a fax declaring his intentions.

 

• EDITOR'S NOTE:  In a bit of role reversal. the Packers drafting Tony Mandarich over Barry Sanders is of course one of the greatest draft blunders of all-time.

 

 

 

Barry quit. The diminutive freak of nature talent walked away from Detroit and refused to obliterate the NFL career rushing record in a Honolulu blue and silver uniform. A number that probably would never have been surpassed if Sanders would have played just another three or four seasons.

 

By the time Sanders came to his senses and realized he wasn’t sick of football — he was only fatigued by the ineptitude of the Lions in particular — it was 2000 and Barry wanted to lace ‘em up for the Miami Dolphins.

 

After a decade of spinning his wheels in Detroit with one lousy quarterback after another, #20 wanted to team up with Dan Marino and make one last mutual run at a Super Bowl title — an accomplishment that had eluded them both as they navigated Hall of Fame careers.

 

In the midst of the Ford Family suing Barry for the $5.5 million in signing bonus cash they felt he owed them for retiring, Sanders’ agent made the old, drunk Ford patriarch an offer …..

 

 

Sanders would give the imbecilic, billionaire boob — who was passed over at Ford Motor Company several times and was basically told to stay away from the Glass House — his $5.5 million back if Barry was granted free-agency so he could take his supernatural talents to South Beach and align himself with Mr. Isotoner Gloves.

 

But the crotchety owner of the Lions wasn’t having it. If Barry Sanders was ever going to return to the NFL, it was going be in a Lions jersey. There would be no relinquishing of Barry’s rights. The pathetic franchise wouldn’t even consider trading Sanders to Miami, which might have assisted the Leos in picking up the pieces #20 left behind.

 

Fredo Ford, Sr. let the greatest running back to ever live rot in retirement. He stubbornly treated Sanders like chattel and, instead of emancipating the poor guy, he further insulted Sanders by having his new errand boy, Matt Millen, continually attempt to get Barry to change his mind.

Among his many transgressions as owner of Detroit’s professional football organization, NONE was worse than robbing the world of watching Sanders’ artistry for a couple of seasons at Joe Robbie Stadium.

 

 

 

So you will have to excuse me if I find it absolutely hilarious that 15 years after the Lions successfully blocked their greatest offensive weapon’s migration to South Florida, arguably the most dominant defensive player in team history was able to successfully accomplish the feat.

And there won’t be any lawsuits, arbitration hearings or restraining orders filed against Ndamukong Suh because the most sought after free-agent since Reggie White has — per Chris Mortensen — reportedly agreed to a six-year deal in the neighborhood of $114 million ($60MM guaranteed) to play for the Dolphins, thus rebuking the last vestiges of the William Clay Ford regime.

 

 

 

Senior’s handpicked team president, Tom Lewand, and General Manager Martin Mayhew. Two gentlemen who were PROMOTED after the first 0 and 16 season in NFL history without so much as an outside interview process — that the league wanted desperately — by the losers in Allen Park.

 

You want to be mad at someone today? Do not be mad at Suh. Yes, he is a selfish pile of shit. Yes, he is an awful driver. Yes, he is a really bad tenant who may or may not leave behind evidence of his sexual conquests. Yes, he almost killed an innocent Comcast worker. Yes, he has a horrible temper and does some stupid shit on the field which hurts his team.

 

But Suh was also the best defensive player this organization has employed since I have been following this moribund franchise (five decades now) and you cannot let a Hall of Famer exit in the prime of his career — no matter how big of an asshole that person might be.

 

We have been inundated with the “Suh is the best free-agent since Reggie White” stuff for weeks now. Do you know what year White left Philadelphia for Green Bay?

 

1992. Yep, one year after this team’s last playoff victory. It has been 23 years (!!!!) since a player as impactful as Suh has utilized free-agency and found a new home.

 

Why has it been so long since this occurred? Because franchise players, future Hall of Famers and transformative talents NEVER are allowed to leave. NFL owners have a better racket than Scientologists when it comes to preventing their own superstars from escaping their grasp.

 

From franchise tagging to exclusive windows of negotiation in the most brutal sport under the sun where guaranteed money is so important to these guys, this crap NEVER HAPPENS.

 

The utter incompetence involved in losing a Suh or a White in this day and age is mind-boggling which leads us back to Mayhew and, more specifically, Lewand.

 

The eventuality of Suh leaving Detroit could never have occurred without the ineptitude of the team’s capologist. Now, I am not sure how the salary cap accountants for the other 31 teams got their jobs, but I am guessing none had the path of Thomas Lewand, Jr.

 

So how did the man who is most to blame for Suh’s departure get this extremely important gig? Well, his father was Ford, Sr.’s longtime buddy and barrister. 

 

Yes, Lewand is the team president because his father was pals with the dead drunk and their two sons (Lewand, Jr. and Ford, Jr.) are lifelong friends.

 

That’s the resume for the man who just bumbled his way through the biggest fuck-up in contractual sports history. His old man was chummy with Bill Ford’s pops. 

'

And while that might be the way you get a gig at your local hardware store, Chipotle, or insurance adjusting business, it shouldn’t be the way a PUBLIC TRUST and billion-dollar operation hires its CEO!!!!

 

This is ripped straight from Lewand’s biography on the team’s propaganda website:

Now in his 19th season with the Detroit Lions, fifth as president, he guides the overall direction of the franchise.

The executive in charge of guiding the overall direction of the franchise is just some random attorney who just happened to know the right people. Lewand had ZERO experience in professional football front offices before getting hired by the Lions and was PROMOTED on the heels of an 0-16 season, even though the team hadn’t won a postseason game during Lewand’s tenure.

 

Can you imagine any other business of this magnitude being run like THIS? I wonder if Tim Cook was the most qualified person to run Apple or if Donald Cook and Paul Jobs were just old running buddies.

 

So what happens when you hire family friends to navigate the labyrinth known as the NFL salary cap and not …. ya know … a professional? 
 

You get a supposed recovering alcoholic stumbling and bumbling his way through the process while stepping on every single IED in his path.  
 

First, Lewand and Mayhew decided to rob Peter to pay Paul by constantly restructuring Suh’s deal in a desperate attempt to remain competitive while paying through the nose to employ both Calvin Johnson and Matthew Stafford.

 

But if you were going to continue to mortgage the future by restructuring Suh’s deal year after year, YOU BETTER WIN IMMEDIATELY. Instead, the team failed to win a division or even a solitary playoff game while they were knowingly making it impossible to ever “franchise” the defensive tackle.

 

So now the Lions are in this Hell of having no recent success to fall back on AND losing Suh because it wasn’t prudent to slap the franchise tag on him — which would have meant a one-year salary of nearly $27 million.

 

Not to mention the dead money ($9.7 million) against the cap, which the team will still be on the hook for in 2015 while Suh wreaks havoc in the AFC East.

 

But the clusterfuck gets worse. Knowing that their past behavior of restructuring deals to win now (which led to a 22-26 record over the three seasons) rendered the franchise option basically useless, Lewand and Mayhew actually cut off negotiations with Suh prior to the 2014 season.

 

It was the equivalent of running death row at a prison and opening the cell of the most dangerous inmate, taking the dobermans for a walk and letting the rooftop snipers enjoy an extended dinner break.

 

Once J.J. Watt’s deal with the Texans set the market for defensive linemen, the Lions had absolutely zero protection from watching Suh leave town and getting absolutely nothing in return.

You couldn’t have fucked this situation up more if you wanted to. Unless you spent the last two years giving your fanbase false hope that a deal would get done by constantly lying through your teeth ….

 

Lewand on February 1, 2015:

“I really do believe he’s got a lot invested in here, in himself and the community and the football team. He wants to have success in the NFL, obviously, but he wants to do that with us.
“I think there’s a very, very good chance that we can get something done with him in the next few weeks.”

Lewand on April 1, 2014:

“Ndamukong is a very intelligent guy, very thoughtful. He took his time selecting a new representative and he (hired) Jimmy Sexton, a very accomplished agent in his own right. I have a lot of confidence in Jimmy and I have a lot of confidence in Ndamukong.
“It’s been my experience that when a player says he wants to be here and we have indicated we want to keep him around, we have a good track record of getting something done. When that happens I don’t know. The timing is less important than the outcome.”

Lewand on July 28, 2014:

“We’ve got a track record of extending players. As a matter of fact, it’s hard for me to think of a whole lot of guys that we tried to extend that we haven’t. There’s a couple of guys that we haven’t extended, who’ve gone out into the open market and haven’t been successful in getting the financial terms that we had offered. But for the most part, we’ve had a really good history of matching intent with action when it comes to extending contracts whether that happens before a season, sometimes during a season. But I think in this case, those are generally done at the end of the season, when there’s a little bit of cap room left or what-have-you, or after the season leading into free agency. I feel like we can build on that track record and come to a successful conclusion with Ndamukong (Suh) at the right point in time.”

Mayhew on January 8, 2015:

“He wants to be here.”

Either Lewand or Mayhew have been lying about their confidence in Suh returning or they were just too effing dumb to see what was going down. Neither option is reassuring.

If being a Lions fan hasn’t been torture enough over the last 50-plus years, you can now add “losing the most dominant defensive player since at least Joe Schmidt roamed Tiger Stadium for nothing” to:

• One playoff win in 57 seasons.
• The embarrassment of being the only non-expansion team to have never reached a Super Bowl.

The only NFL player ever to die during a game.

• A player croaking on the field.
• The best offensive player the team has ever employed quitting instead of dealing with the losing for one more day.
• An offensive lineman being paralyzed from the waist down during a home game.

Killed by a semi-truck in his own front yard.

• Another offensive lineman being killed by a semi-truck while weed whacking his lawn.
• Drafting Terry Fair over Randy Moss, leading to a series of cataclysmic events that make the aftereffects of World War I look tame by comparison.
• A future defensive star having to be resuscitated on the field during a game that should have been a celebration (clinching a playoff berth and Sanders going over 2,000 yards) and that up-and-coming star never playing again.
• Becoming the first franchise to violate the “Rooney Rule.”
• A first-round pick (seventh overall) only playing for two seasons before breaking his neck and KILLING three teenagers while drunk driving.

• EDITOR'S NOTE:  They forgot Don McCafferty winning a Super Bowl w/ the Colts and then dying of a heart attack while cutting his lawn after only one season with the Lions.  

THE GRAVEYARD OF NFL COACHES:  No modern day Lions head coach has ever gone on to become an NFL head coach again after coaching the Lions.  Just ask this guy who literally died cutting his grass after one year with the Lions.

And now, a word from our sponsor ….


And that litany of disastrous events just lengthens as I type this depressing recap of the franchise’s pathetic existence.

The Lions are now on the verge of having NOTHING to show for both the 2010 and 2011 drafts if and when Nick Fairley follows Suh out of Allen Park — with no replacement on the horizon because Lewand and Mayhew FOOLISHLY decided to take a tight end in the first round of the 2014 draft instead of Aaron Donald. 

What a disaster of epic proportions. This all could have been so easily avoided at numerous points over the last few years.

Ford, Sr. could have taken Roger Goodell’s last piece of good advice and utilized the NFL’s assistance in replacing Millen instead of promoting two of his incompetent understudies.  

He could have hired John Schneider (the current GM of the Seattle Seahawks) who desperately wanted the job (or at least a god damn INTERVIEW).

(Hell, Old Man Ford could have hired the John Schneider who played Bo Duke on the “Dukes of Hazzard” and they wouldn’t have won any fewer playoff games over the last seven years. Or Tom Wopat, for Christ’s sake.)

Sports are supposed to be a diversion from the mundanity of our existence, but what happens when the franchise you have loved since you were a little child is a bigger nightmare than the horrors of everyday life?

Well, we know the answer. You get a team president whose biggest claim to fame is making a buffoon of himself on a police officer’s dashboard cam.
What is the biggest lie that Lewand, Jr. has ever told?

That he was confident Suh would be returning to Detroit, or that he hadn’t been drinking alcohol that evening and the smell emanating from his breath was Tic-Tacs or Mentos??

The other day I made a joke on Twitter that it wasn’t that big of a deal if the Lions re-signed the former #2 overall selection or not because what is the worst thing that could occur as a result?
They would only win one postseason contest between now and 2072 (matching their current awe-inspiring stretch of ineptitude)?

Russ Thomas was Matt Millen before Matt Millen.

You seriously couldn’t be this historically awful if you tried. Nope, you’d have to do shit like allow your drinking buddy (Russ Thomas) to run the organization for three decades; employ the worst general manager in the history of organized sports for eight seasons; and then replace that abortion with the Hydra of Millen’s second-in-command and your attorney’s son.

But all isn’t lost, Lions fans. I am here to tell you that Lewand has an apt replacement for Suh and Fairley and it won’t even cost the team a draft pick or any current assets.

A secret weapon of beef to play on the team’s interior line and draw attention away from Ziggy Ansah and George Johnson. 

EDITOR'S NOTE:  This is where it gets a bit rough.
Lewand, Jr.’s wife …..



We’ve come this far by keeping it all in the family. I see no reason to cease and desist now.
The poor son of Tom Lewand, Sr. wakes up at like 5 a.m. to go to the gym and take yoga classes and has to come home to Scott Anderson wearing a wig and makeup.

The best part is Lewand, Jr.’s wife is named Suzanne so fans will still be able to scream “SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUE” when she stifles a run play, sacks a quarterback or stomps on Aaron Rodgers. 

And speaking of family, while Lewand, Jr. and Mayhew couldn’t see this coming, Ndamukong’s sister surely could ….


What a clueless organization.
#1PlayoffWinIn57Years

Remember the Curse.