OT: Manziel era might be done

Submitted by CraigMack on
Cleveland offers two first rounders for Titans pick, expected to take Mariota

evenyoubrutus

April 29th, 2015 at 1:23 PM ^

They have (had) two future hall of famers and a QB they took #1 overall. Of course they made the playoffs.  This team has already reached its apex.  Suh is gone, Calvin is aging, Stafford appears to have reached his max potential and he's an average-ish QB.  And historically speaking this is practically the golden years of Lions Football.

jmdblue

April 29th, 2015 at 6:20 PM ^

Ford, the 60 run without a championship, the single playoff win since the Super Bowl era, and the extraordinary stupidity regarding high draft picks.... a (very) quick sampler includes Mike Williams, Titus Young, C.Rog., Andre Ware, Reggie Rogers, and J Harrington........  Add 0-16,  the ordeal that was Matt Millen, and Daryl Rogers' asking "what does a guy have to do to get fired around here?" andtThe Lions can stake a claim to the worst management in American professional sports history....  Yeah, the Pistons have been bad lately, but they got nothin on the Lions.

OccaM

April 29th, 2015 at 4:00 PM ^

Phillies fan here. Amaro Jr. is garbage. He traded away the league's best farm system (that Gillick built) for aging veterans while completely ignoring the other aging/injury prone vets on the hitting side costing us not only playoff wins, but the next potential 5-6 years as well. 

 

Smh.

cm2010

April 29th, 2015 at 3:10 PM ^

They just hired their first employee to do analytics for the franchise. Most franchises have entire departments that have been in place for at least a decade. Ruben Amaro, Jr. is about 20 years behind the rest of the league. They gave Ryan Howard a contract extension that was absurd even at the time and was two years before he hit free agency. 

I understand it's hard to say they are horribly run when they were very good not that long ago, but their management is piss poor.

MichiganTeacher

April 29th, 2015 at 8:04 PM ^

Exactly. It's all about the time frame.

I will give the Lions credit for improving over the last five years. But there is also a strong argument to be made that they should have done better with the personnel they've had during that stretch.

On time scales stretching over all but the youngest fans' lifetimes, it's hard to argue any franchise has been worse than the Lions. The youngest fans who can really follow a team are probably 7, give or take a couple years. And, once you start looking at the LIons on a time scale that goes 7 years or more back from now, well, then your eyeballs start melting and you run mewling into a corner praying for swift, merciful death. I mean, I'd rather have Greg Howard write a column about me than be a Lions fan. But, sadly, I am a Lions fan.

Tater

April 29th, 2015 at 1:51 PM ^

The Lions' last NFL Championship was in 1957.

The "new" Browns have only been in business since 1998.

The Edmonton Oilers last won the Cup in 1984.

The Raiders last won a Super Bowl in 1983.

The Redskins last won a Super Bowl in 1991.

The Phillies last won the World Series in 1980.

The Leafs last won the Cup in 1967.

The Sacramento Kings last won the NBA Championship in 1951 as the Rochester Royals.

 

Only the Kings are worse than the Lions on this list.

rainingmaize

April 29th, 2015 at 3:39 PM ^

I pointed out teams that are currently run worse than the Lions. If you want to debate worst overall franchise history, then yea you would have a point. The reason I bring up current ineptitude is that front offices change quite a bit quite frequently, even owners have changed (except for the Lions). Say what you want about Mayhew, but their is a huge difference between the way the Lions are run under his watch compared to his predeccesor Matt Millen, just as there is a huge difference between the way the 1967 Toronto Maple Leafs were run, and the current trainwreck that is called today's Toronto Maple Leafs. 

lilpenny1316

April 29th, 2015 at 2:56 PM ^

Have won their league's championship more recently than the Lions.  And the Kings were repeatedly one of the top 5 teams during the Webber/Divac years.  

In defense of Cleveland, look at all the rings in that division with Pittsburgh and Baltimore. Plus John Elway and Earnest Byner kept Cleveland from two SB appearances.  The Lions were blown out in their only NFC title game appearance and haven't made it past the Wild Card round since.

UMxWolverines

April 29th, 2015 at 3:15 PM ^

Cleveland was once run well...not any more. Same with Sacramento and now the Pistons. Plus that's not even the same Browns franchise. The new ones have basically been a failure from the beginning.

If Cleveland was actually ever worth a crap and challenged Pittsburgh and Baltimore maybe they wouldn't have as many super bowl appearances.

cm2010

April 29th, 2015 at 3:14 PM ^

They actually traded Lou Brock for Enrie Broglio straight up. The Cubs look like a pretty well run franchise currently (the Wrigley Field bleachers/bathrooms fiasco aside), but historically they have to be the worst run franchise in American professional sports.