OT: A List of Obscure / Favorite Lions

Submitted by matty blue on January 23rd, 2024 at 9:27 AM

i'm not one for creating board posts, but at the gym this morning i was thinking about how long i've been a fan (a.k.a. "victim") of this team, and how much fun i'm having with this team right now.

then i was remembering that greg landry was my first favorite football player.  then charlie sanders, and altie taylor, and lem barney (i got his autograph, once), and mike lucci (oh, man i LOVED mike lucci), and steve owens, and...

okay, old farts and less-scarred younguns.  your list of lions.  no barry sanders, no calvin, no stafford, just your list of Guys.

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matty blue

January 23rd, 2024 at 9:30 AM ^

i'll continue:

  • ron jessie
  • errol mann
  • dexter bussey
  • horace king
  • dennis franklin (for about twelve minutes...the first of my michigan faves to cross over)
  • levi johnson
  • larry hand
  • herb orvis
  • rick kane
  • rob rubick
  • doug english
  • bubba baker

i could go on.

Joined: 08/01/2008

MGoPoints: 39201

shoes

January 23rd, 2024 at 11:49 AM ^

Love your list Robbie. Nick Pietrosante was my first favorite NFL player. I remember him setting the single season Lions rushing record in 1960. He also caught the winning TD pass from Earl Morrall in 1962 when the Lions beat Johnny Unitas and the Colts 21-14 at the first NFL game I attended (at Tiger Stadium) with my Dad and two of my uncles.

Joined: 07/01/2008

MGoPoints: 9517

Don

January 23rd, 2024 at 1:23 PM ^

January 6, 1958 in Sports Illustrated:

"ALL HAIL THE LUSTY LIONS

JOY OVERFLOWED IN DETROIT WHEN ITS "UNCOACHABLE" FOOTBALL TEAM—UNLOVED AND UNWANTED IN AUGUST—FINALLY BEAT CLEVELAND FOR THE PRO CHAMPIONSHIP"

"The team which had prompted Parker to quit was a rowdy, gay, tough team. It didn't take kindly to the strictures of training camp. It was led and typified by Bobby Layne, a chunky, blond quarterback who was arrested on a charge of drunken driving early in the season and acquitted later because the arresting officer (by then the most unpopular man in Detroit) admitted that Layne's Texas drawl might have sounded like the slurred speech of a man in his cups.

The Detroit trainer reacted to this odd bit of judicature by manufacturing a sign which read, "I'm not drunk. I'm just from Texas." The team thought that was very funny, and so did everyone else in Detroit. No one blamed Bobby Layne, because, after all, Layne was the incomparable leader of the Lions, who performed miracles under pressure and who was certainly entitled to a little off-field recreation."

https://vault.si.com/vault/1958/01/06/all-hail-the-lusty-lions

 

Joined: 06/30/2008

MGoPoints: 148358

JMo

January 23rd, 2024 at 10:33 AM ^

Porcher immediately takes me back to that DL of Porcher, Pritchett and Spindler. Plus Swilling as what we'd call now an "Edge". I think he was technically an OLB but he played with a hand down.

I don't know if they were actually great, but 15 year old me sure thought it was!

Joined: 12/14/2011

MGoPoints: 21008

Newton Gimmick

January 23rd, 2024 at 11:00 AM ^

Swilling was incredible in New Orleans.  (The Saints' four linebackers -- Swilling, Rickey Jackson, Sam Mills, and Vaughan Johnson -- were a wrecking crew and all four made the Pro Bowl in 1991 and 1992.). 

The Lions traded their 1st round pick -- who turned out to be Hall of Famer Willie Roaf -- for Swilling who was pretty good but not all-Pro level in Detroit.  (They even un-retired Joe Schmidt's #56 for Swilling.)

Joined: 05/06/2015

MGoPoints: 33792

RockinLoud

January 23rd, 2024 at 9:36 AM ^

Barry Sanders. You can't stop me.

 

Beyond Barry, I always liked Herman Moore. He was great in NFL footbal '94 on Sega Genesis. For some reason Moore was the fastest player in the game. I would just run Barry or pass to Moore every single play and score like 80+ ppg.

Joined: 10/12/2008

MGoPoints: 24455

oriental andrew

January 23rd, 2024 at 9:55 AM ^

+1 for Herman Moore. 

I grew up in Atlanta and was never a Lions fan so I didn't really know many of the Lions outside of the big names. I always really liked Herman Moore for some reason. Just remember him as a dude who would go about his business and was a really really good player. Nothing too flashy or cocky about him.

Joined: 06/30/2008

MGoPoints: 56097

Hail-Storm

January 23rd, 2024 at 11:07 AM ^

I worked for a company that worked with Vinnie Johnson's company.  It amazes me how many people have no idea who the Bad Boys are that are not that much younger.

I think every kid in Michigan in the 90's wanted to be Barry too.  I had a spin move that worked great in neighborhood pickup tackle football games. 

For the question, I wished they had kept Eric Kramer longer.  Was never a fan of Mitchell.  As others have mentioned, Morton and Moore were fun to watch with Barry. Honestly, I watched as a kid because I loved to watch Barry run.  When he quit, I switched most of my attention from Lions to Michigan and have never had the same connection. 

Joined: 06/07/2010

MGoPoints: 9776

mgoja

January 23rd, 2024 at 9:56 AM ^

I'm curious about the claim in the story that "...Barney happened to be in Gaye’s neighborhood in suburban Detroit one afternoon during the summer of 1968."

I read a few years back in a book about 1968 that Gaye became the first African American to move into an all white section of northwest Detroit just a year or two prior.  I wondered if the author of the article got "suburban Detroit" wrong.

According to an article I just dug up, "Gaye lived with Anna, Berry Gordy's sister, in the light brown brick ranch at Outer Drive and Monica for roughly seven years, from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s when he relocated to California."  That street was renamed for him just 2 1/2 years ago.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2021/06/19/detroiters-gather-celebrate-street-being-renamed-marvin-gaye-drive/7733073002/

Joined: 11/29/2022

MGoPoints: 2506