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This was the cover of Sports Illustrated the week the Lions last won the NFL championship. https://vault.si.com/vault/1958/01/06/all-hail-the-lusty-lions It was the last Sunday of 1957, but despite the season it was an absolutely perfect day to play football. The sun was shining, the air was almost balmy and the seams of Briggs Stadium in Detroit were near to bursting with the 55,263 people who were willing to pay up to $10 apiece to watch their home-town Lions play the Cleveland Browns for the national professional football championship. As these once shunned and unwanted Lions racked up touchdown after touchdown, it seemed that Briggs Stadium could hardly contain the civic joy, but that is getting ahead of the story.... Two days earlier on a cold, blowy midnight, a line of people on Michigan Avenue in downtown Detroit stretched off into the darkness. One man was wrapped in an old multicolored quilt and another had a brown Army blanket draped tastefully over his shoulders. It was a good-natured line, and when a radio announcer asked the man in the quilt if he thought the Lions had a chance to win the following Sunday, the man said at the top of his voice, "We'll kill the Browns." The line cheered and continued to wait patiently to buy tickets to the game.... Governor G. Mennen Williams wired the commissioner of the National Football League and earnestly asked that the Lion-Brown championship game be put on television since it was a sellout. Bell refused (see page 22). Representative Thaddeus Machrowicz, of Detroit, wired the commissioner and pleaded passionately that the game be put on television. Bell refused. A filling station operator spent $200 to have an outsize aerial put on his service station and entertained his customers with the telecast of the game, picked up from 75 miles away; he too watched and didn't sell any gas.... That was Detroit before the Lions entertained the Browns. Like San Francisco the week before, when the Lions played the 49ers for the right to be in the championship game, Detroit was a hysterical city. Quarterback Tobin Rote was bigger than General Motors. Coach George Wilson was more important than the new Fords and Chryslers, and a ticket to the championship game was about as valuable as a Cadillac.... Detroit has always liked professional football. Detroit is a lusty, thriving, vigorous city and it has found a soul mate in the lusty, thriving, vigorous game. This year's Detroit Lions have endeared themselves to Detroit for a number of reasons, some of them logical. Maybe the biggest reason was the innate American love of the underdog; the Lions fulfilled the role of underdog to a T. They, started the season by losing a coach. Buddy Parker, the moody, intense man who had guided the club to two world championships, announced as the season was about to begin: "I have a situation here I cannot handle. This is the worst team in training camp I have ever seen. The material is all right, but the team is dead. I don't want to get involved in another losing season, so I'm leaving Detroit football. I'm leaving tonight." He said this at a Detroit Lions boosters banquet, then stepped down from the podium and left. So the Lions had one big strike against them, and quite a few football fans figured the second strike followed immediately when the club named George Wilson as head coach to replace Parker.

i thought you said you were done trolling? old habits die hard, eh? lol.

This is like the Lab Leak theory. Sounds ridiculous at first, but then more info comes out.... So now it looks like Santos loved to dress in drag.

Not useful if you are a mouthpiece for the gun companies who pay you more than your constituents.

Not small.

And now I'm standing on the edge of a rabbit hole....

Seriously, they should have had her act in a trench. She's a very pretty lady but she's a skyscraper.

The real shame is not getting to see Maher shank an extra point to end it.

Hmmm, Cousins threw 5 INTs before Hockenson and 9 after Hockenson.

Why do we need 72 hour protection deodorant? How about your smelly ass takes a shower.

Interesting….

I won't stand for Woodbery slander. He ALWAYS bounces stuff off of me before reporting on things like options and roster minutiae. He stands out in that regard over a McCosky.

The difference between 60 and 140 generally isn't that big, let alone a few spots.

I don't know if it was well reported, but in the media gathering Harris had to discuss the new dimensions, he had some lines that really impressed me. He reminded the media that park effects are prone to randomness and take a while to stabilize. Somebody asked about a three year window if that was appropriate, to which Harris said usually not that long, depends on the amount of balls in play. He also said they now have access to weather data to help parse data and evaluate the park factors. I have to think that data is being used to evaluate players and parse stat lines too. Music to my ears.

Agreed, and I see you already saw my tweet. If you are trying to build a development culture, Chapman ain't the guy.

Of all the times for a Tigers beat writer to be critical of the team... This ain't it

Sheila’s most underrated move was removing Ford as her last name and going with Hamp.

I hope Meadows can perform well in 2023 because this trade is grand larceny year to date. And I wager Parades will do well. He is exactly the type of player Harris is targeting and Al traded him with a High Draft Pick for a player in decline at escalating cost.

To be fair, Paredes did end the season with 2.2 WAR with plus-D at third base, a 114 OPS+, and he had a pretty good August. Even so, it's asking a lot for a 23-year-old to be consistently good month after month through an entire season, especially a guy coming directly out of the frying pan of a system that has routinely failed the development of their minor leaguers and directly into the fire of a team expected to contend for a ring. I'll be interested to see how Paredes does after spending an entire winter working under their direction.

they didnt have a winning season for five years because they fired jim harbaugh, not because they traded alex smith. and i'll take five losing seasons if i get a super bowl out of it. again, im not even advocating they take richardson or any qb. i trust holmes' decision making. but if they did, i imagine it would be because they thought he had the chance to be a great qb. and im ok with them using #18 or a second rounder on a chance like that at qb.

The problem is, you don't know if Love is any good because he hasn't played. He would only play unless Rodgers is injured for an extended period of time or you bench Rodgers. If Rodgers had injury issues or was benched for being ineffective, then Rodgers wouldn't have trade value. The Packers have been Super Bowl contenders two of the three seasons Love has been in the league. The Packers have come up short in the playoffs while their 1st round pick has been on the bench.

Lots of people like to site the Chiefs so lets look at them. First off, Goff is simply better than Smith. Kansas City traded for Smith when he was 29. Goff is 28. After one season, they signed him to a 4 year extension. He played four seasons in Kansas City before they drafted Mahomes. He wasn't brought over to be a bridge. They drafted Mahomes when Smith was 33. I would consider signing Goff to a 5 year total contract right now reworking the final two years of his contract to create more cap space. That would take him to age 33. Around age 32 you evaluate if he is still the future QB and either sign him to another contract or draft your future QB. You can also consider 7 years with the final two years being non guaranteed. If Goff goes down for 6 weeks, you really think a rookie, especially a project one like Richardson, is going to just step in and keep you afloat? If your goal is to keep the team competitive for the playoffs, you sign a veteran. I don't think it's asinine to draft a QB 6th overall when you have a 28 year old QB is top 10. It's same old Lions to create a QB controversy and draft a backup in the 1st round. They draft a QB in the 1st round and that is an undeniable signal they don't think Goff is the guy and you create a situation like Goff had with the Rams. No team drafts QBs that high when they have a good young QB. This sudden backup QB hysteria is odd given Goff's durability and the fact that other teams like KC don't just go out and draft backups. My question is, how does this development work? What happens in two years if Goff is still playing well and the Lions are having playoff success? You pull the plug on Goff and hope the rookie is ready? It worked with Mahomes but man alive you better not go through life thinking you can just draft the next Mahomes.

This is fair. Personally, I think lists have a place if done properly. It really boils down to the construction of the list and what the author actually tries to accomplish. If the goal of the list is to educate, give an honest assessment of strengths, weaknesses, potential, etc., then that can have value and the list is really just the convenient vehicle for communicating the information about the players. If the goal of the list is to garner clicks, garner favor with people by saying nice things about players, and gain access by furthering org information, then the list has absolutely zero value. In this regard, I think the current state of Tigers prospect analysis/writing has regressed substantially the last 3-4 years. There's no education or honesty in the analysis and writing, it's just click bait, puff pieces, and overly positive evaluations because people aren't willing to be honest because they are afraid someone will get mad at them.

Most NFL regimes don't have 3 years to assess their backup QB. I'm all for drafting for upside down the road but not in the 1st round when they are closer to winning than originally planned. This thing is being built around Goff so lets get players that can contribute next season and beyond, not 3 years down the road. Take a swing on a QB in the 3rd like the Titans did with Willis or the Falcons with Ridder etc. if you want to take a shot at upside.

Don't forget that we'll get Levi Onwuzurike back in 2023! *ducks*

Obligatory quote any time Oscar is referenced: They don't think it be like it is, but it do