are the lions any longer entitled to a t-day game?

Green Bay's training staff and waterboys are better than the Lions starters.

I have no problems breaking a tradition if it's as productive as banging your head against a wall. Or continuing to shove hyperlocal down the throats of an audience that doesn't give a shit and expecting it to work.

 

Minus the last five years, the Thanksgiving game has been fairly competitive for the Lions. Even the 2-14 Lions in 2001 only lost to Green Bay by two points. They even won four straight and six of seven in the mid- to late 90s.

Lions Thanksgiving Day history

 

I tend to agree with Shotty. The Lions and Cowboys ARE Thanksgiving, and it would bother me if they weren't on TV during the holiday. Ending that tradition for the sake of better competition -- which can never be guaranteed; after all, the Super Bowl is supposed to represent the two best teams in all of football and that game is frequently a clunker -- is short-sighted at best and disrespectful at worst.

 

Eleventy-billion? Holy cow, that is bad.

 

You realize they rotate each year, right? An AFC team will head to Dallas next year, and an NFC one to Detroit so they can be hosted by the appropriate network, since it's determined by visiting teams.

 

Ball Frickin' State is better than the Lions' starters.

 

Sensibility owes nothing to tradition. Nor does money-making, and the NFL would cheerfully bump the Lions at least to another slot if they had a chance to profit from a different pair of teams.

 

The 1999 MNF schedule is the perfect example of how scheduling "good" teams based on the previous year can bite you in the ass. After their appearances in the conference title games, the Broncos, Jets, Falcons and Vikings were scattered throughout the schedule. Unfortunately, they all sucked that year.

 

I think we need some perspective here.

The Fords have run the Lions much like they have run the motor company. Yes, they have managed it poorly, but they at least have tried to manage it. They at least hired a GM to handle football matters.

In comparison, let's go south on I-75 and take a look at the Bengals and Mike Brown. The Bengals are Brown's business, which he inherited from his father. While he may have inherited his father's passion for the game, it can be determined that he did not inherit his father's knowledge of the game.

If Mike Brown was running Ford Motor Company, he'd have no engineers and little or no R&D. If possible, he'd champion the Edsel as the company's signature car.

If he ran Ford, Ford would already be insolvent and either sold in parts or bought outright by a Chinese company. Sadly, the corporate socialism of the NFL means owners profit whether they succeed (like Rooney and Jones), fail (like the Ford family), or don't even try (like Mike Brown).

 

The Lions and Cowboys took the Thanksgiving games when no one else wanted them.

They should keep them.

By the way, this Thanksgiving felt a little more right. Why?

Because Texas-Texas A&M was back where it belongs.

Tradition matters. Or at least it should.

 

Baseball's system is as far from the NFL's as you can get in a major sport, yet MLB franchises that don't try also find ways to profit. The Pirates are a perfect example of that, though they aren't three years removed from a division championship like the Bengals are.

The NFL's system does assume that every team, given a relatively level playing field, is going to at least try its best to win. A few franchises have failed to do that, but that isn't unique to the NFL. Is there a league in major pro sports that is immune to the damage done by shitty ownership?