It's apparently OK for players to quit on bad teams . . . . .

terrible premise. sanders always played his heart out. then he retired. because the lions sucked? maybe. but so what?

moss quit on the team that was paying him WHEN HE WAS PLAYING FOR THEM! that's why column's like rhoden's this week make me crazy. the new randy? no effin' way. if he was on a bad team again, he'd be the same a--hole as always. that's why i hate columns like bill's -- not that he's the only one to buy into moss' b.s.

 

Tiki Barber showed 'em!!

 

Very good point, but to take it a bit further, here's the Lions' record in the 7 years immediately preceding that 5-11 98 Season:

97 9-7
96 5-11
95 10-6
94 9-7
93 10-6
92 5-11
91 12-4 (and in the NFC Championship game)

This theory that Sanders quit because he was sick of playing on losing teams has never held water with me. Most of his teams were actually pretty good, and they continued to win for a couple years even AFTER he retired. It's nothing even remotely comparable to the situation Archie Manning had in New Orleans in the 70s & 80s. But those facts don't seem to prevent writers like Jemele from asserting that reason as if its undisputable gospel.

 

Vince Carter is analogus to Moss, not Barry Sanders. It's one thing to hang up the cleats if you don't want your brain to look and function like scrambled eggs in your 50s, or if you'd like to be able to tie your own shoes at age 35 without assistance. It's another to act in such a self-destructive manner that you get traded to a shitty team, then you quit on that shitty team after one year.

I actually can't muster much outrage for what Moss did in Oakland. As Alma said, the Raiders quit on him as much as he quit on them. But comparing him to Sanders is just tortured logic.

 

Exactly. The Lions were not bad in the 90s, and wasn't solely because of Sanders. If Detroit had ever been able to settle on a quarterback (in that dizzying Peete/Ware/Kramer/Mitchell merry-go-round) it might have been able to make a better run at those Cowboy teams.

 

But a clearly-oblivious management, and a succession of clown coaches, will wear you down.

 

The Lions in that era had pretty much one coach -- Wayne Fontes, so there was stability at that spot.
After that, the circus came back to town -- or at least that part of it. The Big Top has always been pitched over the front office...

 

Sanders played for only 2 coaches. The 1st eight years for Wayne Fontes, the last 2 for Bobby Ross. Fontes is the franchise's all time winningest coach and Ross came to the Lions from San Diego, where he'd taken them to the Super Bowl and several straight winning seasons. I wouldn't call either guy a clown.

 

Wayne Fontes was a clown -- changed his whole offense and defense several times in knee-jerk reactions to single-game playoff losses.

Of course, Fontes looks like Vince Lombardi compared to the intergalactic idiocy of Matt Millen.

 

Starman, have you ever had a positive opinion about anyone?

 

I don't understand the mocking of Fontes. He is the most successful coach the Lions have had in the last 30 years.

 

But isn't that kind of like being the most manly Backstreet Boy?