sabretooth

Just think of how awesome the Lions would be on the field if their fans were perfectly tuned on Message Boards.

Agreed

Sorry, I didn't see the resolution to this discussion above.....'nuff said

CJ made the amount irrelevant when he refused to make appearances for them. As MB said, they can't just give him the money at this point. The ball was (and might still be) in CJ's court. He refused their very reasonable offer.

I'm pretty sure that you and Sports Freak agree on this one.

Now you have become a true Lions fan 😉

Become the greatest WR in Lions' history and then someone might give a crap

This is where I'm at. For all of the "it's a business" line of thinking regarding Calvin's bonus (I agree with their decision to take it back, though I really don't care), Sheila and her mom and dad have zero demonstrated business acumen/success, so I just don't see giving any of them the benefit of the doubt until they start actually getting it done. WCF Jr. was a fairly successful business man and had a catastrophic influence re: Millen, so even biz success is no guarantee of anything WRT sports ownership, though demonstrated success seems a lot better than nothing.

Fair enough....I don't have anything against her....she seems to have ideas and energy. Hopefully she can be the one to move this forward. I don't have any confidence but it's because I need to see results before I ever have confidence again.

Ha....if I were Sheila I'd use the $$ to install shock-seats....looking at recent attendance, she may have already done this

I don't see how getting shellacked by the Eagles = meeting expectations. We all expect to die someday, but it doesn't mean that we expect to be eaten alive by rabid hamsters one slow bite at a time on national TV.

I didn't realize that it affected them at all from a PR standpoint until the stadium rained down boos on Sheila for honoring the brat (and he is a brat). Maybe it means nothing....but I think this will keep coming back like bad lunch.

....and I will further bet you that that incident seriously eroded Sheila's desire to deliver something positive to this fan base. It made me say "eff these bastards" to everybody involved....I cannot imagine anyone who could take that abuse and still want to bring a winner to this fan base. Then again, I cannot imagine any fan or fan base that would have confidence in this family of owners after 60 years of failure. I also cannot imagine Beruit ever being a nice place to visit again after things fell apart 40 years ago. The Lions owners and fans seem to be caught in the same mutually-destructive loop.

It makes them appear incompetent. Every bad thing can be explained away, or defended, or wished into the cornfield, but until they start winning playoff games it's another black eye that erodes the confidence of the fans, and gives everybody in the organization reason to doubt whether the ownership/management can ever get over the hump. I know you're going to say that it doesn't matter, but your saying it doesn't matter doesn't matter any more than my saying it does. But it's a Message Board, and this is what we don't get paid to do. I will bet you dollars to donuts that the vast majority of people who follow the Lions consider the Calvin event and the booing of Sheila to be a major embarrassment and a setback for a fledging new managing owner.

My point is that competence is sorely lacking in the Lions' organization in every facet and phase. I respect that Sheila has brought in some great people and minds into the FO, and I like them. I am pretty much on her side personally, but for reasons that are historical and largely beyond her control now, I have nearly zero hope that she and any management team she brings on board will be able to turn it around here. Zero. The Fords will never escape the stink.

I agree....I was speaking from the standpoint of the people who booed Sheila. I thought they were jerks and a-holes for doing that, and I think Calvin was a jerk and an a-hole for doing what he did. The business side of the equation includes PR, and PR in Detroit means that a very sizeable share of the fan base sides against management in a controversy. It's a hit that savvy sports owners in Detroit understand and know how to manage, even when they are jobbing the players sometimes....but the Lions have never had any idea how to manage that side of it.

I also get it that Calvin chose to skunk Sheila's very reasonable request for him to do PR for the team for the $1.6M. I think Calvin was a total a-hole to reject that offer. I don't personally blame Sheila for the Calvin mess, and I completely blame him for backing Sheila into a corner that Calvin's business agent had to know was the best she could do. It just boggles my mind that this team keeps getting itself into these messes over and over and over again.

I understood that they couldn't just give him money, and that Martha pulled the plug on the signing bonus....if that helped them with cap space at the time, that's something positive. Still a PR black-eye....even though it's a business, this is not a fan base that likes to see it's star players get kicked around by management.

It's too early to tell whether Sheila has made good decisions or not. I cannot possibly give her the benefit of the doubt since she either (a) has no track record to speak of and/or (b) she was or should have been influential with ownership decisions before she was publicly handed the reins, and therefore she is responsible to some extent for the current mess going back some indeterminate period of time. All I know is that every f'ing member of the Ford family who has tried to make decisions about this organization has been a complete and utter historic-level screw-up. Why the hell should anyone give any member of this family the benefit of the doubt until they prove they can bring a level of success?

Is there some impact to the team's cap by virtue of what happens with his signing bonus? I'm honestly wondering if there is a practical angle here that fans should care about.

Great point.

The players suck and dont care, the HC cares a ton but doesnt have the players to make it work, and the new FO staff has to deal with all of it and build a winning roster and culture, with the media, players and fans pretty much convinced that it cant happen. The labors of Hercules. Or Sisyphus. Or whatever...man.

Man, the Fords need to sell this team. There will never be a turnaround with this ownership stink in place.

You cant understand why people are especially upset at the effort level today? It defies credulity that they would lay an egg like this against a bad team at home, regardless of the larger context.

Boy I have never been happier for Matt Stafford than I am now. The only good move the Fords have made in 60 years was to spare that man any more of this misery.