Mike O'Hara, who has been the Lions beat writer for The Detroit News since 1977 (worked at the paper since 1966), is leaving the paper.  He took a voluntary buyout and went out on his own terms.

Among the notable names leaving are Free Press columnist Susan Ager and Detroit Lions beat writer Mike O’Hara, a veteran of The Detroit News since 1966.

O’Hara, who has covered the team since 1977, said he’s retiring.

“I’m not an unhappy camper; it’s just time,” he said.

I always have had great respect for O'Hara and the job he did reporting on the Lions.  I've found it hard to talk about this team as much as I have in the last two and a half years, so I can't even imagine what it would be like to cover them since 1977.  O'Hara has seen an awful lot of ups and downs in his time covering the Lions, and as the FanHouse pointed out, he only got to watch a single playoff win in all those years.

In O'Hara's years covering the Lions, they've had 10 head coaches, more bad quarterbacks than I care to count, and two great running backs who won Heisman Trophies at colleges in Oklahoma and had the initials B.S. O'Hara has covered somewhere around 500 Lions games, exactly one of which was a playoff win.

I wish O'Hara the best in the future and thank him for his great coverage of the Lions for all those years.