and what’s it going to take to get Richard Dent in the Hall? Armed force?

And barry is stil the youngest lol. I’D AM MAD! How can these so called “experts” keep Reed and Carter out again. I don’t see anyreason why more than one reciver can’t go in. I really thought Shannon Sharp would get elected he is the 1st true reciving TE. Still a good class I already got my tickets for the induction. I just can belive reed was cheated again.

He deserves it.

joining the likes of Dick Lane, Yale Lary, and Lem Barney, who were all teammates of LeBeau’s in the Lions’ defensive backfield.

Four Hall of Fame DB’s played for the Lions during that time period. Barney and LeBeau are the only ones I saw play. What strikes me about that backfeld is this: it’s allowed to have a secondary full of elite players. Hell, it’s ok to have elite players on this team, period.

Sometimes I hear what seems to be a loser’s mentality…….we fear elite players on other teams, but somehow think we can’t get any or don’t deserve to have any on our team. We think we have to continually trade down, get 50 average players, and “fix” everything in one year (I don’t call being average a fix)(the HoF is full of great players with Super Bowl Rings, not average players). We worry about what the other team and its elite players can do to us, but don’t think we are capable of doing anything to our opponents. We criticize Dominic Raiola (rightly, IMO) for being undersized and pushed back into the QB by bigger, stronger DT’s, but somehow don’t think that we are capable of pushing other teams’ centers back into the QB with big strong DT’s. We fear that other teams’ really fast DE’s will blow by Jeff Backus for the sack, but somehow don’t think that we will be able to blow by other teams’ LT’s if we had really fast DE’s. We seem to think our opponents can do everything to us, but we can do nothing to them………and I’m talking about the last 40 years, not just the Millen Era. We don’t allow ourselves to be great. We are our own worst enemy (ok, 2nd worst, after Millen).

Frankly, I’m tired of all that nonsense. I’ve seen 40 years of it, along with impatience…….impatience with head coaches, GM’s, coordinators, players, offensive and defensive schemes, playbooks, etc, etc,etc. We as a team, and as a fan base, suffer from impatience and an inferiority complex. No more!

I’m reminded of the story of General Grant at the start of the Civil War, when he was a Colonel leading his regiment in its first action. He was afraid, afraid of the enemy and what it might do to him and his troops. His heart was up in his throat. He crept up to the enemy camp, and found…………the camp was empty. The enemy had fled. Grant then realized that the enemy was as afraid of him as he was of them. “My heart resumed its place”, he wrote in his memoirs. That was a source of Grant’s steely nerve and calm resolve in battle.

The Lions could learn from that. We deserve elite players as much as any team in the league. There’s no league rule that says the Lions can’t be a great team with great players. We deserve it as much as anyone…..more so, really. We need to allow ourselves to be great. We need elite players, warriors with a winners mentality…….guys like Stafford, Delmas, ……and even Ndomakong Suh, Eric Berry and Kyle Wilson. These guys are all cut from the same cloth. As Lions HC Jim Schwartz said,

When we win as a team, it’ll be because we play with Louis Delmas’ personality

We are allowed to get more special players like Stafford and Delmas. We deserve it. Let’s allow ourselves to be great.

…to LeBeau.Let’s get Herman Moore in there next.