Detroit Lions approval poll: Sheila Ford Hamp (January 2021)

The Detroit Lions are on the verge of making a pivotal decision for their franchise. After the disaster that was the Matt Patricia, Bob Quinn era, the Lions are forced to find two other leaders to help rebuild a franchise that has gone nowhere in the past 60 years. Plenty appear to be skeptical about Detroit’s future, and understandably so, but there is a reason this time could be different.

The Lions will be going about these hires with a new owner in place. Sure, Sheila Ford Hamp comes from the very family tree that has owned this franchise since 1961, but she is not necessarily the same as her parent.

And while it will be much easier to judge her performance after she makes these critically-important hires at general manager and head coach, I’d like to get a baseline of how popular she is in Detroit before those decisions are made.

So far, she’s done things that have to be considered quite popular. The firings of Quinn and Patricia may have come later than many hoped, but she got it done. Then she went out and got some local help in Chris Spielman to bring some football knowledge and juice to Detroit’s front office. It also appears she’s fixed some prior mistakes in GM and coaching searches, doing a much more thorough job than her predecessors.

That being said, there are some sources of frustration, too. She was heavily involved in the decision to bring Patricia and Quinn back last year, even when she wasn’t owner. Personally, I thought it was the right decision at the time, but several did not. She has also decided to keep president Rod Wood in his ever-increasing role in the company, a move that many believe is foolish for a non-football person.

Now that she’s been on the job for nearly seven months, let’s see how you think she’s doing.

How would you grade Sheila Ford Hamp’s performance as Lions owner over thus far?