by Mitch Albom | Feb 15, 2021 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
Matthew Stafford goes all out. If he plays football, he plays to the dying breath. If he’s with his kids, he’s totally with his kids. If he vacations, he truly vacations. And if he talks, — really talks — he’ll talk about everything. We had one of those talks last...
by Mitch Albom | Feb 11, 2021 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
As Matthew Stafford headed into the meeting that would change his life, he texted his wife, Kelly, and wrote, “Well, here we go.” The Detroit Lions president, Rod Wood, was waiting in the room. The Lions owner, Sheila Ford Hamp, was on speaker phone....
by Mitch Albom | Feb 1, 2021 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
Everybody’s motivated. That’s what makes this Matthew Stafford-Jared Goff deal a good one. Sometimes when a star player seeks a trade, it begins with disgruntlement and ends in disgruntlement, players unhappy, fans unhappy, front office ducking. Not so this...
by Mitch Albom | Jan 24, 2021 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
Matthew Stafford is the best player the Detroit Lions have. And the most dedicated. So when your best and most dedicated player comes to and you and suggests maybe parting company would be the best thing, you ought to be worried about your team. So much for...
by Mitch Albom | Jan 21, 2021 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
But when you hire men who are down the depth chart on their current teams, men who have never done the job you’re hiring them to do on a permanent basis, men who few other teams in the NFL were courting, you can’t expect fans to jump up and down. Simply put, this is...
by Mitch Albom | Dec 27, 2020 | Detroit Free Press, Comment, Sports
It’s the holiday season, traditionally when Detroit fans root for the Lions to lose so they can move up in the draft. In that case, Merry Christmas, fans! Otherwise, what happened Saturday at Ford Field was an embarrassment, even by Detroit Lions’ standards, and that...
by Mitch Albom | Dec 7, 2020 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
The cliché about football being a game of inches still rings true in the NFL. And an inch is pretty small. But one thing even smaller and infinitely harder to measure is the difference between quitting and not quitting. It’s as thin as a breath, as narrow as a muscle...
by Mitch Albom | Nov 29, 2020 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
Thanksgiving arrived two days late in Detroit. Today, Lions fans give thanks that the Bob Quinn/Matt Patricia era is, mercifully, over. Farewell, Patriot Way. Quinn and Patricia were going nowhere with this franchise. In truth, they were given a year longer...
by Mitch Albom | Oct 5, 2020 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
It’s probably a good thing the Lions didn’t have fans inside Ford Field on Sunday. The fewer witnesses, the better. This was sad, lifeless, sometimes cringeworthy defensive football, bad tackling, no tackling, low resistance, no resistance. Please don’t...
by Mitch Albom | Sep 14, 2020 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
The ball, the catch, the game, and the win were all floating into the hands of rookie D’Andre Swift. What an ending this would be! And then, just as quickly, they all fell out. A dropped pass in the end zone. A dropped game on opening Sunday. A victory...