The Lions are damaging their culture, and players are noticing it
The Lions are having a real culture problem right now and they brought it on themselves
I don’t know what happened. A year ago today, I think nearly every player in the league would have been open to playing for the Lions, and they would have told you it was because of the culture the franchise has.
In fact, every time the team signed a free agent, they’d talk about the culture being the reason they chose the Lions and that they chose the Lions over other teams. I can’t tell you that’s the same story today
The Lions are damaging their culture right now
It used to be about family, and the Lions heavily believed in taking care of their own and being this sort of all-for-one, one-for-all type of place. Then the Lions started to part with many of the pillars of that ideal. David Montgomery has been traded, and the Lions let Alex Anzalone walk and released Taylor Decker. These were the guys who helped the Lions get to the team they’re supposed to be right now.
Sure, it’s a business. That, first and foremost, is something that everyone can understand. The players know this. But maybe the breakups were a bit abrupt, and the communication, in Decker’s case, was really bad.
You can understand why the Lions would want to get younger, but you can also understand simply giving a phone call and saying “thank you for all the years,” and the posting of a Twitter tribute with highlight plays and a thank you. The Lions did none of that. They ignored phone calls, and they ignored requests from players who wanted to stay.
What’s even worse than all of that is asking for Frank Ragnow to pay money back to the Lions. Especially such a small amount of money. This guy literally broke his neck for the Lions. He fractured his throat. He played a game the week after meniscus surgery. He tried to come out of retirement for the Lions. You ask him to give you like a million dollars back?
Players are noticing it, and it’s not a good look
Yeah, this is part of the contract. It’s part of the business and blah blah blah. Players don’t care about that. What players care about is whether you are going to care about them. If they put in years of work for you and break their bodies for you, are you going to take care of them?
If a player on the outside wanted to come play for the Lions before, maybe they would think twice about it now. If a player right here on the Lions is considering signing a new deal or hitting free agency, this is going to come up in their head.
Think about it. If you were a player and you’re sitting there thinking about signing a new deal, the thing on your mind is going to be “yeah, I can sign this big four-year deal, but what if my body breaks down in year three and I just can’t play anymore. Are the Lions going to drop me and then ignore that I was ever here? If I want to walk away because I just can’t play anymore, and I want to be able to play with my kids and have a good life without pain, are the Lions going to make me pay them money back? Do I want to do this?”
Look, things aren’t dead here. The Lions aren’t going to start flunking NFLPA surveys and suffer a mass exodus of good players overnight. But they are noticing, and it’s time to shift the thinking about what the team wants to do and how they treat their players back to what it’s usually been sold to be. That includes players who don’t even play here anymore. If they don’t, players are going to notice, and they’re not going to want to come here, and they’re not going to want to re-sign.
Detroit Lions News
