Santa Claus comes early every year for the Detroit Lions, on Thanksgiving to be exact. The jolly old soul hands the Lions their annual ‘gift’ in the form of a Thanksgiving game on their home field.

This is a clear case of not needing to be ‘good’ in any way shape or form to receive this handout from the NFL.

Year after year, this franchise struggles, and against the will of many of the other NFL owners, they continue to keep the Thanksgiving Game and the exposure that goes along with it.

Over the years many owners have brought up discussions and votes have occurred to move this game around the league to share the revenue. Somehow William Clay Ford continues to keep the game in his hometown of Detroit.

You have to wonder if the fact Ford Motor Company is one of the NFL’s biggest and most loyal advertisers has anything to do with this joke of an organization keeping this game.

I personally have attended several Thanksgiving games over the years and it’s quite the tradition. I saw O.J. Simpson shatter the single game rushing record when his Buffalo Bills visited the Lions at Pontiac Silverdome back in the 70’s. I spent many Thanksgiving days tailgating, seeing the game then finishing the day off stuffing myself with turkey dinner.

I love tradition and have a strong track record of supporting and keeping it. It makes my gut hurt to say this, but it is time for a change. To make NFL fans across the nation sit through a Lions game on this upcoming holiday and the ones to follow is absurd. It is time for Ford and his 0-9 Lions to hand over the torch.

The Dallas Cowboys were a dismal 1-15 one year but rebuilt and bounced back over the years, becoming a contender and winning a Super Bowl, earning the right to keep their spot.

The Lions on the other hand have shown no improvement over that same span, in fact they have gotten worse as their record over the past decade indicates.

If you’re out there Santa Claus, stop handing this gift to this NFL team and deliver a stocking full of coal and sticks to Ford and his Lions.

Taking the game from the Lions and spreading it throughout the league would bring much joy to fans across the nation.

Making this change is like delivering a Christmas gift to the rest of the NFL football world and relieves them from the agony and torture of sitting through Lion debacles year-after-year.

There is a rebuttal to this case and point found on Deadspin.

Copyright © 2008 – Sports Climax

ST. LOUIS – Some NFL owners are making a very strong statement this year . . . win now or pack your bags. The first victim of the axe, which was five years overdue, was Detroit Lions GM Matt Millen.

During Week Three, Mike Martz and the San Fran 49ers threw a can a’ whoop-ass on Millen’s Lions. A few days later, with a little coaxing from his son, Bill Jr., Owner William Ford gave the dysfunctional Millen his walking papers.

For years, Millen put bad teams, followed by worse teams onto the field, drafting an assembly line of wide receivers and first-round flops.

Yesterday, the St. Louis Rams followed suit and fired their third-year coach, Scott Linehan. The Rams are the only team that may be worse than the Lions this year and after starting 0-4, Linehan got the axe.

Oakland Raiders Coach, Lane Kiffin is another coach that is sitting on a white-hot burner right now. Kiffin’s Raiders lost to the Chargers Sunday to drop to 1-3 putting his job in more jeopardy than last week. One of the hottest rumors around the league, prior to this loss, was that Kiffen was getting the boot from Owner Al Davis.

Payrolls and overhead have gotten out of hand and owners have such huge investments in their organizations, they expect a return. With a short 16 game season, a slow start out the gate can put these owner’s “investments” in an improbable position for finding success.

With Kiffin hanging on by a thread and other coaches like Marvin Lewis, Rod Marinelli and Romeno Crennell struggling to put a team on the field that even remotely resembles an NFL squad, expect a few more coaches to be ducking the axe early in this NFL season.

Copyright © 2008 – Sports Climax

After being fired by the Detroit Lions at the end of last season, offensive whiz-kid Mike Martz, now with the San Francisco 49ers, repaid the favor, took the Lions to school 31-13 and bitch-slapped GM Matt Millen right out of a job, sending the record-setting exec straight to the unemployment line just three weeks into the 2008 NFL season.  

Making the best of the opportunity, Martz showed Millen why he should not have been the scapegoat, the Scooter Libby for the Lions after their 1-7 season-ending nose-dive last year that put them out of the playoffs.

While setting personal records of futility, Millen has become an expert at firing coaches and pointing the finger in every direction but his own.

Martz must have been salivating at this opportunity to embarrass his former team the Lions who dropped their league-worst record to 0-3.

The game was a cakewalk for quarterback J.T. O’Sullivan, RB Frank Gore and the rest of the offense. The offensive line dominated Millen’s Lions and J.T. was not sacked in 23 pass attempts, something that is very rare in a Martz offense.

The biggest challenge for Martz was hiding the shit-eating grin on his face every time his Niners high-stepped into the Lions end zone.

Millen said in an earlier interview last week that his Lions are “Doing the right thing” and need to “Stay the course”.

The Lions did the right thing the day they gave Millen his long overdue pink slip and send the incompetent GM packing and we are doing the right thing by giving you, Mr. Millen, our hands-down Bitch-Slap-of-the-Week.

Copyright ©2008 Sports Climax