New Barry Sanders Documentary Confirms Why He Left
"Bye, Bye Barry" was released on Amazon Prime yesterday. It is fairly long, 93 minutes, and filled with great highlights of Barry's high school, college, and pro careers. No one was more elusive than Barry. His lateral and vertical acceleration, shiftiness, his ability to change direction on a dime were other-worldly. He is arguably the best ever at his position. And if you ask me, for sheer entertainment value there was no one better.
When Barry was drafted I was excited that we as Lions fans would be able to watch probably the most exciting runner to have ever played the game. At the same time, I felt sorry for Barry because I knew he would never win a Super Bowl playing for the Lion's management & ownership.
This documentary confirms what we all suspected. I'm sure it's the same reason Calvin Johnson retired early. As a player, you are driven to compete, to be the best, to win. You work your ass off in pursuit of that competitive edge. You give it your all. Then you see your employer allow some of your key quality teammates, your brothers, to leave and go sign with other teams. And they go and have success because they're good players. And you are stuck playing for an organization that isn't committed to winning like you are. It is a betrayal of the competitive spirit. Chuch Schmidt had a chance to bring Joe Montana to Detroit and passed. Joe went to KC instead, brought his knowledge of the West Coast offense, and helped them win. But this wasn't the exception, it was the rule. There were countless other poor management decisions that sabotaged the Lions' chances of winning.
Chuck Schmidt, Russ Thomas, and William Clay Ford seemed to be excellent at one thing, killing the competitive spirit in their players. They killed Barry's desire to play football at 31, still in his prime, several years before he should have stopped playing. I'm sure Calvin Johnson's experience was similar.
But it's a new day in Detroit. Sheila Hamp Ford, Brad Holmes, and MCDC have breathed new life into a dead franchise. Who knows how long Ben Johnson stays and if we'll be able to replace him with someone as good. But at least for now we are competitive and headed in the right direction. The way Brad Holmes has been drafting we could be a top-tier team in the next few years.
November 22nd, 2023 at 4:16 AM ^
Is this an overstatement? You write: "Chuch Schmidt had a chance to bring Joe Montana to Detroit and passed. Joe went to KC instead, brought his knowledge of the West Coast offense, and helped them win."
I'm fine with the position that the Lions made "countless other poor management decisions that sabotaged the Lions' chances of winning."
But passing on Joe Montana in 1992 was not, I think, necessarily a poor decision. Montana missed the 1991 season and most of the 1992 season with an elbow injury from the 1991 pre-season. Montana was a third-string QB behind Young and Steve Bono when the 49ers played Dallas in the playoffs.
Yes, he did have two come-from-behind wins in the 1993 playoffs and then suffered a concussion on the third play of the third quarter against Buffalo, which won.
But I just don't see it as a bad decision not to go with the quarterback who was injured for two years (and it was his elbow).
November 22nd, 2023 at 4:44 AM ^
I guess the point was Montana led the Chiefs to an 11-5 record in '93, the two playoff wins like you said, and lost to the Bills in the AFC Championship game when he got injured. The Lions won the NFC Central at 10-6 with Erik Kramer, Rodney Peete, and Andre Ware at QB but they lost in the Wild Card round to Brett Favre on a 40-yard pass to Sterling Sharpe with 55 seconds left.
If the balance of the Lions team was that good to have gone 10-6 in '93 with those quarterbacks, what could we have done with Joe Montana, who led the Chiefs to the AFC Championship without Barry? We will never know.
November 22nd, 2023 at 11:23 AM ^
i remember what montana's elbow looked like as a chief. a huge growth was coming out of it. not sure how he could throw a football.
November 22nd, 2023 at 8:42 AM ^
I mean, Barry has been saying the same thing for the entire time. People just didn't want to accept it. He left because playing for the Lions killed his love of the game.
November 22nd, 2023 at 8:48 AM ^
No one was more elusive than Barry.
boy, is that ever true. on SO many different levels.
i love barry sanders. i will go to my grave saying he's the best running back ever; take your emmitt smith jive elsewhere, if you have it.
...and i haven't watched the netflix thing yet, so take this with a huge chunk of ill-informed salt.
but there's this somewhat revisionist history out there that says he quit because he was tired of losing. that, my friend, has always had some element of some pure uncut colombian bullshit. i don't recall barry ever saying he was desperate to win a super bowl. as far as i recall, he never said anything, except for some vague bitchiness if he didn't get the ball enough. as long as he could walk all over dipshit coaches like wayne fontes, and get his carries? fire it up. we made the playoffs five times in his career - he was transcendent once (27 carries for 169 in a loss to Green Bay), meh in four games, and had the shittiest day a great back ever had, a 13-carry for negative-1 yard abortion in another loss. he had one damn touchdown in six playoff games. the best running back ever shouldn't have that kind of playoff history, no matter who is handing him the ball.
what chased him off was that bobby ross was one of the all-time red-asses, and BOY, did barry not like that. i think he quit because he didn't like getting bitched at, not because he was "tired of losing." barry liked piling up stats, and going his own way.
i am looking forward to watching this thing, because it's barry, and the list of my favorite players to watch, ever, is topped by barry sanders and denard robinson depending on what day it is. and i'm hoping to find out that, away from the field, he was absolutely peeling the paint off the walls, demanding more of the organization and his teammates. but i'm not optimistic.
November 22nd, 2023 at 10:33 AM ^
Line one says it all. Elusive, in sooo many ways.
I watched last night and, highlights not included, was pretty disappointed. It didn’t shed much light on anything except it did reaffirm Barry is gonna Barry. He played for his team, not himself. The Lions broke up the team, Barry lost his “why”.
Barry didn’t play for himself or the stats. He played for a demanding father and his teammates. Lions didn’t understand that or didn’t care. Inept leadership all around.
November 22nd, 2023 at 11:26 AM ^
iirc, barry also skippted out on madatory off season practices. ross attempted to fine him. barry refused to pay. then barry retired.
November 22nd, 2023 at 11:30 AM ^
+1 for mentioning Bobby Ross. I get it, Lions management figured they needed a hard-ass to replace the country-club atmosphere of Wayne Fontes.
But that wasn't going to work with Barry, nor Scott Mitchell or Johnnie Morton either (say what you will about those 2, but they were still key Lions offensive players in January 1997).
The 2000 yards in 1997 was great, but Bobby/Barry was destined for a blow-out from Day 1.
November 22nd, 2023 at 12:29 PM ^
I haven't had a chance yet to watch the documentary but I am looking forward to it. Regardless of what they say I am convinced that he retired because they fired Fontes, he did not like the new regime for the reasons stated above and that the Loins wouldn't let him leave to play elsewhere.
I would take exception to calling Fontes a dipshit coach. He still is the winningest coach in team history and he was better than Forzano, Hudspeth, Clark, Rogers, Ross, the three M's, Schwartz and Patricia. He was a players coach and knew he was coaching for a dipshit organization. He has the only Loins playoff victory in my lifetime. The image of being a dipshit was what got him fired and left us with the 25 years of obscurity and humiliation.
December 5th, 2023 at 5:07 PM ^
Only Lions playoff victory of the last
65 YEARS
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