Lions fans were wrong to boo ownership, ruin Calvin Johnson’s moment

Calvin Johnson’s Hall of Fame ceremony will always be overshadowed by this moment.

It’s been a long road for the Detroit Lions and Calvin Johnson. The relationship has been strained to say the least. Since the now Hall of Famer retired, there’s been a lot of talk about when Megatron would find himself back inside Ford Field. On Sunday, that finally happened when the Lions great was honored with his Hall of Fame ring ceremony on the field during halftime. Sadly the moment that’s been waited on so long was abruptly ruined when Lions fans inside of Ford Field decided to ruin that moment by booing Sheila Ford Hamp, the owner of the team, instead of allowing Johnson, a man that destroyed his body for these fans, to have his moment.

Let me just say before we go any further that I love this city. Detroit is the greatest city in the world. I love Lions fans and I love the emotion, but this was embarrassing and all it did was allow people like Pat McAfee and others to laugh at us. This is exactly what they want. They want Detroit to be the laughing stock of the league. They want us to be the laughing stock of the country. That way they can point to us and say, “Look how dysfunctional they are.” They want to use your emotions against you for clips on their TV shows and their radio shows.

You helped them on Sunday. You gave the rest of the country that doesn’t pay attention to you unless there’s a reason to laugh at you, a reason to laugh at you. They don’t know why you were booing or what the context of the booing was. They don’t care either.

I get it. You’re mad at the Fords for “ineptitude” and “50 years of losing” and all that stuff. It’s reductive at this point. Complaining about the Fords is something that jumped the shark a long time ago. It’s to the point where I’m not completely sure that some Lions fans are even aware of what they’re mad about anymore.

I’m sure some will say I’m a paid shills for defending Sheila Ford Hamp, but I’m going to do it. This woman has barely been on the job a year and has given Lions fans so much of what they wanted. You wanted a toxic coaching situation gone? She did it. You wanted a rebuild the right way? She’s doing it. What about an owner that doesn’t just show up to collect a check? She’s more involved than owner this team has ever had. Ford Hamp has risen to occasion time and again. You want to boo Rod Wood? Go for it. Ford Hamp has nothing to do with what happened to Calvin Johnson and the league won’t allow her to make it right in the way Johnson wants. I’m sorry that I have to keep saying this, but you have to get over this Ford thing. She’s not William and she’s not Martha.

On top of that, I’m just not sure why you’re booing a team you knew wouldn’t be good. Not only did you know this team wouldn’t be good, you knew they wouldn’t be good for the right reasons. You knew this was a rebuild. Why are you out here booing like Joey Harrington is out there checking down to Charles Rogers? It just makes us look stupid for booing a team we knew needs time to get better. Not to keep bring up the rest of the country and national talking heads, but your booing is likely contributing to them putting out more of those Dan Campbell opinions you hate so much.

Lastly, as I mentioned before, Calvin Johnson gave us so much. Look at his hands.

Look what this guy did to himself and the happiness it brought you for nine years. It was incredibly disrespectful of us to step on his moment in the sun so that fans in Ford Field could feel like they were doing something. Calvin Johnson only gets to have this moment once. We can’t come back and do it again next week. The booing isn’t going to make a championship appear. You wasted your time and ruined the moment.

We have to get past stuff like this. We’re better than this.