Detroit Lions Roundtable: Who's the Best?

Welcome to the third edition of the Detroit Lions Roundtable.

If you were to compile a list of the best Lions players of all-time, you'd have a pretty hard task ahead of you. The amount of great Lions players is few and far between, yet, each era has an undisputed star, sometimes multiple stars. 

The '50s had Bobby Layne, the '90s had Barry Sanders among others, the '00s...Jason Hanson?

Although the Lions have had a half century of futility, they've still had some of the best to ever play the game don Honolulu Blue throughout their history. Here are the picks of three of the top five Lions writers.

Introducing...

Tom Krems

Herman Moore

Lion’s fans have had to put up with a lot of disappointment over the last decade, and for the new fans, they become so thinking that Detroit has always had a bad run of it. Well, this is not how it has always been. If you had been a fan for the last 20 years you know how good it can get and that there is hope. For you new fans, this is what it was like.

Back in the day, you had Barry Sanders and Herman Moore. Besides Sanders, I have chosen Moore as the best player in Lions history. Why? Well, this 6’4” receiver out of Virginia helped guide this team to six playoff appearances in the 1990s and made it to four straight Pro Bowls. At one time, Herman Moore held the NFL record for receptions in a season with 123. That was in 1995, when he finished with 1,686 yards receiving and 14 touchdowns.

The Lions went 10-6 that year. Actually, the 12 seasons he was in there, he contributed heavily in about nine of them. During those nine seasons, the Lions had seven winning records.

The team won 85 games during Moore’s tenure. Since he retired in 2002, the Detroit Lions have posted a record of 26-61 and that is what has become common place for the team. Now you understand why the Lions have been drafting so many receivers. They are looking for the next Herman Moore.

Scott Rieger

Bobby Layne

When talking about the best Lions player ever, most young fans would instantly say Barry Sanders, and honestly, they would not be wrong. However, the Lions actually are one of the more storied franchises in history and have had numerous former players inducted into the Hall of Fame.

These people are Lem Barney, Jack Christiansen, Earl Clark, Lou Creekmur, Bill Dudley, John Johnson, Dick Lane, Yale Lary, Bobby Layne, Joe Schmidt, Doak Walker, Charlie Sanders, and Alex Wojciechowicz. Other notable players not in the Hall were Chris Spielman, Jason Hanson, Herman Moore, Lomas Brown, and Bennie Blades.

When judging these people to find out which the best player ever was, it proves difficult, but I have to go with Bobby Layne. Joe Schmidt was a close second. One could argue that based on his accomplishments as an individual and a team, he could be viewed above even Barry Sanders as the greatest Lion to ever play.

Bobby Layne played for the Lions from 1950-1958 and still holds many Lions career passing records, while being highly ranked in others. His 2,193 pass attempts, 1,074 completions, 15,710 yards, and 118 TD passes while with the Lions are astronomical, considering the period in which he played.

Today, the forward pass is commonplace and 300 yards passing, while still a good game, does not hold the same luster that it used to. In addition, if you look back at some of the great rushers of yesteryear, their rushing totals were much lower than the backs of today.

This was due to many teams running T offenses or single wing sets in which four or five different people ran the ball, leading to lower numbers individually, but greater numbers as a team. If you factored in that same type of logic in comparing Layne’s stats to today’s passers, he’d be in the same league as Favre, Marino, Montana, and the like.

Bobby Layne was one of the trailblazers of the two-minute drill and led the Lions to four divisional titles and three championships while going to four Pro Bowls (five overall) and garnering two All-Pro Selections. When he retired, he was the NFL career leader for pass attempts, completions, yards, and TDs.

More impressive than his on-field performance was the love and admiration that his teammates had for him. He was the consummate leader, who oozed confidence and determination. Former teammate and fellow Hall of Famer Yale Lary once said, “Bobby Layne was the chief and the rest of us were Indians.”

Another teammate and Hall of Famer Doak Walker once said, "Bobby never lost a game. Some days, time just ran out on him."

He was certainly the player who brought the most success to the Lions and will go down in history for his great performances, as well as the last 50 years of futility for the Lions. Bobby was traded to Pittsburgh following the 1958 season and obviously upset by the move, stated “The Detroit Lions won’t win for 50 years”. The legend of this statement has grown into an urban legend that some fans bought into since this season marked the expiration of the “curse.”

The Lions are currently 0-8.

Keith Shelton

Barry Sanders

Herman Moore may have been the best receiver of his era, and Bobby Layne was the NFL's all-time leader in passing yards and touchdowns when he retired, as well as winning three championships for Detroit.

However, Herman Moore faded towards the end of his career and Bobby Layne laid a horrible curse on the team. So, I feel, because of that (and for the sake of being argumentative and adding variety), I have to go with Barry Sanders.

As a 25-year-old Lions fan for life, my only good memories of the team all center around the days of watching No. 20. There has never been a running back like Barry Sanders. He made the impossible happen on a frequent basis, simultaneously leaving announcers, opposing players, teammates, and fans in awe.

Time and time again, I can still remember clear as day the play falling apart and Sanders about to get dropped for a three or four-yard loss before evading multiple defenders, running backwards another three or four yards before taking off for a 20+ yard gain.

He led the NFL in rushing four times during his career, in 1990, 1994, 1996, and 1997, when he won his only MVP, which he tragically had to share with Brett Favre.

Barry's magical 1997 season saw him rush for 2,053 yards. At the time, he became the first player in NFL history to rush for 1,500 or more yards four seasons in a row, and the first player in NFL history to rush for 1,000 or more yards 10 seasons in a row.

When Barry retired after the 1999 season, it shocked the world of football. In what may have been the most premature retirement in NFL history, Sanders retired, still in the prime of his career, just two years removed from his MVP season. It signaled the end of an era for Lions football and began the current streak of futility that the Lions are currently muddled in.

To this day, speculation remains as to Barry Sanders true reason for early retirement, and some fans still clamor for his return. There is little doubt that Sanders would have held every rushing record the NFL had if he stayed in the game, but his heart was elsewhere.

He never led Detroit to a championship, but you can blame the front office for that. One of Sanders biggest gripes was that Detroit constantly traded away, released, or didn't re-sign the Lions' best players.

The fact remains that every running back on Detroit from now on will always and forever be compared against Barry Sanders. He will be the golden standard for running backs for the foreseeable future.

(If you are interested in contributing to a future Detroit Lions roundtable, please contact Keith Shelton.)