SHOULD THE LEAGUE LIFT THE LIONS’ BLACKOUTS?

With the Lions mired in a winless season and suddenly unable to sell out Ford Field, Drew Sharp of the Detroit Free Press makes the case for a lifting of the blackout policy for the rest of the year. Sharp argues that, if the league won’t do it on an across-the-board basis for every team, then the Lions deserve a special exemption. But do they? We realize that the autmotive industry is struggling right now, but we’ve got a feeling that every seat would have a butt in it if the Lions were something other than 0-9. Besides, isn’t it the job of the organization to devise price points and other strategies that will ensure that tickets sell even if the team doesn’t produce? Plenty of bad teams still sell all their tickets, even if the people who buy them choose not to actually come to all the games. Frankly, this idea from Sharp smells of something that Lions COO Tom Lewand has whispered in his ear. Because even though Lewand has somehow managed to insulate himself from blame for the on-field failures during more than a decade with the franchise (his online bio declares that “Lewand’s leadership positions every aspect of the Lions’ organization, including Ford Field operations, to significantly impact the Lions’ drive for a Super Bowl title”), Lewand -- and no one but Lewand -- should bear responsibility for the inability to sell enough tickets to permit the games to be broadcast locally. The current economic climate isn’t something that suddenly developed; it’s been lingering for months. And so it’s Lewand’s job to ensure that the Lions come up with ways to sell enough tickets to permit the games to be shown on television. Instead of being proactive, Lewand is now forced to react. And we have a sneaking suspicion that the major part of Lewand’s strategy is to find a way to get himself out of the crosshairs. So instead of having anyone scrutinize whether Lewand might be responsible in whole or in part for the failure of the turnstiles to sufficiently turn, people in Detroit will now be blaming the situation on the economy, or on the fact that the league won’t give the Lions the same break that it gave the Saints after Katrina. Look, we’ve got nothing personal against Lewand. But, frankly, he’s the product of a shmoozeocracy that allowed him to piggyback on his father’s connections as a prominent Detroit lawyer (his dad’s firm even has offices at Ford Field) into a gig that Lewand likely would never have been able to finagle based solely on merit. And while Lewand is very skilled at saying and doing all of the things that has positioned himself for ongoing employment in a high-paying job with an NFL team, the reality is that he has far more responsibility for the Lions’ current situation than anyone within the Detroit media has ever acknowledged. Thus, the blackout policy should not change. And if the Lions can’t sell out their games, the local fans who don’t get to watch the team play on television (is that really a bad thing?) should dust off the “Fire Millen” chant and change it to “Fire Lewand.”