Was anyone more fun than Barry?
The other day I was talking with some friends about the topic of teams that were the most fun to watch. Ironically not every championship team is a work of art, but in winning it all they were a cherished prize for their fans. Some champions, like last seasons Kansas City Chiefs, were nothing shy of exciting week in and week out.
Yet my friends and I agreed that not all exciting or ‘fun’ teams to watch had to be champions. There are teams that never won it all like the 1980 ‘Cardiac kids’ Cleveland Browns or the early 80s ‘Air Coryell’ San Diego Chargers, or the 1998 Minnesota Vikings or even last seasons Baltimore Ravens that were completely fun to watch.
Perhaps none of those teams won a championship, at least yet since Baltimore will have another opportunity next season, but they all were must-see teams for not only their own fanbase but for fans everywhere.
How disappointed was everyone last season when the Tennessee Titans knocked off the Ravens and kept us from seeing an explosive matchup between Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson in the AFC Championship game?
So while teams that are fun to watch generally win more than they lose, they don’t have to be champions to keep us glued to their games. They just have to be ‘fun’.
This conversation led inevitably to the question of whether the Lions were ever ‘fun’ to watch. The Honolulu Blue and Silver mostly reside in the land of losing with infrequent trips to the postseason only to make another fanbase happy. It seems to be their perpetual destiny.
But were they ever really just ‘fun’ for the fans to watch instead just frustrating? I think the easy answer for any Lions fan who was blessed with the opportunity to watch this franchise in the 1990s would be to happily tell tales of Barry Sanders running through opponents and taking our collective breath away.
Barry was unquestionably one of the most fun players to ever step on the gridiron. He was electric and if you blinked, then you might miss a move we may never see again. There is no doubt that Barry was ‘fun’ and must-see television. But what about a whole Lions team being ‘fun’?