NFL Owners: The 5 worst in professional football

4. The Fords, Detroit Lions

Depending on who you ask, the Lions’ ownership issues are shared by the whole Ford family or sometimes embodied by just the late William Clay Ford, Sr. himself. Either way, the Fords have owned the team since 1963 when senior purchased the majority share. In the time since, the Lions have become the lovable losers of the NFC North. Though that division is fairly new, the rivalries that exist within it are as old as the NFL itself. But while at various points in the past 50 years the Packers, Vikings and Bears have all thrived, the Lions have remained stagnant and mediocre.

Lions fans have not had it easy. Over the past 50 years just one head coach (Joe Schmidt, 1967-1972) has posted a winning record in his time leading the team. Great players, most notably Barry Sanders, have wasted entire careers in the Motor City — or else escaped at the first possible opportunity. There were the Matt Millen years. The 0-16 season. And all this time? Just a single playoff win.

But who better to tell it than a Lions fan himself, a Detroit native, David Visser is the co-editor of FanSided’s ChopChat — and not a fan of the Fords:

"When I talk to fans of other teams, it’s typical to get a common response: “the Lions are getting there.” And that’s the narrative the media has gone with, ever since I can remember. The problem is that they’ve been “getting there” since 1957 (the last time they played for a championship, before the Super Bowl existed). The Fords, who bought the team on the same day JFK was shot, have been in charge for the vast majority of that span.  Through all those years, know how many playoff wins the Lions have registered? One. One playoff win in decades of ownership. That’s how consistently irrelevant the Lions have been for a half century. The Fords are content to collect their profits and keep their heads down. They like the prestige owning an NFL team brings. An example: the Lions are one of the only NFL teams that don’t have their own cheerleaders. Why? The Fords want to maintain a family-friendly environment. And that speaks to the problem. NFL success is tough. It’s cut throat. It’s adult. And the Fords don’t want to play this way. If the NFL were high school, the Lions aren’t the bully, or the cool kid, and they’re certainly not the jock. They’re the weird kid who smells like milk and everyone else is content to ignore– because they can."