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I found parts of this to bee pretty funny
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The last quarterback to win a playoff game for the Lions says they would have won a bunch more of 'em with a better coach.
"Had we had a coaching staff and an organization like Dallas, we probably could have won a couple Super Bowls," Erik Kramer said on 97.1 The Ticket. "That team in '91 really mirrored the current team in terms of talent and being young. What I see in this Detroit team that’s different is that the coaching staff actually does know what they’re doing and they seem to be all rowing in the same direction from the top down. That, I think, none of us have seen in Detroit, maybe ever."
Kramer -- on tour for his recently-released book 'The Ultimate Comeback: Surviving a Suicide Attempt, Conquering Depression, and Living with a Purpose' -- only played three seasons for the Lions and was the primary starter for just one of them. That was in 1991 when he replaced the injured Rodney Peete halfway through the year and guided a team led by Barry Sanders to a 6-2 finish, the division title and a first-round playoff win over the Cowboys at the Silverdome.
How much credit Kramer deserves for that can be debated. He threw eight touchdowns and eight picks in his eight regular season starts, though he was lights-out in the playoff win in maybe the best game of his career. He came back to earth the next week in the Lions' blowout loss to the Redskins in the NFC championship.
Kramer also took the reins late in the 1993 season and helped the Lions clinch another division title before they crashed out of the playoffs in a first-round loss to the Packers. Kramer, who threw one touchdown and two picks that day, moved on to the Bears the next season and the Lions haven't hosted a playoff game since.
Anyway, Wayne Fontes was the head coach of those teams, and remains the winningest head coach in Lions history -- even with a sub.-500 record of 66-67 in his nine years at the helm. While Kramer was watching the Bye Bye Barry documentary released last month, he took exception, just like fellow former Lions quarterback Scott Mitchell, to Fontes' telling Sanders at a recent homecoming game that the missing piece in Detroit was a star quarterback.
"Wayne comes back and he’s talking, ‘All we needed was a quarterback.' I’m like, all we needed was a frickin’ coach. Like, did you even know where the practice field was? That’s the thing. That dude, in particular, didn’t have any idea there was even a game going on. He would go like, 'Hey, let’s run that play again where Barry scores,'" Kramer said.
There is some irony here. In his conversation with Sanders, Fontes said he tried to acquire star quarterbacks Joe Montana and Warren Moon late in their careers to elevate the Lions' roster. And Kramer said one of his gripes with the Lions organization is that "back then in the NFC, there were basically three teams that would go hunt for whoever: the Packers, 49ers and Cowboys. And the opposite was true of Detroit." Except Fontes was apparently hunting Hall of Famers.
All that said, Kramer is highly supportive of where the Lions stand today and likes the team's chances to finally win another playoff game. He's attended homecoming games at Ford Field the last handful of years, including this season for the Lions' rout of the Raiders on Monday Night Football. Kramer said that night "was the closest I felt" to the playoff win at the Silverdome.
"It was electric," he said. "And the Silverdome back then, (the capacity) was closer to 80,000, everybody had a white something to shake. I’m just glad I didn’t play for Dallas that day, because it was deafening. And Ford Field on that Monday Night Football game was the closest thing I ever heard to that."
Kramer, 59, considers it a "miracle of life" that he survived a depression-induced suicide attempt in 2015, "because I did everything I could possibly do to ensure that I wouldn’t be here," he said. "Thankfully the doctors did what they did and the people around me just hung in there the entire time. Medically, there’s probably not a long list of folks that have put a gun to their head, pulled the trigger and then lived to tell about it."
Kramer has since made it his purpose to raise awareness around suicide prevention and to help anyone who might be in a place similar to the one he was in eight years ago. He said that after he gave a talk at a recent seminar, a woman approached him, clearly emotional, and explained that 10 months after her mother passed away, her sister committed suicide.
"And I said, 'What those of us who do that don’t realize and lose perspective on is that for us, it’s over. For those who are around us and love us, it’s just beginning,'" said Kramer. "Depression will knock your socks off and send you down a hole where you lose perspective on what life really is, so I’m thankful for the fact that I get a second chance."
Former Lions QB Erik Kramer blasts Wayne Fontes: "Did you even know where the practice field was?"
Wayne Fontes was the head coach of those teams, and remains the winningest head coach in Lions history – even with a sub.-500 record of 66-67
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Former Lions QB Erik Kramer blasts Wayne Fontes: "Did you even know where the practice field was?"
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The last quarterback to win a playoff game for the Lions says they would have won a bunch more of 'em with a better coach.
"Had we had a coaching staff and an organization like Dallas, we probably could have won a couple Super Bowls," Erik Kramer said on 97.1 The Ticket. "That team in '91 really mirrored the current team in terms of talent and being young. What I see in this Detroit team that’s different is that the coaching staff actually does know what they’re doing and they seem to be all rowing in the same direction from the top down. That, I think, none of us have seen in Detroit, maybe ever."
Kramer -- on tour for his recently-released book 'The Ultimate Comeback: Surviving a Suicide Attempt, Conquering Depression, and Living with a Purpose' -- only played three seasons for the Lions and was the primary starter for just one of them. That was in 1991 when he replaced the injured Rodney Peete halfway through the year and guided a team led by Barry Sanders to a 6-2 finish, the division title and a first-round playoff win over the Cowboys at the Silverdome.
How much credit Kramer deserves for that can be debated. He threw eight touchdowns and eight picks in his eight regular season starts, though he was lights-out in the playoff win in maybe the best game of his career. He came back to earth the next week in the Lions' blowout loss to the Redskins in the NFC championship.
Kramer also took the reins late in the 1993 season and helped the Lions clinch another division title before they crashed out of the playoffs in a first-round loss to the Packers. Kramer, who threw one touchdown and two picks that day, moved on to the Bears the next season and the Lions haven't hosted a playoff game since.
Anyway, Wayne Fontes was the head coach of those teams, and remains the winningest head coach in Lions history -- even with a sub.-500 record of 66-67 in his nine years at the helm. While Kramer was watching the Bye Bye Barry documentary released last month, he took exception, just like fellow former Lions quarterback Scott Mitchell, to Fontes' telling Sanders at a recent homecoming game that the missing piece in Detroit was a star quarterback.
"Wayne comes back and he’s talking, ‘All we needed was a quarterback.' I’m like, all we needed was a frickin’ coach. Like, did you even know where the practice field was? That’s the thing. That dude, in particular, didn’t have any idea there was even a game going on. He would go like, 'Hey, let’s run that play again where Barry scores,'" Kramer said.
There is some irony here. In his conversation with Sanders, Fontes said he tried to acquire star quarterbacks Joe Montana and Warren Moon late in their careers to elevate the Lions' roster. And Kramer said one of his gripes with the Lions organization is that "back then in the NFC, there were basically three teams that would go hunt for whoever: the Packers, 49ers and Cowboys. And the opposite was true of Detroit." Except Fontes was apparently hunting Hall of Famers.
All that said, Kramer is highly supportive of where the Lions stand today and likes the team's chances to finally win another playoff game. He's attended homecoming games at Ford Field the last handful of years, including this season for the Lions' rout of the Raiders on Monday Night Football. Kramer said that night "was the closest I felt" to the playoff win at the Silverdome.
"It was electric," he said. "And the Silverdome back then, (the capacity) was closer to 80,000, everybody had a white something to shake. I’m just glad I didn’t play for Dallas that day, because it was deafening. And Ford Field on that Monday Night Football game was the closest thing I ever heard to that."
Kramer, 59, considers it a "miracle of life" that he survived a depression-induced suicide attempt in 2015, "because I did everything I could possibly do to ensure that I wouldn’t be here," he said. "Thankfully the doctors did what they did and the people around me just hung in there the entire time. Medically, there’s probably not a long list of folks that have put a gun to their head, pulled the trigger and then lived to tell about it."
Kramer has since made it his purpose to raise awareness around suicide prevention and to help anyone who might be in a place similar to the one he was in eight years ago. He said that after he gave a talk at a recent seminar, a woman approached him, clearly emotional, and explained that 10 months after her mother passed away, her sister committed suicide.
"And I said, 'What those of us who do that don’t realize and lose perspective on is that for us, it’s over. For those who are around us and love us, it’s just beginning,'" said Kramer. "Depression will knock your socks off and send you down a hole where you lose perspective on what life really is, so I’m thankful for the fact that I get a second chance."
