Sanders shows selfish side

Lions get the shaft when Sanders retires too late in the offseason to get help

By KEITH SCHLEIDEN, Managing editor

Each and every time, I would say that only Barry knows for sure, but that I would bet a bushel full of money he would be back in the Silverdome on Sundays this season.

Apparently, I was wrong.

Sanders announced his retirement on July 28. And when I heard, the night before, that he was planning on walking away from the game, I could hardly believe it. What was he doing? How could Sanders leave the NFL now, when he was so close to the all-time rushing record and still at the top of his game?

Now, I can’t slam Sanders for deciding he no longer wants to play football — even though I don’t believe that’s the case.

What I can slam Sanders for is the way he has handled this whole mess. Sanders has, in effect, sabotaged the Lions. In his retirement statement, Sanders says that he has been considering this move since shortly after the 1998 season. If that’s the case, Sanders owed it to the franchise that has made him a very rich man to at least give the front office a hint about what he was thinking.

Instead, Sanders remained aloof throughout the offseason. Even as speculation ran rampant in recent weeks that he was considering sitting out the season, Sanders didn’t pick up the phone. He wouldn’t even return calls — 15 phone calls — from head coach Bobby Ross. When the boss calls, whether you are ticked at him or not, you get on the phone. It’s as simple as that.

Now, with the draft long in the past and the cream of the free-agent crop picked over, the Lions will have to enter the season with rookie Sedrick Irvin and Ron Rivers as their top running backs.

Sanders has always been described as a very private person. That’s fine. It’s his right to live his life the way he chooses. But when you are a professional athlete, with an entire roster of football players and a staff of coaches and a nation of fans, you owe a little something to those people. Sanders doesn’t owe it to us to play football in 1999. But he owed it to his teammates to make this decision earlier in the year, when the Lions could have done something to help soften the blow.

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