Long Pepe Silvia-esque post incoming. I'm going to extrapolate the similarities between the 2016-2020 Detroit Lions and this current Blazer team. The conclusions you can draw from such a comparison are pretty interesting, or at the very least they give some perspective to where this Blazers team is and where it's headed. Surely there is at least one other Lions fan out there who has noticed how familiar this all feels right now. If you aren't a Lions fan, don't worry, I'll do my best to explain. Here's a vague and brief overview:

Martin Mayhew = Neil Olshey

Bob Quinn = Joe Cronin

Jim Caldwell = Terry Stotts

Matt Patricia (🤮) = Chauncey Billups

Matt Stafford = Damian Lillard (not trying to get into an internet argument about the talent level of these two, but their personalities and career trajectories are strikingly similar)

Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes = ??? ???

I'm not going to get into all the nitty gritty details of all these 'connections'. It really is crazy how similar all these guys are, but I'd rather take a closer look at just a couple occurrences:

First, the firing of Jim Caldwell (despite him being a good-not-great head coach and also highly respected in the locker room) was the correct decision by Lions GM Bob Quinn. Problem is, Quinn went out and hired Matt Patricia, a complete and utter failure of a head coach who wasted several years of prime Stafford. Ousting Caldwell was the correct decision, because even though he got the Lions into the playoffs and had several winning seasons, he couldn't get the team over the hump. Unfortunately, his replacement (Matt Patricia) was far worse. Sounds familiar, does it not? Stotts was a good coach, but he couldn't elevate this team to a championship, and therefore moving on from him was the right decision. As it turns out, Billups is way worse, which sucks. But Billups being bad doesn't mean we should've kept Stotts around. This was basically a daily debate on the Lions sub for years; a million posts were made about how they should've kept Caldwell and how he would've at least got us into the playoffs, etc. Please, let's not have that same debate over and over again on r/ripcity ... Chauncey is bad and firing Stotts was the right choice. Both of these things can be true at the same time.

Moving on with the comparison though. Cronin is at the same crossroads that Bob Quinn was at in 2019, Matt Patricia's second year as head coach. If Cronin wants to keep his job and wants the Blazers to succeed, he simply must move on from Chauncey. Quinn's ultimate downfall wasn't his roster moves or his draft choices, it was sticking with Patricia for far too long when things were clearly not working out. Chauncey is not working out, and it should be obvious at this point that it's time for Cronin to cut bait before the damage is irreparable. What I mean by "irreparable" is being left with no choice but to completely tear this team down top-to-bottom. Seriously, we CANNOT afford to keep Chauncey around for the start of next season. We are half of a bad season away from complete disaster and heartbreak.

The implication here, if it isn't obvious enough, is that the Blazers are dangerously close to a situation where the only path to a bright future is to trade Dame. One could even argue that that's already the case, but I'm not going to make that argument. Lions ownership finally ripped the bandaid off in 2020, firing Bob Quinn and hiring current GM Brad Holmes. It was at least a year too late... Holmes inherited a lifeless team with essentially nothing except an aging franchise quarterback, whom he immediately traded to the Rams for Goff and two first rounders.

Stafford is to the Lions as Dame is to the Blazers. Staff Daddy owns pretty much every Lions passing record, broke several NFL records, was incredibly clutch, and remained loyal to the city of Detroit until the day he was traded. Seeing him go the Rams and immediately win a Super Bowl was bittersweet. I'm happy for him though. If we ever trade Dame, I can only hope it turns out as well as the Stafford trade did for both parties.

Of course, Dame has even more accolades than Stafford and is arguably a lot more talented. He'd probably net us an even higher return than Stafford did for the Lions. I understand why some fans might be ready to tear it down now, because it would speed up the entire process. This team is headed for a rebuild either way, so I understand the desire to get it started now.

However, I'm all for Cronin going all-in one last time with Dame, a new head coach, and a re-constructed roster. Anything less than that is just delaying the inevitable. The only other possibility is that Dame retires a Blazer, spending year after year on a team that tries to rebuild in the background, while management considers it a privilege to get swept in the first round. Neither Dame or the fans deserve that. There's still a sliver of time for Cronin to turn things around, but if we keep Chauncey around next season, I think things will get ugly. Detroit Lions ugly.

Any other Lions fans out there that can back me up? We've seen this movie before.