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Week 13 for the NFL is upon us.  Thirteen’s a lucky number and the NFL has been/was lucky to have this pandemic year schedule of theirs roll along for the most part uninterrupted by that damn thing that we can’t see, but certainly can feel.

With everyone walking on eggshells the season is anything but normal due to the virus.  But on the field, some franchises remind us weekly of who they’ve been, who they are, and who they’ll likely continue to be.

It began normally enough on Thanksgiving Day with a Houston Texans 41-25 rout over the perennial doormat Detroit Lions.  The Lions have looked like turkeys forever really.

It ended, strangely enough, yesterday with a Wednesday mid-afternoon game that Pittsburgh won over Baltimore 19-13.  That game was originally scheduled for turkey day night.  Covid-19 hit the Ravens team again and again and again causing it to move and move and move again.  That Pittsburgh won is normal too.  They’re 12-0 this year.

The Detroit listless loss was the final nail in Head Coach Matt Patrica’s coffin. That’s normal too.  No word on whether he had to turn that pencil from behind his ear into Human Resources on the way out of the door, but we digress.  The Lions have had 17 head coaches come and go since Super Bowl I in 1967.  And, the Lions have participated in exactly zero of said Super Bowls.

The Pittsburgh win had Head Coach Mike Tomlin fuming afterward.  He’s seen better.  In fact, he’s been the HC for 219 and counting of them and won 144. That’s 67%, or two out of every three if you’re using a #2 Patricia pencil and scoring at home, but we digress again.  The Steelers have had only four coaches in the Super Bowl era.  The Steelers have appeared in eight of them and won the most (tied with NE) with six Lombardi Trophies.

Detroit has won 344 games in the modern era (since 1966) while Pittsburgh has won 490.

You see the picture crystal clear by now, don’t you?

So with league rules designed to make it hard for a good team to remain that way and for a bad team to have a hand up in improving how can one franchise be so abysmal and one exemplary?  After all, the strength of schedules, draft order, revenue sharing, and salary caps are structured in a way to make the league as competitive as possible.  This isn’t the NY Yankees payroll v the Oakland A’s.

It’s leadership.  And leadership establishes culture, doesn’t it?  The Rooney family exudes class and has people who want to work for them.  They spot talent and know value like most no other.

The Ford family?  Apparently not so much.  No head coach of the Lions since 1957 has gone on in the NFL to get a second head coaching stint.  None.  We hope Particia took a note (written in pencil of course) of that before he accepted the gig.   So the slogan went, Ford has a better idea!  Not really.

Bill Parcells is a mentor to this day for Sean Payton.   Payton proudly called and told Parcells that he got his first HC job, that with the inept New Orleans Saints franchise in 2005.  Parcells quipped, “well if you don’t fix the losing culture down there, you’ll be looking for your second one in three years.”

The Saints lacked what Pittsburgh has always had.

The Lions are still looking for it.