Finally leaving Motown

Loyalty is often overlooked these days, especially in the world of professional sports.

Athletes are traded to other teams, which is not really their fault. There are times, however, when athletes beg to be traded to different teams. In fact, most athletes will go where the highest bidder is, whether the team is good or not.

People cannot question NFL kicker Jason Hanson’s loyalty to the Detroit Lions.

Hanson recently retired after 21 seasons with the Lions. The biggest factor in his decision to leave the NFL was an injured heel that has been nagging him.

The Lions drafted Hanson in the second round of the 1992 draft.

At the time, Lions great Barry Sanders was three years out of Oklahoma State and just beginning to shred opposing defenses in the NFL.

Talk about loyalty. I am sure Hanson, a Spokane native and Washington State University alumnus, could have found a different team at some point or retired from the brutal game much earlier in his career, but instead he kicked himself into the record books.

No NFL player played in as many games with the same team as Hanson.

He also set the record for most seasons played with one team, 21.

In a competitive era of sports like this one, I do not really see any NFL player staying with one team for 21 seasons.

Teams trade players often to acquire top players that will make an immediate impact or prospects that they hope will benefit the team in the future.

In addition, players get injured or they retire before their body gets too battered.

With the exception of Hanson and some others, only the elite quarterbacks and running backs are held onto for long periods of time, since these are the positions that teams can build a squad around.

Running backs absorb punishing blows about 20 times a game. Therefore, they probably won’t last two decades in the league. If they do, chances are they will have played for multiple teams.

Even quarterbacks, who some people may think hold the safest position on the field, take big hits from 300-pound defensive tackles on occasion. Sometimes they get blindsided or take shots to the knees too.

Even though the NFL rules protect quarterbacks much more now, it can’t protect them from all punishment they receive on the field.

So, quarterbacks will struggle making it to 20 years as well. Even if they do make it 20 years, like Brett Favre, they probably won’t be with one team for that duration.

Only kickers and punters have the best shot at being the Cal Ripken, Jr. of football.

But, let’s face reality. It may be a long time before anybody plays 21 years with the same team in a league that many nickname “Not For Long.”

Hanson’s durability is something that should be appreciated.

Even though he is a kicker, he still is on the same field with huge, strong and fast athletes who would love to deliver a knockout hit to a kicker on a kickoff return.

I just hope the NFL Hall of Fame voters appreciate his tenure in the league.

His stats and records should be enough to get him into the Hall of Fame alone.

When adding his model of professionalism and loyalty to one team, his case for the Hall is undisputed.

Whether he makes it to the Hall of Fame or not, the guy from Mead High School played almost a quarter century in the NFL so I think Spokane is proud.