Talking Lions and the NFL going into Week 6

We are here for talking. We are here for talking. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Sports Office. I'm Jennifer Hammond, alongside Rich Luterman, our esteemed guest on the couch always, and Sean Windsor from the Detroit Free Press. You can read him at freep.com. We've got a really special show tonight. This episode of the Sports Office is brought to you by Chevy Detroit. Together, let's drive. Visit chevydetroit.com. You can also text the show at 248-200-5042. You're going to want to do that. You're probably going to want to zoom in as well. We've got some really interesting information. We're going to talk Lions and Pistons and Red Wings and all sorts of things, too. But we first want to welcome in a really important person to all of us, Dan Miller, from Fox 2, the sports department. What's up, guys? And I just want to share some information that Dan and his beautiful daughter, Ricky, have so gracefully shared with us since the passing of his wife, Cindy, about leptomeningeal disease. So Jeremy Reisman from Pride of Detroit is going to join us shortly. I believe those gentlemen took to Twitter, if I have this story right, and they said, because the Lions beat Arizona 45-21 for the game that you were not at, Dan, last Sunday, that they were compelling Lions fans to make a donation to the Leptomeningeal Disease Foundation of America to support a fight against the disease that took Cindy way too young. And they have now received close to $20,000 since they've gone out. And everybody, I mean, this has been just an incredible outpouring. Dan, share with us, if you can, just the experience from the love and the support you guys have been receiving since Cindy passed, if you can. Yeah, and I can't express enough how much it has meant to me and my family and how healing it has been to me and my family as we work our way through this. And, you know, I started to see those tweets come out, texts come out, social media hits come out where people were, we had asked in lieu of flowers, please give money to the Leptom Meningeal Disease Foundation, which is just a quick explanation. When Cindy was first diagnosed in October 2024, she had two brain tumors. We had those removed. We had about 15 good months. She had a recurrence, and it was leptomeningeal disease. And we had no idea what that was, but it's one where Google is not your friend. And it's a terminal disease that is incurable, and you're basically just trying to buy time. And we did buy some time. We were blessed to buy some time. But we knew we were going to lose her at some point, and we did. and um it's it's a very rare form of cancer it's not one that a lot of people are familiar with and it's not one that a lot of people get but it is one that we need to find some way to attack and find some better treatments for it so that when people get it they have a chance to extend life as long as possible and there are people that are working on this but because it's not one of the cancers that people know a lot about. Funding is always an issue. And to see people respond like that has meant the world to us. And honestly, not just the donations, but everybody that has reached out, everybody that has sent condolences, everybody that has sent, you know just saying they're thinking about us means the world. And I've honestly tried to sit down and craft something on social media, and I could never find the words I could never find the appropriate tone I could never find enough to cover my wife our loss her battle the kindness of people and just how it all meets at some point to the point that we're at in our lives and just how important they've been in helping us get through these these couple days and I look I'm well acquainted with One Pride and Lions fans and I'm well acquainted with sports fans in Detroit um but you know when you're in the vortex of something that we've been in here and you feel their kindness and you see it and it's right there aimed at you and and your family um words can't express how much it means and and I just I knew I wasn't finding the words on social media but if I came on tv I would have to find something to say the right words and i don't even know if these are the right ones other than to say thank you you know and that's not even um close to enough but we're so appreciative of everything that everybody has done i've heard all of you i've seen your messages and it means the world yeah and no surprise the uh tote board is filling up with texts rapidly here just a couple real quick hi dan miller i'm really not good with technology but i just want to send my love and prayers to you. You're a special guy and I'm sure your wife was exceptionally special. Love you, take care. Dan Miller, so much love to you and yours heart. That's from Trina Fortune from the D and Amy from Clinton Township said love to Dan, his family at home and the family at Fox too. I will tell you, I think when I used the words because I've been here for a few days speaking on the air about you and Cindy and how amazing all of you are. And I think I said to a couple of people and I said it to Jared Goff today he said you know he was you know I said that was really touching after the game and he said yeah he's like I love Dan and I hope they're you know doing okay it was just the smallest thing that we as a team can do to help lift him and I said Cindy what he said I never met Cindy but I bet she was amazing and I said she was a badass she was she was what tall of five two yeah five one five one and and and and she was and um you know the courage that she showed from and and Jojo told the story in the Detroit News of how i found out you know at halftime of a game in Dallas that my wife had two brain tumors and if i could express to you just how calm and steady her voice was in that moment And she had just been handed that news, and then she was telling me that. And that's really how she was throughout 24 months of battling this, and the last 10 months of which I can tell you were brutal. But she never blinked. She kept moving forward, appointment after appointment, doctor's appointments, blood tests, scans, fluids, OT, PT, all these things that we're telling her when she gets up and she's just so tired. Here's what we gotta do next. She was doing everything she could just to stay with her family, her grandchildren, and everybody that meant everything to her. And her strength was what led us. And as I said to Woj, how could we show any weakness when we are looking at somebody every day showing the strength that she did? And I would have told you she was the strongest person I'd ever met before she got cancer. And I will absolutely tell you that now, because she just battled nonstop, even until the very end. She just kept fighting. And let me quickly say this, and I'm not quickly saying anything I know. But let me say this. When you're in this, and you're in the oncology wards, and you're at radiation, and you're meeting people going through it, you realize how many people are going through it. and when it comes up in conversation how many people say to you oh i i lost my husband or i lost my wife or we lost our child or just it just makes you realize how many people out there are dealing with something and you know just wrap your arms around them let them know you're there and and people always say to me you know there's no words, well you know what, there are no words that's true and we always say that when we talk to somebody but but here's what i'll tell you from my experience, just let somebody know you're there. Just let them know you're thinking about them. That will mean as much to them as anything you can possibly say. Yeah, well, and of course, the actions and the donations will speak volumes for many years because, as you mentioned, it's a rare thing. I had to Google it when you told me Cindy was diagnosed with it. Five to 10% of patients with advanced solid tumors develop this. So it is very rare. And about 110,000 people are diagnosed with leptomeningeal disease each year. I know you guys each wanted to say something to Dan here. Yeah, Dan, I just want to tell you, it's Luderman. And obviously, it was a beautiful day today. And I was thinking about you today because, you know, usually in this time of October, it can be cold and miserable. But it was a beautiful day. And I hope, you know, the sunshine was shining on you and your family. But, you know, people at my local Target and Kroger and the gas stations, You know, I've been seeing people out these last couple of days and they've said to me, Rich, you know, make sure you tell Dan that we're thinking of him and thinking of his family. So, Dan, there's a lot of people out there sending love. Everyone. Thank you. It's an unbelievable community that we are part of here and we're blessed. And I knew that before this, but this just, you know, again, reinforces it. Not that I needed it, but people have been unbelievable and we're just so grateful. I would I would echo everything I'm hearing here and Dan I think it's a testament to you too we're I feel like we're blessed in this town to have several play-by-play guys right play-by-play folks and we have some of the best in the country and and I think part of that is the way the way you y'all connect with with our readers with our fans excuse me readers sorry it's pretty much our listeners our listeners and viewers listeners and viewers how about that so I just yeah I wanted to say that thank you Sean I appreciate that and you know and you know what we have we have the coolest media contingent that I can imagine and and it's it's it's a blessing to go to work with all these guys every day and you know i know jason sat in for me on sunday and i got some of just the kindest text from him last week leading up and he was just so supportive and and it was just uh i he's just such a good dude and and you know he's part of this team and you can go up and down the line of all the people that work in the media and and i'm blessed to call them friends and i love the fact that i get to go to work with them and and uh i've had such support from them as well and uh it it all it all helps you get to the other side and just keep moving forward and i appreciate it but i just uh most important to me tonight was just to say thank you to everybody and and um there's no way you can thank everybody personally but i just want to collectively thank everybody and the donations are unbelievable um but the but the smallest of gestures just saying i'm thinking about you and and god bless whatever it is means everything thank you dan miller and we want to thank helen bader as well from the foundation um she's the founder of the leptomeningeal leptomeningeal i've been saying it wrong all along leptomeningeal i know and i'm trying to trust me hammer it's nothing you ever want to learn let's let's let's hope we never hear it Yes, the LMD, she's the founder of the LMD. The organization received, like I said, more than 300 donations totaling more than $20,000. The monies are gonna be used to improve patients' access to experts. They're gonna try to launch a virtual national tumor board that will allow doctors to submit cases to tumor boards around the country, so they can learn more about this. They're wrapping me, but this is so important. And Dan, we love you, and I can't wait to wrap my arms around all of you and your children on on Friday thank you appreciate you thank you guys thank you all thank you all right back up to the break all right all right welcome back to the sports office our thanks to Dan Miller always always um so now we're going to bring in Jeremy Reisman from Pride of Detroit and the reason that obviously we want to talk a little Lions football with you Jer but one of the big reasons was it was your group that i believe first launched the idea of a 45 and 21 cent donation can you tell me how that came together please yeah i mean dan has meant so much to the city to me personally um that you know when i saw that he was looking for support uh with a cancer research program uh that's something that we've had a little experience with at Pride of Detroit we we raise money almost every year for a cancer research group and so i thought this was just a perfect opportunity to you know like dan said sometimes it doesn't you don't know how to help when you're at a distance when i'm sure he's being bombarded by phone calls and text messages you're just trying to think of ways to to help them out and i know how crazy detroit is and i say that with all the love yes in the word um and passionate and i i've learned that even with the smallest of platforms you can make a pretty big difference with this fan base to just point them in the right direction because they will fight tooth and nail for the people that they love and there isn't many people in the entire state that are more beloved than Dan Miller oh that's so well said and it really is true I mean sports fans are passionate you know fan comes from fanatic but just the passion of the Lions fans it's really incredible and you saw it out there you were out in Phoenix, Sean, you saw it as well with all of the fans that travel with the team we've seen that really since the early part of the Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell regime I mean Jeremy I mean, I think can attest to this, do that, especially in the southern cities, especially in cities where they're the expats anyway, like Phoenix, like Arizona, we see that in Tampa. So there's a base to sort of build with. But then you travel these games and the planes are full of Lions chanting and singing and go Lions. Sometimes the pilots will come on and speak to us. I know it's it's really become quite the scene the last three or four years. Yeah, it really is amazing. So, Jeremy, just give me a sense of what you guys have experienced with the podcast this year. I mean, up and down, this team can sometimes give people fits. After their most convincing win of the season, what's been the general tenor from fans on your end? I think it's cautious optimism. I think a lot of people were just hungry to watch this team play at the level we're accustomed to seeing them play at. they have so much talent on offense so to finally see them hang 40 plus on a team was I think a little bit of a relief it was probably more of a relief to really watch the defense out there operate in a way that just looked functional right it didn't have to look perfect it wasn't perfect but you got five straight three and outs against a Cardinals team that yeah they're going through their own struggles but they the Lions had faced teams that were beat up they'd faced teams that hadn't had a lot of offensive success and they didn't play well defensively so I think I think mostly it's relief and then just maybe a little bit of optimism on the other side because you certainly didn't want to go into this bye week dropping two in a row to teams that I think a lot of people thought the Lions were better than yeah or even I think even just a close win against Arizona I think could have had had really a bad taste for people and fans I do love the fact that they went four for four on fourth down but when you look at those third number those third down numbers they were not good nor was the fact that they went three and out on the first three drives which do you see as being most concerning just going forward as they now move into two games against divisional foes well i mean i think given that I think there's a lot of problems on defense and those are probably going to continue I would imagine you you can't continue to go with these slow starts um you can't you can't fall behind on a good team like the Packers you can't fall behind on a good team like the Vikings because especially a team like Minnesota that is just so ferocious on defense if you get into like obvious passing situations early in that game they are just going to tee off on you and so again it feels weird to complain we kind of went through this all last week where Dan Campbell's you know calling out the offense and everyone's like why are you calling out the offense the defense is the one with all the problems but the bar is set so high for them that i don't think they can go a full quarter at the beginning of games scoreless you know first downless uh they really need to at least get their defense some time off the field and and obviously ideally put up a little points to make sure that there's an additional pressure on both sides of the ball beyond that first quarter go oh i would just add and i think you probably saw this through the television right jeremy that there was a big difference in maybe maybe it's not fair to say focus completely but there was a lot more energy and the players talked about that and that came from Dan Campbell who he got on him last week he did in a way and Sam Laporta said after the game you know it was a way they hadn't seen this year and you think okay why do they need that well because they're human beings yeah and it's a long season and it's hard to keep that intensity all the time but they had it this week and that was maybe as noticeable as the defender at the back the back of the defense being in the right spots I thought and it is interesting too that on that fourth and three when they got it to Laporta and he just started cooking from that point on and you could just see the offense really start to flow i would just say Dan Campbell at that point they had three straight three and outs that it was a fourth down on their fourth one and he's like no more yeah no more we're we're the we're the Lions this is what we do we're going for it on fourth down and you're right and who knows maybe that'll be maybe that particular play will will turn things around here let me ask you of all the defensive statistics that are out there jeremy how surprising is it to you that they lead the league in sacks with 20 right yeah i mean that's kind of what we were all looking for these past couple years right they've been badgering Brad Holmes about getting more edge rushers getting more pass rush in the building they finally have it and then lo and behold everything else is kind of falling apart by the wayside um but again that that to me feels like something that might even out as we get towards kind of the end of the season because when you have a pass rush that threatening when you have that much of an ability to get to the quarterback some of the other things are going to fall into place you know you're going to catch some interceptions because the quarterback's always under duress you're going to get some strip sacks and get the ball turn the ball over that way you're going to get off the field on these certain longs where they've kind of struggled too early in the game so I think you hope that that continues and it leads to better results which I mean it is it is kind of remarkable to see how bad the Lions have been while still pressuring the quarterback that's supposed to be when your defense is at its best the Lions have just kind of been on the bad end of that and certainly it's well deserved because their secondary is going through it but i think at some point there is going to be like an evening out of things and i do expect the lines to just look a little bit better just by means of having that consistent pressure yeah well it was a good marriage of pressure and coverage this week and it paid off thank you Jeremy Reisman so much for joining us for also getting the word out there about LMD continue the great work you guys do at pride of Detroit and i know that everyone associated with that foundation is grateful that you guys have the 45.21 i'm going to put the link up on my twitter again later tonight so if people want to get involved in the giving they can thank you so much for joining us on the sports office chair we'll get you on the couch here next time um i want to tell all the viewers that have texted him because there's been so many of you that we're going to send Dan all of your texts we're going to get that whole spreadsheet up because it is up and down the grid here on our computer in the office and we're going to make sure that Dan sees every one of them that you guys have sent so back after the break with more on the Sports Office stick with us. All right, welcome back to the Sports Office. We're going to have, we've got one more Zoom caller in here that we really want to get on. You can text the show 248-200-5042. We are joined now by our friend. She is Lions faithful Clemmy, Samantha Stone. And when did we give you the Super Bowl tickets? Was that two years ago? Yeah, it was two years ago, right at Thanksgiving. Right at Thanksgiving on Fox 2. So give me a sense, you've been doing some outreach as well i know that the whole Lions fan community and i know we're talking a lot about this but have really reached out to Dan and his family and the LMD Foundation since Cindy's passing give me a sense of what you've seen online there is so much love wrapping this family up I absolutely love seeing what it is because you know Dan said it just you know just knowing somebody's there that really helps he can just see the entire community enveloping him and it really hits home a bit for me because I lost my own mom like just three weeks ago so oh i mean i'm so we're so sorry oh it's thank you but it's just so beautiful watching because i i felt enveloped by the community and i'm like i'm just me yeah see the entire miller family get enveloped too and i'm like i just absolutely love the way one pride responds yeah they really have and it is a great loyal group and uh are you going to any are you going to be at the game against green bay I'm thinking about it. It's either going to be that one or Minnesota. All right. Well, you make sure you hit me up, maybe on Minnesota, and we'll get you on the pregame show. Oh, yeah. We'll get you back on the pregame show. Clemmie, thanks for chiming in tonight. We appreciate you so much. And Sean Windsor and Rich Luterman and to Dan Miller, my gosh, it was just, it was really nice to see his face. And I even heard his voice. I've only texted with him since Saturday, and so it was really nice to see him. And thank you to all of you, because without you watching us and listening and supporting, there is no us. So thanks for joining us on the Sports Office. We'll see you on Fox 2 News tonight at 10. Enjoy the bye week.