Detroit Lions

"You owe me this favor, bro. I was there for you when you won it," rapper tells Matthew Stafford. "Can you just let us have this one?" Eminem, in addition to being a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-inducted rapper, is also a long-suffering Detroit Lions fan. In a promo cut before the team’s playoff game Sunday against the Los Angeles Rams, Eminem asks former Lions (and now Rams) quarterback Matthew Stafford to help him and Detroit out. “Stafford, what’d I say?” Eminem asks in the video NBC shared…

Sports fans tend to feel proprietary about their heroes, as if stars owed us more than the heroics and physical sacrifice they provide on the field or court. The better the athlete, the more we expect and demand. So, when all-world Detroit Lions running back Barry Sanders announced his retirement in 1998, after ten exemplary seasons with a largely losing team, fans were angry. How dare he? Doesn’t he know we love watching him? Some of the aggrievement was due to the way Sanders walked away, with a fax (remember those?)…