Pistons fans are sick of "Jared Goff" chants at LCA
What started as fun has turned disrespectful and annoying, basketball fans say.
“Jared Goff! Jared Goff!” chanted Lions fans during the third quarter of the Pistons’ blowout win Saturday against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Fans of the Super Bowl hopefuls are excited for their team to take on the Minnesota Vikings Sunday night to clinch the NFC North, but Pistons fans — and even one franchise player’s family member — are sick of them chanting the quarterback’s name inside Little Caesars Arena.
During the Pistons’ win on Friday vs. the Hornets, a number of fans seated next to me groaned as bored attendants in the suite underneath our section started chanting the Lions quarterback’s name — most appeared not to be actually watching the game.
“Chant for our players! It’s a good game!” one guy behind me yelled.
The Pistons have been the city’s worst sports team for a decade but are finally turning things around. But some in the arena don’t seem to care. What’s more important are the parlays on the phone in their hand and the 16 oz beer in the other. They wear Cade Cunningham t-shirt jerseys above their hoodies and Lions hats that costs even more than the shirt.
The chants started last season as the Lions kept winning early last year they continued. It happened again the next day. The team was about to play its first NFC Championship game in decades and the Pistons were losing more games than any team in the league, so, no one seemed to care.
But as the young team improves, fans and even Cade’s trainer and cousin, Ashton Bennings, are not amused.
“I ain’t go lie sick of the damn Jared Goff chants in LCA ARENA!!!” Bennings posted on social media as Cunningham led the Pistons.
Minnesota star Anthony Edwards set the arena’s single game scoring record Saturday with 53 points, while Cade Cunningham posted 40-9-6. The Pistons (17-18) haven’t been at .500 through 37 games in the season in years. The team just won the last six of seven, and eight of their last 11 games.
Yet, people inside the arena walking to the exits past the postgame show set kept chanting, “Jared Goff, Jared Goff.”
I’m reminded by more senior Detroit sports fans the tradition of chanting random shit in the stands of losing Detroit sports teams has a long history, most famously during the Red Wings’ runs. I attended a Lions game during the team’s winless season in 2008 when a “Let’s Go Red Wings! (LGRW)” broke out a few sections away.
Some argue it’s disrespectful to the players on the floor, some say it’s more.
“Chanting his name at Pistons games is of the same ilk as white men’s fascinations with: Harambe, Dave Blunts, Gangnam style etc.,” Pistons fan and organizer Kamau Clark posted this week. “They often find “ironic” ways to show their general thoughtlessness for brown people.”
It’s not just happening at local sports venues anymore.
“I saw them do it at Russell Industrial, they did it at Magic Stick,” my roommate and legislative reporter, Colin Jackson, told me when I said what I’m writing about.
It’s breaking out at bars and gatherings, suburban high school events and just about anywhere where there’s a group of khaki pants wearing metro Detroiters who want to be the life of the party.
The chanting received positive coverage in local media after former Red Wings coach Derek LaLonde said it was “energizing” to hear during a game last January.
LaLonde was fired last month.
“As much as I appreciate Jared Goff for what he has done for this city, the Pistons are up 20 and Cade Cunningham is having a 30 point performance,” Pistons content creator Nick Sotto told me in the third quarter of Saturday’s game.
“Would love for the crowd to start a Cade or ‘Detroit Basketball’ chant to even further fuel our players,” Sitto said. “I don’t know if chanting ‘Jared Goff’ is helping our guys.”
