Arguably the most decorated player and coach in Detroit Lions history could be one of the next members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Ex-Lions fullback and eventual head coach Buddy Parker was named as one of nine semifinalists in the Coach category for the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026 on Wednesday.
Parker joins Bill Belichick, Tom Coughlin, Mike Holmgren, Chuck Knox, Dan Reeves, Marty Schottenheimer, George Seifert and Mike Shanahan as semifinalists.
In his playing days, Parker spent two seasons with the Lions as a fullback, helping to win the 1935 NFL championship before spending seven seasons with the Chicago Cardinals.
Parker quickly stepped into coaching, eventually landing a co-head coach job with the Cardinals. Two years later he would become head coach of the Lions, where he would win back-to-back NFL championships in 1952 and 1953.
He led the team to a third straight NFL championship game, but after beating the Cleveland Browns the prior two season for the title, the Browns got the better of them in a 56-10 defeat.
Before the Lions won their third title of the decade in 1957, Parker abruptly resigned during the team’s preseason training camp dinner in August, eventually landing him with the Pittsburgh Steelers for the final eight years of his coaching career.
In total, Parker had a 104-75-9 record as a head coach and the second-best coaching record in Lions history with a winning percentage of 66.7%, only trailing George “Potsy” Clark from the 1930s.
Parker died in 1982 in Kaufman, Texas at 68.
The next step comes on Nov. 18 when members of the Coach Blue-Ribbon Committee come together to select one finalist for the full 50-person Selection Committee to cast their ballots.
Parker was previously a finalist for the Class of 2024, but did not achieve the required 80% approval on the ballot.
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