Detroit, MI – Employees in the Detroit Lions front office reported Monday that team officials received yet another "prank" or "phony" phone call from former running back Barry Sanders.

This marks the 127th such call Sanders has made to Lions personnel this year.

"He always asks for Mr. Millen and says it’s a very urgent matter regarding a new contract," said Alison Arshad, executive assistant to President and CEO Matt Millen. "But he always hangs up just after I tell Mr. Millen that I’ve got Mr. Sanders on the line."

"And come to think of it," she continued, "he does usually sound like he’s trying real hard not to giggle."

As Ms. Arshad confirmed, the subject of Sanders’ tomfoolery is most often the Lions’ perpetual inability to coax the nine-time Pro Bowler into returning to the team. Since Sanders’ abrupt retirement following the 1998 season, the Lions have been virtually unable to sign a productive replacement for the former Oklahoma State star.

However, Sanders has been known to vary his prank-calling approach.

"The other day this Jamaican guy calls and says ‘Hey mon, does your refrigerator be runnin’, mon?" Millen said. "I say ‘Well, I’m at work right now, but I imagine my fridge is running, thank you’ and the guy says ‘Well den, mon, you best go catch it!’ He must have had me on speakerphone because I heard a whole bunch of people start laughing in the background. Then the guy yells ‘Keep pounding it up the middle with Corey Schlesinger, Millen!’ in a perfect English accent, and hangs up."

Millen says that despite the clever accents, it’s clear who is behind the telephone horseplay. "Who else has this much free time and all the direct numbers to our office?"

"Plus, the caller ID always says ‘Sanders, Barry’" he added.

Head Coach Marty Mornhinweg has also been victimized by Sanders. "Last week, a guy calls, says he’s Barry’s agent and tells me that Barry wants to come back – for real this time," he said. "He tells me to meet him at this bar in the meat packing district to talk contract. So I go. And I wait. And I wait. Two hours later, after about a million guys have asked me to dance, it hits me: ass-less leather chaps…finely-groomed moustaches…it was one of those bars."

As the coach left the popular gay club, he was met by a pack of Detroit Free Press photographers, who, he later learned, had been tipped off by Sanders himself, who was parked down the street in his Range Rover, watching with binoculars, and laughing hysterically into a cell phone.

Mornhinweg is considering legal action. "They [the photographs] have had an absolutely devastating effect on my marriage, career and family. I liked it much better when he was calling at three a.m. all drunk and saying that my West Coast Offense sucks."

Sanders’s agent, Thomas Key, refused comment on the Ramrod incident, other than to say that he never arranged a meeting with Mornhinweg and that Sanders was not at the scene. He also added that whatever lifestyle the coach chooses off the field is his own business.

Key did confirm, however, that while Sanders still has no intention of ever re-signing with the Lions in this lifetime, the running back has recently signed seven-figure endorsement deals with Verizon, 1-800-COLLECT and 10-10-220.