I am going to break this preview up into multiple parts. I originally wanted to just do two sections, one for the offense and one for the defense and special teams, with maybe a third section for the coaches, ownership and general predictions and nonsense about the upcoming season. But that was before I realized I was going to write roughly a billion words, and so I will do one post for each position group over the next couple of days. Ready? Good.
We'll start with the offense, the poor, poor offense. I have been a fan of the Lions for about twenty years now, and during that time I've seen some exciting circuses blow through town, like the Run and Shoot made popular by Mouse Davis, which was successful enough to make Wayne Fontes look barely competent during his time as coach in Detroit, barely being the key word. Even after Mouse took off for greener pastures(to be honest, coaching the inmates at Jackson State Pen would be considered greener pastures), the Lions still favored the spread out attack which often featured a multitude of wide receivers and of course the incomparable Barry Sanders, he of the -1, no gain, 58 yards, -2, no gain, 54 yards stat lines. Really though, in retrospect the offense was held together with shitty chicken wire and the hopes that Barry would break a long one and the quarterback wouldn't fuck up too badly. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, but it was usually exciting - as long as they were allowed to play indoors anyway. But then Barry retired, sick of the same shit that the rest of us were sick of, but if we had known what we were in store for, we would have bathed in that shit, thrown it around in the air like stinky confetti and then begged for more. Instead we got Matt Millen, Marty Mornhinweg and the dawn of the Age of Ass. And through all the apocalyptic horrors that have ensued since Millen took over, at least there was a semblance of intrigue and interest when it came to the offensive side of the football. Would this be the year that Joey finally got it together?(No.)Hey! How about that Mike Martz? Look at those wide receivers, ain't they something? Every year it was always something, something to look forward to, something to give us even the slightest bit of hope. Until this year. This year, there is nothing to get excited about, nothing that would suggest that this offense will be anything other than boring, occasionally erratic, and absolutely not up to the task of carrying the team like it needs to.
Quarterback
This has long been a house of horrors for Lions fans, an almost unfathomable shit pile of worthless gimps and simpering pussies. For fuck's sake, the last decent quarterback this franchise had was Bobby Layne. BOBBY LAYNE. That was fifty years ago and he was a drunken degenerate! Ken Stabler, the crown prince of drunken degenerates worshipped Bobby Layne and foolishly tried every day of his life to live up to the example Bobby set. And even then, he was still always in Bobby Layne's shadow in the great Hall of Drunken Degenerate Quarterback Fame. And who is the quarterback now? Jon Kitna, a bible thumping choir boy whose one brush with the long arm of the NFL's law came when he was fined for wearing a baseball cap with a cross on it to a press conference. Kitna is a guy who looks like a cancer patient whenever he takes his helmet off and an AIDS patient whenever he puts the helmet on. He has racked up a ton of yardage over the last couple of seasons but that is largely because he has been asked to throw roughly a billion times in Mike Martz's offense. That will likely not happen this year, what with the Lions newfound dedication to the power running game. During his time in Detroit, he has thrown more interceptions than touchdowns and has come close to being declared legally dead behind the Lions awful pass protection. So, in essence, what we've got here is a man who makes bad decisions, holds the ball too long and can't move around the pocket. What this tells me is that clearly the God worshipping isn't working and that it wouldn't be a bad idea for him to try to resurrect the ghost of Bobby Layne and play each game shitfaced. At least it would be entertaining and would be a hell of a lot more relatable to the fine fans who have suffered over the years with only the bottle to keep them from weeping and setting fire to their televisions.
Behind Kitna, there is Dan Orlovsky, whose primary talent seems to be clinging to a roster spot despite no available evidence that he can play football, and Drew Stanton, a second round pick out of Michigan St. a couple of years ago who has spent his time in the NFL getting hurt and standing around the sidelines in sweatpants. Some people like Stanton. I don't. I watched him plenty of times when he was in college and the reality is that he is a quarterback who can move around a little, is painfully inaccurate and makes bad decisions. SOUNDS LIKE A WINNER TO ME. Besides, he looks like a frat boy, and not even the kind who would be fun to get shitfaced with every once in a while, but the kind who spends the entire time calling you bro and claiming that he could kick your ass until he finally passes out after homoerotically wrestling with one of his other "bros". So, as you can see, both the present and the future of the Lions offense is in good hands.
Grade: C- if Kitna doesn't fuck anything up too badly, D+ if he is the Kitna I expect him to be and F if either Orlovsky or Stanton have to play.
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