Lions Season Preview Part 5: The Bitter End

Welcome to Part 5 of my season preview for the Detroit Lions. This installment is just depressing.

Special Teams

This has been the one area where the Lions have had fairly consistent success over the years. Unfortunately, this is a bit like telling a monstrously fat woman that she has nice ears. But as Lions fans we have to take what we can get I suppose, and so I won't complain.

For as long as I've been a fan of the Lions they have only had two kickers, which is really kind of amazing. First there was Eddie Murray, who was always consistently pretty good. He gave way to Jason Hanson and Hanson has held onto the job for the last fifteen years or so. When Hanson came out of college many ages ago he was one of those rare kickers who find themselves drafted. He was a real prospect and that was largely because he seemed to have unlimited range on his field goals. His big leg and his impressive accuracy made him a dangerous weapon for the Lions throughout the 90's. Unfortunately, time and age has weakened Hanson's once thunderous leg, and now he has tried to reinvent himself as a kicker who is virtually automatic from 40 yards on in. For the most part he has been successful, with the notable exception of a blown field goal that is normally automatic for him in the game against Dallas that would have sealed up the game for the Lions. Instead, Dallas came back and won that game and for the first time in his long career with the Lions, Hanson found himself as the goat, which is pretty remarkable given that he is a kicker. Hanson is probably the most popular Lion on the team, which makes sense since he has been here much, much longer than anyone else. But the man is a kicker. A KICKER. And so that is just unbelievably sad. But yet again, it is just one more damning statement which makes it clear what it means to be a Detroit Lions fan. A KICKER.

Punter has always been a fairly reliable position for the Lions, which is undoubtedly helped by the fact that they play all their home games indoors. The punter for the last few seasons, and the man who will hold down the position again this season is Nick Harris. Harris has a decent leg and can probably be considered better than average for the position. But he is also a punter and thus really fucking boring.

The return game was a strength for the Lions for a long time. Mel Gray was possibly the best return man in the league for a number of years and it was always comforting to know that he was back there. Similar comfort was taken in the fact that for a few years Eddie Drummond manned the position, and like Gray he was considered among the very best return men in the game. But Drummond was unceremoniously dumped by the Lions on the eve of the 2007 season and the Lions return game has descended into mediocrity, which sucks because let's face it, it's not like we have a whole lot to be proud of as Lions fans so taking just about anything away from us is a bit like stealing the poor kid at school's lunch money. He doesn't have much, at least let him enjoy his fucking sandwich.

This season, it looks like Shaun McDonald will handle both the punt and kick return duties. McDonald is small and shifty, good attributes to have as a return man, but he's not really all that fast. I look for his numbers to be around average, maybe a little better than average actually, and he likely won't make any mistakes back there, but I doubt that he really breaks any all year. And again, this is massively frustrating because given the Lions' problems on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball, they need every advantage and break they can get.

The long snapper is Don Muhlbach, but the only time you will hear his name again is if he fucks up, so hopefully I'll never have to type it again. The coverage teams have been reasonably decent for the most part, with the notable exception of being unable to tackle Devin Hester. But really, that's kind of a league wide problem and so I don't really fault the backup linebackers and receivers who populate the kick coverage teams. Look for the coverage to be average to decent but there are certainly no Steve Taskers here or anything.

Grade: B, which is better than every other position than one and that's just fucking sad. But this grade could drop as low as a C or even a C- if Hanson finally gets too old, and there are signs that he may be near the end. But Harris should still be reliable but unspectacular which kind of sums up this unit as a whole this season.


Coaches

The Lions have had some awful, awful coaches over the years. The biggest laughingstock was also, in a puzzling turn, the one who stuck around the longest. Wayne Fontes was a terrible football coach. Just awful. And he looked like a used car salesman, and not even a good one, or like some low ranking mafia dude who gets sent out to do the easy shit work because no one trusts or respects him because he's always spilling spaghetti sauce on himself. The dude was an embarrassment and everyone knew it but he stuck around for years because Barry Sanders kept the Lions from falling completely in the shitter. The team managed to make the playoffs several times under Fontes but always embarrassed themselves in the first round because it was at that point that coaching acumen actually became vitally important, and there was fat Wayne standing on the sideline, confused with his thumb up his ass, spilling spaghetti sauce on himself at every turn.

After Fontes was finally executed, and the Lions cycled through a few uninspiring coaches, the Lions brought in Marty Mornhinweg, a reputed offensive mastermind who immediately proved that he was in way over his head. If Fontes looked clueless and uninspiring, Mornhinweg looked like he was about to start crying because he was confused as to how he got in the stadium. It was preposterous really, and when he was finally fired, everyone figured that things would quickly turn around. How naive we were. Steve Mariucci came over after being unfairly fired by the 49ers. There was a lot of excitement in the air because it seemed like the Lions finally had a legitimate coach. But, it turned out that Mooch was basically a more advanced version of Mornhinweg. Same busted ass west coast offense which failed partly because it was all too predictable and non-threatening and partially because Joey Harrington sucked about eighteen different kinds of dick. Which leads us to today.

Rod Marinelli constantly looks like he wears a diaper and that he just shit his pants and is both panicked and confused by this development. I know, inspiring, right? Prior to coming to Detroit, Marinelli served as the defensive line coach for Tampa Bay. It was kind of an odd choice, and Lions fans were generally not optimistic, but the book on Marinelli was that he was a hard ass who wouldn't let his team quit. Besides, his defensive lines in Tampa Bay had always been formidable and at the time the Lions had a lot of talent on their defensive line so the thought was at least we would be a tough disciplined team with a tough defense. Yeah, not so much. Marinelli has thus far failed to prove that he can make the tough transition from position coach to head coach. He's not inspiring and constantly looks like he is about fall off the wagon or shit his pants again or both. Seriously, it looks like the man wears a diaper. It is embarrassing.

The offensive coordinator position now that Mike Martz has been thrown out of town is held down by Jim Colletto, previously the offensive line coach. Nothing inspires hope that your offense will be dynamic and successful like having an offensive line coach calling the plays. Besides, the line under Colletto was fucking awful so why is this asshole being given the offense to run? It's because Rod Marinelli wants to have someone around him that thinks like him, that acts like him and who he feels comfortable with. It's just another example of him surrounding himself with both players and coaches who will agree with him, making it so that he doesn't actually have to do anything. He can just do all the same old boring shit he knows is safe, the team will be bad and he'll get fired and go back to coaching the defensive line somewhere. He is a position coach and nothing more.

But that's nothing compared to the stunning bit of nepotism on the defensive side of the ball. After his first year, a year in which the Lions defense wasn't any good but showed at least some semblance of promise for the future the Lions fired defensive coordinator Donnie Henderson and replaced him with that up and coming star, Joe Barry. Who? You know, Joe Barry, yet another former Tampa Bay assistant who also happens to be Rod Marinelli's son in law. HEY IT'S JUST ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY. Hey Rod, why don't you sign your daughter to be the new quarterback? How about your wife to play linebacker? It's obvious that Marinelli puts a huge premium on using both players and coaches that he is comfortable with, regardless of whether they are actually, you know, any good or not. Fucking unbelievable. I hope Marinelli gets eaten by wolves.

Grade: F. Seriously, these guys are fucking awful.


Management/Ownership

Excuse me while I go sit in the garage with the car running. Hey, are those razor blades over there? My wrist is just aching for them. Seriously there must be some rope around here that I can attach to the ceiling fan and hang my troubles away. This is an area that is a fucking disaster and everyone knows it. Matt Millen is the most inept, embarrassing executive in all of sports, and that is saying something given the retards who make up half of the front offices in America. The man is worse at his job than Nipsy Russell...oops I mean Elgin Baylor, and Elgin Baylor runs the Clippers. THE FUCKING CLIPPERS. The only man to challenge Millen for the throne has been Isiah Thomas, but even he has been fired now. Besides, that was always a depressing battle because Zeke is my favorite basketball player of all time and no one in Detroit wants to admit that he is a failure. But as for Millen, well, we definitely want everyone to know what a failure and fucking fraud that asshole is. And everybody does. When people say Detroit Lions football, the first name and face that pops into everyone's mind is Matt Millen. How fucking sad is that? The man is so awful at his job that he has come to define the very franchise. He is an embarrassment the likes of which we have never seen here in Detroit and that is fucking saying something. For fuck's sake, if there is one issue that could unite everyone in the state of Michigan it is that Matt Millen is the worst thing to ever happen to the Lions. THE WORST. TO THE LIONS. THE FUCKING LIONS. That is almost incomprehensible. This turd should not even be allowed to clean the shitters in the men's room at Ford Field let alone run the team. Jesus.

As bad as Millen is, he's really just being himself so I suppose you can't get too angry at him. No, the fault for this atrocity lies with the team's owners, the Ford family. Old man Ford and Ford the junior are just clueless. Everyone jokes that Millen must have pictures of one of them blowing a donkey or something but the truth is far more mundane. They don't care. Not really anyway. The Detroit Lions is just a toy for them to own and it's easier for them to just let that nice boy Matt Millen run the team instead of doing the tough thing, rolling up their sleeves and figuring out how to fix this mess. They should just sell the team, but they won't. They're actually proud of how they have run things. In their minds, they caused Ford Field to be built which has helped to revitalize a beaten downtown area. In their mind they are civic leaders who can use the Lions to help build up the community. Well, as noble as that may be, the community really, really wants the Lions to actually be decent, and not just a cash suck for poor suckers still dumb enough to keep caring about the Lions. I...I can't go on about this madness. It is too depressing.

Grade: Z, because there isn't anything lower.


Wrap Up

Look, if it wasn't perfectly clear to you before it should be clear now. The Lions are an abomination of a franchise, a horrible sinkhole of suck that has been bad for a long time and will probably always be bad. There is no real hope, no excitement, just the knowledge that another season is here and hopefully it won't get so bad again that Jay Leno starts making shitty jokes and everyone starts wearing bags on their heads to all the games. The offense will be both shitty and boring this year and the defense won't be able to really stop anybody. There are some who think that the Lions 4-0 preseason record somehow presages something good. I am not among them. The preseason is meaningless. They are just glorified scrimmages designed to allow the coaches to evaluate talent. I expect the Lions to get a few wins this year and they could possibly, if everything breaks right, even manage to sneak back to mediocrity, perhaps an 8-8 campaign that sadly allows everyone at Ford Field to pat themselves on the back, another year of job security assured for them. But for Lions fans the story is always the same, never changing, a bleak and hopeless landscape of failure and ennui. Perhaps the day will come when the Lions make a move and become respectable, but that day is probably a long way off, and so for now, we sit in front of our televisions every Sunday or in the stands at Ford Field and we watch with grim determination, hoping against hope that maybe this Sunday, just maybe, things will start to turn around.

Overall Team Grade: D

Six Predictions for the Upcoming Season(Why six? Why not?)

1. Jon Kitna is sacked less and throws fewer picks, but also throws for significantly less yardage than last season.

2. Ernie Sims has a fantastic season which is undone by the relative inexperience and lack of playmaking ability by the other linebackers.

3. The Lions struggle to get pressure on the quarterback and the secondary gets picked apart as a result.

4. Jason Hanson finally is too old to be effective at a high level.

5. Roy Williams is good but remains inconsistent and slightly disappointing while Calvin Johnson makes significant progress towards being a franchise receiver in the NFL

6. And finally, Matt Millen keeps his job after yet another terrible year.

Predicted Final Record: 6-10