Reviewing the Drafts: Still Crying

I am daring to move on with this little draft odyssey(I could make a lame Homeric joke here, but I have already been down that road and at the end of that road lies only sadness and pathetic defeat so I will just move on), and we inch closer to the Millen era. We're not quite there yet, but he looms on the horizon like Judgment Day. I like to view some of these picks as being made by a Terminator from the future sent by Millen to make choices that would lead to both his reign of terror and would ensure that once he had achieved sentience he could reign down fiery death, leaving only piles of bleached skulls in his wake while Lions fans huddled together in terror in subterranean sewers. Like I said before, fun stuff.

With their first selection in the 1999 NFL Draft, with the ninth pick overall, the Detroit Lions selected Chris Claiborne, a linebacker out of USC. I remember being fairly excited that the Lions took Claiborne. He seemed like a stud linebacker who the Lions could build around so they could finally establish a post Spielman defensive identity. The only problem was that Claiborne was never more than adequate. Part of the problem was that he was initially moved outside by the Lions even though he played the middle at USC. I don't think he was horrible by any means, but he certainly wasn't the big time playmaker that the Lions needed or the type of player you would expect to get at linebacker with the ninth overall pick. He ended up spending four season with the Lions as a starter before leaving via free agency to play with the Vikings, where he started for a couple of more seasons. He then ended up with St. Louis for a season where he was a part time starter before going to the Giants where he barely played and then he was out of football after the 2006 season. So, bust? Yeah, pretty much. He was a starter, but he was also a top ten pick, and you kind of expect top ten picks to be difference makers or at least start for you for more than four fairly average seasons. I don't know, maybe I'm being a little unfair here. I am kind of arguing with myself while I write this and this rambling mess is the result. I liked Claiborne, just not 9th overall pick liked if that makes any sense. This is mostly feeble gibberish, but years of being a Lions fan has left my brain soft and mushy, like a baby's. I'll just move on.

Claiborne was actually the jewel of the class, at least when compared with the Lions other first round pick that year, the 27th overall. The Lions took Aaron Gibson, a monstrous offensive tackle out of Wisconsin. Now right away, there were concerns that Gibson was too out of shape, but he was a big time player at Wisconsin and he ran an impressive forty time for such a fat dude. I figured there was at least a chance that he could show up and put it all together. Well, uh, not so much. Instead, Aaron the Hutt or Jabba Gibson, whichever you prefer, brought his planetoid sized self to the Lions and proceeded to be monstrously fat. He missed his entire rookie season with an injury, and then lasted only one more year with the Lions before being cut six games into the 2001 season. He later signed with Dallas and then started one season for the Bears and then found himself out of football, a recurring theme here. Gibson was a huge bust, and really, everyone kinda knew it could end up going that way when he was drafted. I mean, he had a body and presence which just screamed one of two things. Either he was going to mold himself into an ass kicking goliath on the offensive line or he was going to be a doughy disappointment. He was drafted by the Lions. What do you think happened?

I'm going to do a little thing when I feel like it that will probably just make me angry, but hey, what the fuck, why not, you know? I'm going to see who else the Lions could have had in that draft at those particular positions. At linebacker, instead of Claiborne, the Lions could have drafted either Al Wilson or Mike Peterson. Oh, and if they really wanted an outside linebacker, instead of drafting a middle linebacker and converting him, there was a dude named Joey Porter sitting there until the third round. Of course, some players aren't big time prospects but blossom once they hit the NFL so you can't blame the Lions for taking the guy who everyone else probably would have taken in the same situation. I mean, that wouldn't be fair, but fuck it, I don't care, I will point this shit out anyway.

At tackle, there weren't a whole lot of other prospects by that point in the draft. They could have taken Jon Jansen. That would have been better. Then again, anyone who didn't have to potentially wash himself with a rag on a stick would have probably been better. I'm sorry, that was mean. If he had worked out, I would have been defending Gibson like I defend Shaun Rogers, but he didn't and so I am a dick. The Lions make me irrational and cruel and that probably says a lot right there and so I will just stop this right now and I will pick this up with the year 2000 as the horrible presence of Matt Millen draws ever nearer.

Reviewing the Drafts: We'll Laugh, We'll Cry, We'll Cry, We'll Cry Some More, We'll Reach for the Drain Cleaner

In these strange and terrible times I thought we could all hop in Doc Brown's DeLorean and escape to a simpler time, when the biggest concerns people had were that the president was getting his dick sucked and that there was splooge on blue dresses, a time when the Lions were mired in simple mediocrity, daring to dare the impossible dream of the occasional first round playoff loss. Yes, it was a simple time, bizarre and alien to our savage understanding of the world, but in it we shall perhaps find comfort, or at the very least, mediocre content for this blog.

Yes, it's a rundown of Lions drafts past, and the horrors contained within will no doubt scar your fragile minds and destroy whatever naive innocence that you may yet possess, but you wouldn't be reading this if you weren't at least a little bent or masochistic and so we can all go down together, laughing like loons and slobbering on ourselves, gibbering like retarded chimps in front of our friends and relatives. It will be fun.

I'll start with the 1998 Draft because, hey, why not? That will allow me to run down ten drafts, which I plan to do before this year's draft in about a month. Some entries will likely contain multiple drafts, some may only contain one. I'll most likely stick to the first two rounds, but I might throw in some other notable picks too. I don't know, leave me alone. There are no rules here, and I will write until I either get bored or find myself drowned in my own tears. Let's just get to it.

With their first round pick in the 1998 NFL Draft, the twentieth overall, which yeah, is a number we don't see too often unless it's through a trade, the Lions took cornerback Terry Fair out of Tennessee. Fair was an okayish player(I could have said a fair player, but I am not a fucking hack, and besides I made a horrible pun in my last post, and let's just avoid getting into that bullshit before it is too late), a little on the small side, but he was also someone who could return punts and kicks. With the Lions, Fair managed to be a semi-competent starter in the secondary for a few years - definitely not someone who was a first rounder, and on that scale he was a pretty sizable disappointment. But in his rookie season he managed to return two kicks for touchdowns and led the league with a 28.0 yards per kick average. Unfortunately, Fair could never replicate those numbers the rest of his stay in Detroit and so after four mediocre seasons he found himself out of a Lions uniform. Unfortunately for him, that final season he was touched by the madness of the Millen regime and found himself a member of the team that went 2-14, the worst team in franchise history until . . . well, you know. Fair later tried to stick with both Carolina and the Rams, but aside from the occasional punt return he found himself out of the league. I would label this one a bust.

The Lions actually had two second round picks in 1998, and with the first one, the fiftieth pick overall, they took Germane Crowell, a wide receiver out of Virginia. The Lions had struck gold with another receiver out of Virginia seven years earlier in Herman Moore, but Crowell wasn't exactly of the same caliber as Moore. He did have decent size though, and so I guess the Lions figured fuck it, why not? Actually, that's kind of what I assume their draft strategy to be - or any personnel or game strategy for that matter. They should just start putting out tee-shirts with it written under the Lions logo and paint it in bold letters on the wall of their locker room - "FUCK IT, WHY NOT?"

Anyway, Crowell had kind of a strange career. He had one really good season, his second year, 1999, when he caught 81 passes for 1338 yards and 7 touchdowns as he took over for the injured Herman Moore. And that was the only season he ever did anything. After that, his career was marred by injuries and after the 2002 season he found himself out of the league completely. It's hard to say whether he was a good pick, a bust, or what. I mean, I guess I could say good, because he obviously had the ability. I mean, that one season was pretty fucking good. But, one season is not worth a whole lot if we are being brutally honest here, and injuries or no injuries, he was kind of a washout after that one season. I will file this one in the what could have been category.

The other second round pick, the sixtieth overall, was one Charles D'Donte Batch, quarterback out of Eastern Michigan, better known as the man who led the Lions out of the Scott Mitchell era and a few years later found himself leading the Lions straight into the Matt Millen era. Such hope, such tragic failure. At least he got out after that first horrible Millen year. I mean, that year was absurd - filled with Jay Leno jokes, Johnnie Morton calling out Leno on national TV, and the beginning of the Morton/Millen blood feud, which reached it's apex a year later when Millen reportedly called Morton a faggot - but at least Batch didn't have to stick around and have his soul annihilated like others who were forced to endure the epic hell that was the Detroit Lions in this decade. Batch was a pretty mediocre player forced into a starting job he probably shouldn't have had. He was a decent backup type, but as a starter he wasn't any great shakes. I mean, he wasn't horrible or anything, and he didn't seem like he was retarded, which was a step up from Scotty Mitchell. He was . . . adequate. I suppose that's the best term, and you can get away with that if rampant mediocrity is your goal and you have a semblance of talent elsewhere. Take that talent away though, and well, you have the opening chapter in the Matt Millen story, a book which will no doubt be the centerpiece of countless village book burnings to come. Batch later went on to be the backup QB in Pittsburgh for a number of seasons and good for him. That was probably where he was meant to be all along. Batch is Batch, neither a bust nor a gem.

The 1998 draft was kind of a weird one for the Lions. I mean, you had Fair, who was largely a bust at cornerback, but who was also an All Pro kick returner as a rookie. Then you have Crowell, who had one excellent season sandwiched around a whole lot of nothing. And, finally, you have Batch, who offered the promise of better days only to be the harbinger for the grim death that followed. How do you call a draft like that? I suppose all you can say is that if there is anything that sums up the Detroit Lions, it's this draft - confusing, frustrating, teasing hope only to deliver staggering disappointment.

And hey, guess what, that's only the first year. Well, shit, I know I'm excited for the other nine now! Did I say in my last post that this shit might be fun? Neil, you dumb son of a bitch . . .

The 2008 Draft, A Review, or: Welcome to Hell Boys!

With the draft coming up, I thought it might be fun to take a look back at who the Lions drafted last year, see how they did, and all that jazz. I might do a deal where I take the first couple of picks from every Lions draft over the past decade or so and see how they panned out - or, more likely, didn't pan out. That will no doubt have me reaching for the drain cleaner and will only cause hideous flashbacks that leave me ranting and raving like a buffoon and putting bounties out on people's heads, but that is pretty much par for the course in these hideous and terrible times. It will probably happen as long as I can keep it interesting and I think I probably can. I mean, there's a lot of material there, right? I am more talking to myself right now than anything else though, so let's just get on with it before you are exposed to any more of my diseased mind than you need to be.

The Lions first pick in the 2008 draft was the 17th overall, and yes, I too think it's amazing that there was time when the Lions actually had a better record than 16 other teams. Fascinating and bizarre, truly a curiosity from a simpler time. Anyway, this was Gosder Cherilus. Gosder was drafted to replace my man Lennie Small at Right Tackle. There was some disappointment with this pick - and by some, I mean almost total, as Cherilus was never really considered a blue chip prospect until the run up to draft day and so when his name was called the reaction amongst the rank and file of Lions fans was almost a unanimous "WHO???" It was one more reason to laugh at Matt Millen and the dunce parade he led. But, we all knew that any upgrade over Lennie and his simple ways was a good thing and so there was some hope that Cherilus would fit the bill. Did he? Eh. Cherilus flashed first round talent at times, but for the most part he looked like he was what he was, which was a rookie. Perhaps most troubling was his tendency to at times make dumb mental errors, and he was even pulled part way through the season for Lennie Small, only for Lennie's sweet, dumb nature to cause the coaches to quickly get Cherilus back in there. Sadly, Cherilus' biggest impact on the season was nearly crippling Jared Allen, causing Allen to charge Cherilus like an escaped vampire ape. Next year should be better - it almost has to be - and if it's not, well, we're used to failure here, it would just be nice if this wasn't another one.

With the Lions second round pick, they took a productive, athletic, undersized linebacker out of Colorado named Jordan Dizon. The hope was that Dizon and his athleticism would translate well to the middle of the Tampa 2 defense so beloved by Rod the Terrible, but Dizon was apparently not one of Marinelli's boys and thus was kind of shunted to the side during the preseason when midget Buster Davis saw a lot of the snaps as the backup linebacker. A combination of injuries and just plain old not being ready led to Dizon's rookie year being a washout and with the coaching change, and the ensuing scheme change, he is essentially useless in the middle. The good news though is that he might be a more natural strong side linebacker. Of course, Julian Peterson renders that pretty much pointless for this season at least, which means that best case scenario, Dizon enters his third season with almost zero in the way of meaningful playing time and the shadow of failure dogging him. The worst case scenario? I don't know, he gets kidnapped by aliens and lives in a bubble where he is forced to mate with wild dogs and space chimps. Still might be better than 0-16, I don't know.

The Lions had three third round picks, using the first one to grab Kevin Smith. Smith was an ultra-productive back at Central Florida, challenging St. Barry's single season NCAA rushing record. Sounds pretty good. The bad news was that it was at Central Florida, in a shitty conference whose teams were not exactly known for their sterling defense. But, Smith had a reputation as a hard runner who got better the more he got the ball. Of course, the Lions felt it was appropriate to have him split time with Rudi Johnson in the first half of Armageddon: The Season, and amidst the wreckage and horrors of war that occurred, Smith was largely ineffective. Of course, no one really noticed because the rest of the team was busy reenacting the sports version of Jonestown until Marinelli made the one good decision he made all of last season. He decided that Smith was going to be the man and from that point forward, Smith proved that he was the workhorse we all hoped he could be. Durable and productive, Smith almost hit the 1,000 yard mark, scored 8 TDs and averaged over 4 yards a carry, almost miraculous numbers running behind the wall of shit that was the Lions offensive line. Hopes are high that he will be a star back for the Lions. The talent and the drive certainly seem to be there, but there is the all powerful depression factor to consider too, and there is the strong possibility that if things don't get better soon, Smith will be singing Morrissey songs while lying on the fifty yard line with a razor in each hand and his wrists ready to go.

The second pick of the third round was Andre Fluellen, a talented defensive tackle who was a little light on his feet, but possessed the athleticism to be a potential difference maker. Of course, Fluellen barely got on the field as a rookie, and perhaps that is for the best, as any distance from the killing fields is probably a good thing. But when he did play, he flashed some potential and the hope is that he can become, at least for this season, a decent rotational player. And in the future, who knows? Starter, star, alien abduction, dead in a ditch, could be anything. But I am a hopeful man, and thus I will look for good things from Fluellen.

The final pick of the third round was Cliff Avril, a pass rushing defensive end/linebacker from Purdue. Avril seemed like the type that was a real project, someone not quite big enough to be an end, but he didn't have the experience yet at linebacker to really pull off playing time there either. He seemed ideal as a pass rushing outside linebacker in a 3-4 set, and in the Tampa 2 he seemed an odd fit. But, towards the end of the season it became clear that Avril was really, really good at rushing the passer, and now that the Lions have a new coach and a new system, Avril seems primed to be the DE/OLB hybrid pass rushing terror beast that the Lions would love to have. His future is bright and, aside from Smith, who has already made an impact, he seems like the player most likely to make a difference from this draft class.

We have to jump all the way to the fifth round for the Lions next selection, where they drafted a dude named Kenneth Moore, a wide receiver who . . . I don't remember anything about. Not a good sign. I assume he was cut before anything happened, and hey, good for him. The Lions also drafted Jerome Felton, a fullback, in the fifth round. Felton started, largely because the Lions didn't have anybody else at fullback. He was adequate I suppose, but when he was injured the Lions signed Moran Norris and Felton retreated to the bench for the rest of the season. Now that Norris has gotten the hell out of town, Felton finds himself again as the likely starter at fullback. Right now, he's just a guy, but maybe with some experience he can be a pleasant surprise.

The Lions had two seventh round picks, and with the first they drafted Landon Cohen, a defensive tackle who occasionally played, although that's probably more because the Lions didn't have much else. He's too small, and he's probably a career backup. The other pick was Caleb Campbell, better known as that army dude who was drafted only to be told that he had to get his ass into service. This seemed like a total PR move pick by the Lions. After all, who doesn't love them some red, white and blue apple pie God Bless America John Wayne Ballad of the Green Beret Lee Greenwood patriotism? In the end, the Lions got some attention and they didn't get a player. I feel bad for Campbell, who wasn't allowed to pursue his dream, but he is an army dude first and foremost and, hey, what can you do?

The Wrap-Up: Smith and Avril look like great picks, Cherilus could either be a good pick or a bust - the jury is still out, Felton could be a starter for a while or he could end up out of the league in a year, Fluellen is a tantalizing unknown, Cohen is a dude, Dizon might be living in a bubble humping space chimps in a year or two, Caleb Campbell is being all that he can be, and Kenneth Moore is Kenneth Moore, no Moore, no less. Oh . . . oh man, I am sorry, that was . . . awful.

Early, Early Grade: C+. The Lions got four starters out of this draft in Cherilus, Smith, Avril and Felton, but really, that speaks more to the Lions talent deficiencies than anything. Smith is a legit player, Dizon so far is the big bust. This could either improve dramatically, based in large part on what happens with Dizon and if Cherilus, Smith and Avril keep getting better, or it could nosedive. The only sure thing so far is Smith. I'll say that Avril ends up being really good, Cherilus ends up being sort of a disappointment and that Dizon flames out.

Lions Season Review, Part 8: The End

Well, here we are, at the end of this horror show of a season review, and so far the most common phrases used have been the aforementioned horror show, apocalyptic, 0-16, and of course, Nazis. And perhaps more importantly, we are at the end of this whole debacle of a season, and with this, I will attempt to close the door on this horrific shit and will try my hardest not to speak of it again. Oh sure, it will come up here and there, as a reference point or as the basis to some disturbing joke, but this should do it in terms of talking about it as the main topic. I'm not sure how to feel about that. I mean, is it weird that I feel a little bad, a little wistful? I mean, this past season was such a bizarre and memorable season and it was my first blogging about all this bullshit, so, I mean, it's natural to want to . . . you know what, never mind, ignore all this depraved gibberish. I'm clearly addled and I should be celebrating the fact that I won't have the same old dogs to kick around anymore. Not that I kick dogs or anything.

But if I did, the biggest and dumbest dog that I kicked around all season won't be around next year. No, thankfully he was put to sleep by his owners. Unfortunately, for Bears fans, he has been reincarnated, and will be roaming around their sidelines, working with the defensive line, slobbering all over Lovie Smith, and hey, good for him. After all, he's a good man, blah blah blah, and he never should have been promoted beyond that position in the first place. It's kinda like that story Flowers for Algernon, where that retarded chap is made into a genius, only to return to the depths of retardation by the end of the story. Only, Marinelli never went through the genius phase of the story and there were no scientists involved. Not that I know of anyway. I don't know, maybe Marinelli is Charlie and Millen is Algernon. I'm sorry, this is descending into weird, awkward gibberish and I have already wasted enough of your time with my bizarre rantings about Lennie Small this season, and now this weirdness about reincarnated dogs and superintelligent mice and janitors, and so I won't travel down this path any longer.

Anyway, this season was the final thunderous sign that Marinelli was in over his head, for people who doubted it in the first place. Unfortunately, 0-16 was such a strong sign that it was not only clearly visible to the blind, but also to the dead. Maybe it was a bit of overkill, but honestly, it was probably the only thing that could have gotten him fired. If the Lions went 2-14, I'm sure the Fords would have just shrugged their shoulders and said let's give him another year. But more on them later.

I have ranted enough about Marinelli on this blog that I don't think I need to go through his litany of mistakes one more time and so I will just sum up by saying that he's not cut out to be a successful head coach. He just isn't. And I know there are still a lot of people who would disagree with me, who would tell me about his ability to motivate his players, about how if he had a team with talent it would be a different story. But Marinelli is just one of those guys who is so set in some naive fantasy land way of doing things, some archaic yesteryear version of how the game should be played, that no matter what situation he steps into he'll always do the same thing, and always make the same fatal mistakes. He'll bring in people who he's comfortable with, players who are pliable, bendable to his will, regardless of talent, and he'll ship out anyone who doesn't fit the no nonsense, anonymous lunch pail types that flit about in that little fantasy life in his head, where he's Vince Lombardi and football is some grand metaphor for life instead of a game, played by millionaire manchildren for drunks in the stands. And when it's all over, he'll have a team full of nice guys, led by a nice coach who win exactly nothing.

And that's that on Marinelli. It was what it was, c'est la vie and all that nonsense. Perhaps from your rotten ashes, some good can come.

But we can't talk about Marinelli without talking about his famed nepotism and that brings us to his assistants, and because I don't want this to go on for a billion words I will just stick to the coordinators.

Let's start with the offensive coordinator, Jim Colletto, who prior to this debacle was probably best known for guiding the Purdue Boilermakers to a 21-42 record from 1991 to 1996. Not exactly inspiring, but hey, sometimes good coordinators can be shitty head coaches. What the subsequent years showed was that Colletto was, much like Marinelli, a guy who was most comfortable coaching a particular position group, in his case, the offensive line. He served as the offensive line coach for the Baltimore Ravens for six seasons before heading back to college and the same job with UCLA, where he spent a year before ending up in Detroit as, you guessed it, the offensive line coach. And when Marinelli forced out Mike Martz in favor of a power running, ball control offense, Colletto happened to be right there, sharing his vision for power football even though the Lions didn't have the players to execute said vision.

Okay, so the Lions offense was terrible. How much of that is Colletto's fault? It's hard to say. I mean, he only had a year, so it's not like we can point to some track record of egregious failure or anything, but what is clear is that in a game that requires you to be dynamic in order to keep from being pulled under and drowned in a pool of shit, Colletto was anything but. He was basically an offensive version of Marinelli(I will ignore the obvious joke about Marinelli and the Lions in general being offensive and will just move on, as should you. Deal?) He has a track record as a coach that speaks to this, having largely failed when given responsibility beyond the scope of his precious linemen, and to think that he could come in and spin gold out of straw was pure fantasy. The Lions offense could move the ball one way, and one way only, and that was through the air. It was imperfect, it was inconsistent, and it was the only thing that had worked for the Lions in this decade of pain and sorrow. The personnel basically demanded it, and yet, Colletto, with Marinelli's blessing, chose disaster instead.

But Colletto and his rampant mediocrity went largely ignored when it came to the townsfolk loading up on torches and pitchforks. Instead, the bulk of the fans' wrath fell on Joe Barry, the leader of a monstrously bad defense which led the way in the charge to 0-16, or I should say fell out of the way and let everyone else run by them on the way to 0-16. That's bad enough, but oh yeah, Barry is Marinelli's son in law, and it's hard to overlook that fact when it comes time to dissect exactly what went wrong. It would be one thing I suppose if Barry was some Belichickian wunderkind, and Marinelli happened to be his father in law. These things happen. I mean, take Lane Kiffin. He took over the Tennessee head coaching job and he immediately named his father, Monte Kiffin as DC. The elder Kiffin is a renowned DC though, so no one was exactly crying nepotism over that. Meanwhile, Barry was a positional coach with the Buccaneers who followed Dad in Law over to the Lions, where he was given a promotion. There's a bit of a difference there. Also, I apologize to Harpo for bringing up Lane Kiffin.

Of course, all this was famously addressed when, as the ship was broken apart and each piece was sinking miserably while all those involved drowned one by one, a Detroit newspaper writer asked Marinelli at a press conference if he wished his daughter had married a better defensive coordinator. Of course, this was a shitty thing to do, classless, tasteless, and all that jazz. But I am not one to throw stones when it comes to that sort of thing, and so I will just say that, well, although it probably shouldn't have been said, it wasn't like it was exactly wrong. Barry was a lousy defensive coordinator, and the only reason he had this particular job was pretty clearly because of his ties to Marinelli. Perhaps it's not fair to say that these were all personal ties. I mean, the two did spend a number of seasons together on the staff in Tampa Bay and thus, Barry was likely on the same page as Marinelli when it came to scheme and all that jazz. But, the appearance of gross nepotism was nonetheless always there, and when Mt. Doom erupted all over the Lions season, it became all too easy a target.

Look, this is it in a nutshell: the three coaches with the most responsibility for the Detroit Lions were guys who had never been anything more than positional coaches in the NFL. You had a linebackers coach, a defensive line coach and an offensive line coach. These guys were collectively in way over their heads and when the bottom finally dropped out, none of them were capable of turning it around, or even stabilizing the team so it could mire in mediocrity instead of the depths of hell to which it plunged. And when the ruins were finally sifted through and all the useless parts were discarded, they all ended up largely where they were before - Marinelli is the defensive line coach for the Bears, Barry is back with the Bucs as linebackers coach, and Colletto is at home with his wife or dead in a ditch or who knows where. You know, they're sort of like that janitor, Charlie, in that story Flowers for . . . oh never mind.

Perhaps I have gone a little softer on these guys than I thought I would. I assumed that writing about them would unleash a torrent of hatred yet unseen here, but I think I just have a sort of mild disdain for them now. After all, they are beaten, exposed, and none of them will ever hold a job of more consequence than position coach again. I could say fuck them, eat shit and all that good stuff, but really what's the point? They are dead and hopefully their graves will be paved over so they never arise again as hideous zombie beasts to plague us poor fans who have suffered so much and received so little back over the years. Let their demise serve as the foundation on which to build something new, something better. No one will ever forget what happened while they were here. I mean, how can we? But perhaps that is for the best, like the Germans remembering Hitler, determined not to let something like that happen again. Oh come on, you had to know I couldn't get through this without rambling about Hitler and Nazis.

But there are people in the organization who are still there, who are always there, who after each embarrassing coach is run out of town still sit in their offices, seemingly oblivious or ambivalent to the fact that their football team is not just bad but a national joke, made fun of by everyone with a pulse. And those mainstays are the Fords.

I've held off on the whole woe is the city of Detroit and woe is the football team for a long time now, largely because I hate that kind of pap. It's too easy, too Mitch Albomish, to tell stories about Jimmy, the out of work auto worker who just wants to see his poor football team win a game. It's almost an insult to the people of Detroit, and the people of Michigan. It reduces them to ridiculous stereotypes, Detroit Black Face. It's lapped up and spit out again and again because it's easily digestible, the Timmy fell down the well kind of story on a city and statewide level.

But when talking about the Fords, there is a weird sort of synchronicity here that is impossible to ignore. It's difficult to look at what is going on with their failing company, the behemoth that has meant more to the state of Michigan than any other company, and then look at their football team, and not see it. Ford is the name in the state of Michigan. It's not just Detroit. It's all of Michigan. The entire state is touched in some way by the auto industry. Everyone knows someone whose job is in some way tied to the performance of the Big Three in Detroit. And of those Big Three, Ford is the one that means the most. And it means the most because in some ways it's the most human. The name, Ford, is enough. It evokes everything which made Detroit great, which made it strong. The capitalist wonderland that was Detroit once upon a time existed because one man, Henry Ford, made it exist. Michigan grew up around that. The state's identity is so inextricably tied to it that when it fails the whole state feels it.

It feels ridiculous to talk about a football team in this context, and it is. I hate doing it, but it's too hard to talk about the Fords without talking about it. They have a name which is magic in the state of Michigan - or was. Now it is just a punch line, made ridiculous by the degeneration of a company which was once the shining beacon of American capitalism. And every time the Lions get even worse than they were, which always feels impossible and yet always happens, those names are thrown in the faces of Lions fans once more and we have to face the fact that Ford means something completely different than it used to mean. It's synonymous with failure now, and that's just incredibly sad.

Lions fans are desperate. Every year, people rant and rave that the Fords should be forced to sell the Lions. Hell, this year, some people even wanted the annual Thanksgiving game taken away as punishment for the Fords by the league for operating such a piss poor franchise. When it has gotten so bad that fans are willing to cut off the only thing they have left that means anything to their franchise, you know that it's probably time to step away from the team. But the Fords are nothing if not stubborn. The absurdities of real life have proven that, and if they are incapable or unwilling to salvage what's left of their legacy, the company and the name which are legendary in Detroit and in Michigan, why would they bend over backwards to do the right thing when it came to a football team?

I hate to be so fatalistic, but the Fords aren't going to suddenly wake up one day and decide that the Lions are the one thing in their life that they need to make right. No, the Lions are a petty diversion, and the only way we are going to be competitive is through sheer, dumb luck. Maybe that will happen, maybe it already is happening with the new regime, who I really, really like so far. Maybe. But no one should delude themselves into thinking that the Fords will do anything but hold on to this football team like some dingy trading card that they've had for decades, sitting in the attic, collecting dust, because it's just something that they're used to having, a sentimental reminder of a past that was so much more secure, so much more promising.

Look, the Fords are what they are. And they're not going anywhere. The only hope for Lions fans is that the team succeeds despite them. This is not that uncommon around the league. Think of Al Davis, think of Jerry Jones, Daniel Snyder. There are a myriad of lousy owners in the league, but at least many of them have had success in the past. Davis used to be great before he became old, insane and a vampire. Jones managed to get some of that dumb luck when he hired Jimmy Johnson when he bought the team. And Snyder, well, Snyder will give anyone money who claims to be a football player. The Fords have been lousy owners for almost fifty years. FIFTY YEARS. And there has been one playoff victory in that time. It seems irrational and, really, outright insane to hope that after all this time they will get lucky and the guys they put in charge of the team will actually know what they're doing. And yet, here I am, hoping that they got it right this time, that whatever anti-Midas touch thing they've got going on will somehow not matter. It is a fool's hope, it is ridiculous, and it's the only thing that Lions fans have left. Blind, bizarre, irrational hope. The Ford name may be broken, battered and shit upon by the harsh realities of, well, reality, and the sad truth is that it will likely never come back, but people want to believe that it means something, especially in Michigan. The truth is that it will probably exist mostly as an elegiac reminder of a better time. It would just be nice if, in some minute way, the football team could make people hear the name Ford without their face scrunching up like in one of those Bitter Beer Face commercials.

And so much for all that gibberish. I am kind of ashamed for devolving into such maudlin bullshit, but being a Lions fan will do that to you I guess. 0-16. It certainly was a thing, and in its own way it has a sort of epic quality to it, but I am verging close once again to the absurd and the ridiculous and so all I will say is that it is over and fuck it, they start next season at 0-0.

Lions Season Review, Part 8: Oh, They're Special Alright

A quick note before I get started - I was planning on combining a relatively short special teams review with the coaches and team management/ownership, but, well, the coaches and management/ownership section is going to end up being a horrible hellbeast and really needs to be its own thing, so that will be saved for the next post. A quick preview though: COLORFUL EPITHETS WILL BE UTTERED~

Anyway, on to the special teams, which, for years and years has actually been a fairly consistent source of decency if not excellence for the Lions, a tiny oasis in the desert of hellfire that is Ford Field/The Pontiac Silverdome. During the length of my fandom, I think the Lions have only had two kickers, Eddie Murray and Jason Hanson, which is pretty absurd and outright comical when you consider the position turnover everywhere else. Worrying about the kickers is basically a non-issue every year. Meanwhile the punters are always at least solid if not spectacular, while the return game has in the past been a source of pride, with Mel Gray and Eddie Drummond counted as among the best in the league. All in all, things have been good.

That said, I was concerned coming into this year. I figured that this was the year that Jason Hanson would finally realize he was 156 years old and that, combined with the weight of being a Detroit Lion would finally cause him to collapse in an exhausted heap on the field, sobbing, unable to even make a 30 yard field goal. Either that, or cause him to run naked through the streets of Detroit, hurling abuse at a city which had devoured his once promising soul. Thankfully, I was wrong.

Instead, Hanson went out and had one of the best - if not the best - years of his career. He was 21/22 on field goals, including an incredible 8/8 from more than 50 yards, which I believe is an NFL record, and along the way he set the all time record for most field goals from beyond 50 yards in a career. And the one field goal that he missed was actually blocked. He was 14/14 from beyond 40 yards, and in a season in which everything that can go wrong did go wrong, Hanson decided that he would be the very best of the best. It was almost heartbreaking to see a guy who had toiled for so long for a team that was perpetually putrid put it all out there in the twilight of his career while everything else crumbled to dust around him. When the season was over, we couldn't even appropriately appreciate how good Hanson was because, let's face it, 0-16 covers up a whole hell of a lot.

And 0-16 is probably the reason why Hanson was kept home from the Pro Bowl. If anyone deserved to go to Honolulu from this gang of shitheads and simps it was Hanson. Perhaps it would be small comfort for a man who has spent his whole career with the Lions, who has watched the team lose and lose and lose and had to do nothing but just stand there and take it and do his job year in and year out. Perhaps. But perhaps it would have offered just a little solace, a little recognition for the one player who in all that time has always been there, always done his job and done it well. I know he's just a kicker and everyone laughs at that shit, but damn it all, he's the only thing we've had to be proud of in a long time as Lions fans and the more I think about it the more I'm pissed that he wasn't chosen for the Pro Bowl.

Nick Harris is an okay punter, a solid, pretty dependable type who can be a force indoors, which is good because, last time I checked, the Lions played at least half their games with a roof over their head. For his career, Harris has averaged 42.1 yards per punt. But the first half of his career was spent as a middling sort of punter with the Bengals and the Lions before he broke through. Those first few years he was about a 40 yard per punt kind of player. Since then, his averages have been 43.5, 45.0, 44.3, and 43.9. Pretty damn good. The 43.9 yards per punt he put up in the Year that God Forgot isn't bad, but the truth is that unless you are an all world punter or a horrible punter, the surest sign that you are doing your job is that your are relatively unnoticeable. Just go out, slam it 45 yards or so, try to stick the ball inside the 20 when you can and no one will chew your ass out. So, it's probably no surprise that the one punt I really remember from this season just happened to be the embarrassing shank he had against Tennessee. Of course, seeing as how this is the Detroit Lions we are talking about, that happened on Thanksgiving, the one week, the one game, where everyone is watching the Lions. Good job Nick.

I alluded to being concerned about the special teams before the season began. There were three things I was kind of worried about, Hanson's advancing age and beat down soul being the first. The second was the one that I was probably the most worried about, and that was the Lions return game, which, suddenly, after years of having been top notch, suddenly found itself as nonexistent, made up of spare parts and retreads. Nobody personified this more than Aveion Cason, a running back who has been cut and resigned so many times that it feels kind of like a joke. Unfortunately, the punchline to that joke is Cason and he's our primary return guy, and . . . well, that's a problem.

Cason is perfectly dependable, if what you're depending on is a slightly below average return game. The Lions tried to replace him with Brandon Middleton for a chunk of the year only to find that Middleton wasn't really any good either. Middleton averaged 22.2 yards per return while Cason averaged 23.3. Neither is really all that good, and on a team as bad as the Lions, you can't really get away with pedestrian efforts out of your return guys when the rest of the team sucks 112 different varieties of dick.

As mediocre as the kick return game was, at least there was a semblance of consistency back there. When it came to returning punts, the Lions strategy seemed to be to throw whoever was available back there and hope the guy didn't get killed. The guy who returned the most punts on the year was Shaun McDonald, and he only returned 11 of them, and for a so what average of 9.5 yards per return. Again, on a team so incapable of consistent ball movement as the Lions, any boost in field position was an absolute necessity if they were going to stave off the horror show that occurred. But, of course, they didn't get it, because, well, why the fuck would they? This is the Lions after all.

Meanwhile, the third thing that I was concerned about was kick coverage, which has seemingly deteriorated year after year. Part of this is probably because the Lions special teams aces are too busy competing for starting jobs elsewhere, which, well, I don't remember Steve Tasker starting for the Bills, do you? And this past season was really no different, but my memory banks have already started to wipe themselves clean of the atrocities of the past year and there aren't a whole lot of stats to quantify this. I do have the distinct memory of these guys being largely inadequate though, but this is one of those places where I'm just going to say I might be right, I might be wrong, feel free to correct me or call me a jackass or a dipshit or whatever you want.


What We Learned: That Jason Hanson has robot parts in his legs, keeping him in prime kicking condition well into his 70's. We also learned that Nick Harris is who we thought he is, and that the kick return game is pretty much nonexistent. We also learned that I might be a jackass or a dipshit or whatever.

What We Can Expect: Well, hopefully, Hanson's bionic leg keeps going strong for at least another year or two and that Harris can be Harris. I would like for the Lions to draft either a receiver or a cornerback somewhere in the middle rounds who is also a dynamite return man, someone who can step in right away for Cason and company. We already signed Eric King, a backup corner who is a good special teams player, and hopefully we can add some small pieces and parts, wild eyed assholes who just like to run down the field and wreck motherfuckers. That is the dream anyway. Overall, I think we can expect this to be a fairly solid area for the Lions - in the kicking game anyway - and if they find a return man I'll be happy. If not, well, mediocrity will be the order of the day, which sucks, because we need anything - FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ANYTHING - to be proud of as Lions fans.

What I Said Before the Season: 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.

Final Grade: B-. That may be a little generous. Okay, C+ and that still might be pushing it, but Jason Hanson deserves some love. Harris was okay - embarrassing national TV disasters aside. But the rest of this unit was pretty sorry. If Hanson wasn't around, chances are I would be ranting and raving like a loon just like I have about every other position group, but Hanson is my guy. Okay, you know what? I am just gonna separate this and give Hanson an A+ and give everyone else a D+. There, fuck it.

Lions Season Review, Part 7: The Journey Through Hell Continues

For a long time now the secondary has been the retarded Cyclops with lobster claws for hands living in the basement of the Detroit Lions while the other members of the family sit at dinner and pretend not to hear that poor bastard clawing away and pawing at himself from down below. And considering the rejects making up the rest of the Lions team, and especially the defense in recent years, that's really saying something.

For as bad as the Lions have been in this decade - and holy shit have they been beyond bad, the greatest source of constant shame for Lions fans has been the disaster area in the defensive backfield which has led, time and time again, to a weekly Armageddon as teams have passed and passed and passed at will until the Lions corners and safeties could do nothing but lie in a pool of their own feces and weep, cursing the gods who have made them such imbecilic wastes. Really, the last time there was any hope for a Lions cornerback was before Bryant Westbrook was injured and that feels like it was a hundred years ago. And the Bennie Blades era is even further far gone than that. Basically, it's been a long, miserable time, and every season it feels like we've hit the basement. And yet, every year, we find a way to tunnel further and further, until we look up and we can't even remember where the damn basement was in the first place.

And still, none of that compares to how awful these shitbirds were in the Year that God Forgot. It is a testament to how awful this defense was as a whole that three of the top five tacklers on this putrid team were defensive backs(Daniel Bullocks, Kalvin Pearson and Leigh Bodden). But don't let that fool you. It's not like those turds were any sort of noble last line of defense, single handedly cleaning up the mistakes of the rest of this moribund unit of despair. No, they were the last of the sad clowns to pile out of the car for Lions opponents to use and abuse, and used and abused they were.

We'll start with the opening game of the season, where they made Matt Ryan, in HIS VERY FIRST GAME, look like Joe Montana. And then it was Aaron Rodgers, who if he played the Lions every week would have had his own harem of Wisconsin farm girls. And let's not forget the neck bearded one, Kyle Orton, whose booze soaked wreck of a body annihilated the Lions defense so ruthlessly that I was sure he would be the named the new national spokesman for King Cobra. The Lions couldn't stop anyone all season long, and it wasn't like this was one of those defensive backfields that gives up a ton of big plays but makes a lot too. No, these assholes managed one interception all season. ONE GODDAMN INTERCEPTION. Cue Bob Uecker taking a pull off of a bottle of Jack Daniels.

I mean . . . JESUS, I have seen some bad pass defenses in my years as a Lions fan, but this . . . this abomination was something else entirely. A look at the personnel only serves to slam home the obvious and irresistible conclusion that when the trials for crimes against humanity are held, these are the guys who will end up standing on the scaffold, pelted by fruit by angry villagers while a rope with a noose waits around their necks. I am perilously close to yammering on about NAZIS again and so I will just get on with this thing.

We'll start with the corners, where prior to the season there was hope for immediate improvement over the previous season's sorry effort. Starting with Brian Kelly, the veteran corner who excelled in Tampa Bay's famed Cover 2. Many analysts have gone so far to say throughout Kelly's fine career that he was born to play in that defense, and so even though he was a little long in the tooth, and although he seemed ominously like just another one of Rod Marinelli's ex-Buc castoffs, there was reason for optimism. He promised to provide, if nothing else, a sterling sense of leadership and a veteran presence~ in the lineup which would belie mere stats. Yeah, not so much. From the very beginning of the season, it was clear that Kelly was old, overmatched and done done done. Seriously, at times it looked like he would struggle in a rec league with a bunch of fat cops and construction workers who would stop after every series to chug a beer. His decline was so stunning, so immediate, and so immense that when the season was over he was no longer on the team, set adrift even though there was no one to replace him. That's how bad he was.

The other newcomer who gave Lions fans a faint sense of hope that this year would be better was Leigh Bodden, who the Lions managed to get from the Browns in the ill fated Shaun Rogers deal. There was some hope that Bodden would continue to evolve from a playmaker with a tendency to get burned into someone who could leave behind the mistakes and still make plays. The only problem with that was that Bodden forgot about the play making part and seemed content to still make mistakes. Oops. Bodden was the man who had the lone interception in the secondary, which makes sense because he was far and away the most talented. Perhaps Bodden's best game came in the first game against Minnesota. Unfortunately - and this just about sums up his season - Bodden is best remembered for being called for a phantom pass interference call which directly led to the Lions losing that game. That was also the game where Dan Orlovsky took his infamous long walk on the beach known as the back of the end zone. Not that I am bitter or anything. In short, Bodden was brought in to make plays for the Lions, but once he was there, he found himself playing in a system completely unsuited to his talents - not unlike Dre Bly - and the fact that he was brought in with everyone knowing this is just one more damning piece of evidence against the mayors of turd town who ran this organization into the dirt. Of course, being so ill fitted, Bodden didn't do a damn thing and when the season was over he was cut loose so the Lions wouldn't have to pay him. Oh well.

Among the other players who found themselves on the receiving end of hellacious beatings were Travis Fisher, who can handle the run well for a corner but whose playmaking skills are woefully lacking. When he has to start and handle an outside receiver he is toast, too slow to do anything but stare at the back of the receiver's jersey as he dances away from him. He is probably an okay depth player, but asking any more of him than that is a fool's gamble. Of course, since the Lions coaches and management were made up exclusively of fools, they gambled and they lost.

The depth was so bad at corner that by the end of the season the Lions found themselves using a combination of Ramzee Robinson and Kalvin Pearson at the Nickle Back position. And like the band of the same name, these dudes were atrocious. Perhaps that's not fair to them though, as really, they should never have been put in that position. Robinson was once Mr. Irrelevant in the NFL Draft - the last player to be selected - and he is little more than a fringe player, while Pearson is a safety, not a corner, and not even a very good one at that.

And since we are talking about the safeties, let's talk about the Lions group of young, talented, and yet beleaguered safeties. We'll start with Daniel Bullocks, who was on his way to a promising career before he blew out his knee in 2007. There were a lot of people who thought he wouldn't make it back, but Bullocks found himself as a starter once again for the Lions last year. And, really, he played okay. Of course, okay is relative here. I mean, it's kinda like saying that dirt tastes good when you're used to eating nothing but shit. Bullocks is okay, and he has a chance to be a lot better, especially as he gets further removed from his knee exploding. Of course, there is also the chance that he could regress, and let's not get too excited here. I mean, he was probably the best defensive back the Lions had last year but it wasn't like he made any big plays either.

Starting the season at Free Safety was Dwight Smith, another former Buccaneer who promised to stabilize a weak Lions pass defense. Again, not so much. Smith was hobbled by injuries and ended up being, like Kelly, a big disappointment. I know, shock of shocks. Still, I am saddened, as Smith has sort of a checkered past and for entertainment value I enjoyed having a guy around who could be at any moment arrested for waving a gun around in traffic. Oh well part two.

With Smith out the Lions were forced to turn to Pearson, yet another ex-Buc, and while I am sure he provided Marinelli with countless wet dreams, the truth is that Pearson is yet another fringe player who was forced into a larger role than he should have ever had to take on. He's a decent tackler, and in the last game of the season against the Packers he actually played pretty well, but Pearson's biggest talent appeared to be allegedly choking out his pregnant girlfriend, and although charges were dropped, it's kind of hard to watch the dude play and not think about that.

All in all, the lack of talent in the secondary, along with some key injuries (to Dwight Smith, Keith Smith and Stanley Robinson, a pair of young corners, and Gerald Alexander, who had started the year before as a rookie when Bullocks was hurt and played pretty well), not to mention utterly fatal and inane personnel decisions, doomed the Lions to the sort of apocalyptic wasteland that they found themselves in a year ago. Also, if you go back through these reviews, I think I used the word apocalyptic in every single one of them, which . . . well, ladies and gentlemen, your 2008 Detroit Lions.

What We Learned: That these guys couldn't cover a JV team. We learned that the corners were either washed up or completely unsuited to the Cover 2. We learned that the safeties were a little more solid but still incapable of making plays, and we learned that when you build your team on a foundation of castoffs from your previous employer, you are only setting yourself up for failure of epic proportions. Kelly, Smith and Pearson were all former Tampa Bay players and all three were culpable in the mess that went down. If there is any one place on the field where Marinelli's lazy nepotism was the most strikingly obvious, it was here.

What We Can Expect: Unlike the previous installments of this tale of horror and woe, this one comes after the Lions signed the bulk of their key free agents. And what we can expect is something completely different than what was here this past season. For starters, the team will be almost definitely ditching the ill fated Cover 2, beloved by Rod the Terrible, in favor of a more attacking style. This means there is a need for more conventional cornerbacks capable of playing both man and zone. Leigh Bodden would have likely been a good fit but he was too expensive and also carried with him the stink of utter failure, and so the Lions went out and aggressively remade their starting cornerbacks. They started out by swindling Jerry Jones, trading the bones of the soon to be released Jon Kitna for Anthony Henry, a sure starter who although not an All Pro by any means is worlds better than the retarded chimps the Lions would have been forced to go with otherwise. They then signed Phillip Buchanon, coming off a season when he started all sixteen games for Tampa Bay(I know, but this isn't a Marinelli situation because Buchanon isn't a Tampa Bay guy. I mean, not really. Shut up, you know what I'm trying to say here. If you don't, leave me alone, I don't care.) I'm wary about Buchanon. For starters, I'm pretty sure that Harpo doesn't like him, and I trust my boy Harpo on all matters. He has also had an up and down career and while last year he was apparently pretty solid, he was a disaster with Houston after being a disappointment with the Raiders. He's probably instantly the most talented defensive back the Lions have, but let's face it, there's a good chance this one blows up in our face. This does take the pressure off the Lions to find a cornerback with one of their first three picks, but I would still like to see them grab a corner somewhere in the draft, and in an ideal world they would find yet another player to really solidify things, but we don't live in that world, and the Lions REALLY don't live in that world, and so I suppose this will have to do - for now.

At safety, Bullocks will probably start at one safety position. He's a good enough hitter to start at strong safety, but he's athletic enough, even after the knee injury, to start at free safety. Gerald Alexander is sort of an enigma. He had a decent rookie year filling in for Bullocks but he missed most of last year with an injury and, really, if we are being honest here, sucked enormous amounts of dick before that. He'll probably start opposite Bullocks and let's just pray that he builds off his rookie year and not this past season.

All in all, I think(or at least I hope - God do I ever hope)that this is an area of the team that will be much improved over this past year's edition. Of course, a retarded troop of howler monkeys would be an improvement, and so I'm not getting my hopes up too high for any real success or anything like that, but a return to the days when these dudes were occasionally embarrassed instead of constantly humiliated would be okay - for now, anyway.

What I Said Before the Season: Grade: F, because fuck this shit, that's why.

Final Grade: F. Clearly, I had already had enough of this shit by the time I got to these turds in the preseason. I see no reason to go back on that now. Once again F for fuck this shit, that's why.