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 . . .