Jesus, I just realized that the draft is less than two weeks away and I said I would finish all these stupid reviews by then. I still have six to do, including this one, and I'm going to try to get them done by then - try being the key word there. This would be fine if I could keep from getting into inane gibberish or rambling like a mental patient, but, well, this is unlikely as you well know. Still, I shall try to wade through the tears and struggle above the heaping mound of shit that is the Detroit Lions in this lovely decade. Anyway, let's just get on with it.
We're up to 2002, and after a fairly boring and dare I say it, competent, first draft, the Lions follies under Matthew the Worthless began in spectacular form as the Lions raced out to a 0-12 start on the way to a 2-14 season. The opening gun to this era of absurd pain was really more of a thunderous cannon of suck announcing for all to hear that the next several years would be filled with the kind of apocalyptic horrors that would have left even someone like Mr. Rogers or perhaps the Dalai Lama weeping and gibbering, cursing the gods and frothing at the mouth, muttering "cocksucker" at Matt Millen every time he thought about that awful beast.
And then, with that steaming pile of shit still fresh in the backyard, the Lions attempted to clean it up in the 2002 NFL Draft by selecting the man who would be the savior of the franchise, the man who would finally be able to take the baton(or perhaps the bottle of Wild Turkey)from Bobby Layne and lead the Lions to glory and fame. Yes, in the Year of Our Lord 2002, the Detroit Lions, with the third pick overall, selected one John Joseph Harrington, quarterback out of Oregon. If you need to step away from your computer, feel free. Maybe take a walk, maybe vomit, I don't know. Perhaps you already vomited, in which case feel free to clean up.
Yeah. Joey Harrington. Joey fucking Harrington. Joey Blue-Skies. Joey Sunshine. The Piano Man. Smilin' Joey. Things, uh, they, well, they didn't work out so well. If there is any one player who represents everything that happened in the Millen era, any one player who Lions fans think about when the horrors of this hellish decade of pain and madness haunt their scarred minds, it's Harrington. Fairly or unfairly, he was the iceberg that blew a hole a mile wide in Millen's hull. Sure, it was a hull made of string cheese and failure, and it would have fallen apart anyway on its own, but Harrington was the one who exploded that son of a bitch wide open, and once that hole was there, Millen's fate was sealed. It only took six years for the fucker to finally sink completely beneath the waves.
The truth is that Harrington should never have been drafted where he was drafted. I know, I know, "obviously," you're saying. But, I'm not talking just in hindsight. There were legitimate questions about Harrington before he was drafted, ominous things like "Why can't he complete sixty percent of his passes in college? How the hell is he going to be able to manage that when he's playing against professionals?" And then there was the fact that, supposedly, the Lions coaching staff didn't really want to have anything to do with Harrington, but our boy Millen, that once in a lifetime buffoon, made the executive decision to say fuck it, you'll take him and you'll like it. He was Millen's kid, his baby, and he was going to be the man because the boss said so. And continued to say so, and continued to say so, and . . . on and on it went until that fateful day when John Joseph Harrington was finally told to clear out his locker. Unfortunately, that day took four years to get here.
Look, Joey Harrington is a nice guy, a good dude who deserved better than to be the Jason Vorhees in this depraved horror flick that Millen created. But, to Lions fans, he is, and will always be, the symbol of the greatest era of failure in NFL history. And really, not a lot else needs to be said about Joey Blue-Skies.
The Lions had a chance though to grab another impact player in the 2002 Draft, as due to their gross incompetence they had an early pick in the second round, the 35th overall, and with it they grabbed Kalimba Edwards, a defensive end out of South Carolina. At the time, I was pretty excited about this pick. Edwards was projected to be a late first round sort of guy and so when he fell to the Lions at 35 I thought he was a little bit of a steal. A tantalizing player blessed with raw talent that most players would kill for, Edwards looked like he could potentially be the pass rushing terror that could spark the Lions defense for years to come. Of course, the words tantalizing and raw talent tend to carry with them a dark side. I mean, usually those words are reserved for somebody who still hasn't quite put it all together. But, no worries, right? I mean, he was with the Detroit Lions, what could possibly go wrong? Yeah.
Edwards flashed pass rushing ability at times during his tenure with the Lions, but in six seasons he never even managed to become a full time starter. A maddening player who should have been better than he was, Edwards is symbolic of every player who put on the Honolulu Blue and Silver and then proceeded to tease fans with his potential. We wanted him to be good, we needed him to be good. Every season, we would cling to him like a life raft and say things like "Well, if Kalimba gets his shit together, we'll have a pass rush, and that will take pressure off of the corners, and . . ." Well, you get the point. And every year, he went out and he disappointed and every year the Lions defense played like shit. That can't be laid at his feet. I mean, the guy was really only a part time player. But, in a way, Kalimba Edwards is the Detroit Lions - promise topped off with failure, a never ending saga of "oh, he'll get better, he just has to . . ." It is the story of the Detroit Lions and the story of its poor beaten fans.
But enough of this gibberish. This is getting maudlin and ridiculous, and I am nothing if not an optimist and so I say fuck it, keep reaching for the stars Kalimba, perhaps one day you will be that terror hell beast for some team. Unfortunately, the Lions won't be that team.
Who else could the Lions have selected in this draft? There were no other really decent quarterbacks to come out of this draft. And since Harrington was such a high pick, perhaps it's appropriate to see who was picked in the top ten after him that year. There was Quentin Jammer, who went fifth overall to the Chargers, and if rumors are true, that is who the Lions coaching staff wanted all along. Go figure. He's been a starter for several years now in San Diego even if he hasn't become the perennial Pro Bowler that one might expect out of a corner picked in the top five. There was also Bryant McKinnie, the mountainous left tackle out of Miami who has gone on to be a starter for several seasons with the Vikings. Or how about John Henderson, who went 9th overall to Jacksonville. He's been to a couple of Pro Bowls. And a couple spots after him the Colts took Dwight Freeney, and . . . ugh, someone lock up the drain cleaner.
There weren't a lot of comparable options to Kalimba Edwards at defensive end in the second round that turned out any better. Aaron Kampman did go three rounds later, but, well, every other team fucked that one up too and he did take a few years to really get going, and . . . and, I am just searching for reasons not to weep like a baby.
The 2002 Draft stands as an important landmark in the trail of tears that is the history of the Detroit Lions. It was Matt Millen's stamp on the team. Unfortunately, the stamp was made of shit. Millen would have many more chances to get it right and ultimately he would fail almost every single time. But as far as the drafts go, this is where it started, this was the beginning of both the funniest and most terrifying sentence uttered every draft day: "The Detroit Lions are on the clock."
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