Well . . . bye.Indeed. The long awaited news that Stan Kwan had been dragged to the gallows and hung from the neck until dead came on Friday, and hopefully that means that the Lions are serious about finally turning around the dumpster fire that has been the special teams play over the last several seasons.
It's been a while since the Lions were any good at either returning kicks or covering them, but believe it or not, once upon a time this was the one area of the team we had to be proud of year in and year out. Whether it was the steady punting of Jim Arnold or the almost unfathomably long kicking career of Jason Hanson, the kicking game always thrived. That hasn't fallen off all that much since Kwan replaced the dearly departed Chuck Priefer, but the kick return and coverage games certainly have. Ohhhhhhh LORD, have they ever.
We used to take an absurd amount of pride in our kick returners, from Mel Gray to Desmond Howard to Eddie Drummond. It was sort of sad really, but we don't have much to get excited about as Lions fans, and so we held these dudes up as one of the few things that we got right. They were ours, they were better than your dudes, and everyone else could go to hell. It was easy to take that for granted, the same way we have done for years and years and centuries and centuries with Hanson, but Stan Kwan wasn't having any of that shit. Hell no! Excellence is overrated and gaudy, flashy and the sure mark of a prima donna. We would win with Aveion Cason and rejects from The Lennie Small Memorial School for the Retarded. And win we did . . . not.
I know, shocking, right? It's hard to win a race when you downgrade from a Ferrari to a goat pulling a wagon missing its wheels, and that probably mitigates Kwan's tomfoolery a bit. But, you've got to remember, he was the one who hooked that goat up to that dilapidated wagon, slapped it on the ass and told it to run. He may not have been the biggest problem, but he sure as hell wasn't the solution either.
But aside from the lack of explosiveness in the return game (And really, let's be honest, a lot of times, these dudes weren't even competent. Remember that game a few weeks ago when Brian Witherspoon bobbled the ball, went back and grabbed it in the end zone and started running around like a confused and frightened gerbil before finally just taking a knee, and for a second everyone was terrified that the dude just took a safety? Yeah. I haven't mentioned that before because, honestly, I think elves sensed my pain and delved into my brain and mined that fucker out. I am guessing that an evil elf, let's call him Clyde, decided to torture me by sticking that image back in my head just now. Fuckin' Clyde. What an asshole. Wait . . . where am I? What's going on? Whoa, are you serious? This is all taking place within a parenthetical digression that has completely destroyed the flow of this sentence? Who am I talking to? Clyde, is that you, you sneaky bastard?), the kick coverage teams were also routinely terrible, running around aimlessly while opposing kick returners danced their way to six. It was an awful situation, and again, even if the talent wasn't really there - let's not forget that because the Lions have sucked so egregiously that a lot of their special teams gunners like Paris Lenon have been yanked off of the special teams and forced to start on defense - Kwan certainly wasn't doing anything to make the situation actively better, and really, isn't that kind of the point of a special teams coach?
Okay, one last memory and then we'll get the hell out of here. The Lions lost to the Rams this season. You know the Rams, the one team with a shittier record than the Lions? The one team with only one fucking win? Yeah, those dudes. Does anyone remember how they beat the Lions? On a fake field goal - a play which their players said after the game they knew would work because they studied the Lions tendencies all week long and knew that that side of the field would be wide open - they scored a touchdown that was really the difference in the game. That has nothing to do with personnel. That's all on Kwan, may he rest in peace.
Okay, so Stan's dead. Where do we go from here? Well, the popular and obvious choice would be to throw tons of money, whores and booze at Buffalo's recently departed super-coach, Bobby April. April is responsible for turning Buffalo's special teams into world beaters season after season. He's the top dude in the league at what he does, and really, this is pretty much a no-brainer. Unfortunately, the Lions haven't exactly shown over the past fifty years or so that they actually have a brain, so who knows what will happen? Perhaps things really are different now with Mayhew, Schwartz and Co. calling the shots at Ford Field. And perhaps they will do what I, along with many of my esteemed blogging colleagues, like Steve over at Detroit Lions Weblog or the dudes at The Church of Schwartz, really, really want them to do, and hire April.
Of course, April is coveted by every other team in the league, and when you realize that in the dating pool known as the NFL, we are the equivalent of a 350 pound shut-in with cheesecake smeared all over her face, the idea of April ending up in Detroit starts to feel a little far-fetched. Still, we have other things going for us. I mean, obviously we make a hell of a cheesecake and our slam poetry is hot shit. Sure, we might disappear for a couple of hours into our rooms where we will sob and cut ourselves, but we will be devoted and really, you can't put a price tag on that, right? RIGHT???
Anyway, vaya con dios, Stan Kwan. May you have a coin to pay the boatman before he ferries your shameful ass out of this world. And look here, Bobby April. You see us batting our eyes? That's for you, my man. Ignore all those other sexy ladies. They are all whores and will give you The Clap. We are clean, and need a good man to steer us in the right direction. I know, we can be a little strange, but these are strange times, and our love will rock your world.
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