Goodbye, Daunte Culpepper

I was going to write about Willie Young, the Lions first 7th round pick, today, but then I realized that I would rather have my scrotum super-glued to the back of a bullet train right before it leaves the station than write about Willie Young. No offense to Willie, and I'll get to him later, but I'm just not feeling it right now. After all, I wrote over 12,000 words on that fucking show LOST over the weekend in exchange for dollar bills tossed at my feet and stuffed in my g-string and I was left feeling both feral and drained, a wild dog forced to crawl into a ditch to rest up before he runs again. I hope you all understand.

I then considered writing another round of gibberish about fandom and the Lions community of fans on the web and I might do that later on, but I'm not so sure I want to do that so soon after writing a similar piece last week. Obviously, as you can see, there isn't a whole hell of a lot going on.

It is to the point where Sean over at Pride of Detroit is breaking down undrafted free agents, most of whom will take one step off the bus at training camp before being executed by the Turk. If something doesn't happen soon, I fear that poor Sean will start providing scouting reports for the hot dog vendors at Ford Field.

But something did happen today, and while it doesn't directly impact the Lions, it does close the door on an awful, rancid chapter in our ridiculous and sordid history. Daunte Culpepper just signed with the Sacramento Mountain Lions, where he will reunite with his old head coach, Dennis Green. By the way, whenever I type Daunte Culpepper I have to fight the initial urge to write JaMarcus Russell. Take that however you want. Also, when I typed "the initial urge to write JaMarcus Russell", I initially typed "the initial urge to fight JaMarcus Russell." I feel, taken as a whole, that those two anecdotes are telling.

You see, that is what Daunte Culpepper is synonymous with to Lions fans - failure. And not just ordinary failure, but failure on a JaMarcus Russell level, which as my boy Harpo can tell you is somewhere between the ninth circle of hell and the devil's anus. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that thinking of Daunte Culpepper makes me write things like the word fight instead of the word write. The pen may be mightier than the sword, but when I think of Daunte Culpepper, I just want to take that pen and jam it somewhere unpleasant.

Obviously, this is not a love note to Culpepper. Not that you could have expected anything else. My feelings about Culpepper are well documented here and I won't go through the vast litany of offenses he committed while wearing a Lions uniform, and hell, even before he put on the uniform. I mean, the most distinguished things he ever did were lead my team to a Fantasy Football championship a million years ago and attempt to purify a bunch of whores in the waters of Lake Minnetonka. I'll just say that he was an utter failure, an unmitigated disaster and trust that you can just accept this without having to resort to troubling things like statistics.

You see, statistics are useful tools, necessary tools, and they do indeed bury Daunte. But they don't show the other shit, the 300 pound Daunte waddling onto the field because he couldn't be bothered to take care of himself during his brief time away from football even though he claimed that he was obsessed with getting back to the NFL to prove he was a starter. And they don't show Culpepper throwing a fucking hissy fit on the sideline on national television, arguing with Martin Mayhew because he wasn't going to start the game even though daddy promised.

Daunte Culpepper is representative of everything that we hate as Lions fans, of everything that makes it tough to be a Lions fan. He's exactly what we think of, what everyone thinks of and makes fun of, when they think of the Detroit Lions. He is a walking, talking, living, breathing Jay Leno joke. He is not a loveable loser. He's just a loser.

That may be harsh, but so what? Daunte Culpepper is a millionaire who has provided me with nothing but misery throughout his career. I don't weep for him. It's not like he's out on the street rummaging through dumpsters so that he and his family can get by. Then again, it's possible that he can be found rummaging through the dumpster outside of the local McDonalds. That wouldn't surprise me and if you say that it would surprise you, then you my friend are a liar.

Daunte Culpepper is everything that has been wrong with the Detroit Lions for a decade now - hell, for longer than that, really. He's a washed up piece of scrap(note the "s" on that word. I called him a piece of scrap, not a piece of crap. I am a gentleman, after all.) that was picked off of the heap and signed because once upon a time he used to be pretty good - or at least he had shiny stats and was kinda famous. For a long time, that was all it took to be signed by the Detroit Lions. The shit merchants who ran this franchise were always behind the curve, always looking for what was hot yesterday rather than searching for what will be hot tomorrow. Teams don't win that way. Teams win by identifying talent that will blossom under their watch, not by desperately trying to preserve whatever is left of a fading and dying rose.

Daunte Culpepper wouldn't shut the fuck up about how he was still a capable starting quarterback. Well, congratulations Daunte Culpepper, you got your wish. Have fun in Sacramento. Maybe you can throw for 4500 yards and your team can finish 8-8 and then in five years you can take over as the starting QB for the local Pop Warner team. Because, damn it all, you're Daunte Culpepper and you once had stats, man.

This has all been mean and vitriolic, but sometimes these are the things that need to be said. Does any of it matter now that Daunte is officially out the door? No, not really. But holding anger inside is bad. It will just end up misplaced and you don't want me inexplicably bitching out Cliff Avril or something in November just because I never took the opportunity to get this shit off my chest, do you?

The way of the gentleman is a tough one and it isn't always noble. Occasionally, you will stumble and be found lying in an alley way, drunk, vomit on the front of your shirt. It happens. Especially to those gentlemen who are also Lions fans. We fall off the wagon sometimes and we brutalize and eat the dead and while it may not be pretty, it is just the way it must be in these strange and terrible times. I should apologize, but I am too wild with malice and insane with bloodlust and I cannot be counted upon for reason. Tomorrow is a new day, but today, let us gnaw on the bones of the wicked, for this is the only way to appreciate true justice.