Tim Toone

Well, finally. Tim Toone. I meant to do this yesterday, but I was busy writing an article about Lance Armstrong and being berated by bicycle enthusiasts. Apparently, cycling is SERIOUS BUSINESS and Lance Armstrong is THE MOST COURAGEOUS MAN WHO EVER LIVED. Cycling Nazis, I apologize for my hubris. Anyway, even after all that, I still meant to do the Tim Toone breakdown. But . . . I didn't.

Okay. The thing is, is that I just haven't wanted to do it. I mean, really, what is there to say? The dude was the last pick in the draft. There's not a lot there to work with. But, since I am a gentleman and a warrior of light in these dark and troubled times, I feel compelled to do it anyway. After all, that is what separates us from the barbarians.

When Tim Toone was drafted, two things went through my mind.(Well, three, if you count "Who?") The first was that I was disappointed the Lions didn't draft Donovan Warren, a player who will make it in the NFL even if he wasn't drafted and who plays a position of need. Honestly, from a quality standpoint, there's not that much difference between Warren and Amari Spievey. It wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world to grab them both, you know? But that is all so much crying over so much spilled, rancid milk and we have more important things to attend to. My next thought, after I had exiled Warren from the wild halls of my brain, was something like "Oh shit. Maybe Al Toon had an illegitimate son." Never mind that Tim is white and that his name is spelled differently, I wanted to believe this. Why? Who fucking knows. Maybe I just liked the idea of someone with Al Toon's genes slipping to us late in the draft.

But again, in the end, that is entirely irrelevant since it is grounded in nothing but my own absurd fantasies. So what we're left with is a collection of thoughts that are utterly irrelevant to the matter at hand. Not the best way to start, I'll admit, but it does raise a crucial point: when Tim Toone was drafted, he was such a non-entity to me that my brain immediately began searching for things that actually did make sense to me. Tim Toone was just a name. Connecting him with something tangible was, for the moment, impossible, and so I did what I had to do in order to make him something beyond a name.

Perhaps that doesn't make much sense, but fuck it, nothing about me makes much sense. You should know that by now. However, in the months since the draft, those initial thoughts have slid into the rubbish bin of history and have been replaced by the rudimentary outline of an actual human being and potentially useful football player.

As a football player, the picture I'm left with when it comes to Tim Toone is of an undersized slot receiver who showed decent speed at Weber St. and was very, very productive. That's not a bad picture. However, the knock on Toone is that he really doesn't have a second gear, meaning that while his speed was good for Weber St., for the NFL, it's actually probably fairly substandard. So the picture now becomes undersized slot receiver who was highly productive in college. Not quite as nice, but still, not horrible.

Look, the simple fact is that Tim Toone really doesn't have much of an upside. He is what he is, which is a not quite talented enough receiver who will work hard and give you everything he's got. That's nice and all, but not exactly inspiring. Toone will probably never be a starter in the NFL. He could stick as a fifth receiver and provide help on special teams, and I think that's probably all the Lions are hoping for here.

The thing about Toone that I think the Lions probably liked is that he is a high character guy who will bust his ass for them. If he doesn't work out, well, at least they gave a dude like that a shot. If he does, then hell, that's a dude you can feel good about having on your team.

That's nice and all, but as most of your probably know, I tend to cringe at that high character MADE OF SPUNK AND GRIT bullshit. I think it's pointless, a ridiculous platitude that occasionally smacks of latent racism, the whole LOOK AT THE WHITE BOY WORK HE'S NOT LAZY LIKE THOSE COLORED FELLAS. It's incredibly distasteful and unfortunately all too prevalent in virtually every fanbase.

Still, there might actually be something to the whole TIM TOONE IS A GOOD MAN stuff that has risen up since he was drafted. But before we get to that, I think I need to comment on Tim Toone's appearance. The dude has those goofy white boy dreads, and if I can bring this thing full circle, he kind of looks like a dreadlocked Lance Armstrong. This is not really a judgment or anything. On the one hand, the dreads make it pretty clear that he's not the uptight farm boy type, which is a plus. On the other, he looks like Lance Armstrong with dreads. That's hard for someone like me - a man who pounces on anything with even the faintest hint of comedy potential like some sort of ghoulish vampire werewolf - to look beyond. I'll admit it. I'm going to have a tough time with this.

Okay, moving on. Tim Toone does indeed seem to be a good dude. He's a Bible reader, which a lot of the time will not endear you to me. It's nothing against religious people. Believe it or not, I consider myself a fairly spiritual dude. I just tend to have a real problem with the idea of organized religion. But I really, really don't want to get into a religious debate here and have some sort of blogger holy war erupt. So I'll just leave it at this: I have absolutely no problem with someone who has strong faith. There are a lot of good people out there who believe strongly, people who read the Bible every day and who consider themselves very, very Christian. These are often the very first people to lend you a helping hand, smile at you, say a few kind words and actually, you know, behave like Christians. I love those people. Some of them can be a bit goofy and I'm always worried that I'm going to offend them, but those are people you want in your corner.

Most "Christians" are not like that. They are assholes who pervert and hide behind religion in order to throw around their own small minded bullshit. This is not a problem unique to Christianity by the way, so don't freak out and think that I'm somehow persecuting those poor, disadvantaged white people who have never gotten a fair shake in America's long history. I know you fellas have never had anyone to speak for you and so you're pretty sensitive. Ahem. Shit, this is threatening to turn really political, which is something I have consciously tried to avoid here. But all this needed to be mentioned if I was going to talk about Tim Toone, and if I was going to mention it, well then I needed to make some things clear, and if I was going to make some things clear, then I was almost certainly going to start making fun of puritanical assholes who have an incredibly undeserved persecution complex. It's just the way it is.

But moving on, Tim Toone really seems to be the sort of Christian dude who backs it up. He's that first sort, the ultra-helpful dude who actually puts that shit into practice. He doesn't yammer on about it. He just lives it, and that's an admirable thing. You see, while he was at Weber St., Toone left on a Mormon mission to West Africa.

Look, Mormons take a lot of shit, on account that they are both uber-white and uber-conservative. A Mormon and I probably wouldn't get very far before one of us punched the other one. It's just the way it is. Some of those dudes and lady dudes are just hella-goofy, you know? But I will at least give them a chance to prove that they aren't uptight assholes. And, shit, Tim Toone spent two years in fucking West Africa. That place is hardcore as hell. I am not about to shit talk someone for their beliefs when their beliefs landed them in the middle of an apocalyptic war zone where toddlers carjack you with UZIs and dudes with no arms chase after you with grenades tucked in their toes. If you are the type of Christian who is willing to put yourself in that environment just because you want to help people, then you're okay with me.

I mean, shit, Tim Toone has probably seen things, you know? I'm talking some wild shit. He's probably had to watch little babies knife fighting in the streets, or had to run from a pack of machete wielding gorillas. And no, that wasn't a typo. I didn't mean guerillas. I meant actual gorillas, giant monkeys with crude machetes, heads full of hatred and with malice in their dark hearts. That part of Africa is a fucked up place. Tim Toone spent two years there. This is no college boy, no goofy white dude with dreads because he thinks it might get him laid. No, Tim Toone is a man. And he has my utmost respect, for whatever little that's worth.

Will Tim Toone ever be a star in the NFL. No. He's already 25, thanks to that tour of duty in Africa, and physically he's just not quite good enough. But he's a man, and sometimes what a man brings to the table can't quite be quantified. I would have liked to have seen the Lions go for somebody with that pick with a little more upside, but I'm not going to complain about them giving a chance to someone like Tim Toone either. After what he's seen, nothing in the NFL is going to intimidate him, and that just might be his greatest asset, and the thing that will give him a chance to make it after all.

HOW HE FITS WITH THE LIONS

The Lions needed another body to compete for the fifth receiver spot and Tim Toone gives them one. Aside from that, he might have enough skills to help in the return game and even if he isn't quite good enough to either stick as strictly a receiver or a return man, his toughness could lend itself well to being a special teams ace. It's this versatility which gives Toone a chance to succeed where other similarly talented players would fail.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR THIS SEASON

Not much. Let's face it. For as much as I have saluted Tim Toone in this post, the bottom line is that in the NFL, on that field, no one gives a shit if you spent two years cradling dying orphans while bullets flew around you or if you spent two years running drugs and whores out of your dorm room. You can either play or you can't. It may be harsh, but that is the nature of sport. It is naked, it is ugly, it is brutal and it is primal. There is no room for human interest stories. There is just winning and losing. The Lions know this. We know this. Tim Toone knows this. If he can help the team win, then great. If he can't, then he and Lt. Campbell will have a nice time touring America, giving speeches in high school gyms together.

At best, Tim Toone can make the team as a fifth receiver who can also get down the field and cover kickoffs. More likely, Tim Toone won't ever be mentioned again by me or anyone else who writes about the Lions.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE FUTURE

Again, not much. If Tim Toone manages to somehow stick with the Lions, he'll probably become a fan favorite, both on account of his African safari and because of the fact that, well, I hate to say it but let's be blunt here, his overwhelming whiteness. But this will no doubt be all out of proportion with his actual contributions on the field. If anything, we'll hear a bunch of gibberish about his contributions in the locker room and I will eventually grow to despise him. It sucks, but that's just the way it is. It's probably a good thing for all of us then that he probably won't even make the team. Good luck, Tim Toone. You are probably a hell of a dude and I salute you. Now, I kinda hope I never have to talk about you again. Vaya con dios.