We are now into year two of the Great Rebuild following the Great Fire of '08, a vicious dumpster fire that spread out of control and consumed us all, its smoke rising above us, curling into the numbers 0 and 16, the last ugly and vicious sights our eyes held before we were all taken by the flames of failure and hell. Terrible, just terrible.
But all that is in the past and perhaps it is time to stop trudging along and time to look at how much progress we made. Sure, every time we close our eyes we see those flames licking at us while demons danced and fiddled in the middle of the chaos, laughing at us and our pain, and honestly, that's always gonna be there. But we spent a long time just wandering in the ashes afterwards, and we all bellowed and screamed to the heavens, wondering why it had to happen to us and then some of us wallowed in the ash, becoming filthy and unkempt, lawless and stupid, hope shattered, hearts broken, minds bent. That was the price of 0-16. But some took a deep breath, cried their last tears, shuddered and wearily set about trying to rebuild. Why? Because we have nowhere else to go. We are Lions fans and we might as well own that shit.
And so here we are, in 2010 and although some crumbling shacks still stand, and although the earth is still scorched and ugly and the bones of the fallen are still piled on the outskirts of town, there are a couple of shiny new buildings and we can at least begin to finally see the framework of a new home, a home where we can walk proudly and confidently, a home that many of us thought we would never see. Sure, it's absurd to talk about that when the reminders of chaos and death are still all around us, but fuck all that. We walked through the fire and although we were all badly burned, those of us who survived know that it did not own us. We survived and we have earned the right to try to move on.
Much of the debris has been cleared away, and although most of the . . . you know what? I am tired of this metaphor. Let's just talk plainly, shall we?
Okay. The Lions have made a lot of changes since 0-16. The roster has been worked over like a cheap whore, beaten and stretched and . . . wait, this is about to turn into another metaphor, and a really fucked up and, well, just plain wrong one at that, so let's get away from that before shit gets out of hand.
The point is, is that now is a good time to look around and see just how much things have changed and what better way to do that than to look at the roster? These will just be quick little capsules - the in depth previews of each position group will be up just before the season finally starts - but for now they should give us a good look at just how far we have come, or haven't in the case of certain position groups. Let's just get on with it before I accidentally stumble into another godforsaken metaphor involving mutant sea otters or something.
QUARTERBACK
PLAYERS REMAINING FROM 2008 - DREW STANTON
The quarterback position may be the one position on this team that is most representative of the new and that's because the Lions made it a point to start here. This is where, in the middle of all the rubble and chaos, the Lions cleared a spot and started building. This is where Matthew Stafford lives, where the future lives, where hope lives. Gone are Dan Orlovsky and Daunte Culpepper. In their place are The Franchise and a backup who a lot of people believe could be our own personal Frank Reich. If something (God forbid) should happen to The Franchise, then Shaun Hill can step in and we'll still feel okay here. That's a mammoth change from 2008. Hell, that's a mammoth change from even last season. And if we're being honest here, that's a mammoth change from the decades of pain we have had to endure as Lions fans.
Sure, sure, Drew Stanton is still here. But Ol' Plucky isn't likely long for this world. Fewer and fewer fans are screaming JUST GIVE HIM A CHANCE, and more and more fans are realizing that the grit merchant will probably be selling his wares in some random UFL town rather than the NFL before long. This is a good thing. I know that a lot of Lions fans wanted Stanton to succeed, but it's good that we no longer need to hope for miracles here. We don't need to pull for the underdog, to root for True Grit, because we have something better: we have talent. Shit, give Stanton a job as Roary, our idiot mascot. I don't care. But he won't be a quarterback and he's not even close to the discussion anymore and that shows just how far things have come in just over a year.
RUNNING BACK
PLAYERS REMAINING FROM 2008: KEVIN SMITH, JEROME FELTON
Running back was actually a tiny, tiny source of hope following the horrors of 0-16. If you'll recall, Kevin Smith emerged as the season went on, replacing Rudi Johnson and the disgraced Underwear Thief as the Lions primary backfield weapon. By the time it was all over, I was delusional, half mad and beaten silly by 0-16 and somewhere in the midst of my damn near syphiliticesque raving I dared to compare Kevin Smith to Emmitt Smith. This, of course, was utterly ridiculous, but those are the things that happened in the wake of 0-16. That season skewed everything so ridiculously that none of us knew what we were even saying. We were like survivors stranded on a deserted island for twenty years, emerging feral and stupid, naked and baked by the hot sun of failure, gibbering unintelligibly while doctors and scientists poked and prodded us.
But now we have assimilated back into society. We wear clothes now and even though we may occasionally howl at the moon and attack our neighbors with clubs made from chicken bones and be found wandering naked in the streets, on most days we can pass for normal and no one can see how damaged we truly are and how horrifically scarred we were by those strange and terrible days. And so I can sit here now and at least semi-rationally look at Kevin Smith and say that he still can be a useful part but he'll never be a star. He just doesn't have the game breaking ability the Lions need. Too many times last year, before he was hurt - and don't think that won't affect him a little, no matter how much Jim Schwartz and reporters want to rave that he looks 100% - Smith would break through the defense and be on the verge of breaking one big before being hauled down after a six yard gain. It was frustrating as all hell and made me realize that we can't ever really get to where we want to go if Smith is the undisputed man at running back.
Thankfully, the Lions apparently agree and with Jahvid Best ready to burst onto the scene, Smith can hopefully settle into a nice complementary role. He'll never be Emmitt Smith and that's fine. And really, the fact that I can say that now and feel okay with it is a testament to how far we've already come. We don't need to invest in ridiculous fantasies and absurd hopes in order to believe that our offense can be productive. We have more pieces now, more options, options that are rooted in reality. If, somehow, that wild dream comes true, then hey, that's great. If it doesn't? Well, then we'll still be okay.
Jerome Felton is also still around, but like Smith he was only a rookie in the Season of Unnumbered Tears and, as the fullback, he really didn't come in for a lot of blame following the horrific fiasco of 0-16. Still, he is tainted by that number forever, just like everyone else who was on that team. Hopefully, he can be a viable starter for us at fullback, but if I had my way I think I'd rather have somebody else at the position, someone who wasn't a living, breathing reminder of those dark and terrible days.
WIDE RECEIVER/TIGHT END
PLAYERS REMAINING FROM 2008: CALVIN JOHNSON
Yup, that's it. The only receiver left from that disgraceful season is Calvin Johnson, St. Calvin, that magnificent avatar of all things good that got me through those dark days. Everything and everybody involved with 0-16 was touched by it, tainted by it, stained by a stain that can never be washed away. And yet, St. Calvin managed to rise above all that. Maybe it was because he was the one little bit of pale light in a world of utter darkness but many Lions fans clung to him, believed in him, and refused to allow that darkness to touch him. He was our hope, our one chance to escape from it all, and we believed in him.
I'm about to get hella ridiculous here, so just bear with me, okay? (I know, I know, you just went "Oh God" and groaned, but fuck it, you have come this far with me, you know there's always a chance that at some point on the trail, I might drop my pants and frighten and utterly humiliate you. I apologize.) Anyway, there is a scene at the end of The Last Samurai, that ridiculous movie starring Tom Cruise as a midget soldier who becomes seduced by the ways of the heathen Samurai, where the titular character, played by Ken Watanabe (And yeah, his character is the last samurai, not Cruise's drunken genocidal Indian killer.) is lying on the field of battle (oh shit, I probably should have said spoiler alert, so . . . yeah, SPOILER ALERT) dying and he looks at a cherry blossom. He's been looking for the perfect specimen all his life but it's always eluded him, and now that he's dying he sees the cherry blossoms and he realizes that in their own way, they're all perfect. That is some ridiculous hokum, obviously. I mean, if he was dying I think he'd be more like OH SHIT I'M DYING THIS FUCKING SUCKS then ruminating over the beauty of a cherry blossom tree, but I am threatening to go spinning in a whole new direction here that I wasn't intending so we'll just chalk that up as some straight up American Beauty floating bag horseshit and just move on, okay?
Anyway, that's how Calvin Johnson made me feel during the horrors of 0-16. I was laying there, dying, and then I would see St. Calvin loping down the field and all I could think was "Perfect." The contrast was spectacular and stark - Calvin's utter beauty and otherworldly talent sticking out, fiercely proud and, well, perfect, against a backdrop of ugly death and immense pain. Somehow, it just made him seem all the greater, all the more noble and amazing, and . . . and I swear I don't have an erection right now.
2008 was awful, and yet, Calvin Johnson's light never faded. If anything it just burned even brighter, a much needed beacon for the lost to flock to, something to follow back home, a reminder that tomorrow would be better. He can stay for as long as he wants.
OFFENSIVE LINE
PLAYERS REMAINING FROM 2008: JEFF BACKUS, DOMINIC RAIOLA, STEPHEN PETERMAN, GOSDER CHERILUS, MANNY RAMIREZ
The bad news? 4/5 of our starting offensive line was there in 2008. The good news? Uh . . . well . . . let me get back to you.
Everyone hates Backus. That much is undeniable. Still, somehow I have turned around a bit on him and actually believe that he is an acceptable starting left tackle in the NFL. Now, before you throw rocks at me, just hear me out, okay? I fully accept that it is possible - hell, likely even - that Hope, that cruel trickster, is just fucking with me, forcing me to believe something just because I need to. That said, I think that Backus has taken a ton of unfair criticism over the years - I have dished out my fair share - but the reality is that, while he's not great by any means, he's never had any help either. He's always been left alone out there on an island, with no functional left guard next to him to speak of. He is a limited player who just can't do it all alone and he's gotten his ass whipped because of it during his decade with the Lions. I wanna see how he performs this season, with Rob Sims next to him. For the first time, Backus will have someone reasonably competent playing next to him, and this should allow him to play within himself and not get overextended. I think he can be adequate, and hell, maybe even decent. I know that is heresy in the Lions blogosphere but fuck it, we cannot live in the dark ages forever. Sometimes you must speak out or risk being stuck in the tarpits of dogma forever.
Raiola is Backus' partner in both longevity and fan enmity. He's not that great but he's not that bad either. In my mind, though, he's best known as the dude who flipped off Lions fans and ranted and raved about challenging us all to a fight and then got all shook because he was afraid that people would show up to his house with guns and put his ass on blast. I would really, really like to get someone else to play center for us. Raiola is one of my least favorite players - he always comes across as sort of a hotheaded dick to me, see the above gibberish - and he is one of the players that is tainted the most by 0-16 in my eyes. Much of that is just because he was so vocal during that season, and all that shit about fighting the fans was maybe the low point of the whole fucking thing. Dominic Raiola is 0-16. He is the human embodiment of that turd of a season. I know that's probably not fair and I know that a lot of fans disagree with me (Hell, for some reason, a lot of fans seem to love his outspokenness) but fuck all that, he is of the darkness and I am of the light and we cannot coexist.
Peterman and Cherilus were also starters during that season. Peterman is emblematic of the substandard talent that drove the engine of that terrible 0-16 train. He just shouldn't be an NFL starter. He's a total Marinelli type player - big, tough, a good soldier, but not talented enough - and the sooner we replace him, the better. Cherilus, on the other hand, is emblematic of one man - Matt Millen. He is the final disappointment, the last first round blunder of that terrible era, and it's unlikely that he'll ever get his shit together. I will always remember him for two things: number one, he was the man who killed off the burgeoning Lennie Small era in Detroit. Yeah, Lennie was too dumb for this world, but fuck it, he was also a source of endless material for me, and so selfishly I was sad to see him go. Second, was him diving at the knees of Jared Allen during a game against the Vikings and then backpedaling furiously while Allen charged him like an escaped vampire ape. It was shameful as all hell, and even though it was kind of hilarious, that's not really what you want to be thinking of whenever you think of your first round pick starting tackle, you know?
Manny Ramirez is also still around although no one can quite figure out why.
The offensive line is the one area of the team tainted the most by 0-16. Still, I have talked myself into believing that they will be okay - largely because of that trickster, Hope - but this little trip down memory lane has made me come back to Earth. There is simply too much failure here to believe in, too much pain, too much baggage. I eagerly await the day when none of these guys wear Honolulu blue. Harsh? Certainly, but these are strange and terrible times, ugly and cruel, and none of us can afford to be soft.
DEFENSIVE LINE
PLAYERS REMAINING FROM 2008: CLIFF AVRIL, JARED DEVRIES, ANDRE FLUELLEN, LANDON COHEN
The good news is that, with the exception of possibly Avril, none of these guys are starters. And really, like Kevin Smith and St. Calvin, Avril was one of the few bright spots in that horrid 0-16 season. Ideally, he would serve as the third defensive end on this team, a situational pass rusher who could notch a half dozen sacks in limited minutes. The Lions are realistically only one player away from this dream being reality. Unfortunately, that one player is not on the roster.
DeVries has been here for a million years and therefore is loved and respected. He is just a dude and the sooner he is replaced on the roster, the better it will be for all of us. Again, that is very harsh, but it's also the cold hard truth. The Lions can't afford to make love to that slut known as sentiment. She trips up even the noblest of warriors and makes them overlook the only goal that really means anything: winning. Is it nice that DeVries has been a loyal warrior for the Lions? Yes. Will he help us win? Probably not. There you go. It's black and white and some of you won't like it but I am sick of losing.
Fluellen and Cohen are depth players. Last year, Cohen was a rotation guy, but this year, with the additions of The House of Spears and Corey Williams in the middle, he won't be seeing a lot of time. Fluellen has never made any sort of noise but he still has some intriguing talent. The window has probably closed on it ever coming out in Detroit, though. I'm fine with both of these guys being here for depth purposes. That's their role, their destiny in the NFL. As long as they fill that role and not the role of contributor or starter then hey, that's great, you know? That's a key thing in the Lions resurrection. It's not just the stars. It's not just the starters. The Lions need to make sure that each player on the roster fits the role that he's best suited for. Last year's role players are now this year's deep reserves and the Lions will be much better for it, both during games and during practice. Remember, these dudes help get the team ready, and you'd rather have the starters fighting against them in practice than the fat guy the team found sleeping on a bench outside of the practice facility.
LINEBACKERS
PLAYERS REMAINING FROM 2008: JORDON DIZON
Dizon is it. And this is his last chance to prove to everyone that he isn't the bust everyone thinks he is. He barely saw the field in 2008, which spoke to how egregiously bad his selection in the second round really was, and also spoke to the utter intransigence of Rod Marinelli. If he couldn't see the field on that team, well . . . you get the point. But oddly, his failure to make the field that season also insulated him a bit from the horrors of 0-16. Out of sight, out of mind and all that. There is still hope, somewhere deep inside, that he can put it all together and give everyone one more piece of evidence that Rod Marinelli is a damn fool. The likelihood that he does this is small, but there's still a possibility and therefore, his spot in the roster is justified - very, very tenuously, but still, I'm not quite ready to give up on him yet.
But don't be fooled. Just because the Lions have made almost wholesale changes at linebacker doesn't mean that position is rebuilt. After tearing down the wreckage of 2008's deadly fire, the Lions imported some temporary buildings, little pre-fab models like Julian Peterson and Larry Foote, to serve their needs until something more permanent could be built. Before we get lost in that stupid fire/rebuilding metaphor again, let's just get right to it: the Lions are still in that transition stage. The players who were so responsible for 0-16 are gone here but the guys who will replace them permanently haven't really arrived yet. Sure, DeAndre Levy looks like he'll be a permanent solution and guys like Zack Follett and hell, hopefully even Jordon Dizon, look like they might rise to the occasion down the line too. But, for now, there is still work to be done. It's just that the worst of it is probably behind us now.
DEFENSIVE BACKS
PLAYERS REMAINING FROM 2008: NONE
Hallelujah! Ahem, sorry. Every single stinking wretch from that 2008 mega-disaster is gone. The secondary was one of the chief culprits behind 0-16 and it has been utterly torn down and its rubble has been swept away. I piss on its corpse. Whoa! What was that? I apologize. I'm getting unruly.
Anyway, this is obviously a good thing. However, see everything I just wrote about the transitory nature of our current linebackers and apply it tenfold to the secondary. Aside from Louis Delmas, the future still hasn't arrived here. Almost everything about the secondary screams TEMPORARY in big, scary neon letters. There is no one to love here, no one to rally behind and hope for glory. No, there is just a collection of castoffs and retreads who we hope won't die in a hellfire like we have seen every other collection of stiffs here do over the last decade.
Still, there is Delmas. He is the future. He is permanent. And hell, that's the first building block right there. So we start with Delmas and we don't look back. We rebuild this thing and we do what we have to in order to survive before it's finished. That's where we're at right now. We're just doing what we have to do to survive. Chris Houston, Dre Bly, the cast of thousands at safety, they're all just a rickety old bridge we're hoping doesn't collapse as we slowly crawl across the river to the other side. Hold together, baby. That's about all you can say here.
SPECIAL TEAMS
PLAYERS REMAINING FROM 2008: JASON HANSON, NICK HARRIS
I've already written a couple of pieces about Jason Hanson so I won't get into him too much here. But I think it's safe to say that, for most fans, Hanson transcends 0-16, transcends all the failure of the last decade. He has always been the one consistently great thing and if there is any player we owe our allegiance to, any player who deserves to play here for as long as he wants, it's Hanson.
Harris, on the other hand, is just a dude. No one really takes much notice of him, and for a punter, that's not really a bad thing. 0-16 didn't taint him. Not really. Then again, 16-0 wouldn't exactly cover him in glory either, you know?
Okay, so there you have it. 16 players. That's all that's left. That's less than 1/3 of the entire team. That means that, in a two year span, the Lions have replaced over 2/3 of their roster. That is a very, very good thing. It's also a scary thing. I mean, that's expansion team level turnover, you know? It means that the Lions are still firmly in the rebuilding phase of this whole thing. But at least most of the rubble has already been cleared away. That is the first step. You can't rebuild until all that is gone. There are still some pieces left over, some salvageable parts that can go into the rebuilding process and there is still one shiny building, standing tall that the fire never destroyed, named Calvin Johnson who we can still rally around. The past is the past and the future is the future. But today, we build and we hope.
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