So, Where The Hell Are We? Defense Edition.

Who the hell are you to judge?

In case you missed part 1

DEFENSIVE LINE

Things have been pretty good here, right? Ndamukong Suh has shown himself to be a true lord of the House of Spears, and with him as the anchor for this defense, the future looks bright and filled with blood and the bleached bones of the wicked and the foolish. He’s been everything he was promised to be, which for us is something that is exceedingly rare. We’re used to seeing our hyped draft picks descend into piano playing parodies of themselves, smiling in spite of their sad, beaten doe eyes, or smoking everything within arm’s reach and hollowing out their collarbones in order to fool the authorities with a super secret weed compartment. And that’s not counting the dudes who were just too fat or too shitty or too susceptible to Lions Disease. We expect pain. We expect failure. And so it’s nice to see that – so far anyway – Ndamuking Suh looks like he’s the real deal.

Next to him, Corey Williams has been pretty damn good. The hope was that his failure in Cleveland was due to an ill-advised position switch from 4-3 Defensive Tackle to 3-4 Defensive End and that if he got back in the right system, he could build upon the potential that he flashed while with the Packers a few years back, potential that was enough to get them to slap the franchise tag on him. And miraculously, this seems to have worked out for us, as Williams has played like an absolute force in the middle, teaming with Suh to give the Lions a powerful nucleus in the trenches. Both are highly athletic for their size, and both are big and mean. They can get after the quarterback and they can stop the run. They are every down defensive tackles, and they should be the heart of this defense for a long time to come.

Behind them Sammie Hill hasn’t been all that involved, but this is because of two reasons: first, Williams and Suh have been so good that it’s been hard to take them off the field, and second, Hill’s struggled with injuries. His lack of playing time shouldn’t be construed as a negative. Not really, anyway. It’s not like he’s hitting the bench because the coaches think he is an inveterate shithead. He just has two really good players in front of him, he’s battled some injuries, he’s young and that combination has caused him to be able to take a step back this season and gain his bearings before moving forward again. Honestly, it’s something that should have happened last season. Hill was essentially just some fat rube from the sticks who was good at slapping around malnourished nerds in college. At Stillman or Hillman or Hillsdale or Stilldale or Dillman or Dillweed or whatever the fuck the name of his college is, he was King Kong. In the pros, he was physically just another dude. The problem was that the Lions didn’t have anybody else, and so he had to play. This year, he doesn’t. Well, he does, it’s just that he doesn’t need to start and actually be a difference maker. This year, he can learn. This year, he can spell Suh and Williams, and hopefully progress instead of being burned alive after being tossed into the fire too early. So while it may seem like a step back for Hill, really, this is where he probably should have been all along if he was allowed to progress naturally.

At defensive end, I’ll admit, I was a little worried about Kyle Vanden Bosch. To me, he seemed like one of those players who had seen his production decline to the point that he was probably just another guy. We’re experts in signing guys like that, guys who on paper make us get all excited and then on the field make us weep bitter tears and curse their ancestors. But Vanden Bosch looks like he’s still got something left in the tank, enough to be a difference maker in most games. Sure, sometimes he gets a little over excited and takes a dumb penalty or jumps the snap count, but honestly, the Lions haven’t had as disruptive a defensive end as Vanden Bosch since . . . Robert Porcher? Jesus. I’m not so sure how much Vanden Bosch has left in the tank, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see his play start to tail off a bit as the season wears on, but right now he looks like a force, and combined with Suh and Williams, he gives us three quarters of a kickass defensive line.

Unfortunately, you kinda need a fourth guy in order to be a truly kick ass defensive line and while Cliff Avril isn’t bad, he’s not that great either. Really, he just seems like he’s kinda there. He gets decent pressure on the quarterback at times, which is great, but he’s not really effective against the run and he just seems like one of those guys you put up with as a starter if you have to but you never really stop trying to replace if that makes sense. He doesn’t quite have the size to be an every down defensive end. He’s destined to be a situational pass rusher or a 3-4 outside linebacker. I think if they could, Jim Schwartz and Gunther Cunningham would dump him for somebody else. It’s kind of cold, but fuck it, we’re sick of drunkenly taking home ugly girls and then crying to ourselves on the toilet the next morning with the door locked, refusing to come out until we hear them creep away for their own walk of shame. Wait . . . where am I? What the fuck was I talking about? Cliff Avril? Oh. Right.

The problem is, is that we don’t really have anybody to replace Avril. At least not right now. But it wouldn’t surprise me to see some other dudes get more playing time as the year goes on, and next year, it wouldn’t shock me if Avril was either a backup or on another team. Lawrence Jackson is a former first round pick out of USC so he’s got the pedigree, and he’s got the size that Schwartz and Cunningham seem to love their ends to have, and the only reason he was dumped by Seattle was because of the dreaded “he didn’t fit the system” which is kind of the football version of “It’s not you, it’s me.” Usually, that turns out to be bullshit, because honestly, yeah, it’s probably you. I mean, if Cliff Avril did get traded or released or whatever I can just about guarantee you that the Lions reasoning for letting him go would be “He just didn’t fit the system.” Yeah, he doesn’t fit the system because he is deficient and flawed and probably can’t be an every down player. That’s usually all that means.

We haven’t seen that much of Jackson, mostly thanks to injury, which has hurt his ability to really get acclimated and become someone who can potentially steal the job away from Avril. When we have seen him play, Jackson has shown an ability to get after the passer and given enough time, I think the potential is there for him to become the starter. We’ve seen a little bit more, on the other hand, from Turk McBride, who seems like a pretty solid player, but he was also the victim of a “He just didn’t fit the system” dumping after the Chiefs axed him following their switch to the 3-4.

However, the Chiefs tried to make McBride a 3-4 outside linebacker, which . . . uh, yeah, of course he didn’t fit the system. (Note: I had something really offensive here about how this was like dressing up a whore to take home to mom, but it wasn’t really all that funny, and it didn’t really make sense to compare McBride to a whore. Still, I feel I should tell you these things.) So, maybe, just maybe, McBride is actually a pretty decent player who was actually screwed by a scheme change, and wasn’t just tagged with the whole “It’s not you, it’s me” thing because the Chiefs were just looking for a way to let him down easy. Turk seems to be a favorite of Gunther Cunningham, who coached him in Kansas City, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see him get an opportunity to win the starting job opposite Vanden Bosch. Still, I like him where he is. I think he’s a quality backup, but if he was starting we’d probably always be searching for his replacement, and really, how is that any better than what we have now with Avril?

Of course, the secret weapon that the Lions have stashed away – surely they are just waiting for the right moment to deploy him – is The Great Willie Young. Officially, he’s been injured but we all know that The Great Willie Young is immune to such petty trifles. Therefore, I can only assume that Jim Schwartz is terrified about what The Great Willie Young might do if he allows him to take that football field. Obviously, it would be a moment that would change our entire culture. It would either create world peace, much like what happened with Bill and Ted, when people saw his majesty and regal splendor or it would create anarchy when the wicked became frightened and began acting out in desperation and fear. We can never know. Frankly, the only one who does know is The Great Willie Young and he would tell us, but sadly our feeble mortal minds can’t handle that shit. Oh well.

What I do know is that when Willie Young made this team out of training camp, I felt like a proud father. I’m not even kidding. Every time he made a big play in a preseason game I became ridiculously excited. I don’t know why I chose to make Willie Young my muse, but perhaps he chose me. Yes. Perhaps, in all his infinite wisdom, The Great Willie Young reached out through the cosmos and through time itself to plant the idea in my brain that I should be his herald. I am so proud and so happy and I will gladly stand before him and blow . . . the trumpets which herald his glorious arrival. Ahem.

LINEBACKERS

Jesus. The defense is still pretty much rancid ass and the biggest reason for that so far this season has been the putrid play of the linebackers. The Lions have gotten beaten up by opposing running backs even though the defensive line has been largely kicking ass, and that’s all because of the linebackers. Well, mostly anyway. The good news is that a lot of this has been due to a ridiculous amount of injuries, both to starters and the backups. The bad news is that the talent level even before the injuries was substandard. So . . . yeah.

In the middle, we were really counting on DeAndre Levy to take a step forward and keep things cool even after Larry Foote got the fuck out of town (And really, how sad was it to see Larry Foote, the dude who was constantly portrayed as The Man Who Loved Detroit, catch the first bust back to Pittsburgh as soon as the season ended? I mean, Jesus, that is a dude who did not want to be here.) and after the Lions told Ernie Sims and his monkey to hit the bricks. So, naturally, Levy pulled his groin and has barely seen the field all season. Of course.

That’s left the middle in the hands of Landon Johnson who . . . wait, he’s hurt too? Well, Jesus. Okay, that left Spencer Havner, who . . . oh shit, he came up lame and then was taken out behind the barn and shot? Fuck. Well, hello there, Ashlee Palmer? *weeps, ties noose to ceiling fan* (By the way, would that be one of the funniest ways to be found dead? Hanging from a ceiling fan that just keeps on spinning around and around? I mean, I feel like if I saw that, I would laugh. It would be horrible, don’t get me wrong. And I would probably try to stifle the laughter, depending on who I was with, but if I was alone, I feel like I’d definitely laugh. Well, I guess it would depend on who it was. I mean, if it was one of my parents, well then I’d probably be pretty devastated. But say you walk into a strange apartment and find a clown all made up, in full costume, hanging from a ceiling fan slowly spinning around and around. That shit would be funny, wouldn’t it? Wait . . . come back.)

Where the hell was I? Is anyone even reading anymore after that? Jesus. Anyway, the situation at middle linebacker has been beyond grim. It is like someone opened up a portal to hell during the linebacker meetings and some horrible Failure Demon – maybe Hitler, who knows – crawled through and started dragging dudes back down with him. Goddamn. Is DeAndre Levy trapped in hell by Hitler? Is that what’s going on here? This sounds like a case for The Great Willie Young . . .

Back to reality. The Lions can’t stop the run with Ashlee Palmer as their starting middle linebacker. The dude’s name is Ashlee. I mean, come on. No offense to any male Ashlee’s out there. But this is the reality we have had to deal with, and it has been awful. I’m surprised the Lions haven’t tried to beg Chris Spielman to come back just for a game or two. I’m sure he could at least smash a dude in the mouth. But that is all just a terrible fantasy, fit for children and syphilitic degenerates with rotted brains, and we must deal with our own miserable reality. And the reality is that, with Levy out, we have [insert the sound of God screaming in the deepest, darkest corners of space.]

Okay. But it’s not all the fault of whatever leftovers have been fed to the wolves in the middle. No, we have bigger problems to deal with on the outside. At least in the middle we can count on DeAndre Levy coming back one beautiful day. Shit, that might even happen this week. But our best case scenario for the rest of the season on the outside is a combination of Zack Follett and Julian Peterson, which . . . sigh.

Look, I love ol’ Zakarian for the same reason everybody else does. He does the whole wild and crazy guy routine, he plays with actual lions, he shops for tampons in his helmet and beach bum shorts and he once killed Danny Amendola on a kick return. But the dude is also a half step too slow to be a starting NFL linebacker, he’s a liability in pass coverage and as much as I love him, I love winning more. Look, the dude was a great college player, but he’s a walking, talking (well, after the Giants game, maybe not so much walking . . .) example of a dude who’s just athletic enough to excel at one level, but just not quite athletic enough to get it done at the next. In college, he can beat a block and hit the ball carrier in the hole with authority. (Note: I originally wrote “beat a black” which would have turned this in a whole new sordid and terrible direction if I wouldn’t have caught it. It probably would have gotten me more readers from the Klan, but fuck them. Oh shit, I better not wake up tomorrow with a burning cross on my lawn, you assholes.) In the pros, he gets stuck on a block (Damn it. I just wrote “stuck on a black” which, again, would have taken this in a fucked up direction if I wouldn’t have caught it.) for half a second longer and the running back he’s chasing is .1 of a second faster, which means that when he gets to the hole to tackle, the running back is already gone. I love Zack Follett, whether or not he is beating or getting stuck on blacks or blocks or whites or purples or whatever and that’s not going to change. But maybe, just maybe, I would love him a little more if he was just murdering people on special teams.

Julian Peterson, meanwhile, is a perfect example of the sort of dude I was talking about when I was blithering about Kyle Vanden Bosch a million words ago. He’s a fancy, shiny name and it makes everyone happy when they see it in the lineup, but at this point in his career, he’s just a dude. He’s not a liability but he’s not really an asset either. Unfortunately, right now, with Levy out, he’s our best linebacker. But, on the bright side, he’s got awesome arms so if the game ever breaks down into a posedown (hey, why not?) we’ll be fucking solid.

As far as linebacker depth goes . . . well, we’ve got a ton of special teams aces but few actual linebackers. Let’s just put it that way. The only time you want to see most of these dudes on the field is when they are flying like missiles in the direction of a terrified punt returner. Unfortunately, several of them have had to not only play but start this season thanks to the vast array of injuries which have plagued the Lions thus far. I mean, for fuck’s sake, John Wendling was in there at linebacker towards the end of the Rams game and that dude is a fringe NFL player – as a safety. Jesus.

There is some optimism that Bobby Carpenter, who the Lions rescued from the dumpster, will be an upgrade on the outside. He’s pretty good in pass coverage, which – hey, already sounds better to me – but he can’t get off blocks or tackle, which, uh . . . yeah. That’s kind of important for a linebacker, you know?

Anyway, things here are a mess and are unlikely to resolve themselves this season. They should get better with Levy’s return and maybe, just maybe, Bobby Carpenter will finally figure shit out, but I’m not all that hopeful. It won’t be as bad as it’s been, but it won’t be good either. We need an infusion of fresh talent here because I don’t want to go into next season with Follett trying in vain to be something that he’s not and with Julian Peterson losing one more year to The Reaper. I mean, Julian can only hold that son of a bitch off for so long by distracting him with the gun show. The Reaper may be sexually ambiguous but even he needs more than a tease to get him through the day. If Julian wants to ward off the terrible fate that awaits him, he might have to at least give Death a handy in the alley after work. No, I don’t know what I’m gibbering about either. Let’s just move on.

DEFENSIVE BACKS

Things are looking . . . better? Sure, why not. Then again, better is a relative term here. Considering that only a few weeks ago, just the thought of the secondary was enough to make me run through the streets naked, howling like some sort of deranged monkey, that’s not saying much. I mean, now when I think about them, I still run through the streets howling like some sort of deranged monkey but at least I put pants on first. That’s progress, right?

Indeed. Right now, I’m probably as optimistic as I will be the entire season about the secondary. Alphonso Smith has been an absolute steal and Chris Houston has actually shown some of those ball skills everyone said he didn’t have. As a tandem, they’ve been at least adequate. Ideally, Smith would be your nickel back and Houston would be named Charles Woodson but we sure as hell don’t live in an ideal world as Lions fans.

It would be a mistake to say that they’ve been actively good, but they have been enough of a pain in the ass to keep opposing quarterbacks from lighting us up like the sky over Nagasaki on a late summer’s day in 1945. That’s a good thing, right? They’ve picked off a few passes, played with some swagger and made me feel like we at least have a fighting chance every time the quarterback decides to fire deep. I suppose that’s progress. Smith in particular looks like he can actually play cornerback in the NFL, which is the first time I’ve been able to say that about a Lions cornerback since, uh, Dre Bly. Good Lord.

Of course, there is nothing behind them but dead air and Jonathan Wade, although most of us would prefer the dead air right about now. Wade has been terrible, the sort of player we are used to seeing in the secondary and maybe his presence is the result of some sort of Faustian deal made by Jim Schwartz. Perhaps after the Eagles or Vikings game, ol’ Jim found that portal to hell that was opened up in the linebacker meeting room, went down and bargained with the devil, who agreed to grant Smith and Houston special powers in exchange for Schwartz’s mortal soul, Jonathan Wade’s talent and a fistful of scratch off lottery tickets. What can I say? The devil drives a hard bargain. I’m sure Jimmy cried and then cursed the devil, who just laughed and disappeared in a puff of smoke. And then I’m sure Schwartz escaped after posing in drag for a wild dance party thrown by Hitler, during which he got the Fuhrer all liquored up and ready for sex, and then stole his clothes, posed as a Nazi and ran like hell. I’m sure that’s what happened. You could call me a liar, but that would just make you look like a damn fool, and you’re not a fool, are you? (By the way, I recognize that I am tumbling down the rabbit hole, but you don’t understand – I have to fight the urge to spiral into story time with every fucking paragraph. It’s out of control and I’m not sure how to stop it. A month from now I will be writing two perfunctory sentences about the Lions and then page after page about Hitler wrestling midgets or Joe Buck romancing a monkey in ancient Greece. Okay, fine, I can hear you shouting “How is that any different than normal?” from here. You’re a mean bastard. Wait, who am I talking to?)

So perhaps we are saddled with Jonathan Wade as the price for Smith and Houston not pissing themselves. That is not ideal, but what the hell, we have been through much, much worse. Then again, having said all that, it’s entirely possible – hell probable even – that Smith and Houston will revert back to form and we’ll be left cursing the sun and howling at the moon while our dreams die all around us. But I will choose to believe in hope, and what I hope is that Smith and Houston are two pieces around whom we can build going forward. Neither is a lockdown cover corner, but both can at least stick to their receivers, which means the Lions can play tight man defense when they need to, which is important when you need to make a critical stop. Will they get burned? Yes. And it will suck. But will they make plays that swing the game towards the Lions from time to time? I think they will, and like I said, we haven’t had anybody like that since Dre Bly. Now we just need quality depth, and oh yeah, if we can somehow drive down to Baton Rouge and put a burlap sack over Patrick Peterson’s head and then stuff him in the trunk of Jim Schwartz’s car and then brainwash him into believing that he’s been a Detroit Lion all along, well, then that would be swell. Or we could, you know, just draft him. I guess. If you lack vision anyway.

Louis Delmas is still the man around whom the secondary will be built though, and it’s important not to lose sight of that. He’s kind of fallen off the radar a bit thanks to his own nagging injuries, which have kept him from being the playmaker he was as a rookie. The future is still bright for him and if he can stay healthy and on the field, then the Lions shouldn’t have to worry too much about his spot on the field.

The other safety position on the other hand . . . well, the other safety has been a combination of nightmares, rusty nails laced with AIDS and C.C. Brown. I’ll leave it to you to decide which of those is most preferable. Personally, I’ll go with the nightmares and if I have to – If I absolutely have to – I guess I’d take the rusty nails laced with AIDS. Man, C.C. Brown couldn’t cover Terri Schiavo. He’d get caught chasing those goddamn balloons of hers while her teammates and Bill Frist rolled her ass down the field. It would be awful.

C.C. manages to keep himself in the lineup for two reasons: one, he’ll occasionally make a great play against the run, and two, who the fuck else is there? It’s number two that is the primary reason we have to put up with him week after week. The Lions have been hauling dudes off of the street, trying them for a game or two and then drowning them in the sewer when they turn out to be tiny Lennie Smalls. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if they held some sort of promotion where the person who bought the final ticket to sell out Ford Field that week would be allowed to play safety for a game. That way, there would be no blackouts and we’d all get the perverse pleasure of seeing a 58 year old account executive for Ford get the shit beaten out of him. I mean, why not? It’s not like C.C. Brown is doing any better.

I guess there is the dim hope that Amari Spievey will turn out to be a better safety prospect than he was a cornerback. In my breakdown of Spievey following the draft, I said that he might be better suited for safety and it looks like I was right. (That’s right, motherfuckers, sometimes I actually know what I’m talking about. I’m sorry I just called you all motherfuckers. Sometimes I get carried away. Then again, if any of you have kids, then I guess technically you are motherfuckers, and . . . okay, I’ll stop now. That was one of those times where as I was writing it, my brain was screaming “Noooooooo!” all slow motion like but all I could do was stare in horror as my fingers kept on typing.) But even if Spievey turns out to be a quality safety, he’s still new to the position and he probably won’t be able to positively impact the team all that much this season.

But for once, there is some hope that at least the framework for a workable secondary is in place, and given our history here, that is almost miraculous. Sure, none of these dudes are Champ Bailey or Charles Woodson or Darrelle Revis or that cat with the really fucked up name in Oakland, but perhaps they are just good enough and just good enough is better than any of us ever imagined coming into the season.

As a whole, the future for the defense looks bright. We still need a few more players, but with each game that goes by I feel more confident that things are heading in the right direction and when The Great Willie Young finally gets on the field, then, as Anne Frank so famously wrote, “Yo, motherfuckers, the shit will be on.” Well said, Anne. Well said indeed.