Mikel LeShoure

Seriously, like half the action shots of LeShoure involve him running wild against Michigan, which . . . sigh.

In the hail of OH GOD WON’T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CORNERBACKS THE CORNERBACKS PEEEEEEOOPPLLLLLLEEEEEEE gibberish which followed the Lions draft, what was lost and forgotten was that last year the Lions running game was fucking awful. That might sound a little bit harsh, but these are vicious times and none of us can afford to be naïve. As much as the Lions need help in the back seven on defense, it wasn’t like the team could afford to pretend that everything was fine at running back with a dude who spent the whole season having his toes eaten by demonic weasels and a career backup carrying the load. Oh, and Aaron Brown too I suppose, but following training camp – or whatever the hell passes for training camp this summer or fall or in 2028 or whenever all this labor bullshit gets sorted out – Aaron Brown will likely be placed on top of his spirit horse to be carried to Valhalla so he doesn’t really count.

Ty had an eye-opening look at the running backs from last year and if you need some evidence to back up my wild eyed ranting, well . . . here you go. The one thing I would add to that is that although the Lions running game rebounded a bit over the last half of the season, this wasn’t so much because the Lions running backs found their rhythm or anything like that, but because Scott Linehan put on his wizard hat and found ways to run the ball using smoke and mirrors and potions made from baby newts and the tears of the damned. Of course, luckily for Linehan, in Detroit the tears of the damned are so plentiful that they run from every kitchen tap, they flow through the Detroit River and they bottle that shit and sell it as a soft drink to inner city teenagers and hipster jackoffs intent on sampling the True Detroit Experience. It’s a little salty and when you drink it you get a head rush and you hear the frightened howls and screams of 50 years’ worth of Lions fans and then you go into a weird trance and Henry Ford starts yelling at you about Jews and it’s horrible, horrible, and . . . where was I? Oh yeah, tears of the damned, Scott Linehan, blah blah blah. Anyway, the point is that Scott Linehan had to tap into some seriously weird places in order to find any semblance of a working running game last season. He had Drew Stanton grittin’ his way down the field on quarterback draws, he had Stefan Logan Smurfing his way down the field like one of those scenes from Lord of the Rings where the hobbits are running in between horse legs and Orc arms and giant elephants and all manner of crazy shit to avoid getting hoisted on the end of a spear. He had St. Calvin running reverses and once I think I saw Stephen Peterman dress up as a pregnant lady and when he faked going into labor, the EMT’s strapped him to a gurney and after they pulled him down the field 15-20 years, he popped up and revealed that it wasn’t a baby but a football hidden under his jersey. I might have just imagined that last one in some sort of weird fever dream, but then again, it might have actually happened because, you see, Scott Linehan had to resort to some weird, wild shit in order to run the ball last year.

So . . . yeah, the Lions needed a running back, someone who could share the load with Jahvid Best and even take over the load should Jahvid’s toes join Aaron Brown in Valhalla once again. The only question was whether the Lions would find that dude in the draft or whether they would drag some bum off the street and hypnotize him into thinking he was Jim Brown. While the latter would have been fucking awesome and entertaining as all hell – and since we have already established Scott Linehan is a wizard, that scenario was totally in play – the saner path was to find a young dude with what the ancient Incans called “Upward Mobility” (It was either them or an ‘80s yuppie who coined the term. Who can say for sure?), someone who could do more than just fill in an emergency, someone who could potentially kick down the doors to hell itself and shake off the tackles of the Failure Demons and run to glory and salvation while a chorus of angels cheered him on. They weren’t going to get that from Random Free Agent #207856. They just weren’t and you all know it. They were going to have to invest in the position in a real way if they were going to see dividends. They couldn’t just throw five dollars in a piggy bank along with hopes and wishes and unicorn dreams. They needed to do something that would set them up for the future, something that would let them move on from a life of living paycheck to paycheck, from crawling the back alleys after every season in search of just another body to ride into the maw of hell itself, stale bread for the starving and the desperate, the hellish struggle for survival of the perpetually damned.

And that’s why they traded up so they could draft Mikel LeShoure, so that they could secure the future and the promise of the running game once and for all. Now that the philosophy behind the decision to draft a running back instead of a cornerback or a linebacker or an exorcist has been explained, we come to the man himself: Mikel LeShoure. (And by the way, I am going to hate typing that name because it’s a weird fucking name. The first name is all jacked up – there is no K in Michael goddammit! – and the last name is one of those infernal ones with a capital letter in the middle of it, only I’ll never remember if it’s supposed to be capitalized or not and . . . fuck! I’m getting annoyed just thinking about it. Okay, tangent over.) Given what I just blathered on about, is LeShoure capable of being that guy, that final piece of the running back puzzle that has confounded us for the last decade? Well, let’s find out, shall we?

I have to admit, my impressions of LeShoure are colored a bit, tainted if you will, but in a good way – at least in terms of my perceptions of him anyway. You see, I have enduring memories of him absolutely demolishing the defense of my precious Michigan Wolverines. The dude looked like a combination of Jim Brown and a cheetah on angel dust. Then again, the Jim Brown of today – and remember, he’s a 75 year old man – would have looked like a combination of Jim Brown and a cheetah on angel dust against that horrid defense. It was like watching Superman beat up a baby. It was awful. The people of Nanking put up a better defense against the Japanese than the Michigan defense did against Mikel LeShoure. The French resisted Hitler better than the Michigan defense did against Mikel LeShoure. The midget villagers from Willow would have a better chance of defeating a gang of those rampaging roided up mutant wolf-dog things than the Michigan defense did of stopping Mikel LeShoure. Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley would have a better chance of surviving in a house made of needles and shotguns than the Michigan defense did of surviving against Mikael LeShoure. A retarded baby with no arms and legs armed only with a poop filled diaper would . . . okay, okay, that’s enough. I think you get the point, which is that based on what I saw with my own two eyes, Mikel LeShoure is a destroyer of worlds but the sad reality is that world was just a lame one, like Disney World or Pluto, so maybe I shouldn’t take too much away from what he did in his two games against Michigan.

Fine. But it wasn’t just Michigan that Mikel LeShoure bedeviled during his time at Illinois. There was the game against Northwestern in which he went absolutely apeshit, running for 330 yards and 10 yards per carry or the 184 yard, 3 touchdown game he put up against Baylor in the Texas Bowl or the 184 yards on only 11 carries that he put up against Fresno St. in 2009. All told, last year, LeShoure ran for 1697 yards and scored 17 rushing touchdowns, ripping off an average of 6 yards every time he touched the ball. The year before, as a sophomore, he ran for only 734 yards in limited duty, but he averaged 6.8 yards per carry. 6.8 yards! So, uh, yeah, Mikel LeShoure is pretty good.

Of course, a lot of times, players run up inflated stats in college playing against shittier competition or they do so even though their particular skills don’t really translate to the pro game. They’re either fast enough to dominate at the college level but a step too slow to do anything worthwhile in the NFL or they’re just big enough to handle the pounding of a shorter season against smaller players in college but they get murdered by the vicious animals of the NFL over the length of a grueling season. Or, they play in a gimmicky offense which accentuates all of their strengths but hides all of their weaknesses, offenses that fly in the college world where defenders are smaller and slower but which are rendered irrelevant by the wild super beasts who fly sideline to sideline in the NFL. There are a lot of ways in which college numbers lie and don’t translate to the next level. The good news, I think, is that most of these concerns don’t really apply to LeShoure.

First of all, from a competition standpoint, yeah, LeShoure did some damage against some crappy teams. But here’s the thing: Illinois was a crappy team too. Just awful. It’s not like he was running behind a juggernaut of an offensive line or picking up the scraps from a Heisman candidate quarterback. Illinois sucked, yo. And they sucked hard. Despite their inexplicable ability to rain fire down upon the heads of the people of Ann Arbor, the Illinois offense was largely a butt during LeShoure’s time with the Illini. His quarterbacks, Juice Williams and Nathan Scheelhaase (Fuck you, I’m not looking that up to make sure it’s spelled right.) were both so awful throwing the ball that defenses could stack the line of scrimmage whenever they felt like it. The Illini’s biggest downfield threat was prayer. Plus his head coach was Ron Zook, who could be outcoached by a retarded lemur and maybe even by Rod Marinelli. (Yeah, I said it. Officially it goes Retarded Lemur > Rod Marinelli > Ron Zook.) So, really, you can’t say that LeShoure was just feasting on overmatched teams because he was on the overmatched team most of the time.

Second, from a purely physical standpoint, LeShoure is almost the dictionary definition of an NFL running back. He’s 6’0” and 220 lbs. of muscle, he runs a 4.5 40, and damn it all, he just looks like an NFL running back. I know that “Hey, come on now, just trust me” stuff is some weak bullshit, but sometimes you see a guy and you just know. Mikel LeShoure is one of those guys. He’s big, he’s strong and he’s fast. I mean, I’m not sure what more you want, you know? Short of looking into his heart like some sort of shaman mystic or tasting his urine in order to decide if it has the tang of a champion thoroughbred (Wait . . . what?) there’s not much more evidence that we can get that Mikel LeShoure is an NFL running back.

Third, as far as playing in a wacky offense, well . . . here is where there might be a few issues. LeShoure played in the ever popular spread option at Illinois, which means that he was rarely forced to be the Here’s The Running Back Come Hit Him If You Can runner which would make most people feel confident in his ability to run in the NFL. A lot of Illinois’ offense was based on misdirection and upon opening holes in the defense by spreading it so thin that LeShoure could just waltz right on through and stop for a late night snack and a cigarette along the way. There are a couple of ways of looking at this. The doomsayers would say that this has created a running back who’s not comfortable or familiar enough with contact to succeed at an NFL level, while the perpetually erect optimists would say that this just means that LeShoure is physically fresh, and not beat up like some modern day Earl Campbell. The truth, I think, probably lies somewhere in between.

The knock on LeShoure is that despite his size and physical ability he isn’t really a power runner. His game lies in finding the hole and bursting through it. He’s really not the type to seek out a linebacker or safety and then run him over just for the hell of it. But the thing is, is that he never really had to do that at Illinois. The offense didn’t call for it. In fact, doing that would have flown in the face of the entire offensive philosophy. So, really . . . we don’t know. We just don’t. The good news is that LeShoure has the physical ability to be that kind of runner if he needs to be. But that’s the key phrase: “if he needs to be.” So far he hasn’t. He will in the NFL – at least some of the time. The reality is that he’s a player who’s been conditioned to look for the hole and then to explode through it. Honestly, he’s not that different a runner than Jahvid Best. He doesn’t have Best’s supernatural, almost Barry-like vision, but he has physical gifts in terms of size and strength that Best will never have. He’s not so much the physical counter-punch to Best’s lightning quick jab as he is just a different version of that jab.

I think the perception is that the Lions wanted the tough, inside runner to serve as a complement to Best’s explosive outside the tackles running, but I’m not quite sure that’s really all that accurate. I think it’s a fatal misreading of what the coaches and personnel dudes in Detroit actually believe. I think that they’re more comfortable than people realize with Best running in between the tackles. They didn’t draft him to be a speed back or just a homerun hitter or however the hell you want to phrase it. They drafted him to be a full-time, every down complete back. They have faith in his ability to run in almost every situation. They drafted Mikel LeShoure in the same vein. They didn’t draft him to be just a power back or the thunder to Best’s lightning or anything like that. Not really anyway. They drafted him to be a complete back, just like Best, and they drafted him not to complement Best but to reinforce Best.

They want to be able to put either guy out there in any situation and feel comfortable. They don’t want to have to say “Oh, we need a big play, let’s put in Best,” or “We need 3 tough yards, put in LeShoure.” No. That shit is entirely too predictable. It’s entry level thinking. They want Best and LeShoure to carry the load together, not separately if that makes any sense at all. The NFL is a tough, tough league and even Superman would be bitching and moaning and strapping ice packs on by Week 10. The Lions need two guys who can both handle the load if they are going to do what they want to do. They don’t need an inside and an outside runner. They need two dudes who can do both, who can storm into the breach when the other dude gets weary. They want to be able to maintain a consistent pace, a consistent style and quality throughout the game. They want to be able to insert LeShoure or insert Best without skipping a beat. They want one running back in two bodies, interchangeable hearts and souls working towards the same goal.

Of course, it would be foolish to ignore the differences between the two and I think you will see Best hit it up outside a little more than LeShoure and LeShoure barrel down the gut more than Best, but you’ll be surprised, I think, at how much LeShoure will pop it outside or Best will fire through the middle. Don’t look for Mikel LeShoure to be Earl Campbell because he’s not. That’s all I’m saying here.

As time goes by, I think that we’ll see LeShoure’s style evolve a little bit in order to better take advantage of his physical gifts, but for now he’s a running back who likes to burst through the hole and then try to outrun the defense. He doesn’t have elite, elite top-end speed, but like I said in the Titus Young breakdown, top-end speed is overrated. He’s fast enough and elusive enough, I think, to successfully run the way he’s comfortable running. He has physical gifts that will allow him to run differently and more physically as he matures and figures those things out but it’s not like he lacks the gifts that allow him to run the way he does now. He’s not big and slow. He’s big but he’s fast too and he has decent enough vision that he should be alright.

What the Lions got what they drafted Mikel LeShoure was maybe the best running back in the draft – the second year in a row they managed to pull this off – and that means that they didn’t just get a power back. They got a running back who is capable of doing pretty much anything. I think there will be some frustration amongst Lions fans when they see LeShoure waiting for his hole to open or dancing too much for their liking. They won’t understand why he won’t just plow ahead since the stereotype of LeShoure as the thunder to Best’s lightning has already been pretty well established and will be tough to dislodge from the minds of a lot of fans. This is unfortunate, but it is what it is.

I don’t mean to derail any optimism or anything like that. I think that LeShoure will be a fine player and I think that he and Best will kick ass for the Lions for years to come. It’s just that I foresee the bitching and moaning from the inveterate bitchers and moaners already coming on the horizon and it kind of bums me out. But fuck all them, their noise is merely the howling of the perpetually damned, the dumb wailing of the already lost, and we have to ignore all that shit if we are to keep our own sanity.

The truth is that Mikel LeShoure is a dude who’s capable of being an every down running back in the NFL. If people want to bitch about one aspect of his game just because they can’t see the forest for the trees then so be it. I will choose to see the bigger picture, which is that in Mikel LeShoure the Lions have a dude who any team in the league would love to have, a dude who’s capable of easily running for 1,000 yards in this league or any other, and a dude who will bring the Lions running game to a level that we haven’t seen in over a decade now. But he doesn’t have to do it alone, and that’s the key. Neither he nor Best will be forced to carry the load all by themselves and both they and the Lions running game as a whole will be better for it. This is one more piece in a larger puzzle, one more example of that Philosophy of Greatness I mentioned after the Draft. Mikel LeShoure might not be Earl Campbell, but he doesn’t need to be. He just needs to be Mikel LeShoure and soon enough, that should mean something all by itself.

Titus Young

I love this dude so much already.

A few months back, Doug, the dude behind the blog The Detroit Transplant, twittered me (not a euphemism, I swear) and asked what I thought about Titus Young, the wide receiver from Boise St. As a pretty damn big college football fan, I was pretty familiar with Young – explosive wide receiver, always seemed to be catching deep bombs – but I decided to check the dude out some more and I came away thinking “Holy shit, this guy is the goods.” I told Doug that I’d love it if the Lions drafted Titus Young at some point but I also told him that there was no way Titus was falling past the midway point of the second round and the Lions probably wouldn’t be able to land him, especially since Conventional Wisdom – that mewling idiot who manages to seduce us all with her harlot ways – said that the Lions would focus on defense, defense and more defense before addressing the wide receiver position.

Fast forward a couple of months to late April and Barry Sanders standing on the stage and announcing that the Lions had just drafted none other than Titus Young. Oh. So much for Conventional Wisdom, that lying motherfucker. No one should ever listen to him. Indeed. Much like the Lions first pick, Nick Fairley, their selection of Titus Young was one that no one really saw coming because it didn’t fit the established storyline. But as we have seen every draft day during the Mayhew/Schwartz regime, they don’t really give a shit about the established storyline. It’s up to us to catch up. My brain did the same thing everyone else’s did after Young was picked – whataboutacorner oh GOD WHATABOUTACORNER??? – and then I reached in and slapped it and splashed it in the face with water and told it stop crying like a hysterical woman. It did, and then it remembered that moment a few months earlier when it had delved into the mystery that was Titus Young and it smiled and was glad and then we made sweet, sweet love under the light of the moon until the sun came up. Wait . . .

I don’t want you to dwell too long on the mental picture of me having sex with my own brain – I mean, if you really want to, by all means, have a blast – and so I’ll just move on. (How did this even happen? I don’t even know and I am the one writing this damn thing. I guess my brain wants everyone to know about us. Wait . . . Jesus, this is awful. I’m so sorry.) Anyway, so . . . Titus Young. Like I said, I already knew quite a bit about Titus Young when he was drafted, enough to give me the confidence that the Lions had just stolen a dude. He’s electrically fast. And by that, I mean this: a lot of guys are fast but there are very, very few guys who know how to use that speed in a way that translates to the football field. Titus Young is one of those guys. He’s a natural playmaker, a dude who knows how to move, how to twitch, how to explode at just the right moment. Those things can’t really be taught. You either have them or you don’t.

There are some niggling concerns about his high end speed, but there are always niggling concerns about players’ high ends speeds. It’s like bitching that your Ferrari will only go 220 and won’t kick it up to 230. As long as you’re not trying to escape wild eyed vampire assassins on rocket fueled motorcycles in the Great Salt Flats, I think you’re going to be okay, you know what I mean? Top, top speed is overrated. It’s not really all that relevant. What matters is that electric speed, that ability to know how to use what speed you have. As long as a mutant cheetah on goofballs doesn’t break into Ford Field during a game and make a beeline for Titus, I think he’ll manage just fine with the speed that he has.

He’s not very big – only 5’11” and maybe 175 pounds – but that’s not what he’s here for. He’s not here to be the big possession receiver who moves the chains. He’s here to be the home-run threat who opens up the field for the Lions underneath receivers – the Brandon Pettigrews and Tony Schefflers and Nate Burlesons – and who keeps defenses from loading up on Calvin Johnson. That’s not to say that his size won’t present problems. There will be some plays where he is simply erased by bigger corners, jammed and chucked out of the play at the line before it even starts, but that’s why he went in the second round and not the first, you know?

Because here’s the thing: if he did have that size, then he would have been a top ten pick. He has everything else. He’s explosive as hell, he knows how to catch the damn ball – which is something that for some stupid reason is always overlooked by scouts – he has a knack for the big play and, well, he just looks like a playmaker when he’s out on the field. That’s a hard thing to quantify and I know that it’s kind of a copout, but there are just some guys who when you see them, you know. Titus Young, to me, is one of those guys.

He’s sort of the anti-Derrick Williams in that respect. Williams is also a fine athlete, electric and fluid and all that horseshit, but when he’s out on the field he never looks entirely comfortable. This was obvious even during his time at Penn St. He struggled to catch the ball and he just never looked the part. It was like something was always off about him, like his body was always a fraction of a millisecond behind his brain. That has followed him to the pros, to a place where everybody is faster, and that has made him utterly irrelevant.

I only bring up Williams because he’s the mistake Young is being drafted to erase and to ease some of the OHMYGODWHATIFHE’SABUST hysteria that flew through the collective fanbase like some sort of genetically engineered mutant peregrine falcon with bad intentions, pecking out our souls and ripping at our fragile hearts with its cruel and beastly talons. Titus Young is not Derrick Williams. He’s just not. He’s a hyper-productive player with explosive, world-class fluidity and athleticism. His only real flaw is his size. The Lions drafted a real wide receiver, and strange as it may sound, that is a species that is entirely too rare in this world. Most of the time, you end up with athletes pretending to be wide receivers and it just doesn’t work out. Again, Derrick Williams comes to mind.

Another thing that has gone overlooked in the wave of hysteria stoked by The Fear is that Titus Young – unlike Charles Rogers or Mike Williams (take a moment to let that terrible chill you just felt go away) – isn’t going to be asked to be The Man right away. No. Much like with Nick Fairley, Young will just be asked to play a role. He won’t be the guy who opposing defenses focus on – that burden falls, as it always does, on St. Calvin, hallowed by thy name – which means that he should actually have an easier time getting open and making plays and using that game changing ability than if he was stuck on a shittier team (wow, how weird does it feel to be able to write that?) and forced to be The Man. He’s a complementary piece, but a dangerous one. Much like the selection of Fairley will cause opposing offenses to pick their poison, Titus Young will make it impossible to cover all of the Lions weapons effectively without leaving a fatal weak spot for Matthew Stafford to exploit. Boom. Game over. Checkmate.

So, yeah . . . Titus Young has all the tools to be successful and he’s in a situation which maximizes that opportunity. Again, it’s a lot like the Nick Fairley situation. But again, like with Fairley, there are people wringing their hands and soiling themselves in fear because of the dreaded and all too familiar Character Concerns label. Here’s the thing: I really don’t give a shit about all that. I don’t want Boy Scouts, I want the dude from The Last Boy Scout running down the field with a gun. I’m not a Boy Scout so why in the fuck would I want to cheer for a team of Boy Scouts? I want players who have that edge, who walk the line between controlled aggression and “Get the tazer, boys!” The true greats are almost always assholes. They channel that thing which makes it hard for them to get along in the real world into ritualized aggression and fury. Sport is simulated warfare and I want dudes who can draw upon that part of themselves that is cruel and mean and unrefined.

All that said, no, of course I don’t want my dudes to get caught in a speedboat off the coast of Baja running from Mexicali Federales or cocaine magnets nicknamed El Diablo or to be found screaming wide eyed and naked in the streets, running from invisible demons and covered in hooker blood. Because that means that they will get a four game suspension from Sherriff Goodell and fuck that, you know? It’s all about finding that line – the cliff’s edge – and then standing over it, looking down at the abyss with a wild eyed smile and no fear of anything that walks under the sun or moon, but having the self-possession to understand that while, yeah, you can whip your dick out and piss over the edge into that abyss, you can’t fly so keep your damn feet on the ground and don’t swan dive into oblivion. That’s the trick that I want my dudes to be able to master. It’s the trick we all must master.

But here’s the other thing about “issues”: To me, they’re not an issue until they’re actually an issue, you know? People freak out because a dude got baked at a party his freshman year or they freak out because a dude got drunk and punched a teammate for scamming on his girl. It’s college, goddammit, these things happen. These things are supposed to happen. People mature. People grow up. If you avoided every player with “issues” going into a draft, you’d end up being able to draft, like, six players, 4 of whom are Mormon giants from BYU who are planning on taking two years off to save retarded kids in Mali or to preach to heathen goats in New Zealand. Elite athletes are natural born degenerates because what makes them borderline sociopaths is also what makes them, well, elite athletes.

But just what are young Mr., uh, Young’s alleged “issues”? Well these things are always mired in mystery and wild, dumb speculation, but Young was suspended for much of the 2008 season for the always popular “breaking of team rules,” which means that he probably was partying a bit too much or acting like he was the big dick on campus, which . . . shit, those things were basically my major back in the day. If we’re going to damn college kids to hell for partying too much then, well, I’m afraid hell’s gonna be a pretty crowded place. Titus Young’s “issues”: Is a human being. Well, alright then.

Okay, okay, there were also concerns from teams that Titus was an arrogant asshole in their interviews with him and that he turned some teams off with his attitude, which . . . uh, well, that kind of shit always strikes me as “That boy refused to say Yessuh!” Some people just aren’t soft spoken. Too fucking bad. The sports world – and the incredibly white people who both run it and write about it – fetishize the whole Soft Spoken Young Man thing to the point where it’s almost a damn cliché. I don’t want soft spoken broken souled pod people. I want dudes who are alive, who are wild of spirit and fiery of heart. I want the joyful and the savage. I want the fierce warrior who will laugh and scream after the kill and I want the epic man who will break down in tears when the spirit moves him. I don’t want fake robots with zombie smiles and shriveled up souls. I want people, strong people, people who ride their emotions to the edge of oblivion and then have to lasso them back under control. I want the untamable because the untamable doesn’t give a fuck about what he can’t do. He only cares about what he can do, and I want dudes who will smile at the fire and then run through it because fuck it, that’s why.

I want dudes who are compared to “a stick of dynamite”, which is what Titus Young was compared to by Mayhew after he drafted him. I want dudes who respond to being called a poor man’s DeSean Jackson by saying shit like:

"I've never been another man's nothing," he said, laughing. "I've always known that I've been Titus Young from Day One. My mother named me Titus Demetrius Young. She didn't name me nothing else. I know who I am and I know people compare you to people. But God made me to be me. He made me to be Titus Demetrius Young. You can compare me all you want to, but I'm no man's poor man.”

Titus Young said that to the Detroit News and goddamn right, Titus. Goddamn right.

But that’s not all. I want the dude who says shit like this:

"Actually, my initials my whole life have been T.D. Young," said Young, the youngest of five children — and the only boy — growing up in Los Angeles, where his parents, Richard and Teresa Young, are pastors. "So it's been Titus Demetrius Young — Touchdown Young. So I just feel like football has been me ever since I was born. And now I can go play some more football in Dee-troit." He cackled as he put the emphasis on that last part, and he did so often Friday, enjoying this moment for all it's worth. He even let out a little banshee cry at one point.

Fuckin’ A right! But hey, what’s this? There’s more? Indeed:

"My roots are actually in Detroit," Young said, when asked to explain the tears. "It's just the emotion of I'm actually gonna be back in a family town. That's my home now. I'm gonna take care of Detroit, and I know they'll take care of me. And all this emotion is really just all the hard work and all this waiting and all this patience and having faith in the Lord and …"

"But the whole thing is just about winning," he added. "I feel like we're all gonna be winners in Detroit. Not just me — the community, the kids in Detroit, they're gonna know that the Lions are here to stay. We ain't just no anybody; we're coming to play."

You’re goddamn right, Titus. We’re coming to play. And Titus Young is gonna be a big part of that and I couldn’t be happier. You take your character concerns and everything else and you light ‘em on fire and shove ‘em up your ass because I want the dude who said all that shit to be a Detroit Lion. And he is. He is. And he’s coming to play. He’s gonna take care of Detroit and by God, we’re gonna take care of him.

Nick Fairley

From L to R: Kyle Vanden Bosch, Ndamukong Suh, Nick Fairley and Cliff Avril

I have already talked at great (oh Lord, so great . . .) length about the draft and Nick Fairley in particular and so there is really no need to rehash all of the arguments about why it was right that the Lions picked him instead of some other dude. Instead, let’s talk about Fairley, and just Fairley. Cool? Okay, cool.

Anyway, as I have already mentioned, my first reaction when the Lions drafted Fairley was shock followed by elation. I could attempt to relate these feelings to you the best I can after the fact, but instead I thought I would just transcribe what I posted on twitter in those delirious moments following the pick (note: some retweets and responses to other tweets will be mixed in here, and, well, the responses probably won’t make any damn sense without the context of the other person’s tweet, but fuck all that, since when did anything here make sense? If you really need to make sense of things, just imagine the other person’s tweet based on my response. I know I am asking you to try to follow – or worse, recreate – the logic of my strange brain, and that is undoubtedly a madman’s pursuit, but what the hell, these are strange and terrible times and they have made madmen of us all. I have faith in you.)

armchairlb (hey, that’s me!): Holy shit.

armchairlb: @iprefertheremix: This is going to be crazy either way.

armchairlb: @ElMurphzilla (there is nothing here but a blank space, which leads me to believe that I hit reply & was so crazed that I never bothered to write anything. I don’t even remember doing this, which just adds more credence to my theory that I went temporarily insane. (Temporarily??? Also, yeah, a parenthetical inside a parenthetical because hey, fuck the elements of style. I am an element of style. ) Sorry, Murph.)

jscwhartzlions (this was a retweet. From now on, whenever the first name isn’t armchairlb, just assume that it was a retweet. Also, yes, this is the twitter account of Jim Schwartz, Lions head coach and head priest of our cult of pain): Excited to add Nick Fairley to our defensive line.

theshityoucantsay: (RT) (mumbling) I trustmayhewitrustmayhewitrustmayhew

armchairlb: @ElMurphzilla: I predict an NFC North QB (Not named Stafford - covering my ass here) will be reduced to his base elements in the next yr or 2

armchairlb: @lionsinwinter: Oh Lord that would be amazing.

armchairlb: @ElMurphzilla: True. (I know, I know, scintillating, but this is an accurate record of events and it would be wrong to leave out the mundane. Just imagine whatever you want for Murph’s end of the conversation.)

Joshuaishere: (RT) Breaking news: Jay Cutler announces his retirement.

Detroit4lyfe: (RT) RT (yes, I retweeted a retweet – this shit is getting confusing)@davebirkett: Fairley bopping his head to Eminem on stage now. Lions hats all around. On NFL Network now.

armchairlb: My feelings summed up: Still need to shore up back 7 but GODDAMN.

armchairlb: @theshityoucantsay: Yeah, that was one of my first thoughts. You can't afford to double anyone on that line.

lionsinwinter: (RT) Beastly. RT @djdobbo: bah gawd Cutler has been broken in half!

armchairlb: Good God. RT @drelevy CoreyWilliams&Suh&KVB&Cliff&LoJack&Fairley&Sammie

Lions Suhperfan: (RT) Lions on the cover of NFL.com right now. "Unfair Advantage"

jimschwartzlions: (RT) We did a lot of mock scenarios and Fairley falling to us was one of our ideals, though we thought it unlikely.

armchairlb: *rips shirt off like Hulk Hogan*

armchairlb: Okay, I’ll calm down now.

armchairlb: @theshityoucantsay: I would say more of a 447 AD Huns kind of operation, but yeah. (I remember this was in response to my dude asking me if I got the feeling that the Lions were putting together an ’85 Bears sort of operation.)

My timeline picks up the next day with me gibbering on about rewriting Titus Andronicus with Titus Young in the lead role and wondering aloud who would play Aaron the Moor, so yeah, let’s just assume that my gibberish about the Huns was the last thing I wrote about the Fairley pick in the minutes and hours after it happened.

Okay. So, obviously, I - and most of the people I follow/who follow me on twitter – were pretty damn excited about the Fairley selection. There’s a lot that can be gleaned from all those tweets for anyone paying attention. Other than the fact that I am completely ridiculous, I think the most telling thing is the Schwartz tweet in which he says the following: “We did a lot of mock scenarios and Fairley falling to us was one of our ideals, though we thought it unlikely.” That tells me that this was kind of a no-brainer for Mayhew and Schwartz (And I mean no-brainer in a much, MUCH different way than I would have meant it during the Millen and Marinelli days.) This was something that they had to do and so they did it and if this were any normal fanbase, there would be much rejoicing. But we’re not a normal fanbase, and while there was much rejoicing, there was also much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth and much panicked drivel about the sky falling, but I’ve already discussed all that and you know where I stand and so I won’t hammer it too hard here. I just wanted to touch on that Jim Schwartz tweet because it shows that – at least amongst the Lions dudes in charge – this wasn’t some sort of agonizing decision. It was a gift from heaven and they took it without shameful questions and self-indulgent worry. I think we should try to do the same.

Anyway, that was that. The common theme seemed to be something along the lines of “Welcome to the Jungle, baby, you’re gonna DIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE”, and if that song didn’t play in your heart after that pick, well then, I’m afraid that The Fear may have enslaved you. Because, honestly, when you look at Nick Fairley, and you look at the Lions defensive line, images of war dogs from hell slobbering over the bodies of their fallen enemies should pop into your head. Visions of King Kong whooping ass and beating the shit out of some cocksucker T-Rex should dance through your brain. The four horsemen of the apocalypse riding their death horses through the helpless lines of our opponents should make you smile and laugh and gibber with uncontrollable joy. The Lions defensive line was already one of the best in the league. Now it adds another blue chip talent with a mean streak, which is a lot like giving King Kong a shotgun or Godzilla a giant sword or Superman a bazooka. That shit just ain’t fair.

It is fitting that the last tweet in that string of nonsense is the one gibbering about the Lions creating an operation mirroring the Huns because, really, that’s the whole point here. My friend, who shall remain nameless because he prefers it that way but you can check out his awesome blog here, compared it to what the ’85 Bears – perhaps the most renowned and fearsome defense in NFL history – put together, but it goes beyond that really. It transcends mere football dominance and becomes something that can only be understood through references to Huns and other vicious killing machines. This may sound ridiculously hyperbolic, and, well, it is, especially when you consider that Nick Fairley has yet to play a down in the NFL, but that is the only honest way to explain the absurd level of excitement I felt after the pick, and perhaps more importantly, which I still feel.

I’m having a hard time writing about the Nick Fairley pick without degenerating into savage grunts and strange hoots. It is damn near impossible for me to keep any level of responsible coherence here, but you know what? Fuck all that. I am absurdly excited and it feels damn good. For once, I have a reason to beat my chest and stagger through the streets, covered in Honolulu Blue and tell everyone to kiss my ass, because I am a Lions fan and we are going to conquer the world. That’s what this pick means to me. It isn’t about sober football analysis or a measured reasonable reaction to just another talented rookie. It is a shot that rings out in the night, a clarion call announcing that we will be heard, and if you don’t want to hear us, we will make you hear us. It is about greatness, about reaching beyond even the most immortal of football dreams, about surpassing visions of the best defense of all time, the ’85 Bears, and reaching for something truly immortal, something new, something that nobody has ever seen before. This isn’t about matching anyone’s prior accomplishments. No, this is about creating a whole new standard, a whole new definition for utter beastliness. This is about greatness. This is about breaking all the molds, about smashing the preconceived limits. This is about creating a defensive line that even the dead will fear. Metallica’s For Whom the Bell Tolls should play every time they get in their stance. Fuck everyone and everything else, this is about letting the long held and long denied dreams of my heart explode forth in fury and unparalleled joy.

Like I said, yeah, that is hyperbolic as all hell, but who cares? That is exactly the point. For once, we have all been given a chance to believe in something great, something that isn’t just good, but the very best of the best. This is about being able to puff up with pride whenever anyone talks about our team, about being able to smile with knowing glee 20 years from now when some shithead kid starts asking questions like “Were those Lions defensive lines really as great as everyone says they were?” This is about having that chance, that opportunity that so rarely comes along to have something better than good, to transcend mere football, mere sports, and believe in a greatness that makes us understand why we are fans in the first place. This is about that transcendent opportunity. We saw it – we had it – with Barry Sanders. There is a chance – no matter how small it may be, there is a chance – that we can have the same thing with our defensive line. We can feel the warmth in our hearts, in our guts when we see an opposing quarterback quake with fear. We can smile with pride when we hear an announcer reference the Lions and then shudder with amazement, like “Goddamn, you don’t wanna mess with those boys.” When those moments happen, they make all the pain worth it, they make you remember what is so amazing about being a fan. It’s a warm, giddy, delirious feeling and it makes you feel like you can conquer universes. The rest of the world slips away for a moment. All the bullshit that you have to put up with on a day to day basis drops away, all the tired depression melts away, and all you’re left with is that King of the World feeling, that I Can Do Anything That I Want feeling, because in some small, seemingly insignificant and absurd way, you are connected to the same awesome family, the same irresistibly dominant current that connects to something the rest of the world recognizes as great. Because you’re a fan, you’re part of something bigger than yourself, and so their dominance is your dominance. You can own that. And that’s what this pick was all about. For that chance.

And really, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? There are always going to be fears, niggling thoughts eating away at the back of your brain, doubts plaguing you, wondering whether we should have done something different, terrified that it might not work out as it should, but you know what? I don’t really care about any of that. I really don’t. I’m just so happy that we have people in charge who aren’t afraid to take that chance, who are willing to reach for greatness. That’s the sort of attitude that leads to Super Bowls, that leads to dynasties. Even if they mess up once or twice, or a pick doesn’t work out, it’s okay, because they won’t stop trying for greatness. They won’t give up. They’ll keep going and going and going until their vision is fulfilled. They laugh at conventional wisdom. They make their own wisdom. And that will always – always- keep them ahead of the game. And that should fill you with a sort of quiet and everlasting confidence. This is just one piece in a giant puzzle. Nick Fairley is the avatar of that Philosophy of Greatness, which I talked about in my last post, because he represents the dedication to an ideal, to a spirit and a thirst for immortality which is rare in this world. It is rare, but it’s what’s at the heart of our favorite football franchise right now and that makes me want to rejoice.

But all that is a lot of words, a lot of strange nonsense about fandom and about how this pick made me feel. But what about Fairley himself? What, exactly, does he bring to the table? Well, according to virtually every scouting report (yeah, I read them), he’s an explosive player whose athleticism and coordination afford him rare gifts, gifts which can be used to lure a quarterback to his utter destruction. Indeed. The players Fairley gets compared to are guys like Kevin Williams and Warren Sapp and, oh yeah, a dude named Ndamukong Suh. The Suh comparison is a little unfair. I mean, after all, Suh is a once in a generation kin d of talent and if we are expecting Fairley to come in and destroy worlds like Suh, then we’re probably going to be a little disappointed. His upside is not heaven itself like it is with Suh. But that’s okay. I’ll take a dude who’s upside seems to be somewhere between Gerald McCoy, the defensive tackle who was the Robin to Suh’s Batman in last year’s draft, and Sapp, who was a perennial Pro Bowler whose pass rushing skills allowed him to construct a house made from the dried out bones of his victims. (Note: this may or may not be true. I am searching for confirmation from his contractor.)

That all sounds pretty damn good to me. Fairley has a chance to be absolutely devastating in this defense, with all that talent surrounding him on the line. Opposing offensive lines will have no choice but to single block him, meaning that he should have opportunity after opportunity to steal the souls of Aaron Rodgers, Jay Cutler and . . . *snort* Christian Ponder. I mean, opponents could choose to double him, but then, well . . . say hello to The Lord of the House of Spears, or Kyle Vandenbosch and his wild red eyes, or the jackrabbit named Cliff Avril or Corey Williams or Sammie Hill or Lawrence Jackson or . . . you get the point. And hey, who’s that creeping along the edge? The Great Willie Young? Shiiiiiiiiit. Like I said in my last delirious post, checkmate motherfucker.

Of course, as a rookie, Fairley probably won’t be an instant All-Pro like Suh. That’s not really a fair expectation for any mortal rookie. But the thing is, is he doesn’t really have to be. Not with the collection of talent the Lions have assembled along the line. All he needs to do is scare the shit out of opposing quarterbacks every once in a while and keep opposing offensive lines honest. As a rookie, that will be enough, and that alone should be fairly (Oh shit, the puns, the puns!) devastating. I mean, yeah, if he can come out and be a Conqueror of Worlds then that would be amazing, but even if he isn’t right away – and again, I’m not expecting him to be – his presence alone should free up Suh and the rest of the boys to be even scarier than they were last year. Nick Fairley doesn’t even need to make a tackle and he’s already improved what was already a scary good defensive line.

But he will make a tackle, plenty of them, and as a rookie he should still be good enough to be an impact starter. Whether he actually starts or not is another matter, but it’s not really relevant. The concept of starters when it comes to the Lions defensive line is kind of outmoded. They are a unit of interchangeable death angels and since there are so many of them, they should always be fresh and that should mean nothing but misery and pain for opposing quarterbacks and ball carriers. If Nick Fairley were drafted by 95% of the teams in the NFL he would be expected to be The Man from day one. On the Lions, he is just one of many and I don’t think you quite realize how much that should help him as he develops. He is free to let his talent speak for itself without the weight of the world constantly bearing down on him. He doesn’t have to be The Man. He just needs to be himself and that will be good enough.

Conversely, because he’s surrounded by such an array of intimidating talent, he won’t be allowed to get fat and lazy. Normally, a young hotshot player can get away with that because the team has no choice but to play him and someone will be dumb enough to throw a bunch of money at him in a couple of years. But if Fairley gets fat and lazy, the Lions just won’t play him and then he’ll end up forgotten and giving handjobs outside of his UFL locker room for spending cash. He has to show up. He’s swimming with the sharks and the only way to survive something like that is to become a shark yourself. And from all accounts, Nick Fairley is a mean motherfucking shark.

It’s the perfect situation for Fairley. It really is. He’ll be surrounded by professional assassins who can and will teach him how to hone his talents and keep his wild side in check. And he’ll be allowed to develop at a pace that isn’t suffocating because he’s not expected to be The Man – which is perfect for a dude who hasn’t even been playing the position very long. He only played at Auburn for two seasons and he was really only Nick Fairley: Death Machine in that final year. Some will fret and say that this is cause for concern, but what it shows me is that this is a supremely talented dude whose rate of progression is frighteningly meteoric. If he keeps improving at that same rate he could be even better than what people are already hoping for. Excuse me a moment, I just shuddered in ecstasy and I have to clean up after myself. Ahem. Sorry for making you picture that, but what the hell, you know what you’re getting into by now. But obviously this whole thing is getting more than a little out of hand and so we’ll wrap this up before I am found wandering naked through the streets, rubbing myself and moaning in savage pleasure.

Nick Fairley has gotten by so far because of his supreme natural talent and his notorious mean streak. He is a natural born Rottweiler. He could have been adopted by some vicious thug who would beat him and let him run stupid and wild. But he was taken in by a trainer who knows how to hone his natural abilities, who will treat him with respect and kindness, and in the end that Rottweiler named Nick Fairley will be both the best friend the Lions could ever ask for and the perfect killing machine in case anybody tries to fuck with us. He’s a young pup, and he’s already raised hell. The day will come when he is full grown and terrible to behold and when that day comes, woe to any foolish motherfucker who makes the mistake of trying to scramble past our gates.

Nick Fairley is a Detroit Lion and I am damn glad to have him, and the rest of the football world may now commence shaking in terrible fear. So let it be written, so let it be done.