Where the Hell Are We? Part 2: Linebackers

 (I’ve decided to do a pre-draft series taking a look at the Lions position by position while I’m still upbeat and motivated and before being a Lions fan leaves me feeling depressed and incapable of stringing words together besides “fuck” and “this”. Each section will take a brief (lol sure) look at the team’s history at the position/notable players/etc., a look at more recent years and, finally, the situation as it stands today on the eve of the draft. I’ll do something like two a week, starting with the defensive line and ending with quarterback. Today, we're talking linebackers. Consider this a quasi-draft preview/history lesson/idiot gibberish. Cool? Cool.)

A quick and ridiculous note before we get to all that linebacking goodness: I have a fever and have been shitting my life way, and the net result is that I feel like I was hit by a train and then forced to experience dope sickness at the same time. Naturally, I thought that would be a good time to talk about the Detroit Lions. But if I stop making sense and start gibbering about weird outlandish bullshit, don’t worry, that’s totally normal.

Ancient History Because I Believe In Psychic Energies, I Mean How Else Do You Explain The Last 60 Years and One Playoff Win? Wait . . . One Playoff Win? What the Hell? Excuse Me While I Huff Some Ether: Any discussion about the Lions history at linebacker has to begin with Joe Schmidt, one of the heroes of the Lions golden age which coincided roughly with the time of Noah and his Ark before the floods came and left us broken and alone drifting in an eternal sea of despair. Anyway, yeah . . . Joe Schmidt. Joe went to 10 straight Pro Bowls and was an 8 time All Pro. That’s, uh, that’s pretty good, right? Of course, this all exists as little more than a half-forgotten memory, the sort of thing that plays on a newsreel in our mind as some grainy black and white footage. Anyone who truly remembers it is probably getting ready to transition to adult diapers, but hey, that’s our psychic energies for you.

After that, to find anyone approaching even a semblance of what Chuck Schmidt brought us, you have to fast-forward all the way to Chris Spielman, who was an All Pro during that hazy dream season of 1991. Even he is half tainted for many Lions fans by virtue of being a former Ohio State Buckeye and also for being a TV analyst in an age when TV analysts universally make us all want to reach for a Drain Cleaner Smoothie. Still, he is our last best link to anything resembling genuine glory, or at least a really sad, faded version of the word anyway.

In between, the Lions had a couple of decent long-time linebackers in Wayne Walker and Paul Naumoff, but they have been largely lost to history and are little more than just random names to most Lions fans now. Walker was actually pretty good, holding shit down in the mid-60s as a Pro Bowler as the heart of a stint with the Lions that lasted 15 solid years. He was a teammate of Schmidt and Alex Karras and damn, the Lions actually had pretty good defenses once upon a time. Naumoff, meanwhile, spent over a decade with the Lions, basically taking Walker’s place, and that decade or so was spent wavering between being a solid starter and just a guy. Still, in the Lions shriveled history, that is enough to deserve a mention I guess.

I could talk about Stephen Boyd, who took over from Spielman, and had a solid few years, including a couple of Pro Bowls, but frankly we’ve all got better things to do with our time. For instance, I have to go sit on the toilet again. When I come back, let’s just hope that I haven’t turned into a literal ghost. When I look in the mirror, I already see what appears to be a ghost with leukemia, so let’s just hope for the best, shall we?

Okay, I’m back and while I was sweating it out on the toilet, seeing visions of The Great Willie Young fishing in the Gulf of Mexico and pulling up old junk like my corpse, to which he said “Throw that shit back, man,” I decided I would mention Mike Cofer. Cofer really wasn’t a great player or anything, but here’s why he’s important: he’s the first Lions player I actually knew as a young idiot. This was thanks to his football card, which I received before I even really understood what football even was. Needless to say, he was an important person in my Lions fan development. So, uh, blame him, I guess. Anyway, he wasn’t really a true linebacker. Well, he was, but he was a 3-4 OLB type who plays DE in a 4-3, and was what I guess we would call today an edge rusher. I still have his football card somewhere, and when I was a kid, I thought he must be a Hall of Famer or something. Naturally, he wasn’t because our childish dreams are just cruel taunts from an indifferent universe.

Recent History: After the Stephen Boyd “era”, things got really dark as He Who Shall Not Be Named took over the team and a decade of utter madness and witless despair took hold of our already crippled hearts and feeble minds. I could talk about Chris Claiborne and the like, but why relive that shit? The Lions basically had no truly good linebackers for a long time, and it wasn’t until maybe a half decade ago when a couple of decent players crawled out of the primordial ooze and taunted us with the faintest hint of that most dangerous of words: possibility.

DeAndre Levy and Stephen Tulloch were both, at various times in their Lions tenure, legitimately good. Tulloch came over from the Titans, handpicked by Jim Schwartz to center his defense, and while not a Pro Bowler, was a solid starter and . . . okay fine, you all remember him as the dumbass who wrecked his knee celebrating a sack of Aaron Rodgers. Even our notables are overshadowed by notoriety of a different sort.

Levy, on the other hand, had a steady ascent as a starter before exploding with a legit All-Pro caliber season in 2014. Of course, he wasn’t even selected for the Pro Bowl, but that was a travesty which was more a punishment of the Lions history than anything else. He deserved to go to Hawaii, and probably deserved to be an All-Pro. Yes, things looked bright for DeAndre Levy and for us finally as Lions fans at the linebacker position. Here was a star we could build our new defense around. Naturally, he also wrecked his knee and was eventually released by the Lions prior to the 2017 season. He then filed an injury grievance against the team and WELCOME TO BEING A LIONS FAN!!! Ahem. Sorry, lost control there for a second. You get it, though.

That left Tahir Whitehead as really the only functional experienced linebacker heading into the 2017 season. Jarrad Davis joined him as a first round rookie and both were okay last year. Neither were great, but they at least gave us a couple of solid starters and Davis hinted that he might take the next step. Or perhaps that is simply wishful thinking which as Lions fans is really the only sort of thinking we have left. Paul Worrilow was the third starting linebacker, but he was really just a guy, a warm body to fill space and the Lions were fine with letting him walk to the Eagles after his lone season with Detroit. Of course, Tahir Whitehead also bailed, heading to Las Vegas to join the Raiders (that still sounds weird) where I predict he will either be buried in the desert or blown up like DeNiro in Casino. Do I really need a spoiler alert for a movie that’s more than 20 years old? Of course not, don’t be ridiculous. Anyway, Tahir Whitehead is gone and we’re left with basically one functional linebacker again. WELCOME TO BEING A LIONS FAN!!!

Where We Are Right Now: Wellllll, this is where things get hazy and interesting at the same time. That’s because we’re seeing a sort of positional revolution in the NFL not seen in over 50 years. Way back in the day, formations were vastly different than what we know today. This was more pronounced on offense, where the concept of a “wide” receiver or end simply didn’t really exist. Instead, there were a multitude of “backs.” Quarterback, sure, but also halfbacks, which you might think of as running backs, but really, they were sort of hybrid running backs and receivers and teams often played with two of them at once along with a fullback, who was generally the team’s primary ball carrier. The offensive line is basically the one thing that hasn’t really changed much over the years.

It wasn’t quite as radically different on defense, but it was still pretty different. Teams usually employed a five-man line, which makes sense given how tightly compacted formations were back in the day. And since there were no real “wide” receivers or ends, “tight” or “split” until sometime in the 60s, there was little need for cornerbacks like we think of today. Instead teams used what were known as defensive halfbacks, and along with the safeties they provided back-end support for the front seven.

After these positions were all transformed and streamlined into the traditional ones that we think of today – hence, this breakdown being done by rigid positional groupings – nothing really changed for decades. Sure, the 4-3 fell out of favor for the 3-4 and they’ve sort of flip-flopped since, and while teams have used more wide receiver sets and the like, the positions themselves haven’t really changed much.

The upshot to my breaking out my Professor Hat here is that I think we’re finally seeing the sort of positional shifting that our ancient ancestors saw over 50 years ago. This is due to the game itself changing to something that would be hard to recognize for a fan from, say, 1975. Or even 1995. The game is so much more spread out, so much more focused on quick passes and explosive plays, that the positional groupings themselves have become sort of ambiguous. I think that ambiguity is poised to explode this season.

Ironically, defenses are having to become so much more ambiguous in terms of positional groupings because they just got too damn good. They’re too big and too fast to try to win in the trenches as old fat guys like to moan weepily about. Everything is played in space now. Again, ironically, this will probably boomerang around again eventually, and some team will come along that destroys these new defenses by playing huge and physical, taking advantage of all the extra DB’s and hybrid space player types. But that’s probably a ways off, and so, for now, we’re left wondering what defenses will even look like.

Ambiguity is the key word, and that’s where finally – finally! – I bring this back around to the Lions. That’s because one of the teams at the vanguard of this ambiguity (you may know it by another term – multiple fronts) is the New England Patriots, and their defensive coordinator during this time of rapid shifting and hybridization was, of course, Matt Patricia, the new Lions head coach. (Interestingly, another team that does this now is the Packers, who for the last few seasons have almost played with a two-man front and then a plethora of nominal linebackers like Julius Peppers and Nick Perry who essentially played up on the line. But that’s not really relevant and I’m not sure why I brought it up other than to give you another example, and because you all know and loathe the Packers. Also, if I had an editor here he’d be weeping and cursing my name, but I don’t so fuck you, phantom editor.)

Anyway, this is all really important here because not only does Matt Patricia take over the rebuilding of a defense which basically collapsed the last couple of seasons, but because, well, right now if the Lions tried to play a traditional 4-3, with static traditional linebackers, they’d probably be straight fucked.

That’s because Jarrad Davis is really the only dependable starter we have right now and he’s still a literal baby. They brought in Christian Jones from the Bears, but I’m not really sure if he’s anything more than just a guy. He was okay last season, but that came after struggles the previous two years, and he might be essentially a special teams plus kind of guy, sort of like baseball has dudes who are considered AAAA players – you know, too good for AAA ball but not quite good enough for the majors. Christian Jones might be like that. A dude who is probably too good to be “just” a special teams guy, but not quite good enough to be a full-time starter. Having to depend on him as the team’s second-best linebacker is probably asking for trouble.

Devon Kennard is really the only other dude with full-time starter experience. The Lions brought him in from the Giants where he was never more than just a guy, a substandard starter at best who never really gave the team anything more than a rotational body. Not exactly inspiring.

There are some other dudes like Nick Bellore and Jonathan Freeny, but they’re really backups or special teamers and . . . yeah, the Lions need some help here.

Of course, this all changes a bit if the Lions and Patricia embrace that concept of ambiguity. Draft a couple of super athletic edge rusher types and suddenly the Lions can start to do some different things using players for highly-specializing jobs. That’s the other thing that we’ll start seeing more of in the NFL. Guys won’t really be every down players and will be there just to do one thing really, really well, whether it’s rush the passer, stuff the run, or cover a tight end or running back or even a slot. But this means you need a lot of different dudes to do a lot of different things and the Lions simply don’t have those dudes right now. It will be fascinating to see how they adapt and approach this new way of life in the NFL. Of course, unless the team gets really creative in the draft and free agency, they look like they’ll be outmanned and undermanned this season. This is a rebuilding process on defense. Make no mistake, and perhaps nowhere bears that out as much as at linebacker. But hell, welcome to being a Lions fan. Take a deep breath and get ready to wade through a pool of sewage for even the possibility that at some point we’ll emerge on white sand beaches next to the waters of paradise. You’re used to it.