Where The Hell Are We? Part 4: The Offensive Line

(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 the offensive line, which for most of our history has indeed been offensive. Consider this a quasi-draft preview/history lesson/idiot gibberish. Cool? Cool.)

Ancient History Because I Believe In Psychic Energies: Offensive linemen are tough to judge for a couple of reasons: 1. They don’t really have anything easy like stats to lean on, and 2. Their effectiveness really has to be taken as a whole, as part of a larger unit working as one. With that said, I’ll try my best and hopefully I won’t shame and disgrace you with my ignorance.

Anyway, the Lions history – at least of the ancient variety – is remarkably meager when it comes to the offensive line. Even while the Lions were stocked with Hall of Fame defensive players (go and take a look at those defenses from the 50s/early 60s, they’re insane, with Joe Schmidt, Alex Karras, Yale Lary, Wayne Walker, Lem Barney, Night Train Lane, Dick Jauron, Roger Brown, Darris McCord and on and on and on it goes. In doing my deep dive through Lions history, I’ve developed a new-found appreciation for those teams, one that I think has been mostly lost in the mushroom cloud of everything that came after. Sad, but this is the world we live in, and yes, I know this parenthetical obliterated the entire paragraph and the flow of whatever the hell this sentence was, but I’m gonna go back and read where I left off and you should too.) the offensive line was largely anonymous, a marginally adequate unit that wasn’t exactly the strength of the team.

Still, it was a unit that maintained something of a perpetual cohesiveness, remaining together for years in a way that free agency has made utterly impossible, and so perhaps it is a unit which as a whole deserves something of a mention here, with dudes like guard John Gordy and center Ed Flanagan the most notable.

After that, there were little flashes from guys like tackle Keith Dorney, but really there was nothing for a good 25 years, which perhaps helps to explain how things turned to utter shit. It wasn’t until the early 90s, roughly coinciding perhaps not-coincidentally with the time of Barry Sanders, that something resembling a worthy unit emerged.

Even this was tainted by things we’ll get to in a minute, but the Lions actually had a couple of really good long-time starters here who formed the foundation of a pretty good line. Yes, at the time everyone complained that it wasn’t any good, but that’s because every fan who has ever lived has been convinced his offensive line was utter trash. The dirty little secret that none of us like to admit in between sneering that Emmitt Smith’s reputation was built by his offensive line while poor Barry ran behind a line made up of sorrow and Frenchmen is that Barry Sanders actually had a pretty decent offensive line for most of his career.

Anyway, onto those really good players I keep hinting at. Left tackle Lomas Brown went to seven straight Pro-Bowls, while center Kevin Glover was a long-time solid starter who emerged into a Pro Bowler in his early 30s. The two of them gave the Lions something we never really had before or since: two legit pillars to prop up the offensive line and our hopes and dreams.

Of course, Lomas Brown was later tainted by admitting that he once purposefully blew a block in order to get Scott Mitchell hurt, but in our fucked up world maybe that actually makes him a hero. I don’t know, the madness of Lions Disease makes us all crazy and compromises the very concept of morality, so it’s no surprise that a dude who spent a decade lost in it found himself doing some shady shit so he wouldn’t go mad. It was a hilariously petty thing to do and perhaps it makes Lomas a piece of shit, but we’re Lions fans. We’re all pieces of shit.

The tragedy underpinning all of this – because even when things are good for us they have to be streaked with tragedy, right Barry? Right Calvin? – is that the Lions appeared to be on their way to building a Cowboysesque offensive line behemoth. Then starting guard Mike Utley was famously paralyzed on the field and that offseason, the Lions other starting guard, and the one with perhaps the brighter prospects, Erik Andolsek, was killed when a truck ran off the road and ran him over while he was working in his front yard. I mean, what the fuck? Now these are some heinous psychic energies to have to live with. How can you ever get past something like that? Well, the Lions couldn’t, they were forever compromised by it, and neither could we, which perhaps helps to explain why we sneered bitterly even while Lomas Brown and Kevin Glover were doing their thing. And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne ceaselessly into the past.

Recent History: This basically boils down to two names: Jeff Backus and Dominic Raiola. If you just recoiled in disgust, I don’t blame you. I mean, I once semi-famously wrote a thing in which I cast Backus as Lennie Small and Raiola is perhaps my least favorite player of all time, just a ridiculous idiot jackoff who liked to feud with his own fans, infamously flipping them off once.

And yet, somehow, these two represent our best offensive linemen of the last twenty years. Again, this really, really explains some things. Backus, the long-time left tackle, was bemoaned by Lions fans pretty much from his first snap to his last as a perpetual source of despair. He ended up playing here for over a decade. Why not? The reality is that he was never really that bad, but he was never really any good either, and what ever the hell was left over in between those two possibilities was maybe even worse. He was simply Not Good Enough, and perhaps nothing exemplifies the last 60 years of Lions football than that attitude.

Raiola, incredibly, was basically Backus’ twin in this regard, and even more incredibly, it all happened at the same fucking time. Raiola was here even longer, was hated by everyone, was perpetually crushed in the ground game, and just hung on and hung on and hung on, destroying spirits and the Lions offensive line until he finally fucking retired. Not Good Enough is the cruelest thing in the world.

Where We Are Right Now: After Backus left, the Lions took their time but then replaced him with Taylor Decker, who was legitimately good his first season with the team. They’ve had a harder time replacing Raiola, and Travis Swanson, his heir, just left the team in free agency, so I guess it’s try again. They might slide Graham Glasgow to center again, which he played in college and when Swanson got hurt, but he’s clearly a better guard so I don’t know, man.

At guard, the Lions tried really hard to set a strong foundation here, drafting both Larry Warford and Laken Tomlinson. Naturally, neither are still here, and to make matters worse, are pretty solid players in their new homes. They also drafted Riley Reiff to be Backus’ replacement, but he too left via free agency, which forced them to grab Decker, and it’s kind of amazing there’s even anybody here to help given this musical chairs of disaster.

But amazingly, the Lions actually seem to have a real chance here. This sounds strange given the fact that the line as a whole has not actually been, you know, good or anything, and even more ridiculous given that the Lions running game has atrophied to the point of being little more than a quadriplegic baby, and Matthew Stafford was sacked more than any quarterback in the league. There’s probably a lot of correlative effect there – a shit running game is going to cause your quarterback to get lit up since teams can just ignore the run and attack him – but regardless, both issues have to be laid at the feet of the offensive line.

Aside from Decker and Glasgow – who’s emerged as a pretty solid guard – the Lions signed both guard T.J. Lang and tackle Ricky Wagner. Lang was a Packers Pro Bowler who also earned a Pro Bowl spot in his first year with the Lions. He’s legit good. Wagner, who came over from Baltimore, is something closer to adequate, but the potential is there for more. Pair them with Decker and Glasgow and baby, you got a stew. But the problem has been that the Lions can never quite get everyone on the field together and always have a gaping hole somewhere. As I said right up front, an offensive line is best judged as a unit, and a gaping hole anywhere in that unit means the whole thing will fall apart. Think about it as a literal wall. If you’re missing a piece – any piece – it’s not really a wall, and all sorts of foul shit can happen.

A couple of years ago, it was Swanson getting hurt, forcing Glasgow to try to hold shit down at center, which, uh, didn’t really go so well, which is why the prospect of him moving there again causes the ol’ nervous collar tug. Last season, it was Decker going down for half the year.

So, what do the Lions really have here? If everyone can stay healthy and they can replace Swanson, things could actually be looking bright here. They did bring in a couple of starter types. Unfortunately, Wesley Johnson, the center, who came over from the Jets, stinks, and was judged by at least one metric to be the worst center in the league. Okay then. Kenny Wiggins, on the other hand, emerged as a solidish starter for the Chargers last season. He’ll be 30 when the season starts, so this is more a “please hold shit down until we fix this” than an “oh good, we’ve fixed this” kind of deal.

The Lions clearly have no faith in Johnson, since they gave him a one year minimum deal. That means he probably won’t be taking over at center. They gave Wiggins a better deal, which tells me that they want him at guard while Glasgow moves to center, which . . . eh. The best case scenario here is that Wiggins is really good depth and that the Lions manage to snag, say, Frank Ragnow of Arkansas in the draft to be the starting center for the next decade. I’m guessing, though, that we’ll get Glasgow and Wiggins as starters and the hope that both take a next step. This could be good, or things could fall apart again and Decker might get run over by a truck while he’s working in his front yard. I’m hopeful, but *takes a look at the last 60 years* . . . yeah.