Where the Hell Are We? Part 5: The Receivers

 (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 receivers, both wide receivers and tight ends, but not tight ends in the gay porn sense. lol that's gonna get me some funny google searches. Consider this a quasi-draft preview/history lesson/idiot gibberish. Cool? Cool.)

Ancient History: This is a story, much like my sanity, with some huge gaps in it, gaps, which, sadly, probably help to explain why things devolved into such a terror dome of the soul for Lions fans. We start in the late-50s/early-60s – naturally – which remains the only piece of half-sunk driftwood we have to cling to as we bob in our ocean of despair waiting for a rescue ship that never comes.

Those teams featured a couple of notable receivers in Terry Barr and Gail Cogdill. Neither is anything more these days than a faded name, a dusty relic stuffed in a back storage room of our collective mental museum. They played so long ago that Barr was actually listed as an offensive halfback. His time literally predated a modern offense.

And then there was . . . nothing. Well, not nothing, but no one really worth mentioning beyond “hey, that one guy had a half-decent year that one time.” This persisted for 30 years until finally – finally! – Herman Moore came along. Herman was so good that “good” is inadequate. He was maybe the second or third best receiver in the league for a few years during a time when Jerry Rice was running wild along with dudes like Michael Irvin and Sterling Sharpe. Herman Moore was the real deal.

Unfortunately, he burned bright and like many things that burned bright, he quickly burned out. He was finished by the time he was 30 and the Lions were left looking for their next Big Hope.

The thing about Herman Moore, though, is that he wasn’t alone. He was part of a trio that helped make the Lions passing offense in 1995 probably the best in the entire NFL and gave us all the biggest hope we had as Lions fans that Good Things were gonna happen until Scott Mitchell melted down in the playoffs against the Eagles. Brett Perriman and Johnnie Morton were both really good in their own right, with Perriman serving as Moore’s capable lieutenant, and Morton coming along to take over for both of them as the Lions top dog.

Perriman had a huge 1995 and a really good 1996 before he left via free agency. His career didn’t last the year. These things happen. Morton, meanwhile, gave us several good years until he too left, and, of course, he’s probably best remembered for being called a “faggot” by He Who Shall Not Be Named. These are the sorts of legacies and psychic energies with which we’re left as Lions fans.

Tight end, meanwhile, is, uh, a bit more grim. The Lions had a couple of decent ones in Jim Gibbons and Charlie Sanders, and then the world basically ended here. Gibbons is, like Barr and Cogdill, a static name etched on some forgotten memorial. Children on school trips blow the dust away and trace his name with their fingers, staring blankly at what may as well be some alien language. They turn around to ask their dad who’s chaperoning what this strange name means and he just shrugs and says “I think he died in the Civil War.”

Sanders, on the other hand, was an All Pro tight end for the Lions and eventually found his way to the Hall of Fame. He remains a sort of cultural ambassador for the Lions, and while schoolchildren still stare uncomprehending, their fathers might say “I think your grandpa might know who that is,” so hurray for that, I guess.

After that . . . my god, there’s nothing. Nothing at all. Perhaps an isolated Pro Bowl season here, a David Sloan there. But yeah . . . nothing. This is how bad it is: both Brandon Pettigrew and Eric Ebron are top five tight ends in Lions history. Fuck it, just burn that museum down with all the children inside.

Recent History: Things get interesting here, so interesting that they start to look like Guernica. There is death and panic, screaming horses dying, and maybe, just maybe, inside all of the senseless tragedy, you can see a glimpse of something humane and beautiful. But maybe not.

It all starts with He Who Shall Not Be Named (I might just start naming him because that’s a pain to have to type out every time and I am nothing if not lazy.) calling Johnnie Morton a “faggot”, which probably should have been a pretty big sign of where things were heading for us. He followed that up by infamously drafting every receiver who entered the league. Let’s run through them and then let’s run ourselves through with a dull butter knife.

Charles Rogers was a massive bust who broke his collarbone every year. I hypothesized that he was breaking it intentionally so he could create an internal hollow in which to store all his weed since, oh yeah, he was also a huge druggie fuckup, and not the cool kind like me (*nervous collar tug*) but the “has probably raped dudes in prison” kind. I mean, I’ve never done that in prison.

Then there’s Mike Williams, who was a death star sized weapon at USC, catching everything and anything lobbed his way, destroying planets and Ewoks without mercy, until he bolted early for the NFL during a complicated and ridiculous court case that saw the NFL’s entry rules temporarily abolished. This is complicated and requires its own post, but let me just sum it up like this: players are only eligible for the NFL draft if they’re three years removed from high school. One player, Ohio St. freshman running back Maurice Clarett, decided this was bullshit and a court ruled that he was right, and Clarett declared for the draft. Mike Williams went with him despite also being too young to declare. Now here’s where things get ridiculous and tragic because the NFL almost immediately had the ruling reversed, and since the players had already hired agents, the NCAA wouldn’t let them come back to school. Basically, they were fucked and couldn’t play football.

This meant they had to sit out for a year, which in Williams’ case, basically ruined him as a football player. Naturally, the Lions drafted him and he was an epic bust. As a postscript here, Clarett also busted huge and ended up in prison because that’s the Buckeye way.

Roy Williams, on the other hand, was actually on his way to being a big time receiver for the Lions before falling apart and getting traded to the Cowboys. He then washed out of the league, leaving us with a ridiculously embarrassing record for wide receiver development, which in turn made Lions fans groan for years about the idea of drafting a wide receiver.

Thankfully, that was all wiped away by the arrival of Calvin Johnson. Finally, the Lions got it right. I shouldn’t have to get into the whole rhapsody in blue of it all here for you. You know who Calvin Johnson is. You love Calvin Johnson. You once watched Calvin Johnson leap into a burning high rise and save a thousand babies before fighting Zod after Zod escaped from the Phantom Zone. He was the most terrifyingly gifted receiver in NFL history, an uncoverable monster who could only be stopped by two different forms of kryptonite: the NFL rule book as interpreted by Goebbels Pereira and the dreaded Lions Disease, which proved, in the end, to be fatal.

That’s the sad tragedy of Calvin Johnson, just as it was the sad tragedy of Barry Sanders, and just as it’s the sad tragedy for all of us. The realities of being a Detroit Lion ate away at Calvin Johnson’s soul until he was dramatically collapsing on the sidelines following yet another heartbreak and until he finally said “fuck it” and left the NFL completely, his will destroyed, his heart broken by endless failure. Horrible, horrible. Oh God, how long? Sorry, this has eaten into my own soul and I’m now a gibbering mess. Lions fever, y’all! Catch it!!!

Somehow, Calvin’s soul-death didn’t completely devastate us though, as Golden Tate stepped up and was soon joined by Marvin Jones. Together, they’ve given us our best receiving duo since Herman Moore and Brett Perriman were lighting up the mid-90s together.

Tight end, meanwhile . . . Jesus Christ. Brandon Pettigrew drove everyone nuts for years, a first round talent who was supposed to be Matthew Stafford’s best friend only to end up being his worst enemy and the perpetual object of Lions fans’ wrath. Was this fair? Probably not entirely, but your tight end is supposed to be your dependable safety blanket, the thing you can swaddle yourself in and hide away from the world when everything else is collapsing around you. But “dependable” and Brandon Pettigrew do not belong in the same universe together, and every time Matthew Stafford tried to wrap himself in his Pettigrew blanket, he found that it was crawling with lice.

So, the Lions realized they had to cut ties with Pettigrew and replaced him with Eric Ebron, who I’m pretty sure was just Pettigrew after Pettigrew snatched a young prospect, skinned him and then wore his flesh. That’s because they are the same fucking dude. To make matters worse, Ebron was picked 10^th in the draft, which everyone knew was ridiculous even while it was happening. Here are the three players selected immediately after him: Taylor Lewan, Odell Beckham and Aaron Donald. I mean . . . my God! I have been rendered witless by this and need to move on.

Where We Are Right Now: This is actually a team strength. Golden Tate and Marvin Jones make for a pretty damn good duo. I’m not entirely convinced that either of them is The Man, but they’re both A+ number two receiver types who, combined, make for The Man. That doesn’t make any fucking sense, and is completely antithetical to the concept of “The Man” but I don’t care. Fuck you.

Kenny Golladay, who the Lions drafted last year, showed enough to tantalize before getting hurt. He has the size that both Tate and Marvin lack, and at the very least should give Stafford a great red zone weapon. If he can develop further beyond that then the Lions might end up with the best wide receiver corps in the entire NFL.

TJ Jones, meanwhile, has progressed enough that he’s a viable option, and . . . yeah, the Lions are set here.  Naturally, this is the point where I get stupid and try to blow things up.

This is where you will all hoot like animals and throw literal shit at me, but I don’t care. Here’s the deal: I would at least consider trading Golden Tate. Hold on, hold on, I said consider. I didn’t say I would definitely do it, but I sure as hell would at least float the idea and see who bites. Here’s why: Tate is set to be a free agent after this season, a season which will see him on the wrong side of 30. This also coincides with Darius Slay’s cap number increasing over $10 million, and Ricky Wagner’s number ballooning. The Lions simply cannot afford everybody.

And Tate is good enough that the Lions will be forced to pay him as a true number one receiver even though I’m not sure that he is. Like I said, he’s an A+ number two guy. Are you prepared to give him a huge Jarvis Landry sized deal that will see him almost certainly decline with every season? There’s a ticking clock on Tate and I don’t want to have him on the books for a billions dollars when he’s 33 in a couple of years, missing half his games when he’s hurt and clearly a step slower when he does play.

This is where it’s hard for Lions fans to deal. That’s because in the NFL now, the best teams are cruel and without mercy. They’re constantly thinking several steps ahead and refuse to get themselves handcuffed by any player who’s not The Man. Think the Patriots with Tom Brady. It drives everyone nuts when Belichick and company are constantly trading guys – think Deion Branch years ago or Brandin Cooks just a month or so ago – but that’s because they are constantly trying to stay ahead of the curve and the salary cap. You can’t afford to get trapped by either the past or sentimentality. Has Golden Tate been great for us? You bet. We can’t make decisions based on that, though. We have to make decisions based on what we think is going to happen.

Looking at it through that prism, here is what we have: a receiver about to turn 30 who’s due for a huge contract even though he’s never really truly been The Man. He’s a one time Pro Bowler and that’s great, but, you know, that’s also all. He almost publicly licked his lips when Jarvis Landry signed his huge extension, but here’s the thing: Jarvis Landry is 25, been to the three straight Pro Bowls and should only get even better. Golden Tate is not going to get better. He is what he is, and right now, if the Lions were smart, they’d try to get as much as they can for him while they can. They need to use the leverage they have instead of letting sentiment and propriety leverage them. Again, I’m not saying I definitely would trade Tate. The Lions would have to get a really good deal and then deal with figuring out how to replace him in the right here and right now, but even there I think you could maybe make a case that if Golladay steps up and TJ Jones keeps progressing that it’s not out of the question. TJ Jones, in particular, could end up being almost a one for one replacement if he really steps things up. But that’s relying a little too heavily on Wishes and Hopes, so in the end, I’d probably chicken out and not trade Tate.

But that’s why I’m not an NFL GM. These dudes are paid to be visionary big ball swinging dudes. And let’s face it, if anyone understands the heartless Patriots way, it’s Bob Quinn. He has to at least think about this, doesn’t he?

Tight end, meanwhile, is starting over. Again. Ebron was cut in disgrace. The Lions didn’t even try to get anything for him, and in his place they signed a couple of journeymen with upside types in Luke Willson and Levine Toilolo. Both have the talent to take the next step, but neither really has so far. Hopefully, one of them can be The Man here and give Stafford that safety blanket. Hopefully lice free.

Michael Roberts is another high-upside type who gives the Lions one more bullet in the chamber. Between these three, you can at least see the hazy outline of a really good group. Of course, none of them might develop and the Lions will be fucked. But that is life in the NFL. If you want to be an elite franchise, these are the kinds of things you have to do. You scout and you draft and you sign players that will get better and better for you, and then you sell high and do it all over again. It’s a perpetual cycle that forces you to rely on your own scouting abilities and an innate ability to predict the future. You’re not always going to be right, but you can’t allow yourself to get trapped by Fear and find yourself stuck with overpaid veterans. Yeah, I’m hinting at the Golden Tate thing again, but it applies at tight end too, I think. The Lions can’t get scared and draft a tight end in the first round or two or sign some 35 year old who once caught 75 passes during the Bush administration. If they’re competent, if they know how to scout players, one of these three tight ends will emerge. Maybe more than one. If they don’t, and if Quinn and the Lions can’t rely on their own scouting, then what the fuck are we even doing here? Wait . . . don’t answer that.

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.