Defending their Crown: Lions Setting to Repeat!
What a year it was with some huge records being broken. In exceptional fashion, the Steelers completed their Super Bowl trip with being the first franchise to have 6 of the prized Lombardi trophies. There was another team that set another record that is almost equally as impressive. Yes, it’s the Detroit Lions that I’m talking about. Detroit finished its year 0-16 and became the first and only franchise to lose all 16 games in a season. It was hard work but Matt Millen, the owner, coaches, and players all worked very hard for about 5 years to reach this level of infamy. New year, new attitude! Well, Detroit is poised to make another run at 0-16 with their list of stupid off-season moves.
So what do you do after you go 0-16 and your fans are calling for the GM’s head? Fire the GM, fire the coach and bring in new blood and minds. Jim Schwartz is the guy that owner Bill Ford has decided to lead his team to the promised land. Schwartz doesn’t have a bad resume having been the Titan’s defensive coordinator from 2001-2008 but that is mostly it. He was a research guy for Belichick in Cleveland who crunched stats for his paycheck. Ford was probably just following everyone else’s lead to hire a “hot young coach.” I can’t say that I really agree with bringing in a young coach to a team with so many problems but Ford did worse than this move alone, a lot worse.
Coaches need staff and other coaches. They need guys who are knowledgeable and can run their microcosm of the team effectively. Schwartz, being a younger guy, should be looking for older coaches that have had good success. His offensive and defensive coordinator hires, however, are pure shit.
Running the offense will be Scott Linehan freshly relieved from his head coaching position with the St. Louis Rams. I don’t know what Linehan says in interviews but it must be very different than what he tells his players. The Rams were a great offense in 2005 and 2006 averaging 350 yds/game and then Linehan really started tooling with things. Not only was Linehan incapable of bringing in any type of solid offensive line he also tried to run the ball more and change the offense around. Here’s a team with a terrible offensive line trying to run the ball? Not a shot. Linehan also managed to damn near get Bulger killed with a porous line then benched him! Trent Green came in looking rusty and threw for 230 yards and an interception on 32 attempts. Linehan was fired that week. The Rams were bad but the Lions are worse and this is the guy that is going to get them in the endzone? I don’t think so. William Clay Ford needs to get off the crack pipe. If Scotty couldn’t do anything with Bulger, Holt, Jackson, and others he’s not doing anything with, well, just Calvin Johnson.
The defensive side of the ball is just as bad if not worse. To complement the hiring of an offensive coordinator that had one of the worst offenses in the NFL Jim Schwartz and Co. hired the guy who coached the 31st ranked defense. I guess the Lions shop at the 5 and 10 for their coaches because I’m just not getting it, otherwise. Gunther Cunningham was a head coach at one time who finished that part of his career at .500 which is at least better than Linehan’s .271. Cunningham’s Chief’s defense last year allowed 390+ yards a game and almost 30 points! The only team that was worst than the Chief’s were the Lions. Is anyone seeing the FUCKTARDEDNESS here? I don’t think there is much more to be said.
Every team really needs a skilled QB with solid leadership ability. Can’t scratch that one off the list in Detroit. I’m not sure what is going on with former starter Jon Kitna but the Lions have re-signed Daunte Culpepper. Randy Moss proved that he can make any QB look good because since Culpepper has been without his safety net he has a QB rating of 72.73 and has thrown 9 more interceptions than touchdowns. Now, Calvin Johnson is a damn good player but Minnesota was a very different team from the Lions and Culpepper is going to be battling for worst QB in the NFL next season. Maybe the Lions draft Matthew Stafford to be their future as many are predicting but what if the kid is just not ready? Chris Simms could be a decent fit or some of the other free agent QB’s that are going to be coming up but to stick with Culpepper is buying a one way ticket to Sucksville.
I’ll wrap this up by saying the Lions won’t come anywhere near fixing this in a year. Of the 2008 draft Kevin Smith the running back from Central Florida was by far their best pick but that’s bad when you choose 5 defensive players. What about those defenders? 62! 62? 62 is the total number of tackles that all of the 2008 defensive draft picks combined for. That works out to a little over 12 per player… all year! It’ll be a full rebuilding year or should be for about the next 5 if they’re even that lucky. There is a good chance the Lions will not be a good football team or close to it for the next decade.
I’m going to take the wait and see approach to next season for them right now but unless they make a lot of moves and have a stellar draft it’s going to be hard to pick them to win a game next season. As bad as some of the league is the Lions have been worse, much worse. Hell, I say go for two and really make sure that record is all yours, Detroit. Maybe if they do go “O-fer” again the NFL will offer to bailout the franchise with extra talent like all the car companies need money!
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2 Responses to “Defending their Crown: Lions Setting to Repeat!”
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February 20th, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Because of my inability to get out to lunch in the afternoon, this has been the first year in many that I have not been able to listen to the Jim Rome show. This fills me with sadness because for the past 7-8 years I’ve been listening to Rome off and on he always has covered the “countdown to perfection” for the team looking to go 0-16. It never even occurred to me until I read your article that I had completely missed what must have been his utter joy in this year’s Lions. I actually like Matt Millen, but Jesus Christ, if there is ANY person in the United States that has kept a job for longer after utterly proving that they needed to be fired it’s him. I know, as you’ve pointed out, the Lion’s perfection has really been a team effort, Millen really should have been put out a while ago.
I liken Detroit to the Titanic, only in this version of the Titanic story, after the ship hit’s the iceberg, the Captain continues to look for more icebergs and keeps steering the fucking ship into iceberg after iceberg until the damn thing is destroyed before it can actually sink.
I’m not entirely sure that the 08 Lion’s are the worst of all time. The 76 Bucs were shut out 5 times going 0-14 and shut out 6 times in 77 going 2-12. They lost 26 straight regular season games before winning their last two in 77. Can you imagine getting shut out 11 times over 2 seasons? Any real fan worth their salt would slit their wrists.
The Lions are a comedy of errors, though. Wasn’t it their Offensive Line Coach that got arrested for going through Wendy’s drive through naked and drunk last year?
February 24th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Yeah, I’m not so sure the Lions are actually the worst team in terms of overall skill of all time but they certainly had the worst record. I just don’t understand how fans and media can plainly things so quick that the Owners dont but then again most Owners are crazy people.
I very much like Rome and he definitely ate it up. Every week he’d talk about it and how he didn’t want to jinx it. Apparently, he actually has a decent relationship with the PR guy from the Lions now, though, haha.