Wanna Feel The Love, Joey? Accept A Demotion

Insert boos and abuse from talk radio here, please

Okay, so what else is going on around town, sports-wise, now that the Pistons have all gone home for the summer?

Basketball still happening at the Palace; Shock doing okay. Baseball not even halfway done yet at Comerica Park; Tigers doing alright. Zamboni still gathering cobwebs at Joe Louis Arena; Red Wings scattered all over the world. And mini-camps and drills still going on occasionally in Allen Park; Lions primed for another quarterback controversy.

Now that my mind is cleared from my Pistons hangover, I have a brilliant idea for Joey Harrington. If he really wants the fans' support --and he does, trust me -- and if he truly is getting tired of the abuse -- and he is -- then I have the perfect solution:

Become the backup quarterback.

That's right. Take a demotion. Abdicate the signal-calling throne. Sneak into the team's offices and retype your name behind Jeff Garcia's on the depth chart. You do this, Joey, and I think you'll like the results.

I'm no genius, believe me. I'm simply utilizing the Hipple/Munson/Kramer Theorem, which states that, "The most liked quarterback in Detroit shall be the backup."

See? All you have to do is anoint Jeff Garcia the starter -- Numero Uno -- and you suddenly become the most liked QB in town. Let's face it: the football fans around here have always preferred their quarterbacks with clipboards and baseball caps. They love them like that. But as soon as the helmet gets put on and the clipboard is replaced with an actual football, well....the love goes away, don't you know.

I know it's not easy to be #2 when it comes to being an athlete, because you want to play, let's face it. But you don't care for the booing and the vitriol, either, and the only way to shield yourself from that is to not play. It's a genuine football Catch-22, I tell you.

Playing = booing and abuse on talk radio.
Not playing = adoration and cessation of aforementioned booing and abuse on talk radio.

It's not rocket science, folks.

If you think I'm full of pigskin, fast forward your football brain to, say, mid-October. Joey is on the bench, having not played a down. The Lions are 2-4 -- a record, of course, that MUST be the quarterback's fault entirely. Garcia is being booed and taking abuse on talk radio. So what happens next?

"Put in Joey!"

"Even Harrington could have completed THAT pass!"

"We want Harrington!"

"Backup quarterbacks -- UNITE!"

And so on.

If you still don't think this or something very similar to it would happen, then either you haven't lived here for more than a day, or you've been sniffing the stickum again.

I doubt, even after having said all this, Joey Harrington will take my advice. I know it's not in a player's heart and soul to willfully step aside and let someone else take his place. I know Joey will hold on to the starter's job with every fiber of his being. I know that he believes he's the man who can succeed where dozens of quarterbacks have failed.

It's kinda cute, in a way, that he's still so naive.