Lions Play The "Any Given Sunday" Card, And Give The Falcons The Bird

"When Kevin Jones gets 100 yards, and a receiver gets a hundred yards, there's nobody in the world that can beat us."

No, those aren't the bleatings of a Lions fan whose chest is puffed out after a typically unexpected victory over a superior opponent. They are the bleatings of the team's star wide receiver, who can somehow still catch all those balls thrown his way, despite wearing rose-colored glasses. Roy Williams, though, isn't tagged with the derisive nickname of "Roy Blue Skies", like Joey Harrington was. I wonder why.

Regardless, the Lions won one, 30-14, yesterday over a 5-2 Atlanta Falcons team, but also one which has bouts of schizophrenia itself. It can be a difficult task to accurately determine which Falcons team is going to show up on any given Sunday, that ancient NFL phrase.

Less difficult is it, though, to correctly choose which version of the Lions will run onto the football field.

Don't believe me? Well, if a Lions' win over an upper-echelon NFC team, at home, with the record in the toilet, shocks you, then there must be a turnip truck around with your fresh imprint on it.

So it is that it becomes even easier to forecast the team's weather next Sunday.

The Lions will play host to the San Francisco 49'ers, who despite their 9-3 win over Minnesota yesterday have only one thing in common with the glory days of the 80's and 90's: the throwback uniforms they wore against the Vikings. The 49'ers are among the league's dregs, and at 3-5 are a team that the Lions should beat, especially at home.

Which means they won't, most likely.

That's the way it goes with the boys in Honolulu Blue and Silver, you know. Games that look very winnable on the proverbial paper that such things get written down on, are in fact the ones that get them. And the contests that look like, well, NO contest, are the ones they grab and put in the left hand column.

And looking ahead to that Urban Myth called the Thanksgiving Day Game -- you know, the game that Lions fans seem to think the Lions always win, when the record is about .500 -- the Lions will face the Miami Dolphins and Joey Harrington. That game might be one that could give prognosticators fits. For it's the colliding of two titanic forces: the Urban Myth that the Lions always win on Turkey Day, and the force that says a QB returning to his old haunts on national TV is destined for victory. The crash may be heard all the way to Timbuktu. And there's no telling how it will turn out.

But that's down the line. Next up are the 49'ers, and to hear Roy Williams tell it, that game's in the bag if, as he says, "Kevin Jones runs for 100 yards and a receiver gets a hundred yards." Because, Roy says, if that happens, there's nobody that can stop the Lions. In the world.

Except the Lions themselves. And they have proven to be the most formidable of opponents. Too bad they have to show up every Sunday, too, along with the other guys, and wreak their havoc.

The Lions won one Sunday. It must have been their given Sunday. But it won't mean a hill of beans if they don't go out and grab some more of them.