They were words spoken after another uninspired, uninspiring performance by a football team who collects those like a wool coat collects lint. Lions wide receiver Mike Furrey uttered them on Fox Sports Detroit, in the wake of the team's latest slip down the NFL totem pole.
"We always seem to do the worst thing at the wrong time," Furrey said.
Seldom have any bon mots that come forth from an athlete's pie hole resonated as true and as historically fitting as those that landed into the FSD microphone yesterday afternoon in the Arizona desert.
"We always seem to do the worst thing at the wrong time."
They might do very well as the Lions' franchise slogan. You could arrange them on a Honolulu Blue and Silver placard above the team's offices, or near the lockerroom entrance, and they'd hardly be out of place. Today's young marketing hotshots with their Armani suits and Blackberry devices and grande lattes can only dream of coming up with something as rich and as genuine and as perfectly appropriate for the Lions' state as the statement of malaise Mike Furrey delivered after the Arizona Cardinals -- the league's other finalist for Most Dysfunctional Franchise -- whipped the Lions, 17-10, to make both teams 2-8 this season.
"We always seem to do the worst thing at the wrong time."
Furrey, of course, was speaking specifically of Sunday's debacle, but think back a moment and consider how many other times in Lions history those italicized words would be fitting.
1964. Bill Ford Sr. has just bought controlling interest of the Lions from the syndicate of nearly 200 that own them up to that point. One of his first deeds as sole owner is to tell the incumbent head coach, George Wilson -- the last Lions coach to win an NFL championship -- a fine man adored by his players, that his assistants must go if he is to stay. Wilson thinks about it for a few days, then tells Ford to stick it up his rear fender. Wilson resigns, and Ford hires Harry Gilmer as coach, who lasts two horrific seasons.
"We always seem to do the worst thing at the wrong time."
1973. The last Lions coach to post a career winning record while in Detroit, Joe Schmidt, has just finished a four-year string in which the team won 34 games and lost 19, with a few ties thrown in. It's a decent run, one that would get a Lions coach elected mayor of Detroit nowadays. But this is the days before multiple wild cards, so there's only one playoff appearance in those four seasons. As a result, Schmidt loses a power struggle with GM Russ Thomas, perhaps one of the most villified executives in Detroit sports history.
"We always seem to do the worst thing at the wrong time."
1985. The Lions hand the keys to their Edsel to Darryl Rogers, a college coach with absolutely no ties or connections to the pro game. The team even allows him to bring with him almost his entire staff from Arizona State University. The blind leading the blind, if you will. Rogers is fired three years later, the team in shambles, the drafts miserable flops.
"We always seem to do the worst thing at the wrong time."
1990. Draft day, and the Lions are enamored with a gunslinger from Houston, the quarterback Andre Ware. He will be a perfect complement to their newly-installed Run 'n Shoot offense, with its Arena Football-like urgency. It's the offense, after all, that Ware ran at the University of Houston, where he set a zillion pass records. But Ware becomes the poster child for why college ball ain't the same as the pros, son. He's another draft flop. Busts, they call them.
"We always seem to do the worst thing at the wrong time."
1999. The only true star the Lions have had in decades, running back Barry Sanders, ups and quits on the team on the eve of training camp. The fans are caught off-guard. It's considered a complete shock. Yet it turns out that Sanders' father and others had warned the Lions that their star wasn't happy, dating back nearly a year. His concerns, according to those who purport to know, weren't addressed to Barry's satisfaction. So even after an act that appeared, on the surface, to be totally unexpected and even mean spirited in its timing, the Lions come out looking like it was self-inflicted.
"We always seem to do the worst thing at the wrong time."
2001, 2003. President Matt Millen hires, as his first two head coaches, an Unknown Soldier (Marty Mornhinweg) and a Semi-Decorated NFL War Hero (Steve Mariucci). In neither occasion does he perform the due diligence necessary to assure himself that his choices are who they appear to be. Mornhinweg is hired after one interview and a late night film session with Millen, and Mariucci is inked without any research as to what happened in San Francisco, and whether his offense or his style of coaching are suited to the Lions current personnel. Marty wins five games in two years, and Mariucci cobbles together 15 in a little less than three seasons.
"We always seem to do the worst thing at the wrong time."
Oh, I could go on and on. And on. But don't Furrey's words ring true in every aforementioned instance?
I can see the bumper stickers now.
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