The Agony Of The Feet

Well, you gotta hand it to the Detroit Lions: they sure take the name of their sport literally.

Football. A neat little compound word that means two different things on each side of that big Atlantic Pond. But not to the Lions. It hasn’t been about blocking and tackling and throwing for seven yards on third and seven, or protecting the quarterback or marching down the field for a winning score. They, as I said, have been taking the name of their game literally, to the nth degree.

A 36 year tour in this theatre of the absurd that is Lions football will reveal that, and quite neatly. For it has been the thumping of foot into ball that has defined the team’s pratfalls and its proclivity to shoot themselves in the, well, foot.

November 8, 1970. The Lions have the New Orleans Saints, a wretched team, down and out – or so it would seem – in the waning seconds, leading 17-16. There is time for a kickoff and perhaps a meaningless play or two, and the Lions will be victors.

They have a kickoff, alright, and a harmless sideline pass for the Saints puts the ball on the New Orleans’ 44 yard line. There are two seconds remaining.

Naturally, Tom Dempsey boots a 63-yard field goal, and the Lions are that day’s gumbo. It’s still the longest field goal (tied in the late-1990’s by Denver’s Jason Elam) in NFL history. And it beat the Lions. Naturally.

Thanksgiving Day, 1980. The Lions are making a playoff push, and have the Chicago Bears down a couple of touchdowns heading into the fourth quarter. These are the Lions of the 4-0 start and the hideous remake of Queen’s Another One Bites The Dust, with insipid lyrics like “See Billy (Sims) run; You can’t catch him with a gun.”

The recording studio curses them, and now, on Thanksgiving, the Lions are fighting for their playoff lives. But they have that nifty 14-point lead in the fourth quarter.

Yet the recording curse strikes again, and the Bears’ QB, Vince Evans, scrambles for a touchdown on the game’s final play, sending it into overtime.

Naturally, the Bears win the coin toss, and kickoff return man David Williams lopes 95 yards with the pigskin into the Lions’ endzone, without so much as the annoyance of a Lions player touching him. The Lions become the first (and still only) team to lose an overtime game on a kickoff return. Naturally.

New Year’s Eve, 1983. The Lions have become playoff qualifiers for the first time in thirteen seasons, and only the second time in 26 years. And they give the up-and-coming San Francisco 49ers a mighty struggle near the Bay. Despite throwing five interceptions, Lions quarterback Gary Danielson leads a heart-stopping drive in the final frantic minutes. A field goal will win this playoff game, and send the Lions into the NFC Championship round.

Eddie Murray, a fine kicker but not as clutch as his baseball namesake, trots onto the slightly muddy field at Candlestick Park. His leg is 43 yards away from Lions greatness. But the TV cameras catch coach Monte Clark placing his hands together in prayer, looking skyward, moments before Murray’s big kick. And every Lions fan knows that can’t be a good thing.

Naturally, it isn’t. Murray tries to guide the ball too much, instead of “just kicking the stuffing out of it,” as he would say later, and the football skids off to the right, no good. The Lions lose on a kick. Naturally.

Christmas Eve, 2000. It has been a tumultuous year – again – for the Lions. Their coach, Bobby Ross, ups and quits in November. And with a winning record. He commits a self-ziggy, and no Lions coach had done that in the middle of a season. Ever. But the team rallies, sort of, around Gary Moeller, who wears the tag of interim coach – sports’ scarlett letter.

Anyhow, the Lions have maneuvered themselves such that a win over those party-pooping Bears will propel them into the playoffs. And the Bears are not a very good football team in 2000.

Naturally, the Lions throw an ill-timed interception late in the fourth quarter, and the Bears pitty-pat their way into long-range field goal position. And Paul Edinger, with his corkscrew, side-winding style, uncorks a 54-yarder at the final gun. The Lions lose, again on a kick. Naturally.

The 2000 loss to the Bears bumps the Lions out of the playoffs, and ushers in the Matt Millen Era. And crotchety sportswriters like me will forever wonder what would have happened to the franchise if Edinger had missed that kick with his corkscrew leg.

So you see, it is very fitting that the all-time Lions leader in games played is a kicker, Jason Hanson. And it’s also appropriate that the only position in which the team has had any assemblance of sustained stability has been … at kicker. From 1980 to today, the Lions have only employed two kickers who’ve played more than one game for the team: Murray and Hanson. The team’s helmet logo is a rampant lion. It might as well be a silhouette of a placekicker instead.

Those four kicking plays have so defined the Lions, that you hardly need any more of their rap sheet to get a handle on their ineptitude.

In the classic comic strip Peanuts, a running gag was the attempt, by Charlie Brown, to kick a football out of the hold of the conniving Lucy. You know the deal. Ole Chuck forever runs up to the ball, after much convincing by Lucy that she won’t pull it away this time. And, sure enough, Charlie swings his leg and misses, kerplunking onto his back. Every time. The kid never learned.

Maybe a silhouette of Charlie Brown’s round, round head should be the Lions’ new helmet logo, on second thought.

Rats!