I have been known to say that with Barry Sanders, the superhuman running back, you could be assured of seeing something from him every week that you'd never seen another runner do with a pigskin tucked against his ribcage. Every single week.
The same thing can be said of Barry's former team -- sort of.
With the Lions, you can pretty much be assured of seeing something new every week -- something that is a major contributor toward losing football games.
This time, it's the old "quarterback sneak on 3rd and five" play. Not to mention the "let's inexplicably fumble the ball without being touched on 4th and 1."
The Lions tried that wonderful QB sneak play not once, but twice, each time with more than four yards to go for a first down. Neither time did it come close to being successful.
Jon Kitna, perpetrator of the two sneaks and the inexplicable fumble, plus a couple of interceptions for good measure, is to be judged an innocent in this 2-12/soon to be 2-14 season, according to his coaches. He is far from being the sole problem of the Lions' ineptitude, certainly, but he is far from being beyond reproach, also.
To borrow from receiver Roy Williams' refrain, the Lions may be the best 45-minute team in the NFL. Sometimes they are only the best 15 minute team. On Thanksgiving Day, for example, they were no more than the league's best eight minute team. But never have they been close to being even an average 60-minute team.
Yesterday, in Green Bay, they may have cobbled together ten good minutes, but they were scattered throughout the game. Persona non grata receiver Mike Williams, for his part, put together a couple of good minutes on his own -- but maybe only 30 seconds of actual game time -- when he caught three passes in a row in the second half.
Someone once told me that when you die and go to (presumably) heaven, you are played a video of your 18 best golf holes, condensed into one, well, heavenly, round. The duffers reading this are probably smiling knowingly right now.
I wonder if that's the fate of the guilty parties of this mess with the Lions. I wonder if they are played a video of their best 60 minutes from the 2006 season, to present one bad ass game.
Yes, I wonder.
Don't blame Packers quarterback Brett Favre for the Lions' 15th consecutive loss in Wisconsin. He was, frankly, very pedestrian. And that's being very kind. He tried like the dickens to serve up as much help as possible to the Lions, what with his interceptions and fumbled snap. Not once did the Lions turn one of those miscues into anything more than the typically harmless Jason Hanson field goal.
It hardly matters, to me, whether the Lions snag the #1 overall pick, or #2, at this point. They are certain to get one of those two, and usually it isn't that big of a deal to draft second, because that should still be a high quality player. What does matter, though, is what they choose to do with such a high selection. But I wouldn't hold my breath that the decision will be the prudent or right one. It may seem so, on the surface, but how long before the new player is awash with the stench of losing and negative aura?
But that's a worry for another day -- late-April to be exact. Maybe heaven also plays a video of all your great draft picks, and squeezes them onto one glorious draft day.
Actually, now that I think about it, that video is still in production.
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