Fifty years. Half a century. Five decades. Two generations. One-twentieth of a millennium. Take your choice. The Lions were able to last call themselves the beasts of the NFL in 1957. Joe Schmidt, nestled into longtime retirement nearby, was the defensive captain and team leader.
He’s some 76 years old now. Bobby Layne was the offensive pied piper, and drinking leader. Bobby’s been gone for about 21 years now. When the team played a home game in Detroit, they played in Briggs Stadium. You remember how John Fetzer seemed to own the Tigers forever? Well, the Lions’ last championship was three years before Fetzer even bought the team!
I’ve said that we have some assemblance of balance in this town. There’s the Red Wings (three Stanley Cups since 1997); the Tigers (world titles in 1968 and 1984; a World Series appearance in 2006); and the Pistons (three rings since 1989). Then there’s the Lions for comic relief and fodder for the talk radio blowhards and other bottom feeders, like sports columnists and bloggers. Take no offense; it takes one to know one.
Staying Ring-less, Since 1957
Oh, I have no idea what I would do for football material if the Lions were to somehow become a winning football team that made it past the first round of the playoffs. Curses if they exorcise their demons from the past 50 years and parade themselves down Woodward Avenue on a cold, snowy February afternoon, thrusting Vince Lombardi’s trophy for all of the world to see. Damn them if they turn this city on with exciting, winning football!
Us bottom feeders in the media wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves if the pratfalls turned into ballet. It’s always much more fun to write about abject failure.
Who wants a city full of winners? Give me more whiners, I say! I can’t do anything with four winning teams. I might be forced to move across Lake Erie, to Cleveland. Or across Lake Michigan, to Chicago. They still have teams engaging in banana peel-slipping and shooting water out of daisies in those cities.
No more, if the Lions started winning, could we trot out stories of botched extra point snaps that cost them ballgames. Or 63-yard field goals made against them, that cost them ballgames. Or playoff games where one of the greatest running backs of all time is held to minus-one yards – costing them.
What would we do with the story of Alex Karras, who declared he would walk home if the Lions lost to the AFL’s Denver Broncos, in a 1967 exhibition, but yet flew home with the team after they … lost. Could we no longer talk about coach Darryl Rogers and his pigeon-counting on the Silverdome roof while practice went on all around him?
What, pray tell, do you suggest I do with all those quotes of past condemned Lions coaches, if the football around here suddenly became a model of success?
I mean, I’ve got a lot of them here, you know.
“I don’t coach that stuff!”
“See you at the cemetery.”
“The bar is high.”
“Wow.”
“What does a guy have to do to get fired around here?”
“I’m the big buck.”
“Fired? What do you mean, fired?”
Folks, I’d like to take credit for some of these, but, as they say, you can’t make this stuff up. Every one of the above verbal gems was uttered by a Lions coach. And there’s more where that came from. If the Lions start winning, I don’t know if I can stomach all the generic, formulaic words that will sure to start tumbling out of Rod Marinelli’s mouth.
I’m still lamenting the fact that the Lions are playing indoors – and they’ve been doing that for 33 years now. For, unless someone gets really creative and resourceful, we won’t see another Lions coach get drilled with snowballs, as the fans did to Harry Gilmer, back in 1966. The fusillade almost knocked Harry’s cowboy hat off his head.
If there’s winning football, then the costly penalties will plummet. The well-executed plays will skyrocket. Third down conversions will flip-flop: the defense will prevent more of them, and the offense will pick up more crucial first downs.
Curses, I say!
If the Lions win, then who will we beat up around here? The Red Wings are annual playoff participants, and mild-to-medium threats to win the Cup. The Pistons have been to five straight NBA Final Fours. The Tigers have ended their slumber and meaningful September baseball has returned. Cripe, even the WNBA’s Shock isn’t anything about which to mock. They’re defending league champs, and might be on their way to another title.
Tell me, where’s the fun in all that?
Sunday, the Lions open their season against the Oakland Raiders, and already I’m nervous. Normally, a Lions-Raiders matchup (especially on the road) would be a field day for the bottom feeders. Lots more comedy material would present itself. The Lions would be blown out of Oakland by halftime, overcome and outclassed by the Silver & Black.
But the Raiders are not the Raiders anymore. They, too, are football practitioners of stepping on rakes and walking into walls. The Raiders were 2-14 last season, the only team worse than the Lions and their 3-and-13. They still haven’t signed their #1 draft pick, QB JaMarcus Russell. Their starting quarterback Sunday will be (drum roll please) … Josh McCown. Last season, McCown was the Lions’ backup. He didn’t play a down.
So the Oakland Raiders, they of Al Davis and his Commitment to Excellence and “Just Win, Baby!”, are starting a quarterback that wasn’t good enough to play on the second worst team in the league last year.
See? Now THAT’S some fodder.
Man, I don’t know what I’ll do if it’s taken away from me. Happy Anniversary, Lions. Here’s to
another 50 golden brown years.
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