Randy Moss would have caught it. Terrell Owens would have caught it -- and told everyone how he did it for as long as you cared to listen. Marvin Harrison would have caught it. Donald Driver would have caught it.
Those receivers play on teams who've lost but four games between them, and it's nearly Thanksgiving. And they are key cogs of those clubs, largely because they can be counted on to make plays when needed.
The Lions, still, don't have such players on their team. They have players who can make plays in the second and third quarters of games -- and in the first half of a football season -- but they do not have players such as the ones listed in the opening paragraph.
Calvin Johnson, someday, may be that kind of player. We'll see. Or not, based on how the Lions choose to use him -- which is as if he's behind glass, like an axe in case of fire.
But Shaun McDonald is not the kind of player, sadly, who can make the big play at the big time. He demonstrated, in one play, why the Lions cannot and should not be taken seriously as a playoff team, when he let Jon Kitna's pass in the closing minute slip thru his hands. The ball was intercepted, and the Lions had let the New York Giants off the hook, 16-10, in a battle of two different 6-3 teams: one that has substance (the Giants) and one that has far less of that than style (the Lions).
A couple minutes earlier, Kitna rocketed a bomb from midfield, impatiently going for the go-ahead score when there was plenty of time and all three timeouts remaining. But Kitna threw the ball to McDonald, a shrimp, who was easily outmuscled for it by the defender for another interception. Somewhere on the field, the 6-3 Roy Williams and the 6-5 Johnson roamed. They are not shrimps.
When was the last time you saw the Lions drive down the field for a winning score? There was that ridiculous ending in New Orleans a couple of years ago. But what about before that? And when in a game that actually meant something?
The Lions spoke all week of how this Giants game and the one behind it, against Green Bay on Thanksgiving Day, were playoff games, in their minds. Williams hoped publicly that the fans would show up (as if that's ever been a problem). But as usual, the fans showed up, but their team did not. The Lions came out -- as is their wont in quote-unquote big games -- flat as a crepe. They, once again, were dreadfully dominated in time of possession and statistically in the first half. They didn't show any real life until midway thru the fourth quarter, when Johnson made a brilliant catch for a TD -- showing what can happen when you throw the ball to a 6-5 dude who is a freak of nature, talent-wise.
But Kitna became infatuated with the shrimp McDonald in the closing minutes, and it cost his team the game.
It's not unfair to say that the Lions won't be taken seriously until they can perform in the season's second half. Anyone can go 6-2; plenty of teams who don't make the playoffs have done so. The second half is what separates the men from the boys. And the Lions are now 0-2 in 2007, Part II.
Shaun McDonald couldn't come up with Kitna's pass in crunch time. He made some plays earlier in the game. He's made some plays earlier in the season. He didn't make the crucial play yesterday. And anyone who was truly surprised by that hasn't been paying attention for the past several decades.
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