Kitna, For All His Warts, Gives Lions Some Stability

The words reverberated all over the country, not just in Detroit. It was tough talk, if not foolish, and so naturally the words were mocked and derided.

Jon Kitna, the Lions quarterback, was asked to complete a sentence. It was spring of 2007.

“If there’s one thing you could say to Lions fans about the 2007 season,” he was asked, “what would it be?”

“That I would be disappointed if we didn’t win at least ten games,” Kitna replied.

The questioner was me. And the words, repeated again a short while later to the rest of the media, grew legs, as they say in the business.

They barely made a ripple when Kitna spoke them to me, over the phone for one of those quickie Q & A pieces, when I was working for a now-defunct Detroit sports magazine. But when he repeated them soon after, for a radio station’s consumption, then you had something.

“JON KITNA SAYS THE LIONS WILL WIN TEN GAMES!”

It was all over the radio dial, and the newspapers, and the Internet.

But nowhere was it reported that had I not posed the question to him, Kitna may never have uttered the bold statement. Oh well.

The Lions won all of three games in 2006, and the last of those three came on the season’s final Sunday. So to predict – rather, expect – a 233% increase in wins from a franchise that has had as much success on the football field in the last 50 years as Charlie Brown has in kicking the football out of Lucy’s hold, well ...

I reminded Kitna that his words would appear in print, after he made the proclamation into his cell phone.

“Doesn’t bother me one bit,” he said.

Obviously not, because he clearly enjoyed saying them, over and over. When challenged, Kitna refused to back down. And really, when you think about it, what would you have your quarterback say?

“Gosh, I guess I would tell the fans to get ready for another bad season, folks.”

Is that preferable?

The Lions didn’t win ten games in 2007, though they enjoyed a jackrabbit 6-2 start. Kitna looked extremely clairvoyant. Then a 1-7 finish made him a liar, or at the very least, misguided.

Kitna’s gumption was fueled by the quality of the opponents on the Lions schedule last season. When he repeated his assertion to other media outlets, he did add one rider: that when he looked at the team’s schedule, he figured on a winning bonanza, based on the foibles of the teams on the opposite sideline. Never mind that those teams no doubt said pretty much the same thing about the Lions, fresh off their 3-13 year.

But this isn’t about Jon Kitna’s rose-colored glasses (he again predicted something similar to ten wins for 2008). It’s about how he has suddenly become a rarity when it comes to Lions football.

Next week, when the Lions open training camp, Kitna will show up as the unadulterated #1 quarterback. It will be the third straight summer that he will do so, and if he survives it, 2008 will be the third straight year that no one but Kitna has started a game as Lions quarterback.

That may not seem like great shakes, but in a city where the metaphor for quarterback stability is a carousel, or a revolving door, it kinda is. Kitna provides some consistency at QB, and whether you like him or not, or consider him mediocre or not, there you have it. The Lions may not have Tom Brady or Peyton Manning, or even Eli Manning, but nor do they have to truly worry about who will line up under center when the curtain goes up in September – barring injury, that age-old disclaimer.

No “quarterback controversy” in Detroit, not now. Other than the 35-year-old Kitna (he’ll be 36 in September), the Lions possess Drew Stanton and Dan Orlovsky on their roster. That’s it. Stanton missed all of his rookie season last year due to injury, and Orlovsky is, well, Orlovsky: a backup with no real credentials other than he shows up, works hard, and might have some potential. Kind of like most second or third-string quarterbacks in the NFL.

So don’t tell me, with a straight face, that either Stanton or Orlovsky pose any genuine threat to the veteran Kitna when it comes to who will be the Lions starting quarterback in 2008.

The Lions haven’t enjoyed such stability at QB in recent years. And when I say recent years, I’m going back about four decades or so.

Do not talk to me about Scott Mitchell or Joey Harrington – three-year starters who were as soft as Charmin tissue and about as accurate a representation of blue collar Detroit as Chardonnay wine and Gouda cheese. Do not come at me with Erik Kramer, who brokered one magnificent playoff game against Dallas into folk hero status here. The truth was, Kramer was an average quarterback, at best, who won over Lions fans hearts in a jiffy before fleeing to the Bears as a free agent. He didn’t do much in Chicago, really.

Talk not of Gary Danielson or Eric Hipple or Greg Landry or Bill Munson or Karl Sweetan or Milt Plum. They all had their moments, but they all were forever, it seemed, in a life-or-death struggle with another who wanted his job, and who was just about the same in quality. Hence the carousel. And the revolving door.

Jon Kitna is as good as it gets in Detroit right now, and at least he's got some blue collar in him. He's a tough customer whose sleeve-worn Christianity should not be misconstrued for weakness. He's as close a thing we've had to beer-and-shot Detroit, at quarterback, since maybe Bobby Layne. Though Kitna is no Bobby Layne, of course. He's Jon Kitna, and that's just going to have to do. Bold, misguided words and all.