In Stafford, Lions Have Best QB Prospect in 50 Years

The football helmet was suddenly an airborne missile. It was flung across the locker room, narrowly missing its target—the head of the defiant quarterback who just helped orchestrate a defeat of numbing magnitude.

The helmet bounced off the wall, its hurler steaming mad, loaded for bear.

The Lions of the 1960s were a schizophrenic bunch. They had a swarming, mauling defense that, in some years during the decade, was among the very best in the NFL.

But the Lions were also a plodding offensive unit who seemed to play with one arm tied behind their backs.

And one of the leaders of the Lions defense got fed up with the smug, kiss-my-ass attitude of the quarterback in the wake of a crushing defeat in Green Bay in 1962, and took it upon himself to use Milt Plum’s head as a target for helmet-flinging.

Alex Karras was fit to be tied. The Lions had a big game in the palms of their muddy hands on the Packers’ home field, and needed only to run the clock down and punt the football deep into Green Bay territory—leaving the Pack little time and a whole lot of real estate to traverse.

But Plum was ordered to try a pass to get one last first down.

The field was sloppy. The pass call was risky at best, downright stupid at worst.

The Lions’ intended receiver slipped and fell down. The Packers’ Herb Adderly intercepted, and sloshed his way into field goal range. Moments later, Paul Hornung kicked the football square and true and just like that, the Lions were losers.

After the game, in the Lions’ morgue of a locker room, Karras demanded to know who called such a boneheaded play.

Plum told him that it wasn’t any of Karras’s business.

That’s when Alex lost it and threw his helmet across the room, missing Plum’s noggin by inches.

Such was the Lions defense’s distrust and ill will toward the incompetent offenses back in the day.

The Lions of ’62 might have been one of the best teams in NFL history not to qualify for the post-season. They were 11-3. The Packers finished 13-1—their only loss being a shellacking put on them by the Lions in Detroit on Thanksgiving Day.

But if the Lions hadn’t taken leave of their senses in Green Bay on that dreary October afternoon, both they and the Packers would have finished 12-2, and a playoff would have been needed to determine the Western Division winner.

In 1962, there was no Wild Card. If you wanted to play past the regular season, you had to win the division. So teams with records like 11-3 were just as out of it as teams who were 3-11.

Just the Lions’ rotten luck!

The distrust of the offense by the defense would continue for years after that horrific loss in Green Bay—a loss that might have stolen from the Lions a chance to play for the World Championship in December.

“I was absolutely violent,” Karras related about the 1962 loss in Green Bay to the Free Press’s George Puscas years later. “Joe Schmidt was absolutely violent,” Karras added, referring to the Hall of Fame linebacker.

“On the plane ride home, it was so bad that even the writers, who were usually like pall bearers to us, were trying to cheer us up,” Karras told Puscas.

“After that loss, we had the feeling that no matter how good we were, something or someone was going to ruin it for us.”

For nearly 50 years, Karras’s words have rung true.

For almost every one of those years, it’s been the Lions’ lack of a competent NFL quarterback that’s done them in—someone that even the defense can trust and get behind.

The NFL today is a quarterback’s league. If you have one, you have a chance. If you don’t, the season is 16 nervous breakdowns.

The competent NFL quarterback has to be confident but not cocky; strong-armed but deft; mobile but elusive; unflappable but focused.

He has to be the steadying hand on the team’s rudder—the reliable captain who can navigate the ship through the choppiest of waters. His teammates have to look at him and be reassured, not darting for the life jackets.

You want to win in the NFL? Then you’d better have a quarterback who everyone believes in, from the top of the organizational chart to the last man on the practice squad.

The quarterback is the central nervous system of his football team.

When he looks at his teammates in the huddle, they have to see General Patton and Wyatt Earp and Muhammad Ali, all rolled into one, staring back.

In the NFL, you can’t hide not having a good quarterback. You’d be better off trying to cover a 600-pound gorilla with a bikini.

For 48 years, from the moment in Green Bay when Alex Karras, Joe Schmidt, and the rest of the Detroit defense wanted to eviscerate the team’s quarterback, the Lions have been unable to find a signal caller worth—to steal from the old Vice President John Nance Garner—a warm bucket of piss.

Another NFL season begins Sunday. The Lions are in Chicago, to play their annual game in the Second City against their longtime rivals, the Bears. Chicago has been a rare place where the Lions have actually found some success in recent years. The Lions won there in 2004 and 2007—pretty heady stuff for a team that handles the road like a rear wheel drive car in wintertime.

Behind center will be Matthew Stafford, the Lions’ best stab at filling the quarterback role since Bobby Layne wore No. 22 and played without a face mask.

Stafford is the unchallenged, unquestioned leader of the Lions, in just his second season. He’s the closest thing to Elway and Montana and Favre and Manning that the franchise has ever had. By far.

Stafford is handsome, football smart, possessor of a cannon for an arm, and with leadership skills beyond his tender age. He has everyone’s trust in the Lions organization.

The Lions haven’t had a real, genuine NFL quarterback in over 50 years and this kid Stafford is going to make this town go crazy.

His coaches speak glowingly of the progress he’s made from Year One to the dawn of Year Two. They talk of him and you get the feeling that they want to let you in on a secret that they’re keeping.

You get the feeling that they want to tell you that Matthew Stafford is going to be, sooner rather than later, the very best quarterback in the entire NFL.

The coaches almost can’t contain themselves when they talk about Stafford.

Stafford has more offensive weapons this year, including a dynamite running back (Jahvid Best), and he’s developing a rapport with ace receiver Calvin Johnson.

Matthew Stafford is going to make Detroit go crazy.

You get that feeling.

Forcier's Pity Party Should Make Him an Ex-Wolverine

The beaten down quarterback sat all by his lonesome, a towel draped over his head, perhaps in shame. It was as if a force field was around him, because there wasn't a teammate within 10 yards of him, on either side.

On the sidelines, teammates of the beaten down quarterback laughed and smiled, whooped and hollered. Their football program needed a big win on opening weekend in the worst way, and they had gotten it. After months of QB speculation and the bitter taste of 8-16 over the past two seasons and the pall of NCAA violations and the alleged uncertainty of the coach's future, it's likely that the jocularity on the sidelines was just plain relief.

The scoreboard read Michigan 30, Connecticut 10.

Plop, plop, fizz, fizz!

Had you tuned into the broadcast late, you would have thought that the beaten down quarterback had just thrown a boatload of interceptions and because of his ineffectiveness, the team had been let down.

But the beaten down quarterback hadn't even played.

Instead of joining in the frivolity, instead of standing in front, on the sidelines, shouting encouragement and congratulating his fellow signal caller, Michigan quarterback Tate Forcier chose to make the Wolverines' opening day win over UConn all about...Tate Forcier.

Maybe Forcier wasn't pouting. Maybe he wasn't feeling sorry for himself. Maybe he was silently happy and busting buttons over the Wolverines' win and over QB Denard Robinson's record-setting afternoon.

But it sure didn't look like it.

The ABC cameras were all too eager to show us shot after shot of Forcier sitting on top of an aluminum bench, far away from his teammates, as commentators Sean McDonough and Matt Millen took notice.

The camera shots started coming at us well into the second half, when Michigan's fate against the Huskies looked certain. Forcier, just weeks after his wings were stripped from his blue helmet for being less than a team player, appeared to be holding a private pity party.

Immediately after the game, the rumors began. Forcier would be leaving Michigan, transferring to a school that would, presumably, hand him a starting QB role on a silver platter.

Forcier's dad tried to quell the transfer talk. Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez, at his Monday presser, downplayed Forcier's body language. Rodriguez acknowledged Forcier's disappointment at not starting Saturday's game---a decision the coach supposedly made the day before the game---and said he expects such disappointment. Then the coach mocked the brouhaha made by the TV folks.

I have no idea what, if anything, was said to Forcier in the wake of his failure to join in the celebration on Saturday. Maybe the kid was indeed spoken to.

But here's the thing: Robinson is clearly more of a Rodriguez-type quarterback for the offense RichRod wants the Wolverines to run. And I don't believe for a second that Rodriguez made his decision as late as he says he did.

Rodriguez, it says here, knew for quite some time that he was going to start Robinson. I just don't think he wanted Denard to have too much time to think about it. I think it was by design that Robinson got the short notice, and it worked out brilliantly.

Back to Forcier.

Tate Forcier isn't the quarterback for Rodriguez's offense, and there's no crime in that---on the part of either party. But if Forcier is serious about transferring, then he'd better know that it's one thing to want to transfer, and quite another for another school to want you.

You don't think other programs might think twice about taking Forcier in, after his towel-draped pouting jag last Sarurday? You think they want a kid who, if he doesn't get his way, runs to his room, locks the door, and plops onto his bed, sobbing?

Forcier needs to grow up.

This young man is going to encounter loads more of disappointments in his life. There can only be one quarterback on the football field. And as he starts his career in the work force after college, he'll find that there can only be one candidate hired for the jobs he seeks.

And he won't always be the guy who gets picked.

So Forcier is disappointed about not starting at quarterback for Michigan. I get it.

But, tough!

Rodriguez ought to kick him off the team. What use does the coach have for Forcier? The kid is clearly not in the plans; at least, that's what appears to be the case.

Forcier told some media types after Saturday's game that he's as good as gone from Ann Arbor.

Fine. No hard feelings.

But if he thinks that his behavior was a good marketing tool for his admittance into another major college football program, then Tate Forcier has even more to learn than I thought.

Michigan-Ohio State TWICE In Football? Never!

Some things are simply meant to be done once per year.

Thanksgiving. Christmas. Cleaning out the garage. Flossing.

And Michigan playing Ohio State in football.

What’s this I hear about the Big Ten/Twelve?

What’s this I hear that thanks to the new divisional alignment, Michigan and Ohio State have been separated, playing in two different divisions? What’s this I hear that because of this heresy, Michigan and Ohio State may sometimes play twice—once at the end of the year, as usual, and again the following week in the Big Ten/Twelve Championship Game?

U-M/OSU, Part II—after a one-week intermission?

Say it ain’t so, Jim!

Jim is Jim Delany, the commissioner of the Big Ten/Twelve. He’s the screwball who is presiding over this trampling of tradition.

Delany says he was afraid that, by keeping Michigan and Ohio State in the same division, the two schools would never get a chance to play for the conference championship.

Two words for you, Jim.

OK, I can’t use those two, so I’ll use these: WHO CARES?

Let’s get something straight about Wolverines and Buckeyes clashing on a gridiron.

It’s almost less about winning than it is about peeing in the other team’s Wheaties.

In Michigan-Ohio State, the loser feels worse than the winner feels good. For 364 days, the losing team has its insides gnarled. It’s 51 weeks and six days of cloudy skies and wind and rain. Your team loses and it’ll be a year, at least, until you’re able to crack a grin.

There’s nothing worse than being the loser of Michigan-Ohio State on the last football weekend in November. So you can imagine how the Wolverines fans are doing nowadays, their team unable to beat the Buckeyes more than once over the past nine years.

I submit that when you win a Michigan-Ohio State game, you feel little more than relief and satisfaction. When you lose, you feel like you just swallowed lye.

So what could be sweeter than to have Michigan and Ohio State in the same division, if for no other reason than to give one school the chance to ruin the season for the other?

That’s what Michigan-Ohio State has often been about—pouring sugar in the other team’s gas tank.

Nothing can do that better than to play the other guys with a chance to knock them out of contention for the Big Ten/Twelve title.

Let’s face it: The scales have tipped in the conference. It’s no longer the Big Two/Little Eight anymore. Ohio State is still elite, but Michigan is scuffling.

So the chances of Michigan and Ohio State meeting as divisional champs seem to be dwindling, though it could still occur on occasion—setting up the scenario where the schools would play twice in one season.

Doesn’t matter. There should NEVER be a scenario where Michigan and Ohio State play twice in the same year, much less on successive weeks. Let the loser feel lousy for a year!

On the other hand, there should ALWAYS be the possibility that Michigan or Ohio State could ruin the other’s chances of being divisional champion, thus knocking them out of a conference championship contest.

I get the winner-take-all camp, who desires to see The Game still have a chance at being a conference decider. But under the new alignment, that would necessitate there being TWO The Games.

For whatever reason, Delany and others looked at the tradition of having Michigan playing Ohio State on the season’s last weekend as being an “either or” thing. In other words, “You can have your ‘The Game’ on the last week, but only if we split the teams into separate divisions.’"

Huh?

Why not have both?

Why not keep the schools in the same division, AND keep The Game on the final weekend?

So Michigan will never play Ohio State for the conference championship under that scenario.

Once again, WHO CARES?

Either school will savor a Big Ten/Twelve Championship whether it comes against Iowa or Purdue or Nebraska. It would be the scrumptious dessert after a meal of Wolverine or Buckeye the week prior.

And if a scuffling Michigan or Ohio State is able to derail the other’s championship dream for that season?

Oo-la-la!!

Look, I know that ALL conference games count in the conference standings, regardless if they’re played against divisional rivals or not. And yes, that means that a team can still rain on another’s parade from the other division.

But how about when both Michigan and Ohio State end up on even footing—and yes, it will happen again. When that happens, if they’re both in the same division, things are likely to come down to the winner of Michigan-Ohio State being division champs, and moving on to the conference title game.

Loser gets those gnarled insides. As tradition dictates.

You’d have Michigan play Ohio State from separate divisions, and the loser getting another crack at it a week later?

It should never work that way.

Did Nixon get another try at Kennedy a week after the 1960 presidential election? Did they hold another Daytime Emmy Awards ceremony a week later so Susan Lucci could have another shot?

Hey, did MLB allow the Red Sox to play the Yankees again after Bucky Dent broke the Beantowners’ hearts?

Michigan should play Ohio State once, and once only, in football every year.

The winner can move on. The loser can bounce off the walls for a year, for all I care.

You win that game, you feel great. You lose it, your world comes to an end for 364 days.

That’s what Michigan-Ohio State football is all about. It’s “See ya next year,” not “See ya next week.”

You can’t have a proper Michigan-Ohio State football rivalry if the loser gets to feel better about themselves in 168 hours.

Delany coughed up the football on this one, I’m sorry.

Chelios's New Role Par for the Red Wings' Course

The Detroit Red Wings do a lot of things well—win hockey games, take care of their players, represent the Original Six with aplomb. They show up to the playoffs every year and it’s never as an afterthought, like someone slipping into an elevator just before the doors close.

Four Stanley Cups since 1997, plus some close calls that could have brought that number to five or six.

Now the Red Wings are becoming a feeder program for team and league executives.

Brendan Shanahan, an NHL Vice President.

Steve Yzerman, GM of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

And now Chris Chelios, the newest Red Wings front office man.

It’s not likely to end there.

What might defenseman Nick Lidstrom be asked to do, when he hangs up his skates—assuming he returns to Sweden? The NHL could use Lidstrom in their hierarchy, perhaps as an ambassador or liaison to hockey in Sweden or elsewhere.

You think Kris Draper will just fade away? I can see him as a coach or in the front office in Grand Rapids, a few years hence.

I can just picture Chris Osgood traipsing to Traverse City every September to work with the team’s young goalies.

The Red Wings aren’t just a hockey team, they are a hockey institution, literally. It’s where you go to be educated about the game and contribute to hockey society after your playing days are done.

Joe Louis Arena may as well add some ivy onto its old brick walls and a build a campus bookstore and student lounge inside. Players shouldn’t get a playbook, they should get a syllabus.

Look at GM Ken Holland.

Holland was a struggling minor league goalie when the Red Wings secured him from the Hartford Whalers organ-EYE-zay-shun (this is hockey; gotta pronounce it correctly). In 1985, Holland finished his brief NHL career with the Red Wings, who saw something in his intuition for the game and groomed him as a scout, starting in his home turf of Western Canada.

One thing led to another, and before long Holland was back in Detroit, learning how to be a hockey manager (hockey people don’t say GM) under Scotty Bowman, no less.

After Bowman had held the dual roles of coach and manager from 1994-97, it was decided that Holland was ready to take over the managing.

The transition was seamless; the Red Wings won another Cup in 1998, Holland’s first year as manager.

Look at assistant GM Jim Nill.

Nill was acquired as a player late in his career, and when he retired, the Wings again saw something and made Nill an offer to stay in the organ-EYE-zay-shun.

Before long, after also going the scouting route, Nill ended up as Holland’s right hand man and as the Red Wings’ draft specialist.

Look at advanced scouting director Mark Howe.

Howe joined the Red Wings in 1992 as a 37-year-old geezer looking for another kick at the can, after two failed Finals appearances with the Flyers.

The Red Wings made the Finals in Howe’s last year as a player (1995) but were swept by the Devils.

No matter. Howe wasn’t allowed to fade away, either. The Red Wings made him a scout, too (see a pattern here?), and true to form, Howe was eventually promoted to advanced scouting director, which means he’s in charge of scouting upcoming Red Wings opponents in the regular season and playoffs.

Howe, thanks to the initial post-playing job offer, wears four championship rings, albeit all gained in Armani instead of on skates.

Look at advanced scout Pat Verbeek.

Howe was Verbeek’s boss, essentially. Patty Verbeek, known as The Little Ball of Hate as a player, was in the Red Wings’ scouting department ever since retiring from the NHL several years ago, until Yzerman hired him away to work for the Lightning.

The highest-profile examples of this Red Wings-as-an-institution of higher hockey learning thing of course are Shanahan, who’s doing marvelous work for the NHL, and Yzerman, who’s gaining his footing as the Lightning’s new man in charge.

Tuesday, Chelios officially retired as a player and joined the Red Wings front office. His role is still being defined, as Yzerman’s was when he retired in 2006. But Holland said Chelios will advise Holland, will advise coach Mike Babcock, and will work with the team’s defenseman prospects. For now.

Holland is still a relatively young guy—not in his 60s yet. He won’t budge from Detroit anytime soon, but the Red Wings are starting to send former players from the ice to the executive washrooms of their own team, other teams and even the NHL itself.

It’s yet another affirmation of the Red Wings’ place as a beacon of hockey smarts and its status as the best organ-EYE-zay-shun in the NHL, by far.

Hanson Proves Lions Can At Least Be Consistent At One Position

He showed up 18 years ago from Washington State University with his right leg and not much else. He didn't even have a name.

For his first few weeks in town, at Lions training camp, all we knew him as was "the kid who's replacing Eddie Murray."

Jason Something-or-Other.

HANSON, we were reminded by the Lions media liaisons.

Kickers in pro football have two kinds of lives, it seems: cameo, or Methuselah.

The 40-year-old kicker is far from an anomaly. If you can survive the first couple of years, you have a good shot at staying in the NFL for a couple of decades.

Morten Anderson, the pride of Michigan State, swatted footballs with his left foot with the reliability of the sunrise. He did it until he was 47 years old. He tried retiring a couple of times, but on each occasion he was asked back. On each occasion he said yes---because being a kicker in the NFL is a pretty good gig. It's like having a desk job for the Mafia.

Funny thing is, Anderson's 25-year career started this way: he twisted his ankle on his very first NFL kickoff, way back in 1982. Twisted his ankle on a kickoff?

You betcha. Twisted it good; he missed eight weeks.

He recovered, and kicked for a quarter century longer.

The Lions' Jason Hanson is 40. He's been losing his hair for years. Every training camp he shows up and his hairline has receded a couple centimeters. But he plays for the Lions, a franchise that has led the league in hair loss for its coaches and fan base for decades. So what do you expect?

Besides, Hanson doesn't kick with his hair.

Hanson survived those first couple of seasons as Murray's replacement, and then we blinked and Hanson is entering his 19th NFL season. One more year and he qualifies for a gold watch.

The man he replaced, Murray, was thought to be old. Murray kicked for the Lions from 1980-91---12 seasons. Then the Lions thought he was losing his power on kickoffs and the field goal accuracy was waning. So they released him, having drafted the kid Hanson.

Murray, by the way, left the Lions and kicked for nine more seasons, retiring in 2000 as a 44-year-old. Eddie even won a Super Bowl, with the 1993 Cowboys. Just like Errol Mann.

Errol Mann---there's a name from the past. Mann was cut by the Lions in 1975 after kicking for them for years and he ended up with the 1976 Oakland Raiders---and Mann won a Super Bowl with them.

Funny how players win Super Bowls before and after playing for the Lions, but not while.

So it's another training camp and Hanson is again entrenched as the Lions kicker, despite nursing an injury to his left, non-kicking leg. Last summer in camp he nursed an injury to his right, kicking leg.

Yet Hanson isn't like some NFL players, who lose their jobs due to injury. Hanson is the Lions kicker even when he can't kick. He's had more job security than a Supreme Court Justice.

Which means Hanson will likely retire from pro football as a Lion. Not that there haven't been some grumblings the past couple of seasons, when Hanson has had the audacity to actually, you know, miss a field goal attempt.

He missed several last year, but he didn't miss them by much. It wasn't like he was hooking them like a bad tee shot. Still, the footballs Hanson kicked last season didn't find their way through the uprights and above the crossbar with the success rate we've been used to seeing from No. 4. The injury he suffered in training camp was presumed to be the culprit.

No matter. Hanson is back, as usual, and he's the kicker, despite undergoing surgery earlier this month on his left leg.

The Lions brought in someone named Aaron Pettrey this year to handle kicking duties while Hanson recuperates. The Lions have brought in a number of kickers over the years, usually rookie free agents. They've done so as if they were trying to satisfy some sort of NFL Equal Opportunity Employer provision.

"Each team shall have two kickers in training camp."

Pettrey's chances of being the Lions kicker are off the board. Vegas wouldn't touch it. He's only with the Lions because they have to have someone kick during the exhibition games.

Every young kicker the Lions have invited to camp has come with the primary objective of hooking on with another NFL team. Hanson's job has been as untouchable as Elliott Ness.

But a good, reliable kicker is hard to find---like a good, honest car mechanic. And when you find one, you don't let him go. You don't even look around for alternatives, almost for fear of jinxing what you have.

Murray became vilified in Detroit for missing the biggest kick of his career---the 1983 playoff game in San Francisco, when his 43-yarder at the final gun started wide right and stayed wide right. Had he connected, the Lions would have advanced to the NFC Championship Game.

Murray kicked for the Lions for eight more seasons, but never did he truly live down that miss against the 49ers.

Hanson hasn't been in such a monumental situation in his 18 years with the Lions, mainly because the past nine of those have been spent in football purgatory.

Hanson would probably give his non-kicking leg to be in a position to miss a big kick.

But he shows up every year, on time, and with a smile on his face. Hanson has been through seven head coaches, a slew of special teams coaches, and more losses than you can shake a stick at. But he's a Lion, always will be, and has never shown an inclination to jump ship.

He's 40 years old and it's becoming less and less possible to imagine any other skinny guy swinging his leg at held footballs in a Lions uniform.

Hanson has been a morsel of comfort food for a fan base that has had to choke down hospital grade cuisine for the past nine years.

But is the end near? Nobody can kick forever---not even Morten Anderson or Jan Stenerud or John Kasay---who's still doing it for the Carolina Panthers, two months shy of his 41st birthday, the only kicker the Panthers franchise has ever employed.

All I know is that Hanson, just two seasons ago at age 38, went 21-for-22 in field goal attempts, including making a 56-yarder. Over his 18 seasons, he's connected at a success rate of 81.8.

I have a hunch that last year's 21-for-28 was an aberration, and that we'll see a reliable, accurate Hanson once again in 2010. And we may see that for several more years.

Jason Hanson just has to keep kicking for the Lions. I was married one week after his first game with the team in 1992. He's the only Lions kicker my marriage has ever known.

If he retires, I'll have to start treating Mrs. Eno a whole lot nicer.