If the Lions Want to Stop Stinking, They Must Stop Stinking at the Top

Leo Durocher said it, though they got The Lip's word cockeyed a little bit. Still, the spirit is there.

You probably think that Durocher, the legendary baseball manager, said, "Nice guys finish last."

Not quite.

Leo, managing the Brooklyn Dodgers at the time (1946), was talking about his cousins from Manhattan, the New York Giants. Leo noted that the Giants were full of nice guys, like Mel Ott, but that they'd finish last anyways, as was their wont in those days.

"Nice guys," Durocher said of the Giants. "Nice guys; finish last," he added.

Thus was born "Nice guys finish last."

But I digress---as is MY wont.

Lions coach Jim Schwartz is, by all accounts, a nice enough fellow. So is his boss, Marty Mayhew, who hasn't done or said anything to indicate that he's anything but a decent sort.

I'm sure the Lions players are a bunch of dudes that you wouldn't mind hanging out with. There don't appear to be any bad apples among the bunch. The police blotter doesn't contain any of their names.

Yet they'll finish last in their division this year, as they pretty much have done this entire century.

It's easy to pound away on a keyboard and dictate who should stay and who should go when the subject is any professional sports organization.

So I shall, but I don't take this lightly.

There's evidence now, in the wake of the Lions' latest Thanksgiving Turkey, that there is discord among the troops. There seems to be two factions, based on the post-game comments from players uttered after the 45-24 loss to the New England Patriots.

There's the "We are tough and we'll bounce back" group, and their counterpart, the "Some guys need to get called out and take this more seriously" circle.

Two high profile Lions spoke words similar to those after the game: QB Shaun Hill, of the former group, and DT Corey Williams, of the latter.

This is all understandable, of course. The Lions have perfected losing football since 2001. They have that down pat. What they're having a hard time getting a hang of is this business about winning.

I've been a big supporter of Mayhew, the Lions' aggressive, means-well GM. He's had a couple of nice drafts in two years, and despite being the understudy for one of the worst sports executives of all time, the village idiot gene hasn't been absorbed by Mayhew through osmosis, thank goodness.

But the frustrated comments of Williams and the counterpoint by Hill indicate that the losing is taking its toll, even on an organization that's trying desperately to shed its old skin.

Truth?

This "losing culture," a term that has been affixed to the Lions for the past 10 years like Velcro, can only be disposed of if the man on top of the mountain has been, well, to the top of the mountain.

No, I'm not talking about owner Bill Ford Sr.

The Lions have been a franchise that's subscribed to the "blind leading the blind" method of operating for too long. It's a twist, actually; the modus operandi with the Lions is more the "losing leading the losing."

Mayhew is a fine man, but he hasn't won in the NFL, wearing Armani.

Schwartz had never been a head coach before being hired by the Lions.

The team's stalwarts---basically players who've been Lions longer than this season---have never won on the field with anything close to consistency.

My opinion: the Lions, if they ever hope to truly shed their losing skin, must bring in a high-profile man upstairs with a reputation of getting it done. Williams, among his words of anguish, cited a lack of accountability in his diatribe.

The Lions don't win, haven't won, because they have no winners in the two positions where it matters most: in the executive's chair, and wearing the headset of the big cheese on the sidelines.

You can shuffle players in and out all you want; you can even have some nifty drafts, on paper.

It won't mean a hill of beans if there isn't anyone in the Ivory Tower who exudes accountability, winning, and success.

There are men like that who are out there, available---who could be coaxed.

A couple of years ago, Bill Parcells reached out to the Lions, i.e. Ford. Parcells wondered if his expertise might be welcome in Detroit.

Ford blew him off.

I think Mayhew has a nice eye for football players coming out of college. He hasn't hit on all his draft picks, but who does?

If the Lions looked---and they wouldn't have to look too hard---they'd find some folks who'd drop what they're doing and fly to Detroit to have a chat with Ford, who has a reputation among the NFL's circles for being one of the finest men you could ever work for.

That's one of the reasons why Parcells dialed up Ford; The Tuna knows a good owner when he sees one.

Ever since the hiring of rookie GM Millen in 2001, it's been the blind leading the blind.

Millen hired a rookie head coach, Marty Mornhinweg. Then, whether due to hubris or stupid pride, Millen failed to bring in a seasoned NFL personnel guy to help him with his first few drafts.

Those guys were out there, too---and they would have come to Detroit in a heartbeat, for this was way before Millen's stock plunged like Enron's.

But that's all water under the proverbial bridge.

I'm not calling for the firing of Mayhew. I'm not even asking for Schwartz's head. Not yet, anyway. Ford hates firing people, I know.

If Bill Ford Sr. could somehow be convinced that bringing in a top-notch NFL man who's had a history of building winning football teams would be a neat idea, then the Lions might have something.

Let Mayhew run the draft. Give Schwartz another year, at least, to see if he has the chops to be a quality NFL head coach.

A winner at the top who is teeming with success, accountability and no regard for the losing history in Detroit would be the best thing to hit the franchise since Bobby Layne stumbled here with whiskey on his breath in the 1950s.

Parcells, by the way, was recently quoted that he feels he has one more rebuild in him.

And he's not the only one who could make a difference with the Lions. Nor is he the only one who would love to come to the Motor City. Turning the Lions into a winner is the white whale that several quality NFL men would dearly love to slay. That individual would be set for life, whether with the Lions or any other franchise.

To be known as the Man Who Made the Lions Into Winners Again is a delectable prospect for the right guy.

That man is out there. The Lions just have to ask.

Kitna's Predicted 10 Wins Only Recently Realized By Woeful Lions

The declaration grew a life of its own. It would be used first as a rallying cry, then eventually as a weapon of mockery, rubbed in the face of the source of the words.

Jon Kitna's delusional expectations for his Detroit Lions in the spring of 2007, once it hit the airwaves and the Internets, spread like wildfire. Or cancer---depending on how you look at it.

The Lions of 2006, Kitna's first season as Lions quarterback, rode in at 3-13. Their third win came on the season's final week---in Dallas.

So here was Kitna, talking of his expectations for his team in 2007.

"I think we can win 10 games," Kitna said.

The daffy prediction drew ire, praise, and derision---depending on to whom you served it up.

The words made it into the ears and through the eyes of the entire fanbase within minutes, it seemed.

But Jon Kitna first spoke them to me. True story.

He was on the phone, chatting with me as I gathered info for the "A Few Minutes With" section of the Detroit sports magazine I was editing. Kitna was the subject. After several questions of eclectic variety, I put one more to him.

"What would you say," I said through the phone, "to the long-suffering Lions fans reading this?"

He thought about it briefly; there were several seconds of dead air.

Then he spoke with excitement, as if he had just remembered the answer to a trivia question.

"I would tell them that we're gonna win 10 games next season," Kitna said.

I reminded him that his words would not be printed in invisible ink.

"That doesn't bother me at all," Kitna said.

Well, a few days later, speaking to one of the radio stations in town, Kitna repeated his assertion about the 10 wins for the Lions in 2007.

That's when all of Detroit became awash with their quarterback's delusional giddiness.

Kitna's words, so infamously uttered, became so only after he spoke them into a phone through the radio. His conversation with me had been much more private.

Same declaration, totally different result.

Over three-and-a-half football seasons have gone by, and the Lions have only recently surpassed Kitna's 10 win total, predicted in the spring of 2007. The win total that Kitna thought the Lions could reach in a single season---not three-and-some-change seasons later.

Since the beginning of the 2007 campaign, the Lions are 11-47; they're 5-45 in their last 50 games. It's unbelievable in its ineptitude, that in today's NFL, a team could average just one win for every 10 games for over three seasons.

Kitna still wears blue and silver, but it's a different shade of blue, and there's a Texas Lone Star on his helmet---not the futile rampant Lion.

Kitna on Sunday was the latest quarterback to make mincemeat of the Lions, a team he so once gallantly led.

It took the Dallas Cowboys more than a half, and a flukey punt return to kick start them, but they had more than enough in the end to subdue the men in Honolulu Blue and Silver, 35-19.

The Lions, once again, used a suicide cocktail of penalties, a poor rushing attack and a second half swoon to blow a football game that they, if ever so briefly, held in control.

After a safety early in the third quarter put the Lions ahead, 12-7, the Cowboys' sparkling new stadium was cast with a pall. Kitna and his offense were mostly a rumor, aside from the opening, 98-yard TD drive.

When Kitna spoke his delusional words to me over the phone that spring day in 2007, he'd only been a Lion for one season. He had no idea how bizarre Lions football could be.

That bizarreness was on full display during a punt by Nick Harris in the third quarter, not long after the aforementioned safety.

Just when you think you've got a favorite bad/weird play in Lions history to hold up as a sampling of the franchise's bungling, along comes another one.

This one came courtesy of Bryan McCann, a three-time NFL loser who is suddenly one of the most dangerous return men in the league.

McCann, playing in just his third NFL game Sunday, nonetheless had the presence of mind of a grizzled veteran and took off running with the football at his own three yard line, following what appeared to be yet another great special teams play by the Lions' John Wendling, who batted the ball from the evils of the end zone.

A touchback never looked so good, after what McCann did.

Up the sidelines McCann scooted, 97 yards to paydirt. Maybe one of the strangest punt returns you'll ever see---and it went for six points. Against the Lions, natch.

I remember Lem Barney against the Cincinnati Bengals at Tiger Stadium in 1970.

Barney, punt returner extraordinaire in addition to being a shutdown cornerback (Lem was Deion Sanders before Deion was out of diapers), watched along with a group of Bengals as a Cincinnati punt rolled to a stop.

Just before the Bengals went to touch the football, Barney bent over, scooped it up, and zig-zagged about 50 yards for a touchdown.

There was a time when the Lions inflicted odd punishment, believe it or not.

Momentum is one of the most overused words/phrases in sports, right up there with chemistry and unsung heroes and "on the same page" and "at the end of the day."

But sometimes those words are appropriate in their use. After McCann's "excuse me" punt return, momentum indeed shifted, like San Francisco's terrain during the 1989 World Series.

You just knew the Lions were cooked, even though McCann's dazzling play only put the Cowboys up, 14-12.

Jerome Felton poured gasoline on the Cowboys' fire by benevolently fumbling on the Lions' next possession. Before long, it was 21-12, Dallas.

Goodnight, nurse.

How's this for the epitome of "same old Lions"?

After a week of talking and preaching and practicing in order to cut down on the before snap and after whistle penalties, the Lions had the Cowboys pinned on their own two yard line for their opening possession.

On the Cowboys' first play, Detroit DT Corey Williams jumped the snap and was flagged for encroachment.

The Lions are 5-45 in their last 50 games. It took them over three years to reach Jon Kitna's predicted 10 wins in 2007.

So when you see plays like what Bryan McCann made Sunday, shame on you for being surprised that they happened to the boys in Honolulu Blue and Silver.

It would be more surprising if McCann had done that to a team other than the Lions, when you think about it.

Kuester in Quicksand Coaching These Bratty Pistons

Herbie Brown, when he first came to town in the mid-1970s, was a frenetic, nervous man with wide, plaintive eyes, long curly hair, and a mission.

He arrived in Detroit in 1975 as the new assistant to Pistons coach Ray Scott, who performed the task for two years without any help.

But Ray, one of the finest men you’ll ever meet, did a favor for a fellow coach and long story short, hired Brown to be Ray’s assistant.

That favor would come back to bite Scott in the you-know-where.

“I guess I didn’t see it coming like some others did,” Ray once told me.

You might know Herbie Brown by way of his more famous coaching little brother, Larry.

So Herbie comes to Detroit, joining Ray Scott, and before long it’s obvious to some of the sportswriters in town, like the Detroit News’ Jerry Green, that Herbie is gunning for Ray’s job, the “it” that Scott says he didn’t see coming.

Ray told me of a meeting he had along the Detroit Riverfront with Green, in a car near Cobo Arena, in which Jerry tried to warn Ray of Herbie’s intentions.

In January, 1976, Ray was fired, the Pistons tumbling from first place toward oblivion in the latter part of December and early January.

Herbie Brown’s mission was accomplished; he was the new Pistons coach.

For better or for worse.

The Pistons actually played hard for Brown initially, using a late-season run to squeak into the playoffs. Then they upset the Milwaukee Bucks in a best-of-three series before taking the defending champion Golden State Warriors to six games.

The following season, Brown was still frenetic and manic and he still wore shoes with no socks and open-collared leisure suits. He looked like a reject from Studio 54, coaching the Pistons in Cobo Arena and throughout the arenas of the day.

One day in practice, according to Green in his book “The Detroit Pistons: Capturing a Remarkable Era,” Brown was overseeing a ball movement drill and noticed one of the Pistons being checked in a mismatch by point guard Kevin Porter.

Porter was an angry, simmering player who scowled a lot and distrusted coaches. He and Brown were very similar people, which was part of their problem.

Brown saw the mismatch and implored the bigger player to shoot.

“You got a midget on you! Shoot the ball! You got a midget on you!”

Kevin Porter didn’t like being called a midget by the disco-dressing Herbie Brown.

That was part of the tenuous, stormy relationship between coach and point guard, which at times nearly turned physical in its confrontations.

Brown would sit Porter during games and not call on him for chunks of minutes at a time. Porter would glare and scowl. Herbie would finally call for Porter and it was even money whether Kevin would actually acquiesce and enter the game.

This went on for most of the 1976-77 season, a year in which the Pistons managed to win 44 games despite several key players (like Bob Lanier) holding Herbie Brown in complete disdain.

Herbie was eventually fired in December, 1977.

Herbie Brown rubbed his players raw, like a cheese grater. He yelled a lot, which even back then wasn’t the best way to get through to NBA players, even before they made salaries that would make a lot of corporate magnates blush.

Unlike Herbie Brown, Chuck Daly got it.

Chuck, the Pistons coach from 1983-92, knew his place. He knew that NBA players weren’t seventh graders who needed to be taught basketball and scolded. Rather, they were, in Chuck’s own words, 12 different corporations who responded to diplomacy and empowerment, even if the latter was disingenuous.

Chuck Daly’s brilliance was that he made it seem like the players were in charge more than he was. He let them police themselves, realizing that if you have tough-minded leaders like Isiah Thomas and Bill Laimbeer on your roster, you might as well have them work for you rather than against you.

Once, during the 1985-86 season, the Pistons in a terrible slump, rumors were abound that Daly was to be fired—soon, any day now.

But Thomas went to bat for his coach. He encouraged GM Jack McCloskey to give Daly some more time.

A couple years later, the Pistons were in the NBA Finals. The next two after that, they won them.

Daly would end up as the greatest coach in franchise history, not that any of us saw it coming when he was hired from obscurity in 1983.

I can’t help but think of the cautionary tales of Herbie Brown and Chuck Daly as I watch John Kuester wallow in his tenure as the coach of today’s bratty Pistons.

No one seems to have Kuester’s back, as Isiah and Laimbeer did for Daly, back in the day. Rather, the coach appears to be surrounded by a lot of Kevin Porters.

As I write this, the Pistons have played 12 games. It seems like 112. The drama that has occurred so far is enough to keep a soap opera writer on retainer.

Guard Rodney Stuckey, who started yapping in training camp about being tired of not yapping enough previously, has already spent a game tethered to the bench as punishment for not leaving a prior game upon Kuester’s request.

Forward Tayshaun Prince has already verbally sparred with Kuester via the press, then cut out the middle man and sparred with him face-to-face during a game at Golden State last Monday. The coach had to be restrained during that delightful encounter.

The Pistons cannot compete with the league’s elite. There was a sorry blowout loss at home to the Celtics, which was one of the worst efforts I’d ever seen from a Pistons team.

Then the ultimate indictment came on Wednesday night.

The Pistons entertained the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers, and they did so in every sense of the word. The Pistons laid down for the Lakers. They all but brought out appetizers and cocktails before serving them a main course of an easy win.

Afterward, Lakers coach Phil Jackson, who’s been at this NBA coaching thing for over 20 years now, delivered the worst zinger of the year.

“It looked like some of their guys weren’t playing very hard,” Jackson said.

They ought to put that on the 2010-11 Pistons’ epitaph.

It was the worst, cruelest blow. Jackson’s words, coming from a spoiled victor, ought to embarrass the Pistons to no end.

But you want to know the worst part?

Jackson’s charge won’t embarrass this group of petulant Pistons one iota.

John Kuester is no Chuck Daly, but he’s no Herbie Brown, either.

Still, Kuester is likely to suffer the same fate as Brown, eventually.

That’s usually what happens in the NBA, when you can’t get all the corporations that Daly spoke of to play ball—literally and figuratively.

Kobe Bryant the Greatest Laker, and Maybe the Greatest, Period

He's the greatest Laker of them all, and in case you didn't know, that franchise hasn't exactly had chopped liver playing for it over the generations.

It all started with No. 99, George Mikan, the NBA's first Redwood. That was when the lakes the team played near were in Minneapolis, not Los Angeles. Mikan was 6'10" at a time when any player whose head top rose more than six feet from the ground was considered basketball-ready.

Mikan played among relative Lilliputians, but that doesn't take away from the trail he blazed in the NBA; that is, being the first true big man who wasn't as immobile as a pylon, and who was dominant.

Mikan only played seven seasons in the NBA, but that's like saying Godzilla was only in Tokyo for half an hour. George left his mark, make no question.

Then there was the terrific duo of Jerry West and Elgin Baylor, once the franchise moved westward to Southern California. The ole lefty from UCLA, Gail Goodrich, joined them in 1965 and soon afterward did Wilt Chamberlain, and key role players like Happy Hairston, Jim McMillian, Keith Erickson and Leroy Ellis, and that's how you win 33 straight games, as the Lakers did in 1971-72---and Baylor only played in nine games that season.

There was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who came over from the Milwaukee Bucks in 1975 and who would become the league's all-time leading scorer. Earvin "Magic" Johnson went from an NCAA Title with Michigan State in 1979 to an NBA Championship with the Lakers one year later.

Kobe Bryant trumps all of them. Heck, he might trump just about anyone who wore any uniform, except for Michael Jordan---and it's not a slam dunk (pun intended) that MJ was the better player.

The Lakers are in town to play the Pistons tonight. Once upon a time that meant a playoff-like atmosphere and a possible preview of the NBA Finals.

Thanks to the schedule makers, Western Conference teams only invade the Eastern arenas once a season, and vice-versa. So if you miss Kobe and the Lakers tonight, and with the state of the Pistons, you'll have to wait till next season to see the Greatest Laker of Them All.

It may seem like you've been in a time machine going backwards when you look at Bryant's age and see that he's only 32 years old. For opposing teams, that's like having the week from Hell and realizing that it's only Tuesday.

You don't have to like Kobe Bryant as a person. You don't have to include him on a list of folks you'd like to have dinner with, or to marry your daughter. It's OK if you keep a dart board in the basement with his photograph taped to it, or a voodoo doll with a Lakers No. 24 jersey on it.

It doesn't change the fact that Bryant is the greatest of all the Lakers, and when he calls it quits, he might have supplanted Abdul-Jabbar as the player who's tallied the most points ever.

It's quite possible, you know.

Kobe has a little more than 26,000 points as I write this. Kareem finished his brilliant career with 38,387 points, with only one measly three-point field goal among them.

So Bryant needs about 12,000 points to surpass the second greatest Laker of all time and become the No. 1 scorer in NBA history.



If he plays at a relatively high level---scoring between 1,800 and 2,000 points per season---Bryant can become the all-time leading scorer in six or seven seasons. He'd be 38 or 39, and you'd be foolish to bet against him still being an impact player at that age.

Remember when Shaquille O'Neal left L.A. and smirked that Kobe couldn't become a champion without the Almighty Shaq?

The Lakers are two-time defending champs and Bryant is two-time defending Finals MVP, nipping at the heels of Shaq, who won three straight of those from 2000 to 2002.

Kobe Bryant pops in about 25 points a game (at least), grabs five boards, and dishes off about that many assists. Every night. Been doing that for, oh, 12 years now. That's all.

He'll shoot his 45 percent from the field, his 84 percent from the stripe, and break your back with an occasional three-pointer at the worst possible time. He commits 2.4 fouls per game and draws about three times that many on any given night.

Has he had his moments with coach Phil Jackson? Has he feuded with teammates? Has his personal life left something to be desired?

Triple yes, but he wears five rings and has come in second place twice. You can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs.

They say Kobe Bryant is petulant and thinks about himself first and is, frankly, a spoiled NBA brat.

Truth?

He's been all those things, at one point or another. But show me an NBA player who's never been selfish, and I'll show you an unemployed NBA player whose only rings are around the collar.

You think pro basketball is a team sport first? You think you can win in today's NBA without a megastar?

Then you must be a fan of that other team that plays in the Staples Center.

Kobe Bryant is the Greatest Laker of All Time. It says here that, before you know it, he'll be the NBA's All-Time Leading Scorer, too.

And at that point, Michael Jordan's legacy as the NBA's greatest player ought to be under a cloud of doubt.

Like it or not.

Hill's Gaffe Joins the Lions' Slew

Somewhere near Houston, Texas, Dan Orlovsky is breathing a sigh of relief.

When last seen by Lions fans, Orlovsky, now a backup with the Texans, was dancing out of the end zone in Minnesota, inexplicably running out of the field of play with the football and into the Lions Hall of Shame, perpetrating the funniest safety in the history of pro football.

Orlovsky is so yesterday. Shaun Hill is all the rage this morning. Poor Drew Stanton; he was trendy for all of one week, until Hill came along and shoved Stanton's mistake (throwing an ill-advised pass instead of taking a sack and killing clock) from last Sunday aside.

Hill wiped Stanton and Orlovsky's gaffes off the Lions' map as if they were written on a dry erase board.

Whether you had little or no confidence that the Lions would convert a two-point conversion Sunday against the Buffalo Bills in the waning moments of the game, or that you thought it was doable, chances are you didn't have "throw the ball out of the end zone" in your mental pool of possible outcomes.

Yet that's exactly what Hill did.

Once again a quarterback who should know better suffers from an attack of cranial flatulence at the worst possible time for the Lions.

The Lions were on the verge of perhaps tying the 0-8 Bills after driving down the field for a touchdown with 19 seconds left, making the score 14-12, Buffalo.

Then Hill struck, like lightning on a golfer.

Doubtless Hill's first option on the conversion attempt was Calvin Johnson, but apparently CJ was unavailable. So Hill scrambled, surveyed the end zone, and took his time exploring his options, for the Lions' offensive line did its job admirably.

Finally, Hill let loose with the football, just barely underthrowing the guy in the first row behind the end zone.

Hill's target was Brandon Pettigrew, who would have had to have been a Transformer in order to even get his mitts on the football.

No word on whether Hill was expecting to get another down.

So add that to your List of Ways to Collapse into Defeat in the NFL, by the Detroit Lions.

Hill's curious chuck joins Stanton's curious decision to throw and Orlovsky's curious decision to scramble out of the end zone. It joins Take the Wind and Go for Two and I Don't Coach This Stuff and The Bar is High.

It joins What Does a Guy Have to Do to Get Fired Around Here? and Pound the Rock and Take Barry Out of the Game at the Goal Line.

It joins Let's Record "Another One Bites the Dust" While We're 4-0 and I Just Have to Hire Marty Mornhinweg Before the Browns Do.

It will forever take its place with Drafting Andre Ware and Chuck Long and Joey Harrington and Charlie Rogers. It now joins Aaron Gibson Can Block out the Sun and We're Married to Charlie Batch.

It now resides with 0-24 on the Road and its cousin, 0-25 on the Road.

It fits perfectly with 5-44 since the eighth game of 2007 and We Let Matt Millen Have Almost Eight Years Before We Realized Something Was Terribly Wrong.

Hill's grenade is now asking Let's Sign Daunte Culpepper to move down a space.

It joins Put Suh in to Kick and I Can't Figure Out this Whole Clock Management Thing.

And it, of course, now is in the rarefied air of the sacred 0-16 Cow.

Shaun Hill threw the football out of the end zone on a two-point conversion. It should be engraved on his tombstone. Give me the chisel. Someone should sew a scarlet HTTFOOTEZOATPC on his jersey. Fetch me a Singer machine, forthwith.

Maybe the football slipped out of his hands, the Devil's Advocate in you might say. It WAS rainy, after all.

That's kind of you, but I'm not buying it.

Hill has ten whole yards to work with, when throwing a football into the end zone. If you call throwing it nearly 15 "slipping out of his hand," then you're either his mother or giving the biggest pardon since Ford excused Nixon.

Throw an incompletion IN the end zone. Hell, throw an interception. While those two results aren't desirable, either, they're a helluva lot more digestible than throwing the football halfway to Toronto.

Hill gave the Lions a chance to tie the game then took it away seconds later. Who made him God?

Only the Lions, right?

0-16 is safe for another year. Pop the Vernor's.

0-25 on the road, however, is alive and well and looks to be promoted to 0-26 in Dallas next week.

I like his chances.