Stafford Doesn't Belong In Lions Coaching Interview Process

Matthew Stafford has won no playoff games, no divisional titles and has a career won/lost record of 24-37 as a starter in the NFL—a winning percentage of under .400.

Yet the Lions are apparently involving their quarterback in the team’s coaching search.

Stafford reportedly sat in on the Lions’ interview of Jim Caldwell last week. This should cause great consternation among Lions fans.

Stafford no more belongs in the interview room as I do. Or as you do. Or as your uncle does, or as your uncle’s barber.

The inclusion of Stafford, regardless that he’s the Lions’ franchise QB, sends up more red flags than a Russian parade.

First, Stafford isn’t Tom Brady. Or Peyton Manning. Or Drew Brees—all veteran quarterbacks steeped in experience, knowledge, and championships.

And even the above guys haven’t been part of a coaching interview process, that anyone knows about.

The inclusion of Stafford makes one wonder what has been pumped into his head since becoming a Lion in 2009.

It raises questions about what level of culpability management holds Stafford regarding all the losing that’s been going on.

Stafford, more than any other player, was responsible for the Lions’ collapse this season. His turnover-prone play torpedoed the Lions’ playoff chances, when the team went 1-6 down the stretch.

A cynic could say that the Lions are merely giving Stafford hiring power to go along with the firing power he already has, as his play got Jim Schwartz canned.

But seriously, folks, this is a slippery slope the Lions are going down.

Caldwell, for his part, was well-prepared for his interview with the Lions. He supposedly watched every single pass that Stafford threw in 2013, and the former Colts head coach came armed with suggestions of how to improve Stafford’s mechanics.

That still doesn’t justify having Stafford sit in on Caldwell’s interview.

This has tail-wagging-the-dog written all over it, and raises serious questions about the treatment of Stafford versus the other 52 men on the roster.

So does this mean that Stafford will be included in every coaching interview? Why stop with Caldwell? Or better yet, why start with Caldwell?

Another disturbing thing occurred regarding Stafford. It came shortly after the 2013 season ended with a thud.

Stafford was asked about whether he’d be open to working with a “quarterback guru” or some such person in the off-season.

Stafford demurred.

“It’s not something that I feel would be my style or beneficial to me,” he said.

That’s not his style? It wouldn’t be beneficial?

It’s not his style to be the best quarterback that he can be? Even Tiger Woods has a swing coach, for goodness sake.

It all makes me wonder how much Stafford is being coddled by the people upstairs. How much he isn’tbeing challenged.

It also makes me wonder whether the change in culture needed with the Lions should have ended with just changing the head coach.

The Lions don’t need Matthew Stafford’s approval before they hire a new coach. They don’t even need him to like the new guy.

The new coach ought to be hired based on what management thinks, and Stafford will just need to deal with it.

This inclusion of Stafford in the interview process is pretty much unprecedented, and with good reason.

The coach coaches. The players play.

How many employees get a say as to who their new boss is going to be?

And from a candidate’s perspective, it’s tough enough to impress the brass in an interview, without having to wow the quarterback as well.

It’s fair now to be concerned about how much influence Stafford has around the Lions, and whether he is being held as accountable as he should for the monkey shines that are going on.

The inclusion of the quarterback in coaching interviews and his resistance to quarterback specialists because it’s “not my style”, ought to baffle folks and make them curious as to how Stafford has been bred since the Lions drafted him no. 1 overall in 2009.

Lions Again Prove That They Prefer Playing in a Pressure Cooker

The Detroit Lions have five games remaining on their 2013 schedule. The league says those games are against the Green Bay Packers, the Philadelphia Eagles, the Baltimore Ravens, the New York Giants and the Minnesota Vikings.

That's only part of the story.

The Lions are, in truth, playing not only those aforementioned teams, but a plethora of other opponents.

They are, in no particular order: their own history; their culture; the space between their ears.

Two weeks ago, the Lions were 6-3 and in first place all by themselves. It was rarefied air for a franchise that hasn't won a divisional title in 20 years.

Then the Lions went into Pittsburgh, and that's where history showed up, along with the Steelers in their bumble bee uniforms.

No Lions team had walked off the field in Pittsburgh with a victory since 1955. And the 2013 Lions didn't, either. A strange fake field goal call on the wet, sloppy field turned the tide in the Steelers' favor.

Sunday, the Lions , presumably after a week of licking their wounds, came home to play the 2-8 Tampa Bay Bucs. First place was still where the Lions resided, even after the loss in Pittsburgh. The Bears shared the penthouse with a 6-4 record, but Chicago's 6-4 wasn't as good as Detroit's 6-4, because the Lions have beaten the Bears twice.

The Bucs didn't have to bother showing up, because the Lions beat themselves.

Five turnovers, and a blocked punt inside the 20 yard line---that's what the Lions did to self-destruct. The Lions proved to be a far more difficult opponent for the Lions than the Bucs did.

Fox Sports' Brian Billick tried to sell the viewers on the old "they're the best 2-8 team you'll ever see" theory regarding the Bucs all afternoon. The Bucs could be 6-4, Billick repeatedly bleated.

If only!

The Buccaneers were 2-8 because if the Lions had played a similar football game against, say, the New England Patriots, the Pats would have been ahead by three touchdowns in the closing moments, instead of hanging on for dear life and hoping for another Lions turnover, as the Bucs were on the Lions' final drive.

So now the Lions are 6-5. The Bears lost on Sunday, as well, and the Packers tied the Vikings. First place is still Lions territory, unbelievably.

Maybe this is the way the Lions prefer it.

More often than not in the Jim Schwartz/Matthew Stafford Era, the Lions have fared better when they've needed the flair for the dramatic. They seem to have a visceral need for playing football with guns pointed at their heads.

When they don't play under that kind of pressure, the gun is held in their own hands and is pointed squarely at their feet.

There are five games remaining, and a division which was the Lions' to lose is on the verge of being lost.

They have to play their on-field opponents, as well as battle the mystique of being the Lions.

Isiah Thomas once spoke of going up against the Boston Celtics in the playoffs in the mid-1980s, when the Pistons were trying like mad to be where the Celtics had been for decades---championship contenders.

"When you play the Celtics, you're not just playing a team," Thomas said. "You're playing a mind set. You're playing against history, the court, the leprechauns. The Celtics aren't supposed to lose."

The same can be said when you talk about the Lions when they play...the Lions.

The Lions are playing a mind set now. They're playing against history. The Lions aren't supposed to win.

Maybe this is best. Maybe this two-game slide back to the pack (no pun intended) in the NFC North is where the Lions are truly most comfortable.

Maybe they can't win unless they play football in a ring of fire.

"It's a five game season," coach Schwartz said after Sunday's debacle against Tampa.

It's a five game season because the Lions have made like a magician and turned it into one.

The players still speak of controlling their own destiny. It's technically true. The division is still the Lions' to lose, given the tie breaker edge over the Bears.

The trouble with having a division be yours to lose is that when it's been 20 years since the last time you finished first, no one is around who remembers what it was like.

The Lions have never been ones to make things easy on themselves, or on their fans.

Here we go again.

Suh's "Dirty" Reputation a Cash Cow for the NFL

The video still exists, if you nose around You Tube long enough. The craggy old basketball announcer screams into his microphone, crying of the humanity of it all to his radio listeners, in the same vein as Herb Morrison did in describing the explosion of the Hindenburg.

“Oh, the way they do things here!” Johnny Most screamed to his Boston listeners. Video cameras caught Most, pounding his hand onto the press table.

The Pistons had committed another rough foul on the Celtics. It was during a tense (weren’t they all?) playoff game at the Silverdome.

“Oh, (Bill) Laimbeer! What a gutless, despicable player!” Most shrieked.

Pistons thuggery!

These were the Bad Boys days of the late-1980s, and this was Johnny Most, riling up his listeners with another embellished version of what actually was happening on the basketball court. Fortunately for radio announcers, there isn’t a video screen accompanying the words.

The Bad Boys Pistons of Isiah, Laimbeer, Mahorn, Rodman et al wore the black hats in the NBA, and with pride. There was the Rolling Stone magazine cover, featuring Laimbeer and Mahorn, squeezing a basketball into deflation and terrorizing a rim for the photographer.

Everywhere the Pistons went, bad press followed them. They came to your town like the villains in a Spaghetti Western—daring local law enforcement to do something to stop them. They were the Dirty Dozen, literally.

The joke was on the critics and the out-of-town radio announcers. The more people complained about the Pistons’ style of rough, physical play, the more it steeled the Bad Boy—and the more steeled they were, the better they played. And the more games they won.

The Bad Boys won two straight NBA championships, even though Isiah Thomas declared the Bad Boys an expired moniker in the White House in celebrating the first title in early-1990.

The Bad Boys Pistons aren’t alone when it comes to Detroit athletes who have earned the scorn of others around the country—and in Canada.

Bob Probert, goon extraordinaire, was the NHL’s heavyweight champion, but in the way that the wrestling people do it. Probert was the NHL’s heel, to use a pro wrestling term. He was the guy everyone was gunning for. He wore the belt.

There were the Red Wings, and there was Probert. He was in a league of his own. Probert ruled with his fists. He took on all comers. Such was his reputation of fighting prowess that when the home town goon even landed a punch, that guy’s fans went wild. Then Probert would get an arm free and moments later, the fight was over.

Probert wasn’t considered dirty, per se, but he wasn’t always clean, either.

Probert reminded some old-timers of Gordie Howe, because Gordie wasn’t above slipping in an elbow or a face wash when the guys in the zebras weren’t looking. Even when they were looking, Gordie still managed to inflict some extracurricular pain.

Ndamukong Suh is the latest Detroit sports star who is on the top of his league’s Most Wanted list.

Suh plays the game of football with an angry edge. He’s a rules bender. He’s another football player whose personality is that of Jekyll and Hyde—sweet as pie with kids, soft spoken with the media, but diabolical and maybe a tad deranged on the gridiron every Sunday.

That’s what they said about past mad men like Alex Karras and Dick Butkus—that off the field they were the nicest guys, humble even, but for 60 minutes every Sunday, they turned nasty.

Suh’s reputation precedes him like a man who had a Limburger and garlic sandwich for lunch.

Suh hits someone and the play gets analyzed like it’s the Zapruder film. Surely there must be something wrong!

The league has fined Suh almost continuously since he came into the league as a  rookie from Nebraska in 2010. Some of the disciplinary action—suspensions and fines—have been warranted. Others have been “reputation” punishment.

“I think there’s always going to be a microscope on me,” Suh said recently.

More like a Hubble telescope.

Suh’s latest fine, a $31,500 debit for hitting Cleveland Browns quarterback Brandon Weeden last Sunday, is laughable. But it’s not really funny.

Suh rushed the quarterback, as he does so well, and while he led with his helmet, kind of, it was Suh’s body that slammed Weeden to the turf just after the Browns QB released a pass. It was a hit that defines professional football—clean and hard, with no malice other than to put the quarterback on his keister.

There was no penalty flag on the play, even though it occurred right in front of the referee.

For that hit, the NFL fined Suh.

The telescope got brought out again.

The league has its Jason and its Freddy Krueger, in Ndamukong Suh. And don’t think that they don’t love that idea.

Pro sports are often as much about who fans root against as it is who they root for. No doubt that the NBA profited from the Bad Boys, financially and from a publicity standpoint. There was more licensed merchandise derived from it, and more tickets were sold in enemy arenas, when the Bad Boys rode into town.

The NFL and those who cover it decry Suh on one hand, and can’t stop talking about him on the other. They want Suh to go straight publicly, but privately they are terrified of that.

So what you get are fines that wouldn’t be levied on other players. The fine for the Weeden hit was a disgrace.

Suh is having an exemplary year. His play on the field has been fierce, as usual, but even better than what we’ve seen since he entered the league. He tosses around blockers like rag dolls and opens up space for his teammates to make plays.

He is also the NFL’s biggest villain, as cooked up by the league’s marketing department, working in conjunction with the disciplinarians.

Lots of what has been done to Suh’s pocketbook hasn’t been fair. Some of what he’s done on the field hasn’t been, either.

But nobody should want, honestly, for Suh to change the way he plays. The fans shouldn’t, the press shouldn’t, and the NFL shouldn’t.

Where’s the fun—and the money—in that?

Lions Are 0-for-Washington, So Why Bother?

History tells us that the Lions shouldn’t even bother making the trip to Washington, D.C. this weekend.

Save the airplane fuel. Don’t bother packing the bags. Stay home this Sunday and spend some time with the family. Mow the lawn. Grill something.

Do anything, other than make the poor equipment people load up the tons of gear and fly it to the Nation’s Capital.

Why bother?

The Lions and the Redskins have been in the NFL together since 1934 (the Redskins franchise played in Boston until 1937). And not once, in 76 years, have the Lions made the trip to Washington and won a football game.

It’s not like the Redskins have always been world beaters. Even in the years when the Lions were the superior team, the final score always had Washington on top, when the game was played in the shadow of the Monument.

The Lions should just phone this one in. Call in sick. Take the loss and get ready for the Bears on September 29.

The Lions have never won in Washington, in some 80 years of being members of the NFL. True, Detroit doesn’t play there every year, but they have done so 21 times, and not once have they come away as winners.

From Sammy Baugh to Sonny Jurgensen to Joe Theismann to Doug Williams to Mark Rypien to Jason Campbell—it doesn’t matter who QBs the ‘Skins, they always win. It’s mattered even less who’s quarterbacked the Lions.

The Lions at Washington is like the Italian Army in any war. It’s Wiley Coyote at the Roadrunner. Charlie Brown kicking from the hold of Lucy.

When the Lions first played at Washington in 1939, they were beaten on the field. Then the series evolved to where the Lions were beaten on the bus trip to the stadium. Then they were beaten when the plane landed. Now, they’re beaten before the ink dries on the schedule.

Of all the seasons of losses in Washington, 1991 is perhaps the oddest.

In the opening week, the Lions, playing without RB Barry Sanders, laid a 45-0 egg against the Redskins. It was yet another loss in Washington, and on this occasion the Lions didn’t even belong on the same field as the ‘Skins.

Some 18 weeks or so later, the Lions returned to the scene of the slaughter, to participate in the NFC Championship Game.

After playing with the Redskins for a half, the Lions got run roughshod over after the intermission, losing 41-10. So in 1991, the Lions book ended their season with losses in D.C., just to freshen things up a bit. They got outscored, 86-10, in the process.

The gridiron in Washington hasn’t been a football field for the Lions, it’s been a graveyard. The Lions team bus is accompanied by vultures. The stadium plays a funeral march when the team takes the field. Watching the Lions play in Washington is, as the late great sports writer Jim Murray would say, like watching a man walk into a noose.

The question isn’t will the Lions lose in Washington, but by how much, and how, period.

Will it be a pick-six on overtime? A bombardment of long passes for touchdowns by the Redskins? A mistake-filled afternoon by the Lions? An inability to stop the run (by the Lions, of course)? Will it be a blowout? A close but no cigar affair?

All of the above have happened to the Lions in Washington, and more.

It’s the country’s longest-running comedy show, starting in the days of radio and continuing in the days of streaming on the Internet.

The Lions started playing in Washington when FDR was president. They were losers in the capital then and are losers now. Even the Washington Generals have beaten the Harlem Globetrotters a few times, while the Lions have been losing to the ‘Skins on the road. Race relations have made more progress than the Lions have made in Washington.

So why has a professional football team been unable to win in a particular city for 80 years? Even the 10-4 Lions of 1970, one of the best football teams assembled in Detroit, suffered a loss in Washington—and the Redskins were a mediocre team in 1970.

The aforementioned 1991 Lions were 12-4, and one of those four losses was in D.C.

So what gives?

The Lions, clearly!

Much is made of the Lions’ inability to win in Green Bay, where they haven’t won since 1991. But that is ballyhooed because the Lions play the Packers twice every year. And, the Lions have won in Green Bay.

Yet in 80 years of being in the NFL, the Lions are 0-for-Washington.

They’re going give it another go on Sunday. Despite my advice, the bags are packed, the footballs are pumped up, and the game plans are set. The team practiced all week and the flight hasn’t been canceled, so I guess the Lions are going to go through with it, after all.

They’re going to fly to Washington, land, de-board, take a bus to their hotel and spend Saturday night dreaming of touchdowns and defensive stops. They’re going to imagine themselves walking off the field on Sunday as victors.

Dutch Clark couldn’t do it. Neither could Bobby Layne or Joe Schmidt. Lem Barney was never a winner in Washington, nor was Charlie Sanders.

Sorry, Chuck Long. Scott Mitchell, you couldn’t win there either (Mitchell was the one who threw the game-winning pick-six in overtime to Darrell Green in 1995).

So you have to give this 2013 group of Lions an “A” for guts and gall. They fancy themselves as the squad that can fly home from Washington as winners. That the Redskins are 0-2 and not exactly one of the league’s best teams perhaps buoys them. But the quality of the two teams has meant diddlysquat in years past. It’s always been Goliath beating David, no matter what.

Detroit at Washington, NFL style. Forget the spread; take the ‘Skins. It’s the lock of the century, every time. The house always wins. It’s been the biggest waste of three hours on a Sunday for eight decades and counting.

Go figure.

Titus Young’s Downward Spiral Reminiscent of Charlie Rogers

Ten years ago last month, Charlie Rogers stood in front of the media, wearing a Detroit Lions baseball cap and proudly holding his brand new Honolulu blue and silver jersey with No. 1 on the front, signifying his status as a first round draft choice.

There were smiles all around. President Matt Millen smiled. New coach Steve Mariucci smiled. Chairman Bill Ford Jr. smiled. Lions fans all over the country smiled.

It was a giddy time.

The Lions felt like they were on to something. The year prior, the team drafted their quote-unquote franchise quarterback, Joey Harrington, from Oregon.

Now they were adding Rogers, out of Michigan State, to be the franchise receiver.

Finally—a real quarterback and receiver tandem!

Harrington proved himself to be a bust, a nice young man but without the intangibles needed to be a winning professional quarterback. The Lions did him no favors, never able to surround Harrington with bona fide talent. Within three years, the Lions pulled the plug on the Harrington Era.

Rogers was a bust too, maybe one of the biggest in NFL history. But his problem wasn’t lack of talent. It was lack of moral character and decency.

The Lions, as usual under Millen’s leadership, failed to do their due diligence before drafting Rogers. Had they done some digging, they likely would have learned about Charlie’s skeletons at MSU. The failed drug tests, for one—Rogers failed one each year at MSU, it came to light years later. And, some MSU folks said, Rogers wasn’t exactly the hardest working player on the team.

But Rogers was loaded with talent. In his last season at MSU (2002), Rogers won the Paul Warfield Trophy as the best college wide receiver in the country. He was a unanimous first team All-American.

It never came close to happening for Rogers in the NFL.

Rogers was released by the Lions just before the 2006 season after two seasons cut short by injury and one cut short by multiple violations of the NFL’s substance abuse policy, resulting in suspension. His NFL career consisted of 15 games played and 36 catches, for 440 yards and four TDs.

In 2008, Rogers was arrested for assault and battery of his girlfriend. In a separate incident, he violated probation, testing positive for the pain killer Vicodin. In 2009 he was arrested in Novi for drunk driving. Less than a year later, Rogers was arrested again, having passed out drunk—again in Novi.

It was easy for those of us not connected to Charlie Rogers personally to smirk and shake our head at his misadventures. No matter how many times he got arrested, Charlie Rogers was still known as “that NFL bust.” He wasn’t a person—and that was the problem.

Rogers didn’t have an inner circle of friends who gave two you-know-whats about him, once his NFL days were done. He had tons of “friends” when football was his world—a world that he, at times, appeared to have in the palm of his big hand.

But when the football was in the rearview mirror, Rogers’ posse evaporated. They moved on to other folks on whose coat tails they could ride.

Charlie Rogers was troubled, but worse than that, he was alone.

Lacking a support group of sorts, Rogers kept getting into trouble.

In 2010, Rogers was ordered to return to the Lions $6.1 million of the $9.1 singing bonus he received in 2003. A judge agreed with the Lions’ contention that Rogers’ drug use equated a breach of contract.

In December 2011, Rogers was pulled over in Saginaw. Police found an open container of alcohol in his vehicle. That incident is still without resolution. Possible charges are pending.

Throughout all of these misadventures, Charlie Rogers was never helped. No one took Rogers in. No one reached out to him. He wasn’t a star football player anymore, so screw him—that seemed to be the attitude.

Today Rogers is approaching his 32^nd birthday (it’s May 23). He has no future to speak of. He never earned his degree from MSU. He is perhaps unemployable.

No one said it better about Rogers, than Rogers himself.

In an interview in August 2009 with ESPN’s Jemele Hill, whose journalism roots include Detroit, Rogers said, "I got a little greedy. The girls played a part in it.” Then, even more astutely, Charlie added, "I fucked up. Point blank, simple."

Ten years after Rogers’ drafting into the NFL, there’s another former Lions receiver battling demons.

Titus Young was a 2^nd round draft choice of the Lions in 2011, out of that pass happy program, Boise State. Like Rogers, Young exhibited some troubling behavior in college. And, like in Rogers’ case, the Lions chose to ignore it.

At Boise State, Young was suspended for most of his sophomore season for fighting with a teammate.

Young was the 44^th overall pick in the 2011 NFL Draft. His off-field behavior scared some teams off. It didn’t scare off the Lions.

Young is in a downward spiral right now. He keeps getting arrested. Last summer, Young punched teammate Louis Delmas in practice and that started the spiral as a Lion.

Young ran wrong routes on purpose in a game against Green Bay last season, it was charged. He was causing trouble for his coaches in practice and during games. The Lions finally benched him.

Young took to Twitter in January and got into spats with fans on social media. The Lions released him the day after the Super Bowl. The St. Louis Rams, another franchise not known for smart decisions, claimed Young. But even the Rams had second thoughts and released Young nine days later.

This month, Young has been arrested three times, for alleged violations ranging from drunk driving to theft to resisting arrest. Last week, Young’s father said that his son has a severe mental disorder and needs help.

It’s not about football anymore for Titus Young. It’s about life, and his ability to survive it. It should be pointed out that Young is the father of a nine-month old baby boy, Titus Jr.

Again we smirk and shake our heads at Young’s personal life, as we did at Charlie Rogers’.

Rogers never got any help. Young’s father’s comment gives hope that Titus can get some help and support. Maybe there will be a personal posse that will gather and help Young battle his demons.

Charlie Rogers is 32, broke, and has no future. The world that was once his oyster is now his living hell.

That’s nothing to smirk about.

Lions First Round Gamble Has "All or Nothing" Feel

Ziggy Ansah has one thing in common with his new NFL team post-Matt Millen. Neither started playing football until 2010.

Ansah’s is a tale that, in the past 48 hours, has been re-told more than a bedtime story.

Ansah, the defensive end from BYU who the Lions selected with the fifth overall pick in the NFL Draft on Thursday night, is the kid you’ve been hearing about who has only played organized football for three years.

He failed at basketball so turned his 6’5, 271-pound body to the gridiron.

Now, this is a decision that is typically made while in public school, not in college—and not with the idea of playing in the NFL. And definitely not with the idea of being drafted after just four names have been called.

Ever since Lawrence Taylor did to the outside linebacker position in football what Bobby Orr did to the defenseman position in hockey—that is, transform it forever—NFL teams have been looking for those pass rushing specialists flying at quarterbacks from the left and the right.

Nowadays, it’s not good enough to just have linebackers doing what Taylor did so famously for so many years. Defensive coaches want the ends on the line to be athletic monsters who can stuff an off tackle run, drop back into pass coverage if necessary, and of course rush the passer.

Ziggy Ansah may be able to do all these things, or he may be able to do none of them. He’ll be a jack of all trades or a master of none. There doesn’t seem to be any gray area here. The kid will either get it at the pro level, or he won’t.

And don’t say the p-word—project—around Lions head coach Jim Schwartz.

“We wouldn’t take a project at that pick,” Schwartz told the curious media Thursday. “We drafted him to be on the field for us.”

The coach better be right, because Ansah has a first name that could fit Schwartz like a glove if this goes wrong.

Before the drafting of Ansah, Ziggy was a word—a Detroit word—used to describe the firing of a coach.
And it was originated by a Lions coach, as a matter of fact.

It was Joe Schmidt, Hall of Fame linebacker turned Lions head coach, who used “ziggy” when he resigned in a huff after the 1972 season, tired of the power struggle with GM Russ Thomas.

The word caught on, and giving the coach the ziggy has been used around these parts ever since.

Schwartz, along with GM Marty Mayhew, is banking on a kid who played as much football as me, through 2009, to not only replace DE Cliff Avril (free agent who jumped to Seattle) but to be better than Avril.

Frankly, there are some who think Ansah, a big block of clay, with the right molding can be one of the greatest Lions pass rushers of all time.

Or, he’ll be a bust.

That’s pretty much the consensus among football people when it comes to Ansah’s future in the NFL. He’ll either be great or he’ll be out of the game in a couple of years.

First, Ansah, from Ghana, doesn’t look like anyone capable of squashing an ant, let alone a quarterback.

When the ESPN cameras flashed Ansah’s face for the first time after being drafted, I thought, “My goodness, the Lions have drafted Urkel on steroids.”

There Ansah was, with those big horn-rimmed glasses that didn’t even look like they had lenses in the frames. He looked as mild mannered as Clark Kent. You’d have thought he was being drafted into the Army, not the NFL.

But apparently Ansah has an insatiable appetite for quarterbacks, which is what defensive coordinators love. The coaches want their pass rushers to run QBs down like a cheetah with its prey. You can thank Lawrence Taylor for that.

So how can the Lions expect a kid from Ghana with no football on his resume before 2010, to be worthy of the fifth overall draft pick?

This is where you’re allowed to roll your eyes and say, “Only the Lions.”

Schwartz and Mayhew are betting against the house with this one. All the chips are going on 47, which was Ansah’s number at BYU.

Boom or bust.

Now, this isn’t to say that no one had Ansah rated this high in the days leading to the draft. The Lions didn’t just find Ziggy like Jed Clampett found “Texas Tea.”

Ansah’s stock rose throughout the 2012 season, and the Lions coaching staff ended up guiding the West in the Senior Bowl, so they got a chance to see Ansah, up close and personal, for about a week.

It must have been a whirlwind courtship, because sitting there for the taking along with Ansah was Alabama cornerback Dee Milliner, and if the Lions need anything, it’s help in the secondary, which hasn’t been good for about 20 years.

The talking heads on ESPN, once it was the Lions’ turn to pick, theorized with all their wisdom and savvy that Milliner would go to Detroit.

“I think you gotta go Dee Milliner here if you’re the Lions,” Jon Gruden said with his trademark, smiling scowl.

Mel Kiper Jr., supposed draft guru, concurred.

Milliner to the Lions!

Naturally, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell strode to the podium along with former Lions great Barry Sanders, and Barry spoke Ansah’s name into the microphone.

The mock drafters mocked once again!

Of course, there are no sure bets in the NFL Draft. The greats of today often become the busts of tomorrow. And the ignored and overlooked can turn into Hall of Famers.

It’s the ultimate crapshoot.

The whole idea of the draft is volatile enough. You hardly need to add to its propensity for being tenuous.

Yet that’s what the Lions have done, by picking hugely talented but terribly raw DE Ziggy Ansah, number five off the board. This kid could become the best pass rusher to wear Honolulu Blue since Bubba Baker.

Or he may flat out stink.

Boom or bust. Star or dud. Genius or folly.

Pretty much describes the NFL Draft as a whole, I’d say.

Johnson's Record-Setting Season Part of Lions' Problem, Not Solution

It’s a question that has tantalized the football fans in these parts for some 55 years (and counting).

“What’s wrong with the Lions?”

At this point in their inglorious history, I can give you 1,964 reasons why the Lionsaren’t winners.

That number, 1,964, happens to be the total yardage rolled up by receiver Calvin Johnson in the 2012 season. It was record-setting stuff. More yards than any NFL pass catcher has accumulated in a single season. Ever. The previous record holder was the great Jerry Rice, no less.

It’s a remarkable achievement, for sure. The 1,964 represents over 120 yards per game. Just call him Two Yards a Minute Calvin.

Opposing defenses looked at the Lions offense this year just like they did in the 1990s, when they looked at the Lions during Barry Sanders’ heyday. Opponents looked at the Lions in 2012 and in one sweep of the arm, knocked all the skill players off the board and honed in on stopping Johnson, just as they did with Barry some 20 years ago.

With Sanders, sometimes it worked, to focus strictly on him. Barry was the most elusive, trickiest, slippery runner of his time. Of any time, truth be told. Jamming seven defenders near the line of scrimmage, each with the expressed assignment of getting their hands on No. 20, sometimes worked. But not very often.

Johnson, it can be argued, is the Barry Sanders of receivers in today’s NFL. Just as Barry was better than any other runner at avoiding tackles and thus was frequently able to make defenses designed primarily to stop him look silly, so does Calvin Johnson make defensive coordinators’ game plans as ineffectual as a breath mint after limburgercheese.

Every week the charge to the defense was “Don’t let Calvin Johnson beat you.” Sometimes coordinators settled for “Don’t let Calvin Johnson humiliate you.”

It clearly didn’t matter that Johnson was the only player on the Lions offense that you had to worry about. He got his yards anyway. 1,964 of them, shattering the record set by Rice some 17 years ago.

Here’s another number that, when combined with the 1,964, hints at why the Lions won just four games in 2012, a year after winning 10 and making the playoffs.

That number would be five.

Johnson scored just five touchdowns to go with his 1,964 yards. In 1995, when Rice caught passes totaling 1,848 yards, the 49ers receiver caught 15 touchdown passes.

The 1995 49ers won 11 games and captured their division. They were the defending Super Bowl champs. And Jerry Rice scored three times as many touchdowns with his 1,848 yards as Johnson did with his 1,964.

I started this by saying that there were 1,964 reasons why the Lions didn’t win diddly-poo (to steal from Jim Mora’s lexicon) in 2012.

As yet another lousy Lions football season went down the drain, the focus became, yet again, on hollow personal stats.

Would Johnson break Rice’s record? Would quarterback Matthew Stafford throw for 5,000 yards again? Would he set a record for most passes attempted in a single season?

These are questions asked by losers, as the calendar flips to December.

Rice’s 1995 season notwithstanding, the NFL’s pedigree is such that, for the most part, seasons of terrific individual accomplishment are generally not paired with team success.

The Packers of the 1960s featured the running back tandem of Paul Hornung (Mr. Outside) and Jim Taylor (Mr. Inside). Taylor did have a monster year in 1962, when the Packers finished 13-1 and won the NFL Championship: 1,474 yards rushing (5.4 yards per carry) and 19 touchdowns. Hornung never rushed for more than 681 yards in any given season of his career.

Taylor’s individual auspiciousness and the Packers’ great team success in 1962 is an anomaly. And even so, the Packers’ emphasis wasn’t on Taylor leading the league in rushing or scoring more TDs than any running back in the league. Their coach, Vince Lombardi, would have none of that. Taylor’s numbers were a byproduct of the Packers’ system and their Hall of Fame-laden offensive line.

O.J. Simpson became the first rusher in NFL history to eclipse the 2,000-yard mark for a single season, in 1973. His team, the Buffalo Bills, missed the playoffs.

Eric Dickerson was the second runner to hit 2,000 yards, in 1984. His Los AngelesRams lasted one playoff game.

The Lions’ Sanders rushed for 2,053 yards in 1997. Those Lions didn’t win a playoff game, either.

Even Rice’s 1995 49ers lasted just one playoff game in his record-setting year.

The racking up of yards by Johnson and Stafford in 2012 and the questions about whether they’d be record setting in nature (Stafford had the chance to become just the second passer in league history to throw for 5,000+ yards twice in his career), became annoying and, worse, were symptomatic of the Lions' problems.

Break Rice’s record? Become the first receiver to hit the 2,000 yard mark? Throw for 5,000 yards again? Throw more passes in one season than anyone else?

I have one more question for you, to go with those.

WHO CARES?

We were down this road before with the Lions. It happened, ironically enough, during Rice’s great 1995 season.

The ’95 Lions had Sanders running the ball, Scott Mitchell throwing it, and Herman Moore and Brett Perriman catching it.

Sanders had 1,500 yards rushing, on the button. Moore caught 123 passes for 1,686 yards. Perriman had 108 catches for 1,488 yards. Mitchell threw for 4,338 yards and 32TDs. Moore and Perriman became the first teammates to each have 100+ catches in one season.

Yards, yards, yards. And more yards. Bodacious in nature. A whole lotta yards.

So the Lions took all those yards and went into the playoffs against the Eagles in Philadelphia. That was the embarrassing 58-37 loss, a game in which the Eagles once led 51-7.

Yards, shmards.

The Lions in 2012 once again became a team boiled down to a couple of individuals chasing hollow records. Johnson’s achievement was noteworthy, but what did it do for the team’s fortunes?

1,964 yards. Five touchdowns. A TD every 400 yards, just about.

Whoopee.

Merry Christmas: Some Holiday Gifts for the Nice (and Naughty)

Wax up the sleigh. Check it for flight. Shine St. Nick’s boots. Make sure Rudy’s nose is bright and squeaky clean.
Test the GPS. Gather the weather reports. Check the sack for rips. Tell Mrs. C not to wait up.
It’s gonna be another long night, but then it always is on December 24.
The jolly, old, fat man is set to make his annual trek. Chimneys the world over wait. Fireplaces are about to be pounced on.
Santa has something for everyone, or so they say. Keeping the faith, I’m going to accept that statement as fact. So, with that in mind, let’s see if he can find room in his big, red pack, upon his back—as Andy Williams sang—for these goodies.
For Calvin Johnson, a new NFL record, but more importantly, a football team worthy of his gargantuan talent.
For Matthew Stafford, highlight reels of Slinging Sammy Baugh and Fran Tarkenton, so the kid knows that you don’t have to have perfect “mechanics” to be a winner in this league.
For Jim Schwartz, a general manager who will draft him some defense.
For Rick Porcello, a team who wants him.
For Jhonny Peralta, a new nickname: The Kitchenette, because they say he has no range.
For Torii Hunter, nothing—because he already had his Christmas when he signed with the Tigers.
For traffic lights throughout Metro Detroit, Anibal Sanchez’s timing.
For Alex Avila, health and happiness—and for him, they’re one and the same.
For Miguel Cabrera, the abolition of sabermetrics.
For Tigers fans, also nothing—because they already have their new third base coach.
For Tommy Brookens, the new third base coach, the best of luck.
For the NHL, coal in its hockey boot.
For Mark Dantonio, a quarterback.
For Brady Hoke, a headset.
For Joe Dumars, a slashing, scoring small forward in the draft, because it sure isn’t on his current roster.
For Lawrence Frank, a book on the Pistons of the 1960s—oh, wait, he’s already writing the remake.
For Andre Drummond, the career of Shaquille O’Neal, because Ray Scott told me that Andre reminds him of a young Shaq.
For Greg Monroe, the career of Bob Lanier, because (see above).
For Pistons fans, a new RV, because you can all fit in one.
For George Blaha, some recognition (finally) as a damn good football play-by-play guy.
For Charlie Villanueva, no regrets.
For Tayshaun Prince, a nice twilight so his career will be properly book-ended.
For all of us working stiffs, the longevity of Jim Brandstatter.
For all of us husbands, Brandy’s marriage, too.
For Cecil Fielder, Prince Fielder’s smile at the next Thanksgiving table.
For Notre Dame football fans, you don’t get anything—your prayers were already answered.
For NHL fans, never Fehr.
For Alex Karras’ legacy, a diabolical plan to gain induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
For Miguel Cabrera, whatever he wants.
For Dominic Raiola, a seven-second delay.
For Ndamukong Suh, peace.
For Louis Delmas, two good knees.
For the two Vs, Vinnie Goodwill and Vince Ellis (Pistons beat writers), a thesaurus to help them describe what they are forced to watch nightly.
For Jerry Green, many more Super Bowls.
For Rob Parker, see Dominic Raiola.
For Mark Sanchez, the hell out of New York.
For Toronto Blue Jays fans, somebody to pinch them.
For Chicago Cubs and Lions fans, a support group.
For Billy Crystal, the only known celebrity Los Angeles Clippers fan, a winner.
For Billy Crystal’s movie career, the same, for it’s as overdue as are the Clippers.
For Magic Johnson, all the success with the Dodgers as he had on the basketball court.
For the San Francisco Giants, the antithesis for Magic.
For Linda McCoy-Murray, happiness with her new man. But he’ll never write like Jim.
For Jim Leyland, we folks off his back already.
For our daughter, anything she wants, because she tamed Oakland University as a freshman like she had ice water in her veins.
For my wife, see Charlie Villanueva.
For all of you who read me every week, a year’s supply of Zantac.
Ho-ho-ho!!!

Lions Cannot Win With This 2-Minute Defense

Thirty-three points at home, in the NFL, ought to win you a boatload of football games. You score 33 points, your offense should be on the sideline, laughing and joking in the waning moments. Or better yet, on the field, the quarterback kneeling down, the clock draining away.

You have a 12-point lead, at home, in the NFL, with less than five minutes to play? The only sound should be that of nails being pounded into the opponents’ coffin.

Yet there was Matthew Stafford, the gun slinging Lions quarterback, kneeling alright—but his knee was on the sideline, his head bowed, as if in prayer. He couldn’t bear to watch. His counterpart for the Indianapolis Colts, the rookie Andrew Luck, was a hot knife and Stafford’s team’s defense was butter. Stafford couldn’t bear to watch, and who could blame him?

The CBS cameras caught Stafford, during the Colts’ final, game-winning drive, alternately staring up at the jumbo TV on the Ford Field scoreboard and covering his eyes. He was speaking, non-verbally, for the entire Lions fan base.

The Lions scored 33 points, had intercepted Luck three times, had rarely trailed in the game, were playing at home, and Calvin Johnson set a career high for receptions in a single game (13).

Yet Stafford couldn’t bear to watch the ending.

You think the Green Bay Packers would have let that game slip away at Lambeau Field? You think the New England Patriots would have coughed it up in their stadium? The Pittsburgh Steelers, in theirs? The New York Giants, in their house?

That would be four big time NOs.

I’ve said it before but it bears repeating. More games in the NFL are lost than are ever won. More games are decided by the plays that weren’t made than by the ones that were.

If you break down a typical NFL game—and it’s amazing how many of these things are decided by a touchdown or less—you’re more likely to be talking about the plays the losing team didn’t make. A typical NFL game breakdown is filled with coulda, shoulda and wouldas, along with a healthy dose of ifs, ands or buts.

The Lions have just lost three straight games in their own building, at a time when they could have lifted themselves back into the playoff picture, and all of them after they held the lead at the two-minute warning.

Imagine the Tigers blowing three straight games in a pennant race, all in the ninth inning or later.

Or the Red Wings coming from ahead to lose three straight games in a playoff series.

Hey, imagine the Red Wings playing, period.

The good teams in the NFL—the ones annually playing in January—simply don’t lose the types of games the Lions have lost in 2012. Or throughout the inglorious history of Detroit football, as far as that goes.

Just off the top of the head…

The 5-0 playoff loss in Dallas. The 1980 Thanksgiving Day stunner to Chicago, on a kickoff return in overtime. Eddie Murray, wide right, in the 1983 playoffs. Sterling Sharpe, wide open in the end zone in the 1993 playoffs. Barry Sanders: 13 carries for -1 yard in the 1994 playoffs. Laying an ostrich egg in Philadelphia in the 1995 playoffs. Taking the wind in overtime in 2001. Jim Schwartz’s ill-timed challenge flag on Thanksgiving, not two weeks ago.

And what happened on Sunday against the Colts.

It really was no mystery, the game-winning play. Colts receiver Donnie Avery ran the perfect safety valve route, bleeding off the line of scrimmage in the flat, available in case Luck found no luck in the end zone. The Lions lost contain of the QB, and that was the death knell. After that, it was a simple pitch and catch, and Avery waltzed into the end zone, just like you and I could have done.

You hear a lot of talk about two-minute offenses. The Lions need a two-minute defense.

The Lions are a defense that can make interceptions between the 20s; make a sack in the first quarter; stuff a run in the third quarter; and get a three-and-out on the first series of the fourth quarter.

They cannot do any of the above when the game is truly on the line.

You can crab all you want about the Lions’ conservative play calling on their final drive on offense, when a 3rd-and-5 could have, perhaps, been converted with a pass, in effect ending the game with two minutes to play because the Colts had no timeouts.

You can crab about that, and you’d have a valid point.

But the Lions’ two-minute defense is too often bereft of playmaking. See? We’re talking about plays that weren’t made.

The two-minute defense is one that says, “OK, you made the score close. That’s all well and good. Now here’s my foot on your throat. And here’s me applying pressure.”

There’s no way that the Packers, Patriots, Steelers or Giants surrender that game-winning drive to a kid on their home turf, I don’t care how wise he is beyond his years. Those teams would have made the key stop. They would have made the interception, or forced the fumble, or gotten the back breaking sack. They certainly wouldn’t have allowed their opponents anywhere near sniffing distance of the end zone.

The Lions, despite their brief rise to respectability in 2011, still do not know what it takes to win football games that are not blowouts. It is tempting to say they are incapable. That may be harsh, but the truth is this: the longer it takes you to win these close games—the more times you end up on the wrong end of the score—the harder it is to believe in your ability to do so.

I don’t know if the Lions thought something bad was going to happen on the final Colts drive. But they didn’t play with any killer instinct whatsoever.

Here’s hoping that GM Martin Mayhew, who has to be taking some heat sooner or later, will seriously address the defense in the 2013 and 2014 drafts. The Lions need difference makers in the worst way on that side of the football.

They need players who have to be accounted for. Players who are whirling dervishes on the field, swarming to the football and tackling in a no doubt manner. Ball hawks. Speed demons who can chase QBs and RBs down, laterally.

The Lions have no two-minute defense. They afford no assurance to an offense that gives them 33 points to work with. They were given 31 points on Thanksgiving against the Houston Texans, and you saw how that turned out, though there were guilty parties on offense that day, to be sure.

The Lions gave up 160 yards worth of offense to the Colts on Indy’s final two drives, which each ended in touchdowns.

They are 4-8 for a reason.

Lions' Lack of Discipline, Calm Directly Tied to Schwartz

Vince Lombardi is dead. Mike Ditka has faded away.

Bill Belichick is all the rage. Mike McCarthy lives on.

The Lions, the team that can’t shoot straight and hasn’t since 1957, is once againzigging when the league’s winners are zagging.

They are a team wound tight, and it all starts with their coach.

Lombardi and Ditka, two larger-than-life coaches, were godfathers of their time. There was no coach in the NFL that could evade the shadow cast by Lombardi in the 1960s, a decade he and his Green Bay Packers owned.

“What the HELL is going on out there?” Lombardi bellows even today from the sidelines, his immortal self still pumped through our televisions thanks to NFL Films. “You’re supposed to be a helluva defensive team! Didn’t look like it to me! Eighty yards down the field, just like that!”

“Nobody’s tackling out there! Everybody’s grabbing. NOBODY tackling. Grab, grab, grab!”

It’s forever iconic—Lombardi on the sidelines, in his winter coat and hat, gap-toothed and angry as his defense jogs off after surrendering a long scoring drive. Wanna bet that the Packers won the game anyway?

Ditka, aka Iron Mike, is also forever captured on celluloid and stamped on our consciousness. Chomping on his gum, Ditka gets in the faces of Richard Dent, SteveMcMichael, Jim McMahon and at whoever else Iron Mike wants to rattle his saber.

Like Lombardi in the ‘60s, Ditka was the coach with the big shadow in the 1980s. His Bearsonly won one Super Bowl in the decade, but his teams were always contenders and his 1985 squad might be among the Top 5 teams in NFL history.

Lombardi and Ditka were coaches wound tight at a time when that worked. They were rah-rah and fiery and the Knute Rocknes of their time, when Knute Rockne was still relevant even in death.

That was then.

Having a head coach that is a loose cannon isn’t what works in today’s NFL.

Belichick, the New England Patriots coach since 2000, would come in last in a Mister Congeniality Contest. He has the personality of mold. You’ll find better quotes from a frog.

McCarthy, today’s Packers coach, is the anti-Lombardi. McCarthy doesn’t toss his rolled up play sheet to the ground. He doesn’t bark. He hasn’t uttered any iconic quotes and never will. Whereas Lombardi looked like a football coach, McCarthy could be your next door neighbor who borrows your lawn mower. Probably even the one who loans you his.

Boring works in today’s NFL. Staid is the way. A general calm, from top to bottom, is what today’s winning franchises exude.

Today’s winners don’t bitch about not getting respect, especially when none is deserved.

The Lions are a team wound tight, in a freefall from their brief stay at respectability. If you want to finger point, you can skip the 53 guys in uniform and zero in on their coach, Jim Schwartz.

This is a guy who can’t even get through a post-game handshake without a hockey game breaking out.

I’ve been a supporter of Schwartz’s, and with good reason. He took a team from the abyss of 0-16 and gradually and steadily improved them, going from two wins in his first season to six in his second to 10 (and a playoff berth) in his third.

But going 2-14 and 6-10 and 10-6 (plus a first round playoff knockout) is one thing. Being consistently good and being spoken of in annual Super Bowl contender discussions is quite another.

Teams like the Patriots, Packers, Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens et al, teams who always seem to have 10+ wins every year and show up annually to the NFL playoff party, are franchises rooted in calm and which have cool heads from top to bottom.

They don’t act impetuously. Their players don’t whine to the media, or run afoul of the law or the league’s rules. Their coaches don’t act like raving lunatics.

If the Lions are going to be more than occasional (read: flukey) playoff participants, they have to calm the heck down.

They have to stop stewing about lack of respect, as center Dominic Raiola did before last Sunday’s game against the Packers. The (then) 4-5 Lions, Raiola felt, weren’t getting any love from national media websites who were dismissing his team’s playoff chances. He dared to compare the Lions to the also 4-5 New Orleans Saints.

“But then the Saints are 4-5 and they’re right in the hunt,” Raiola told the Detroit Free Press. “How the (bleep) does that work out? I don’t know. Whatever. We’re 4-5, too. So they’re basically writing us off.”

The Saints won the Super Bowl three years ago. They have been winners for several years running. The Lions have one playoff win in 55 years. And still Raiola wonders why the Saints’ 4-5 isn’t treated the same as the Lions’ 4-5.

When was the last time you heard a player from the Patriots, Packers, Steelers, Ravenset al complain about a lack of respect?

Raiola was at it again earlier this week, after the Lions imploded against the Packers and before the 9-1 Houston Texans came to town for the annual Thanksgiving Day game. He was speaking about Houston defensive lineman J.J. Watt, who is having a remarkable season.

“Bring it,” Raiola dared Watt through the media.

So Watt brung it, to the tune of three sacks, several quarterback hurries, five tackles and a couple of batted down passes. And the Lions lost.

The Lions, against the Texans, let another game slip away largely because of a gaffe committed by their head coach that was borderline incompetent.

Schwartz tried to challenge a touchdown scored by Houston running back Justin Forsett, an 81-yard gallop that should have been nullified by virtue of the fact that Forsett was clearly down according to TV cameras, yet the officials’ whistles didn’t blow. A booth review, automatic on all scoring plays, surely would have called the touchdown back.

But Schwartz, acting as impulsively and with the same lack of discipline and brains that his team frequently shows, whipped out his red challenge flag and slammed it into the Ford Field turf, a move as illegal as going through a red light, according to the NFL rule book, which states that attempts to challenge a touchdown play are as against the rules as they are unnecessary.

Now, you can say that the rule is silly. You can say that it would be nice if the referee, Walt Coleman, would have sidled up to Schwartz and said, “Jim, put the flag away. The guys in the booth will take a look at it.”

But Schwartz should know the rules. Of all the boneheaded moves the Lions (and their coaches) have made over the years, Schwartz’s blunder might be at the top of the list. It’s right up there with Marty Mornhinweg taking the wind and Bobby Ross going for two.

“I was just so mad, I had the flag out before (Forsett) got to the end zone,” Schwartz told the media after the game.

The Lions are undisciplined, mouthy and in a freefall.

Just like their coach.