tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-121281302024-03-07T17:47:53.925-05:00Out of Bounds"Detroit sports fans should be reading 'Out of Bounds' pretty much every day" -- Rob Visconti, a.k.a. The Bleacher Guy
<br><br>
You can find out a lot while standing "Out of Bounds".
<br><br>
Opinions, observations, opines, obliqueness, oratories, and sarcastic humor (haven't found a word for sarcastic humor that starts with "o"), all about sports, with a decidedly Motor City flare. All that's missing from this blog are a bowl of pretzels and a cold one. Although, if you're buying....Greg Enohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08884412028028351344noreply@blogger.comBlogger1590125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12128130.post-82483701840286544692014-01-08T12:35:00.002-05:002014-01-08T12:35:59.614-05:00Stafford Doesn't Belong In Lions Coaching Interview Process<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Yet the Lions are apparently involving their quarterback in the team’s coaching search.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Stafford <a href="http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap2000000310342/article/matthew-stafford-to-play-part-in-hiring-lions-coach" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #023565; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">reportedly sat in on the Lions’ interview of Jim Caldwell last week</strong></a>. This should cause great consternation among Lions fans.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The inclusion of Stafford, regardless that he’s the Lions’ franchise QB, sends up more red flags than a Russian parade.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
First, Stafford isn’t Tom Brady. Or Peyton Manning. Or Drew Brees—all veteran quarterbacks steeped in experience, knowledge, and championships.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
And even the above guys haven’t been part of a coaching interview process, that anyone knows about.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The inclusion of Stafford makes one wonder what has been pumped into his head since becoming a Lion in 2009.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
It raises questions about what level of culpability management holds Stafford regarding all the losing that’s been going on.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
But seriously, folks, this is a slippery slope the Lions are going down.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
That still doesn’t justify having Stafford sit in on Caldwell’s interview.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
So does this mean that Stafford will be included in every coaching interview? Why stop with Caldwell? Or better yet, why <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">start </em>with Caldwell?</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Another disturbing thing occurred regarding Stafford. It came shortly after the 2013 season ended with a thud.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Stafford was asked about whether he’d be open to working with a “quarterback guru” or some such person in the off-season.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Stafford demurred.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“It’s not something that I feel would be my style or beneficial to me,” <a href="http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap2000000304705/article/matthew-stafford-doesnt-want-to-work-with-qb-guru" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #023565; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">he said</strong></a>.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
That’s <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">not his style? </em>It wouldn’t be beneficial?</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
It’s not his style to be the best quarterback that he can be? Even Tiger Woods has a swing coach, for goodness sake.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
It all makes me wonder how much Stafford is being coddled by the people upstairs. How much he <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">isn’t</em>being challenged.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
It also makes me wonder whether the change in culture needed with the Lions should have ended with just changing the head coach.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The new coach ought to be hired based on what management thinks, and Stafford will just need to deal with it.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
This inclusion of Stafford in the interview process is pretty much unprecedented, and with good reason.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The coach coaches. The players play.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
How many employees get a say as to who their new boss is going to be?</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
Greg Enohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08884412028028351344noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12128130.post-31299278314826128362014-01-04T16:46:00.001-05:002014-01-04T16:46:20.537-05:00Dantonio, Like Schembechler, Too Midwest to Be Texan—Or Anything Else<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The Chairman of the Board of
college football coaches in Michigan never thought he’d even consider leaving
his school. He was firmly entrenched, his fan base and alumni loved him, and
besides, he was a Midwestern guy all the way.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
There wasn’t a lot of Texas in Bo
Schembechler, except for maybe his moniker.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Schembechler was a Glenn, by birth,
and he was Bo in nickname only. The University of Michigan coach wasn’t the
cowboy type and never would be.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Schembechler learned his football
in Ohio, like so many of the game’s greats, and he was more small town than he
was “Texas big.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
But in early 1982, Schembechler had
some of that Texas money thrown at him and it gave him pause.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Schembechler had just completed his
13<sup>th</sup> season in Ann Arbor, and he had come a long way since a
newspaper trumpeted his hiring with the headline, “Bo WHO?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Texas A&M came calling in
January ’82. And they came hauling a bagful of cash.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The Aggies were prepared to make Bo
the highest paid coach in college football at the time. There was even talk of
adding Athletic Director to his title, or at least after he was done coaching.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
A&M offered Bo nearly $3
million for 10 years. Today that’s a drop in the bucket. But in 1982, it was
high stakes, Texas Hold ‘Em stuff.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
It was close. Bo was tempted. He
was never one to use another school to leverage Michigan, but he didn’t have
to. U-M AD Don Canham made a counter offer, the terms undisclosed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
For several days the newspapers, TV
and radio stations played “Will he or won’t he?” in regard to Bo’s future at
Michigan, and whether he’d chuck it all for College Station’s money and added
power of athletic director.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
When A&M reached out to him, Bo
was one year removed from finally grabbing his elusive first Rose Bowl victory.
In a quirk of scheduling, Michigan actually won <i>two</i> bowl games in
1981—the Rose Bowl on January 1 and the Bluebonnet Bowl in the Houston
Astrodome on New Year’s Eve.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
A couple weeks after trouncing UCLA
in Houston, Bo was approached by the Aggies, who tried to make a play for what
would have been the Shot Heard ‘Round the World when it comes to college
football.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
There was some strong feeling at
the time that Bo would leave Michigan, even though Texas A&M didn’t seem
like a good fit for him—from a personality standpoint and from a coaching
perspective.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Schembechler and Woody Hayes had
combined to define Big Ten football in the 10 years they coached U-M and Ohio
State, respectively, from 1969-78—before Woody was run out of Columbus in shame
for slugging a Clemson player during a bowl game.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
So would Bo actually leave Ann
Arbor and his Midwest roots and his CEO status among Big Ten coaches, for a
stinking job in Texas of all places?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
For a couple days, it was dicey. It
was like a patient teetering between life and death in the hospital.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
But eventually Schembechler made
his decision, and in doing so everyone associated with Michigan football heaved
a sigh of relief.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">"Frankly, I've come to the conclusion that there are things
more important in this world than money," Bo told the press in making his
announcement. "For that reason, I've decided to stay at Michigan.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">And stay Bo did—for eight more seasons before retiring from
coaching.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Mark Dantonio is, at this moment, the Chairman of the Board
of college football coaches in the state of Michigan. At first he assumed the
title by default, after Lloyd Carr retired in 2008. But now, Michigan State’s
Dantonio has earned it, fair and square. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Dantonio, without question, currently runs the premier
college football program in the state. His 2013 Spartans, Big Ten and Rose Bowl
champs, represent his finest hour in coaching.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">All of this heady success, in the college ranks, usually
makes you a hot commodity and your name starts to roll off the tongues of the
rumor mongers when it comes to available jobs elsewhere.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Another school in Texas has been mentioned as a possible
destination for Dantonio.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">The University of Texas, in Austin, has been reported to have
wanted Dantonio to fly down and interview for their coaching job, vacated by
the resignation of Mack Brown.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Those reports now appear moot, as the school is reportedly on
the verge of hiring Louisville coach Charlie Strong to replace Brown.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">But Texas’ hiring of Strong, if it comes to be, won’t do a
thing to squash rumors of Dantonio going, well, just about anywhere. Such is
the case when you become hot stuff.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Only Mark Dantonio can stop the rumors.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Like his basketball counterpart in East Lansing, Dantonio
seems destined to be mentioned whenever high profile schools are looking for
coaches. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Dantonio, though, is another Midwestern guy. His roots are
firm here. The idea of Dantonio leaving for a money grab doesn’t mesh with his
persona.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">But that won’t stop the speculation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Again, only Dantonio can snuff out the rumor mongers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Only Dantonio can tell the media, “I’m not going anywhere.
I’m happy at Michigan State and this is my home.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Of course, there will be those who won’t believe him, even
though Dantonio has no track record of flitting from job to job. In fact, he
left MSU as an assistant but bounced right back, a few years later, as the
Spartans’ head coach.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">The fact that Dantonio hasn’t stomped out the rumors might
give some Spartan boosters consternation over the coach’s intentions, but like
Bo Schembechler, Mark Dantonio appears to be content to be a Michigander and
not a Texan, or anything else.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">The balance of power in college football in Michigan has
unquestioningly swung to East Lansing these days. Dantonio’s program is
stronger than ever.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">His name will be bandied about, going forward, attached to
high profile jobs across the country.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">It’s just something Spartan fans will have to live with as
being part of the cost of doing business as an elite college football
program—which MSU currently is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Why else would everyone across the lower 48 states want
Dantonio to coach at their school?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
Greg Enohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08884412028028351344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12128130.post-69911634256197945912013-11-25T10:57:00.001-05:002013-11-25T10:58:11.602-05:00Lions Again Prove That They Prefer Playing in a Pressure Cooker<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21.484375px; margin-bottom: 1.1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
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.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
That's only part of the story.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
The Lions are, in truth, playing not only those aforementioned teams, but a plethora of other opponents.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
They are, in no particular order: their own history; their culture; the space between their ears.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
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.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
Then the Lions went into Pittsburgh, and that's where history showed up, along with the Steelers in their bumble bee uniforms.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
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.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
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.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
The Bucs didn't have to bother showing up, because the Lions beat themselves.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
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.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
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.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
If only!</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
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.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
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.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
Maybe this is the way the Lions prefer it.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
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.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
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.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
There are five games remaining, and a division which was the Lions' to lose is on the verge of being lost.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
They have to play their on-field opponents, as well as battle the mystique of being the Lions.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
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.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
"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 <i>supposed </i>to lose."</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
The same can be said when you talk about the Lions when they play...the Lions.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
The Lions are playing a mind set now. They're playing against history. The Lions aren't <em>supposed </em>to win.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
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.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
Maybe they can't win unless they play football in a ring of fire.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
"It's a five game season," coach Schwartz said after Sunday's debacle against Tampa.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
It's a five game season because the Lions have made like a magician and turned it into one.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
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.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
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.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
The Lions have never been ones to make things easy on themselves, or on their fans.</div>
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 1.3em;">
Here we go again.</div>
</div>
Greg Enohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08884412028028351344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12128130.post-88235148054308142402013-11-25T09:43:00.002-05:002013-11-25T09:49:46.010-05:00If Hoke Can't Fix Michigan Soon, He May Have to Walk Back to San DiegoWhen Brady Hoke got the call from Michigan Athletic Director Dave Brandon to come back to Ann Arbor and take over the Wolverines football program in January, 2011, Brady told the press that he would have “walked to Michigan” from San Diego State.<br />
<br />
With each week, with each disturbing performance on the football field, the Michigan fans are increasing in number who’d like to see Hoke indeed hit the road.<br />
<br />
These are the times that try Michigan men’s souls.<br />
<br />
Rich Rodriguez was given three years, taking over for the retiring Lloyd Carr, and by the end of Year Three he was holding hands at the annual Football Bust as schmaltzy music played. He all but pleaded for his job publicly. It was, frankly, pathetic.<br />
<br />
The knock on Rich-Rod was that he was a square peg in a round hole. There wasn’t much “Michigan” about him. Rodriguez’s tenure was deemed an experiment gone horribly wrong.<br />
<br />
Fine. You want a Michigan Man? Coming right up!<br />
<br />
But the MM the football folks wanted, was Les Miles, the wildly successful coach at LSU. The fans wanted Les in 2007, as well, when Carr was in his last season. Miles, like Hoke, was a longtime U-M assistant (though under Bo Schembechler, while Hoke worked under Carr), before carving out his own legacy at Oklahoma State and then LSU.<br />
<br />
Twice Miles was in demand by the fans, but not as much in demand by those making the decisions upstairs. And also not necessarily anointed by a segment of the alumni.<br />
<br />
The first time around—about six years ago this month—then-AD Bill Martin didn’t even bring Miles in for an interview, nor did he fly to see Les. Instead, Martin basically told Miles that if Les was interested, he could fill out a job application like anyone else and get in line.<br />
<br />
Miles, with good reason, felt offended.<br />
<br />
The second go-round, after Rodriguez was let go, Brandon made a trip to see Miles in Louisiana, but it turned out be a cursory visit.<br />
<br />
Michigan fans also wanted Jim Harbaugh, fresh off a run of winning at Stanford.<br />
<br />
Harbaugh wasn’t interviewed.<br />
<br />
But Brady Hoke was, and he jumped out of his skin at the opportunity. Hoke assisted Carr for eight years then ran the programs at Ball State, then San Diego State.<br />
<br />
Hoke, while not the popular first choice, at least had some Ann Arbor pedigree.<br />
<br />
He was a Michigan Man—a term that is beginning to be more laughable than serious these days.<br />
<br />
Hoke, frankly, <i>looked</i> more like he belonged at Michigan, coaching football, than his predecessor. His name even sounded more like Michigan than his predecessor, if you want to be even more superficial.<br />
<br />
To Rodriguez’s muscular build, good looks and Latino last name, Hoke offered a squishy body, a moon face and a name of a left tackle.<br />
<br />
To Rodriguez’s mild manner and soft voice, Hoke’s demeanor conjured humorous comparisons to the late comedian Chris Farley’s satirical motivational speaker.<br />
<br />
Then they started to play the football games.<br />
<br />
And here, near the end of Year Three under Hoke, the Michigan football program is in no better shape now than when Rodriguez was given the ziggy.
It may actually be worse.<br />
<br />
There’s the quarterback, who was under enough pressure before the school saddled him with jersey no. 98—legend Tom Harmon’s old number.<br />
<br />
There’s the offensive line, which despite having an All-American on it, too often collapses like a house of cards.<br />
<br />
There’s the lack of playmaking on both sides of the ball.<br />
<br />
There’s a bewildering lack of imagination in the offensive play calling and seeming inability to make adjustments on the fly—whether within a game or, more shockingly, within a season.<br />
<br />
Michigan football, under Hoke, at this very moment is playing a brand that would make Schembechler spin in his grave.<br />
<br />
There’s nothing smash mouth about what is happening with Hoke and offensive coordinator Al Borges’ offense.<br />
<br />
There isn’t an Anthony Carter, a Braylon Edwards or even a Steve Breaston catching footballs.<br />
<br />
There isn’t a Huckleby or a Morris or even a Biakabutuka carrying the pigskin.<br />
<br />
And there certainly isn’t a Harbaugh or a Wangler or a Brady behind center.<br />
<br />
This is Hoke’s mess now. The “Fire Rich-Rod” signs might pop up on eBay these days, but that rallying cry is no more. No one can play the “blame Rodriguez” card anymore.<br />
<br />
The statute of limitations has run out on Michigan football under Rodriguez (who is doing OK at Arizona, if you were wondering).<br />
<br />
This is on Brady Hoke, this season of degeneration. The embarrassing wins over Akron and Connecticut are all on Hoke. The bizarre win over Indiana is on Hoke. So are the feckless losses to MSU and Nebraska and the latest—a second half collapse in Iowa.<br />
<br />
All on Hoke now. This is his baby. This is the dream job he wanted.
Now he’s being given the virtual heave ho. Talk radio is lighting up with the same names, but one in particular: Jim Harbaugh.<br />
<br />
It’s Year Three and there’s essentially the same venom for Hoke as there was for Rodriguez—with the only difference being that it’s not because Hoke isn’t a Michigan Man. It’s that he’s the <i>wrong</i> Michigan Man.<br />
<br />
The 24-21 loss to Iowa—after Michigan had taken a 21-7 halftime lead—has driven the Michigan maniacs apoplectic. They want blood—especially the Maize and Blue stuff that courses through Hoke’s veins.<br />
<br />
The book on Hoke that is being ghost written by the U-M faithful—and it could be debated that this is simplistic and unfair—is that Hoke can out-recruit you but you can end around him on the field.<br />
<br />
He can sell the kids on Michigan, but then he doesn’t know what to do with them once they get there. That’s the book.<br />
<br />
It’s probably not fair. Hoke’s first season was an 11-2 delight, including a win over Ohio State. He is 2-3 against MSU and the Buckeyes, combined, heading into next week’s showdown against OSU in Ann Arbor. That isn’t awful.<br />
<br />
But what <i>is</i> awful is the way the Wolverines are playing right now, and have been for several weeks running. Can you imagine the fit that Bo would have, if his team gave up sacks the way this squad is doing to Gardner?<br />
<br />
And as for Gardner, the kid is regressing. He has the confidence of a teen boy with acne at the school dance. His offensive line is killing him, both physically and mentally.<br />
<br />
Hoke will survive this season. He will get a fourth year at Michigan, unlike Rodriguez. But the seat is getting considerably warmer. Normally, that’s not a bad thing when the temps are dropping like they are now.
But when you coach football at Michigan, you’d like that seat to be freezing, thank you very much.<br />
<br />
Right now, Hoke, like his football team, can’t get out of his own way. If he doesn’t figure it out soon, he might be asked to walk back to San Diego—this time by people who actually matter.
Greg Enohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08884412028028351344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12128130.post-29832152223127367712013-10-29T23:19:00.002-04:002013-10-29T23:19:22.522-04:00This Time, Babcock's Hand Wringing is WarrantedBack in the day, it used to be difficult for Mike Babcock to find anything wrong with his Red Wings.<br />
<br />
How could there be, when the other team never had the puck?<br />
<br />
Babcock's players would throw the Winged Wheel onto the ice on the blood red sweaters, play tic-tac-toe with the puck, bury a few pretty ones behind the enemy net minder and skate off the ice with another two points in their back pockets.<br />
<br />
Not that Babcock didn't try to find something amiss. He'd stand before reporters after another night of toying with the opponent, set his rock jaw and nitpick. Nobody was buying it. The Red Wings were elite, and the other teams didn't beat them so much as the Red Wings beat themselves, which wasn't very often.<br />
<br />
Babcock doesn't have to pretend these days. It's not a tough sell when he puts on his concerned coach face and rattles off reasons why his team isn't very good.<br />
<br />
"We're facing some adversity here," he said the other day.<br />
<br />
And this: "If I saw our team play from the outside, I'd say that we don't have a coach. And that hurts my feelings."<br />
<br />
Now, Mike Babcock is not a guy whose feelings you want to hurt, if you're one of his players. It's like waking up a bear, mid-hibernation.<br />
<br />
Babcock has never sugar coated things since he arrived as Red Wings coach in 2005. He wasn't always easy to believe, when his team was having its way with everyone every night, but when the Red Wings have stumbled in recent years, "Babs" tells it like it is, complete with odors.<br />
<br />
He won't throw a player under the team bus, but he doesn't have to. Babcock just won't play him, or he'll demote the offending player. And if he's asked about it, he'll tell you why, and it won't be a spin job.<br />
<br />
Scotty Bowman, when he was in Detroit, had a reputation for playing mind games with his players. Babcock cuts to the chase. He doesn't do the passive/aggressive thing.<br />
<br />
So here we are, the Red Wings on a four-game losing streak, and about to play four games out west.<br />
<br />
"A west coast trip is exactly what we need," Babcock said after the Red Wings let another one slip through their hockey gloves, 3-2 in overtime at home against the New York Rangers on Saturday night.<br />
<br />
Babcock says the Red Wings are in search of an identity. He said that the four-game winning streak of a couple weeks back was "fool's gold," with the way they were playing.<br />
<br />
Mostly, he said the team isn't playing with the puck enough. And it's surrendering far too many shots on goal.<br />
<br />
"I look at the stat sheet and I see 40 shots against," Babcock said after the Rangers game. "That's way too many shots. Twenty-eight is too many."<br />
<br />
It's not difficult to see why the coach is aghast. It used to take the other teams two games to get 40 shots on the Red Wings, and half of those would be fired from near the blue line. Remember when we fretted that the Red Wings goalie du jour would get rusty or bored during a game?<br />
<br />
Now, it's all Jimmy Howard can do to swat pucks away as if they're being fired from a batting cage machine.<br />
<br />
The Red Wings are still a talented group---they've been talented since Reagan was president---but the talent and skill isn't so much that it separates the Red Wings from the rest of the NHL like it used to. You could drive a Mack truck through the gap between the Red Wings' skill and their brethren's. Now, you can barely slip a credit card in there.<br />
<br />
So what do you do in hockey when you can't just show up and grab two points? You work hard and you are hard to work against. Neither has happened too much in this young season, and that's why Babcock's jaw is set even firmer these days. That's why the post-game comments are dripping more with disdain.<br />
<br />
Babcock never did look happy behind the bench, even when the Red Wings were waltzing through their schedule. But back then, he looked concerned just to be polite to the other team.<br />
<br />
Then again, what hockey coach does look happy, mad or sad? Bowman's expression changed as much as Mona Lisa's.<br />
<br />
These are tough times for Babcock's bunch, just 12 games into the season. He has some guys he badly would like on the ice but just can't be, due to injury---like Darren Helm, who is exactly what the Red Wings need right now. Patrick Eaves will be dressing for the first time, Wednesday in Vancouver.<br />
<br />
Babcock also has guys who are new and who were supposed to be a big deal but who haven't been yet---Stephen Weiss, for starters. Daniel Alfredsson, to a lesser degree.<br />
<br />
Babcock has a defenseman, Brendan Smith, who is confused and prickly for being scratched. He has had to split up Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg, which the coach is loathe to do, because when he does so, it usually means that something is wrong.<br />
<br />
And something <i>is </i>wrong with the Red Wings right now. This time, Babcock doesn't need to give us a hard sell on it.<br />
<br />
"Right now, with the way we're playing, we have no chance," he said after the Rangers game.<br />
<br />
No eye rolling from anyone this time.<br />
<br />Greg Enohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08884412028028351344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12128130.post-23172286393320867762013-10-20T12:30:00.002-04:002013-10-20T12:30:56.360-04:00Suh's "Dirty" Reputation a Cash Cow for the NFL<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
“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. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The Pistons had committed another
rough foul on the Celtics. It was during a tense (weren’t they all?) playoff
game at the Silverdome.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
“Oh, (Bill) Laimbeer! What a
gutless, despicable player!” Most shrieked.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Pistons thuggery!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The Bad Boys Pistons of Isiah,
Laimbeer, Mahorn, Rodman et al wore the black hats in the NBA, and with pride.
There was the <i>Rolling Stone </i>magazine cover, featuring Laimbeer and
Mahorn, squeezing a basketball into deflation and terrorizing a rim for the
photographer.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Probert wasn’t considered dirty,
per se, but he wasn’t always clean, either.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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 <i>were </i>looking,
Gordie still managed to inflict some extracurricular pain.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Ndamukong Suh is the latest Detroit
sports star who is on the top of his league’s Most Wanted list.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Suh’s reputation precedes him like
a man who had a Limburger and garlic sandwich for lunch. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Suh hits someone and the play gets
analyzed like it’s the Zapruder film. Surely there must be something wrong!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
“I think there’s always going to be
a microscope on me,” Suh said recently.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
More like a Hubble telescope.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
There was no penalty flag on the
play, even though it occurred right in front of the referee.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
For that hit, the NFL fined Suh.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The telescope got brought out
again.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The league has its Jason and its
Freddy Krueger, in Ndamukong Suh. And don’t think that they don’t love that
idea.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Pro sports are often as much about
who fans root <i>against </i>as it is who they root <i>for. </i>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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
So what you get are fines that
wouldn’t be levied on other players. The fine for the Weeden hit was a
disgrace. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
He is also the NFL’s biggest villain,
as cooked up by the league’s marketing department, working in conjunction with
the disciplinarians.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Where’s the fun—and the money—in
that?</div>
Greg Enohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08884412028028351344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12128130.post-46840677108727460262013-09-30T10:52:00.001-04:002013-09-30T10:55:33.954-04:00Cleary's "Backwards" Money Grab is Refreshing<span style="font-family: inherit;">Danny Cleary isn't in it for the money.<o:p></o:p>
</span><br />
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This story is for everyone who
says that professional athletes are forever chasing the money. This is for
those who think loyalty and sports should never belong in the same sentence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Granted, it’s easy to roll your
eyes when the newly-signed free agent says it’s not about the dough as they’re
backing up a Brinks truck at the press conference. Especially when the player’s
new team isn’t even close to printing playoff tickets.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If Cleary was only interested in money, he wouldn’t have driven five
hours to Traverse City to beg the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://bleacherreport.com/detroit-red-wings" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; outline: 0px;"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Red Wings</span></b></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>for a
contract.He could have hopped on a plane for Philadelphia, where an offer was
awaiting his signature—an offer worth far more money than he could have hoped
to get from the Red Wings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Cleary, the gritty, resilient,
hard-working forward who has been a Red Wing since 2005, saw push come to shove
and when it did, he couldn’t get on that plane for Philly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It happened a few weeks ago, and
it’s the insatiable appetite for the negative that shoved Cleary’s story to the
figurative back page.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was fireman rescues kitty
stuff, so naturally nobody wanted to report it, outside of Detroit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Apparently loyalty isn’t sexy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Cleary, a free agent after last
season, nixed an initial offer from the Red Wings early in the off-season. He
thought he’d try the open market.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I know this is starting out like
so many other athlete-chases-money story. But the Red Wings were up against a
hard salary cap and therefore couldn’t make a first offer that was quite up to
par for someone of Cleary’s service and value.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Most of the money that was freed up went to new signees Daniel
Alfredsson and Stephen Weiss, signed from<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://bleacherreport.com/ottawa-senators" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; outline: 0px;"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Ottawa</span></b></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://bleacherreport.com/florida-panthers" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; outline: 0px;"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Florida</span></b></a>,
respectively. Both were brought to Detroit to jump start a sluggish power play
and add scoring depth to the top two lines.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Cleary, 34, is a lot of things,
but pure goal scorer isn’t one of them. Nor is he a premier playmaker.
Alfredsson is the former and Weiss the latter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s not that Cleary is a
stranger to scoring goals, and it’s not that he hasn’t made a few nifty passes
in his day. He’s just not a 30-goal, 40-assist man, and he never will be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That’s OK—Cleary’s role with the
Red Wings was never about that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">His game in Detroit has been 60
minutes of skating hard up and down the ice, popping in a few goals, throwing a
few elbows and leading by example. It’s not score sheet fill, but it has been
no less important to the cause.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Red Wings never wanted to see Cleary go, but the reality of
today’s<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://bleacherreport.com/nhl" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; outline: 0px;"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">NHL</span></b></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>is that you
can’t bring everyone back, every year. The days of GM Ken Holland breaking off
another of Mike Ilitch’s checks at will are long gone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">After bringing Alfredsson and
Weiss into the fold, there wasn’t much left in Mother Holland’s cupboard for
Cleary. Plus, the Red Wings were at their limit as far as forwards on their
roster.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The summer came and went and
Cleary was having trouble finding suitors, which was a little surprising, given
his resume and what he has meant to a team that fancies itself a Stanley Cup
contender every year.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Training camp was nigh and
Cleary was still unemployed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In 2008, when the Red Wings won
their last Cup, Cleary played in 22 playoff games and scored two goals. Two
lousy goals. He recorded one measly assist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But take him off the team, and
maybe the Wings don’t win that Cup.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Now, it might seem folly to suggest that a forward who contributed
just three points in 22 playoff games is somehow indispensable, but that’s<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://bleacherreport.com/dan-cleary" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; outline: 0px;"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Dan Cleary</span></b></a>. You don’t win wars with all generals, you know.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Maybe Cleary’s age scared some teams off. Regardless, it wasn’t
looking good for him, until the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://bleacherreport.com/philadelphia-flyers" style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; outline: 0px;"><b><span style="border: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Philadelphia Flyers</span></b></a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>showed some
interest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Flyers offered Cleary a
three-year deal worth about $7.75 million. The catch was that it wasn’t a
guaranteed contract; Cleary would be brought in, officially, on a tryout basis.
But there was little doubt among NHL people that Cleary would make the Flyers,
who aren’t chopped liver.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Red Wings bussed their way
to Traverse City for training camp. Cleary had a plane to catch—to
Philadelphia.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is where the story changes
from the typical.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Cleary’s eight years with the
Red Wings tugged at him. Eight years of wearing the Winged Wheel on a player’s
chest has often meant that it sinks into the heart. Never was this more true
than with Cleary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Push came to shove and Cleary
couldn't get on the plane bound for Philadelphia. So he didn't.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Instead, Dan Cleary drove, on
his own dime, to Traverse City—with little more than hope and an impromptu
sales pitch. He wanted to be a Red Wing again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is not how it usually
works. The free agent isn’t supposed to court the team. But Cleary couldn't go
to Philadelphia, which is another team that could win the Stanley Cup this
season. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He was a Red Wing, period.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Now, all he had to do was get
Holland and the Red Wings to offer him a contract.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Red Wings wanted Cleary, and
Cleary wanted the Red Wings. But wanting something and getting it isn’t always
possible when you’re working with a tight budget and a full roster.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Cleary and the Red Wings talked
it over in the rink at Traverse City, while the signed players were skating, no
doubt aware that Cleary was in the building, meeting behind the scenes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Red Wings offered Cleary a
one-year deal, at $1.75 million—or roughly six million less than he could have
earned with the Flyers, and with two fewer years of job security. No matter. He
pounced on the offer like it was a loose puck.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Red Wings didn’t have to do
that. The addition of Cleary put the team at one forward too many. Someone will
have to be lopped off the roster.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But this is how it goes when
loyalty works both ways—when player and management each acknowledge what the
other has done for them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Red Wings didn’t<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><em style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; outline: 0px;"><span style="border: none windowtext 0in; padding: 0in;">have</span></em><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>to say yes to Cleary just because he
drove up to Traverse City to ask for his old job back—especially not after it
was reported that he was on the verge of signing with another team.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This one’s for loyalty and for
not always chasing the money. This is for everyone who doubts that pro sports
teams and players really will scratch each other’s backs—when push comes to
shove.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dan Cleary said no to the money,
and yes to being a Red Wing. The team said no to convenience and yes to
rewarding past performance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0in 0in 12pt; outline: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">How about that?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Greg Enohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08884412028028351344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12128130.post-57799471469242045802013-09-22T12:15:00.002-04:002013-09-22T12:15:35.556-04:00Lions Are 0-for-Washington, So Why Bother?<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
History tells us that the Lions
shouldn’t even bother making the trip to Washington, D.C. this weekend. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Do anything, other than make the
poor equipment people load up the tons of gear and fly it to the Nation’s
Capital.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Why bother?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The Lions should just phone this
one in. Call in sick. Take the loss and get ready for the Bears on September
29.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
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. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Of all the seasons of losses in
Washington, 1991 is perhaps the oddest.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Some 18 weeks or so later, the
Lions returned to the scene of the slaughter, to participate in the NFC
Championship Game. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The question isn’t will the Lions
lose in Washington, but by how much, and how, period. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
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?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
All of the above have happened to
the Lions in Washington, and more.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The aforementioned 1991 Lions were
12-4, and one of those four losses was in D.C.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
So what gives?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The Lions, clearly!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
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 <i>have
</i>won in Green Bay.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Yet in 80 years of being in the
NFL, the Lions are 0-for-Washington.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
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. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
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).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
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. </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Go figure.</div>
Greg Enohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08884412028028351344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12128130.post-81061507852146312592013-07-14T10:54:00.002-04:002013-07-14T11:01:01.618-04:00Chelios' Hockey Journey Didn't Take the Recommended Route<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
He was the accidental Red Wing. He
never dreamed of playing in Detroit, never fantasized about pulling the blood
red sweater with the winged wheel over his chest. Far from it, as a matter of
fact.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Chris Chelios was as Chicago as the
Cubs, Second City and dirty politics. His was a Greek family couched in
Evergreen Park, Illinois, where the Blackhawks ruled the roost when it came to
hockey teams you rooted for.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
When Chelios entered the world, the
NHL had six teams and if you weren’t born in Canada, it was almost a death
knell for your chances of playing in the league. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Americans played hockey, but they
just didn’t play it in the NHL, which at the time only had about 120 jobs
available, and it seemed like 115 of them went to Canucks. The European
invasion was still a decade off in 1962, when Chelios was born. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
It didn’t help Chelios when his
family moved to Southern California in 1977. If you were an American and
harbored dreams of being an NHLer, moving to the beaches of San Diego wasn’t
exactly the way to make those dreams come true.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
There wasn’t any high school
hockey, number one. Chelios played youth hockey in Illinois, but when he got to
San Diego as a 16-year-old he was a boy without a team. In San Diego, they used
sticks to pick up sushi, not to swat at vulcanized rubber pucks.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Because he didn’t play hockey at
the high school level, no colleges recruited Chris Chelios. At that point,
playing in the NHL was the mother of all pipe dreams. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Strangely, there was actually an
NCAA Division I hockey program that was San Diego-based. In fact, it was the
only such program west of the Rockies. It was called U.S. International
University, and it floated Chelios a scholarship offer.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
“Sure, kid. Show up to campus and
let’s see what you got,” might have been the terms of the scholarship.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
It didn’t work out so well for
Chelly at U.S. International. He arrived on campus in 1979 and immediately he
knew he was outclassed. The other players were bigger, stronger, and many were
steeped in junior hockey experience. Not surprisingly, Chelios was cut from the
team. The mother of all pipe dreams looked to be going poof.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
When in Rome, do as the Romans do,
so Chelios decided to try Canada, where just about every boy is born with a
black eye and sharp elbows.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
He tried out for a couple of Junior
B teams in Canada and was cut both times. Chelios was Rocky Balboa, but going
in the wrong direction.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Chelios returned to California—he
had to borrow money from strangers to get back home—and it looked like hockey
wasn’t going to be his vocation. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Then a fascinating thing happened
to him, physically. It was like something out of a Charles Atlas magazine ad.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Chelly grew a few inches and put on
about 40 pounds, most of it muscle. No one was going to kick snow in his face
any longer.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
From that point on, Chelios’ hockey
story made an about face. He made the Moose Jaw Canucks—that could only be a
hockey team—of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League, and he terrorized the
league.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
In his final season at Moose Jaw,
Chelios had 87 points and 175 penalty minutes in just 54 games. It was enough
to be drafted by the Montreal Canadiens, no less, in 1981.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
From bumming a ride to California
to being drafted by an Original Six team, in just two years, Chelios was
hockey’s ugly duckling that turned swan.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
After being drafted by Montreal,
Chelios went to college, that level of hockey that at one time didn’t recruit
him, and played a couple years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
While in college, Chelios played in
the World Junior Ice Hockey Championship and in 1983, he was part of the
Badgers’ NCAA championship team. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
By this time, Americans had been
infiltrating the NHL in greater numbers. Europeans were dotting league rosters
at a growing rate as well. You no longer <i>had </i>to be Canadian to play in
the NHL. Your birth certificate was made moot.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Chelios played for Team USA in the
1984 Olympics, and then made his debut for Les Canadiens, playing in 12 games.
Two years later, he was hoisting the Stanley Cup for the 1986 Montreal team
that beat the Calgary Flames.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Not bad for a guy who, just seven
years prior, was being shoved around like a runt by other teens.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Chelios’ hockey story came full
circle in the summer of 1990, when the Canadiens traded him to Chicago for
Denis Savard, even up. Chelly was a defenseman, Savard was a center—a magician
with the puck who was adored in the Windy City. The trade wasn’t exactly
received with bells and whistles in Chicago, despite Chelios being a native son
of sorts.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Chelios wore number 24 in Montreal,
but that wasn’t going to happen with the Blackhawks. In Chicago, fellow
defenseman Doug Wilson wore that number, and Wilson was almost as revered by
the Blackhawk faithful as Savard was. So Chelly pulled on number seven.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
In Chicago, Chelios gave the
Blackhawks nearly nine full seasons, sticking his big, fat Greek nose in other
people’s business to the tune of about 200 penalty minutes per season. He was
especially despised in Detroit, whose rivalry with the Blackhawks had been
reinvigorated as the Red Wings did their own ugly duckling to swan move and
began dominating hockey in the 1990s. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
But as the Red Wings rose, the
Blackhawks began to fall. After facing the Red Wings in the 1995 Conference
Finals, the Blackhawks soon turned slapstick more than slap shot. It got so bad
that late in the 1998-99 season, Chicago hockey management started dumping
salaries—including that of hometown kid-made-good, Chris Chelios.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
I’ll never forget where I was when
I heard the news that the Red Wings had acquired Chelios in March, 1999 at the
trading deadline. I was in my car, and nearly ran it into a ditch.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Chris Chelios, a Red Wing?<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
It was Ted Williams to the Yankees.
Larry Bird to the Lakers. A Hatfield to the McCoys.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Chelios was 37 when the trade was
made, and it looked like so many the Red Wings were famous for making—a wily
veteran on his last legs, for a prospect that would never find serious ice time
in Detroit anyhow. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Chelios was traded for a defenseman
named Anders Eriksson, who was 24 at the time and who would play in the NHL for
another 11 years, but whose career reads more like a travelogue. Eriksson
played for six more teams after being traded to Chicago, never carving out much
of a niche anywhere he went.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
But a funny thing happened with
this Chelios-for-Eriksson deal. Despite being 13 years Eriksson’s senior,
Chelly nearly played in the NHL for as long as Eriksson would last.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Chelios became a Red Wing, and
eventually the Winged Wheel was tattooed emotionally on his heart. Detroit
slowly replaced Chicago as Chelios’ home. He opened restaurants in metro
Detroit, got involved in charity work and won two more Stanley Cups along the
way (2002 and 2008). He played in Detroit until he was 46 years old, beating
Gordie Howe in that category by three years in the age department.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Last week, Chelios—along with
fellow Red Wing Brendan Shanahan—was voted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Hockey’s HOF isn’t like baseball’s.
The inducted player doesn’t have to choose a sweater, like baseball folks have
to choose which hat they’re going to wear on their plaques. Remember the
controversy when Sparky Anderson chose to be depicted wearing a Cincinnati Reds
lid?<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
But if hockey did have that
requirement, I have little doubt that Chelly would choose to go into the Hall
as a Red Wing. He is still employed by the Red Wings, as GM Kenny Holland’s
Executive Advisor.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
“I always say I’m from Chicago,
proud of that fact, but Detroit has been my home now for the last 13 years. I
love it,” Chelios told the <i>Free Press </i>last week.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
In this case, Chicago truly is the
Second City.</div>
Greg Enohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08884412028028351344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12128130.post-42082664313009686512013-05-19T14:26:00.001-04:002013-05-19T14:32:41.835-04:00Titus Young’s Downward Spiral Reminiscent of Charlie Rogers<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
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. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
It was a giddy
time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
The Lions felt
like they were on to something. The year prior, the team drafted their
quote-unquote franchise quarterback, Joey Harrington, from Oregon.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
Now they were
adding Rogers, out of Michigan State, to be the franchise receiver.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
Finally—a real
quarterback and receiver tandem!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
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. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
It never came
close to happening for Rogers in the NFL. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
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. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
Charlie Rogers was
troubled, but worse than that, he was alone.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
Lacking a support
group of sorts, Rogers kept getting into trouble.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
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.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
Today Rogers is
approaching his 32<sup>nd</sup> birthday (it’s May 23). He has no future to
speak of. He never earned his degree from MSU. He is perhaps unemployable. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
No one said it
better about Rogers, than Rogers himself.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
In an interview in
August 2009 with ESPN’s Jemele Hill, whose journalism roots include Detroit,
Rogers said, <span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">"I got a little
greedy. The girls played a part in it.” Then, even more astutely, Charlie
added, "I fucked up. Point blank, simple."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Ten years after Rogers’ drafting into the
NFL, there’s another former Lions receiver battling demons.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Titus Young was a 2<sup>nd</sup> 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.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">At Boise State, Young was suspended for
most of his sophomore season for fighting with a teammate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Young was the 44<sup>th</sup> overall pick
in the 2011 NFL Draft. His off-field behavior scared some teams off. It didn’t
scare off the Lions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Again we smirk and shake our heads at
Young’s personal life, as we did at Charlie Rogers’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">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.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Charlie Rogers is 32, broke, and has no
future. The world that was once his oyster is now his living hell.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">That’s nothing to smirk about.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Greg Enohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08884412028028351344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12128130.post-16284080426791334362013-04-30T20:35:00.002-04:002013-04-30T20:35:43.058-04:00Former Big League Umpire Pallone All Too Familiar With Jason Collins's Secret LifeAs a straight male, I don't even pretend to know what someone like Jason Collins must have been going through, living a secret life as a gay man while an active player in the NBA.<br />
<br />
This isn't like grief. It's not a few quiet moments at a funeral home, when someone goes up to a relative of the deceased and offers some trite comments of "Hey, I've been there," just because that person has also experienced the death of a loved one. Those feelings aren't totally congruent, either, by the way.<br />
<br />
No one who is straight can purport to place themselves in Collins's Nikes.<br />
<br />
Collins, the longtime (and still active) NBA center who came out as gay in this week's edition of <i>Sports Illustrated</i>, has mainly gotten support (at least publicly) for his self outing. Lord knows the missives he's received privately likely aren't all warm and fuzzy. Again, never been there. Maybe Hank Aaron could comment; the letters of vitriol sent to Hank as he pursued Babe Ruth's all-time home run record remain a black eye on our society.<br />
<br />
It didn't take me long, once I heard of Collins's outing, for me to reach out to someone who I know has an inkling of Collins's feelings---both before and after the announcement.<br />
<br />
I am proud to consider Dave Pallone a friend. Dave remains the only big league umpire to have been identified as gay. Only, Pallone didn't have the option of announcing his lifestyle on his own terms. He was outed---viciously, when his name was bantied about in a sex ring, of which he had no part, by the way.<br />
<br />
Try that on for size.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fJl0bb3Nl58/UYBjQxsvZ0I/AAAAAAAAAqg/d-GPVyrzoqA/s1600/Dave-Pallone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="313" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-fJl0bb3Nl58/UYBjQxsvZ0I/AAAAAAAAAqg/d-GPVyrzoqA/s320/Dave-Pallone.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Via email, I asked Pallone (left), who umpired in the National League from 1979 to 1988, about Collins and what it might mean for athletes in the future to out themselves. Not only is Pallone an openly gay man, he's also a public and motivational speaker whose message largely involves encouraging folks to be happy with who they are, among other positive thoughts.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"My coming out was different than Jason's," Pallone wrote me. "I was outed, so I didn't have the chance to do it on my own. But the relief I had was tremendous. It was like a 2000 pound weight on my shoulders finally falling off."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Pallone went one step further.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"For me (being outed) was nothing less than psychological rape."</span><br />
<br />
I asked Pallone if he felt that Collins's coming out would lead to others doing so, not unlike a domino effect.<br />
<br />
"There is no question that more athletes will now follow. It's like a kid and his friends at a lake. Everyone waits for someone to jump in and when he does and they see he's OK, they jump in with him."<br />
<br />
I wondered if Pallone saw today's sociological landscape as being more fertile for society to accept gay professional athletes without a whole lot of angst. His reply was, thankfully, upbeat.<br />
<br />
"Things are much different (now) than they were in the 1980s and 1990s," Pallone wrote. "Athletes are much more versed in social issues now and sexual orientation is always being talked about. 'Gay' is now NOT an evil word."<br />
<br />
Pallone led a <b><a href="http://www.gregeno.com/?p=1691">secret, double life throughout his umpiring career</a></b>, which began in the late-1970s in the minor leagues. When I first met him, I remember he telling me of making up stories of sexual encounters he supposedly had with women, whenever his umpiring colleagues would ask him how his weekend was.<br />
<br />
To use a baseball metaphor, it was a life constantly lived facing an 0-2 count.<br />
<br />
So Pallone knows what Collins has been going through as an NBA player---constantly afraid of being "found out," unable to publicly be who he really was.<br />
<br />
"(Collins's) life, as mine, had to be hard," Pallone wrote. "Think that at (age) 34 he now finally can be true to himself."<br />
<br />
I asked Pallone if he had anything else to add. He did.<br />
<br />
"This is just not an LGBT story, but it's an American story. This is a huge deal, and for me it's humbling to know I helped in some small way to make this day happen."<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>You can check out more of Dave Pallone and his life story, along with his positive messages about life, at <b><a href="http://davepallone.com/">DavePallone.com</a>.</b></i><br />
<br />
<br />Greg Enohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08884412028028351344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12128130.post-42227603522029569002013-04-28T12:39:00.002-04:002013-04-28T12:39:41.888-04:00Lions First Round Gamble Has "All or Nothing" Feel<span style="line-height: 150%;">Ziggy Ansah has one thing in common
with his new NFL team post-Matt Millen. Neither started playing football until
2010.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 150%;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 150%;">Ansah’s is a tale that, in the past
48 hours, has been re-told more than a bedtime story.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.<br />
<br />
He failed at basketball so turned his 6’5, 271-pound
body to the gridiron.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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 <i>definitely </i>not with the idea of being drafted
after just four names have been called.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
And don’t say the
p-word—project—around Lions head coach Jim Schwartz.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
“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.”<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The coach better be right, because
Ansah has a first name that could fit Schwartz like a glove if this goes wrong.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Before the drafting of Ansah, Ziggy
was a word—a Detroit word—used to describe the firing of a coach.<br />
And it was
originated by a Lions coach, as a matter of fact.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The word caught on, and giving the
coach the ziggy has been used around these parts ever since.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Or, he’ll be a bust.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
First, Ansah, from Ghana, doesn’t
look like anyone capable of squashing an ant, let alone a quarterback.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.”<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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?<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
This is where you’re allowed to
roll your eyes and say, “Only the Lions.”<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Boom or bust.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.”<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
“I think you gotta go Dee Milliner
here if you’re the Lions,” Jon Gruden said with his trademark, smiling scowl.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Mel Kiper Jr., supposed draft guru,
concurred.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Milliner to the Lions!<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The mock drafters mocked once
again!<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
It’s the ultimate crapshoot.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The whole idea of the draft is
volatile enough. You hardly need to add to its propensity for being tenuous. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
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. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Or he may flat out stink.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Boom or bust. Star or dud. Genius
or folly.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Pretty much describes the NFL Draft
as a whole, I’d say.</div>
Greg Enohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08884412028028351344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12128130.post-65996942504940488672013-04-17T20:58:00.002-04:002013-04-17T20:58:39.732-04:00Summerall's Low Key Announcing Style a Rarity and a JoyIf it wasn't for the good grooming habits of his roommate, Pat Summerall might never have made a living speaking subtly into a microphone, calling sporting events.<br />
<br />
Summerall himself told the story, in a TV special back in the 1990s---a documentary about the history of sports on television.<br />
<br />
Summerall was nearing the end of his career as a New York Giants placekicker. His roommate was quarterback Charlie Conerly, who was also in the twilight of his playing days. One day, while Conerly was in the shower, the phone rang.<br />
<br />
"It was a TV producer," Summerall recalled. "He wanted to speak to Charlie about auditioning for a sports announcing job after Charlie's career was finished."<br />
<br />
Summerall told the producer that Conerly was indisposed. After a pause, the producer asked Summerall if he was available that afternoon.<br />
<br />
Thankfully for us, the listening audience, Summerall took the producer up on the offer.<br />
<br />
In a business where it seems as if sports announcers are being paid by the decibel and by word count, Pat Summerall offered a quiet calm. Where some of his colleagues sounded as if they were describing the Hindenburg explosion, Summerall kept his wits about him. He proved that louder wasn't always better; that loquaciousness didn't always equal wisdom.<br />
<br />
Summerall, who passed away Tuesday at the age of 82, announced pro football with the efficiency of concentrated cleaner. He was a man of fewer words than most of his brethren, but he painted no less vivid of a picture. Summerall knew that his medium, television, was visual---so why paint over the images with needless blather? The folks at home could see what was happening.<br />
<br />
So a 40-yard touchdown pass from Roger Staubach to Drew Pearson would go like this.<br />
<br />
"Second and ten. (ball is snapped) Staubach......back to pass.....(the play develops; we see Staubach dropping back; the Redskins pass rush converges)...firing.....(there goes the football, in a perfect spiral)...Pearson.....(we see Pearson catch the football in the end zone).........TOUCHDOWN, Cowboys."<br />
<br />
Beautiful.<br />
<br />
Summerall lent his baritone sound to other sports, too---notably golf. He was CBS' lead man at the Masters for years.<br />
<br />
Then they teamed Summerall with John Madden, starting with the 1982 Super Bowl at the Silverdome---and Pat had even less incentive to speak.<br />
<br />
Madden was the perfect foil to Summerall's low-key style. Where Summerall was staid and dignified, Madden was loud and obnoxious. To Summerall's efficiency with words, Madden offered diarrhea of the mouth.<br />
<br />
But they made a great team, quickly becoming CBS's (and evenutally Fox's) lead NFL announcing team. If your team drew Summerall and Madden behind the microphone, it was a proud moment.<br />
<br />
Before Madden, Summerall was joined at the hip by another former player, Tom Brookshier, who had once been a standout defensive back for the Eagles. But a serious leg injury ended Brookshier's career, dumping him into announcing in his early-30s.<br />
<br />
Brookshier, aka "Brooky", was another good Summerall foil. Brooky was witty, Brooky was clever. Brooky knew football. Their partnership began on the old NFL Films show, "This Week in Pro Football," on which they began pairing in the late-1960s. It carried over onto Sundays as CBS's No. 1 team in the 1970s.<br />
<br />
Brooky is gone, too---he passed away in 2010.<br />
<br />
Summerall's biggest challenge wasn't behind the microphone, it was under the bottle. He was a recovering alcoholic, and there were some not so pretty times. He became sober in the early-1990s, and stayed that way, though he did eventually need a liver transplant in 2004.<br />
<br />
I had the good fortune of speaking with Summerall---and his old Giants teammate turned announcer, Frank Gifford---via phone in December 2008 as the NFL celebrated the 50th anniversary of the legendary championship game between the Giants and the Baltimore Colts. I had asked about the rivalry between the Giants offense and the defense---which sometimes scored more points than the offense, along with snarling and taunting them.<br />
<br />
"Yeah, they didn't like us," Summerall conceded to me about the Giants defenders. "The Giants became one of the first teams to introduce the defense on the PA system instead of the offense before games."<br />
<br />
I enjoyed listening to Pat Summerall announce pro football. He didn't muddy the air with unneeded words. He let the pictures tell most of the story. A lot better than the loudmouth boobs of today, who want to inject themselves into the moment---screaming at us as if we are unable to comprehend what we are watching.Greg Enohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08884412028028351344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12128130.post-38899437886584992732013-04-14T15:25:00.003-04:002013-04-14T15:25:32.917-04:00Hockeytown's Bridge Jumpers Will Never Give Howard His Due<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The prevailing opinion among hockey
fans in Detroit is that the Red Wings goalie doesn’t win games, he merely loses
them. He won’t win you a playoff series, but he sure will foul one up for you.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The goalie in the Winged Wheel is
like the closer in the Old English D—he’s guilty until proven innocent. Then
when he goes back out there, he has to prove his innocence all over again.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
There have been more thankless
jobs. The gallows executioner and the tax man come to mind. After that, I’m not
so sure.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
It happens every night after a Red
Wings loss. Turn on talk radio and listen to the therapist of the night—also
known as the host—talk the city from jumping off the Ambassador Bridge.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
There might be a beef or two about
the forwards not back checking or the scorers not scoring or the defensemen
coughing the puck up. But those calls are just the opening act. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
It all comes back to the goalie.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
“Jimmy Howard? I wouldn’t let him
play goalie for my kid’s Pee Wee team!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
“We’ll never win the Stanley Cup
with this guy Howard in net!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
“What has Jimmy Howard ever won?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
“Howard can’t get it done in the
playoffs!”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The Red Wings might have lost, 2-1,
but it’s still Howard’s fault, somehow.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The wolves were out again this
week, as news came to light that the Red Wings are about to outfit Howard with
a six-year, $31.8 million contract. It should be signed any day now, after some
final details are hammered out.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The therapists on talk radio,
namely Bob Wojnowski and Jamie Samuelsen, had a bunch of apoplectics on their
hands Thursday evening when the topic of discussion turned to Howard and his
soon-to-be new contract.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The bridge jumpers were aghast.
They didn’t like the length of the deal. They thought GM Ken Holland was
“overpaying” for one of his own. They didn’t like the money, as if they were
each being shaken down for a share of the payout.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Mainly, they didn’t like the idea
of Jimmy Howard playing goalie for the Red Wings for the next six years.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Naturally, the bridge jumpers
didn’t offer any alternatives. They paid their fee—being put on hold—so all
they wanted was their say, i.e., to bitch.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Jimmy Howard, the bridge jumpers
said, hasn’t proven himself worthy of such a lavish deal. He can’t win in the
playoffs, they said. He doesn’t make the “big” save when you need him to make
it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
One caller even said, “Whenever I
see a guy coming in on Howard on a breakaway, I automatically count it as a
goal.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
It’s amazing how much hockey these
folks purport to see, watching it with blinders on.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The $5.3 (roughly) million that
Howard is set to get per year is about on par with what goalies in the upper
echelon in the NHL are being paid these days. It’s neither an extravagant
contract, nor is Howard getting jobbed by the Red Wings.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
In other words, if the Red Wings
chose to look outside the organ-eye-zay-shun for a veteran goalie, they’d pay
about the same amount of Mike Ilitch’s pizza dough as they’re prepared to give
Howard.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
I don’t know what NHL games the
bridge jumpers have been watching this season, because it sure doesn’t appear
that they’ve been watching the Red Wings.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
If they had, they’d see that on
many a night—too many a night, really—Jimmy Howard has been the best player on
the ice for the Red Wings. Sometimes the best for both teams.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
These aren’t the salad days of the
mid-to-late 1990s and well into the 2000s, when the Red Wings could score four
goals without breaking a sweat. The roster today isn’t exactly bursting with
World Class players. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Too often the Red Wings struggle to
score. Their power play didn’t score a goal on the road this season until
almost 40 chances had gone into the books.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Howard, really, has been forced too
often to be every bit as good as Dominik Hasek, Terry Sawchuk and Roger Crozier
all rolled into one. With his team’s “offense,” Howard has the margin for error
of a heart surgeon.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
It’s appropriate that the Red Wings
wear blood red at home, because that’s what the fans thirst for, if Howard
doesn’t blank the opposition or limit them to one goal, tops.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The Cup-winning Red Wings teams
didn’t need a Hall of Famer in goal, though they had one in Hasek. Their potent
offense would overwhelm the other team. There were a lot of nights when you
would need to score five goals to beat the Red Wings.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Thursday night was a case in point.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The Red Wings etched out a 2-1 lead
early in the third period over the San Jose Sharks. As usual, it was like
pulling teeth to score. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The Sharks tied the game, which
went into overtime. Neither team scored in the extra five minutes, so off they
went to one of those lovely shootouts that decide games nowadays.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Pavel Datsyuk started the shootout
with a nifty goal. The Sharks scored on their turn. Then the Red Wings failed,
but so did the Sharks. The Red Wings failed a second time.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
That left the final shot up to the
Sharks. A goal and the game would be over. Another save by Howard, and the
shootout would drone on.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Patrick Marleau skated in on Howard
and made a little deke and a deft stick handling move, and the puck was between
Howard’s pads. Game over.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Howard skated off the ice and
slammed his big goalie paddle against the glass in frustration, his margin for
error again virtually non-existent.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Frankly, I don’t know what the
bridge jumping hockey fans in Detroit want from Jimmy Howard. The team that
skates in front of him isn’t anywhere near the team that skated in front of
Osgood, Vernon, Hasek or even Manny Legace.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Howard has to be the Red Wings’
best player on most nights. And many times, he has been. The six-year contract
the team is about to give him is reflective of that.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The Red Wings are now set in goal.
They can start working on getting guys who can put the puck in the net. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Wouldn’t that be nice?</div>
Greg Enohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08884412028028351344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12128130.post-90168212050152157952013-03-25T17:20:00.002-04:002013-03-25T17:24:29.950-04:00Drummond, at Age 19, is Already Pistons' Best Player<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 13px;">The </span><a _mce_href="http://bleacherreport.com/detroit-pistons" href="http://bleacherreport.com/detroit-pistons" style="line-height: 13px;">Pistons</a><span style="line-height: 13px;">’ best player is 7'0" tall, a </span><span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">teenaged</span><span style="line-height: 13px;"> rookie who suits up for the games these days in Armani.</span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 13px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He’s wearing dress pants with razor sharp creases instead of warm-ups. His shoes are pointy and shiny instead of leather and high tops. His shirt is collared instead of a tank top. His role is now that of the <a _mce_href="http://bleacherreport.com/nba" href="http://bleacherreport.com/nba">NBA</a>’s tallest cheerleader.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a _mce_href="http://bleacherreport.com/andre-drummond" href="http://bleacherreport.com/andre-drummond">Andre <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><span class="spellcheck">Drummond</span></span></a> <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">isn</span>’t your typical basketball Redwood. His back is screwed up, for one. And his value has shown the most when he <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">hasn</span>’t been on the floor.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The math has been painfully simple. The Pistons are suffering from subtraction by subtraction.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is another basketball season wasted in Detroit.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Coach Lawrence Frank is finding out, in his second year on the job, that his father’s Pistons weren't these bums. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The team is cruising down the home stretch, its engine turned off weeks ago. In a league where supposedly any team can beat any other on any given night, the Pistons are routed with shocking regularity.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Early last week, Frank—fresh off a brief hiatus while he tended to his ill wife back in New Jersey—played one of the cards of desperation that some coaches play in order to shake a moribund team. Call it a verbal shock to the heart.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">“We have to restore the pride in being a Piston,” <strong><a _mce_href="http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/detroit-pistons-coach-lawrence-frank-says-team-disheartening-231342083--nba.html" href="http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/detroit-pistons-coach-lawrence-frank-says-team-disheartening-231342083--nba.html" target="_blank">Frank told the press Monday</a></strong> before the team went out and got shellacked by the <a _mce_href="http://bleacherreport.com/brooklyn-nets" href="http://bleacherreport.com/brooklyn-nets">Brooklyn Nets</a>, 119-82, on the Pistons’ home floor.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s a card of desperation, right up there with “everyone has to look in the mirror.” It’s a plea to the base character of his players. And it’s falling on deaf, uncaring ears.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When Frank took the job of coaching the Pistons in the summer of 2011, he referred to the past. He spoke of championship banners won, a mystique forged. He fancied himself as the guy that could do what Flip Saunders could not in the end, what Michael Curry could not and what John <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><span class="spellcheck">Kuester</span></span> could not.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Frank thought he could restore the Pistons back to the championship status they were in 2004 and 2005. It has proven to be folly.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But Coach Frank has a few pieces to work with. Whether he will have the time to use them remains to be seen. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">His boss, Joe Dumars, has a fetish for firing coaches after two seasons. The Pistons have shown no real improvement from the mess they were when Frank took over from a shell-shocked <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><span class="spellcheck">Kuester</span></span>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Those pieces are point guard Brandon Knight, big man Greg Monroe and <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><span class="spellcheck">Drummond</span></span>—who has already achieved Best Piston status after just 50 games of his rookie season.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Pistons drafted Monroe out of Georgetown in 2010, Knight out of Kentucky in 2011 and <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><span class="spellcheck">Drummond </span></span>from Connecticut in 2012. You could do worse than be products of those three college programs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Everyone else on the roster is expendable, except maybe veteran point guard Jose Calderon, who brings wisdom and experience.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Around this trio of recent first-round draft picks, Dumars—or his successor—has to construct a squad that is at least capable of not being run out of the gym on a regular basis. Whether Frank is the coach that will be around to work with Dumars’ new pieces is circumspect.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But it should all be built around <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><span class="spellcheck">Drummond</span></span>. Even Monroe, a great player, plays second fiddle to the rookie.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><span class="spellcheck">Drummond</span></span> is 19, but that’s irrelevant. He is the Pistons’ best player because he has that delightful basketball combination of size, athleticism and nastiness that serves all the good centers well. He defends the paint like a king does his castle. He swats shots away with disdain. Rebounds find their way into his big hands. He runs up and down the court with such long, loping strides that you’d swear he can make it from foul line to foul line in no more than three of them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><span class="spellcheck">Drummond</span></span> <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">doesn</span>’t, yet, score like a proper big man should in the NBA. He has no low post moves, really. But he is not like Ben Wallace, the Pistons’ last dominant (defensively) big man, in that<span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><span class="spellcheck">Drummond</span></span> <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">doesn</span>’t have hands of granite. Big Ben <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">didn</span>’t develop any offensive moves because he physically <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">couldn</span>’t. <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><span class="spellcheck">Drummond</span></span> has shown signs, even at his tender age, that he can be deft around the basket.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Frank worked <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><span class="spellcheck">Drummond</span></span> into the rotation slowly early in the season, too slowly for many people’s taste. The coach stubbornly refused to play his prized rookie more than 20 minutes or so per night, even when <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><span class="spellcheck">Drummond</span></span>’s extrapolated numbers proved him to be one of the best rookies in the NBA and probably the best rookie center.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But for all this praise, the best proof of <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><span class="spellcheck">Drummond</span></span>’s worth is happening right now, as the kid misses game after game—almost 20 now—with a bad back.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><span class="spellcheck">Drummond</span></span>’s absence the Pistons have collapsed like a house of cards. They are shockingly inept with <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><span class="spellcheck">Drummond</span></span> out of the lineup. They are pushovers in the paint, and lost everywhere else on the court defensively. The only rebounds they grab these days are the ones that fall directly into their hands.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Pistons, with <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><span class="spellcheck">Drummond</span></span> on the sidelines, have become a disinterested, wretched mess of a basketball team. They are unable, perhaps even unwilling, to play anyone tough right now.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><span class="spellcheck">Drummond</span></span>’s absence and the Pistons’ subsequent <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><span class="spellcheck">freefall</span></span> into oblivion are about as coincidental as cause and effect.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So it's not too much to say that <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><span class="spellcheck">Drummond</span></span>, at 19 years old, is the Pistons’ best player right now. It was not too much to say back in 1981 about Isiah Thomas, when the 20-year-old rookie from Indiana University became the Pistons’ best player just a few minutes into his first game.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Thomas <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">didn</span>’t stop there; he became the franchise’s best player of all time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He did so with no small help from Dumars, Thomas’s backcourt partner starting in 1985.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Now Dumars must help the young center <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><span class="spellcheck">Drummond</span></span> by building a team around him, in Dumars’ role as GM.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 13px;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s a task that is best done with Dumars watching in an Italian suit instead of <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: yellow; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><span class="spellcheck">Drummond</span></span>.</span></div>
Greg Enohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08884412028028351344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12128130.post-85837360393413498632013-03-17T11:16:00.000-04:002013-03-17T11:16:02.850-04:00The West Won, Red Wings Head East--Finally<span style="line-height: 150%;">The news that the Red Wings are
moving to the Eastern Conference should have been announced by one of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, not a league spokesman.</span><br />
<span style="line-height: 150%;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The Five-Star General of choice
should have gotten up, like in a military briefing, and announced that the Red
Wings’ years-long occupation in the West was finally over with.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
It’s peace for our time. We don’t
have to fear fear itself anymore. The Korean War is ended. It’s pulling out of
Vietnam, without Saigon falling. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The Red Wings’ mission out west has
been completed. The NHL is letting the Winged Wheelers pull up their stakes
from Los Angeles. That time share in Anaheim is going up for sale. They won’t
need the guest house in San Jose. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Vancouver is a beautiful city, but
it’ll have to survive without the Red Wings. The oxygen masks marked “Denver”
can be put away. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
No more looking around Dallas—<i>Dallas—</i>for
good ice. The Alberta twins, Calgary and Edmonton, and their 9:30 p.m. Detroit
starts won’t be missed. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
So long, Minnesota. We hardly knew
ye. St. Louis and the Gateway Arch? We’ll miss your breweries but not much
else. Somehow we’ll have to live without that hockey Mecca, Phoenix.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Columbus will have to go back to
being that town where Ohio State University calls home. Nashville? Love your
music, loathe your hockey tradition.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Finally, there’s Chicago. Like
Dorothy said in the Wizard of Oz, “Chicago, we’ll miss you most of all.”<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
But the soon-to-be truncated rivalry
with the Blackhawks—which began when they were the Black Hawks—isn’t enough to
make the Red Wings grow wistful for the West.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
No more 10:30 p.m. Detroit starts.
No more playoff games watched by hundreds of thousands who showed up as
bleary-eyed zombies the next morning at work.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The Red Wings have carried the West
long enough. Their occupation has ended. General Bettman says it’s OK for the
Red Wings to join the East.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Fittingly, the news came down this
week, with the Red Wings making one of those lovely Western Canada swings
through Alberta. They reacted so giddily, you half expected that they would
drop their hockey sticks and run to Philadelphia.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Or Boston. Or New York. Heck, even
New Jersey, and no one runs to New Jersey unless they’re in the Mob.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The Red Wings are moving to the
East for the 2013-14 season. It’s all part of the realignment that was signed
off on by the players association. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
It’s Christmas in March for the Red
Wings and their fans, particularly those old enough to remember the Original
Six, when a trip “out west” meant you were taking the train to Chicago and
Detroit.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The Red Wings will be placed in a
division with four, count ‘em, four, Original Six organ-eye-zayshuns.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Detroit. Montreal. Toronto. Boston.
And the New York Rangers are just a division away. Only the Chicago Blackhawks,
from the O-6, are left behind in the West. The Blackhawks are a dynamic hockey
club with a wealth of young talent, and they started this season with a streak
of getting points in their first 24 games. It’s their turn to prop the West up.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
That’s what the Red Wings did, you
know—prop up the West. Don’t let anyone in the league offices in New York tell
you otherwise. But the NHL loved having the Red Wings playing all those games
in the Mountain and Pacific Time zones. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The Red Wings, with their expansive
fan base and their Stanley Cups and their annual appearance in the playoffs,
papered the houses, from the old Fabulous Forum in Inglewood to the arenas in
San Jose and Anaheim, and all the way to Columbus. Especially Columbus.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
For two decades, the Red Wings’
success was a boon to the attendance out west. It wasn’t unusual to see more
blood red and white jerseys in the seats than those of the home teams. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Those days are done. The Red Wings
will be rekindling rivalries that go back to before World War II. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The fans are beside themselves.
They’re rubbing their hands together at the prospects of seeing the Canadiens
and the Maple Leafs and the Bruins in Joe Louis Arena more than once every Leap
Year. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The beauty of the move is that,
finally, the powers that be saw the value of having the Red Wings in the
Eastern Time zone.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
It’s what’s best for the NHL,
really.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The timing couldn’t be better. Look
at the standings. All four of these Original Six brethren—even long-suffering
Toronto—are good teams. It’s not just that they share lineage, they’re highly
competitive.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
NBC is a winner, too. The league’s
TV network surely must be busting buttons when they see all the tradition-rich
games featuring the league’s top squads that they can schedule for Sunday
afternoons. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Remember Detroit-Toronto in Steve
Yzerman’s young years? Remember how exciting those games were? And the Maple
Leafs weren’t even any good back then.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
I can see the smiles on the faces
of the old-timers when they see those iconic Canadiens jerseys skating up and
down the JLA ice several times a season.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
You missed the Bruins’ visit to
Detroit? There’ll be another one next month; you won’t have to wait until the
next presidential election cycle.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Not all the teams in the new
division are filled with tradition, but that’s OK. The Red Wings will also be
joined by Florida, Tampa Bay (though Yzerman is the GM), Buffalo and Ottawa.
But as Bettman pointed out, the Florida markets are filled with transplanted
Michiganders.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The winners, clearly, are the Red
Wings and their brand in this league gerrymandering. No more jet lag, and
during the playoffs, no less. Fox Sports Detroit will enjoy higher TV ratings.
A road trip from Toronto to Detroit is back in play, and vice versa. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The Red Wings’ mission out west is
complete. They’ll be able to get through a hockey season without spending half
of it waiting for their bodies to adjust to the time. <br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
You miss games in L.A.? I guess
you’ll have to wait until the Finals.</div>
<br />Greg Enohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08884412028028351344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12128130.post-33149551631903729932013-02-18T10:13:00.002-05:002013-02-18T10:13:56.543-05:00Red Wings Now Just Another Hockey Team<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
It was the summer of 1990, and Mike
Ilitch made a phone call. Then he got into a car and made the executioner’s
sojourn.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
It was the same type of visit that
Bill Davidson had once made to Dick Vitale’s house, some 10+ years earlier.
Inside the Vitale residence, the Pistons owner rendered the ziggy to his coach,
pulling the plug on Dickie before the coach and de facto GM could do any
further damage to the Pistons brand.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
In 1990, Ilitch phoned Jacques
Demers and before long the Red Wings owner was at his coach’s house, to render
an emotional ziggy. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Four summers prior, Ilitch, with GM
Jimmy Devellano as his muscle, shanghaied Demers from the St. Louis Blues. The
Blues were becoming a force, and no small credit was given to Demers, the
coach, for the upswing. The Red Wings were coming off a dreadful 17-57-6
season, and had burned through two coaches (Harry Neale and Brad Park); the
latter’s relationship with Devellano being described as “like oil and water”—by
Devellano himself.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
So Ilitch went after Demers, hard,
and the Red Wings might have bent some tampering rules in their zeal. The Blues
cried foul, but the Red Wings ended up with Demers in the summer of 1986.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Under Jacques Demers, the Red Wings
went from laughing stock to the NHL’s version of the Final Four in each of
Jacques’ first two seasons. Both times they were dumped out by the mighty
Edmonton Oilers.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
There was a step backward in 1989
(first round playoff exit), but Ilitch stuck with Demers—even though a
disturbing incident involving Red Wings players acting out at an Edmonton bar
called Goose Loonies in the 1988 playoffs still rubbed some nerves raw in the
team’s hierarchy.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
But there had been no playoffs for
the Red Wings in the 1989-90 season. This was no step backward—this was a flat
out fail. It was whispered that Demers was no longer connecting with his
players. The dreaded tuning out.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
So Ilitch made the phone call. And
the journey, to Demers’ house. Inside, in what was described by both men as a
wet-eyed meeting, Ilitch relieved Demers of his coaching job.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
That was almost 23 years ago. The
Red Wings haven’t missed the playoffs since.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Not only have they not missed the
playoffs, the Red Wings have been strong Stanley Cup contenders for most of the
past 21 seasons. Rarely did a spring go by where the hockey folks didn’t
include the Red Wings on their short list of teams who could win it all.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
In baseball, even the iconic New
York Yankees haven’t gone the past 21 years as solid World Series contenders.
No team in the NBA has been championship caliber every year since 1992. The San
Francisco 49ers just snapped a 17-year Super Bowl appearance famine, and no NFL
team has been “all that” for the past 21 years.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Yet here are the Red Wings,
constantly finishing in the Top 10 of the league standings. Sometimes they’d
win a Cup along the way—four times since 1997, in fact.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Not anymore.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
We knew it wouldn’t be easy, with
Nicklas Lidstrom taking his magic stick and his perfection and retiring to Sweden.
We knew there’d be some struggling, with fellow defenseman Brad Stuart no
longer around to add a steady physical presence.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
We knew the front of the net would
never be the same again, with the retirement of Tomas Holmstrom. We figured age
might catch up with the players still around.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Sometimes it’s no fun to be right.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The Red Wings, after losing another
at home on Friday to the Anaheim Ducks, are 7-5-2, but that’s just the NHL’s
roundabout way of saying that the Wings are 7-7—seven wins, five regulation
losses and two more losses in extra time (overtime and/or shootout). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Too often scoring goals is like
pulling teeth—which is ironic, because in hockey, teeth aren’t pulled so much
as they are knocked out.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The power play is often that in
name only. Time was that you’d give the Red Wings an extra skater and it was
like giving the Grim Reaper an extra sickle. Now, you take a penalty against
the Red Wings with barely any impunity. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Players have been dropping like
flies, which hasn’t helped.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Even line changes have become an
adventure. Coach Mike Babcock has been yelling at his assistants almost as much
as his players. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Turnovers are becoming commonplace.
No more are the pinpoint, lasered breakout passes from behind the blue line to
a forward past mid-ice, in stride.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The Red Wings used to play a
selfish brand of hockey—meaning that they never let the other team have the
puck. They cycled and passed and it was like watching the Harlem Globetrotters
with the basketball during “Sweet Georgia Brown.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
It’s become so hard for the Red
Wings now.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
No longer do teams step onto the
Joe Louis Arena ice shaking in their skating boots. Gone is the intimidation
factor at The Joe. The crowds are still sellouts but it’s a polite crowd
nowadays—19,000+ who are sitting on their hands too often.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
We knew it wasn’t going to be the
same this season, but for a long time it was all conjecture, thanks to the
labor lockout. The hockey season was always somewhere over there, past the
horizon. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
Then the labor strife was over and
the NHL started playing games again, and all of Hockeytown’s fears are being
realized.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The Red Wings are an ordinary team,
no longer one of the league’s bullies. They win on some nights, lose on others.
They are 7-7 and it befits them.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
We knew it wasn’t going to be a
cakewalk to the playoffs and that a long post-season run was anything but a
given.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
We knew all this, but it doesn’t
make it any easier to see the Red Wings, certainly one of the best franchises
in all of pro sports, morph into a pedestrian unit.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The 21-year playoff streak is in
more jeopardy than a nerd’s lunch money on his walk to school.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
The Red Wings win, the Red Wings
lose. Comme ci, comme ça.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
There hasn’t been so-so hockey
played in Detroit since 1990. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
How are you adapting?</div>
Greg Enohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08884412028028351344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12128130.post-25503706249470688522013-02-03T15:02:00.002-05:002013-02-03T15:02:25.477-05:00Pistons' Prince Played Stealth Basketball For 10+ Years in Detroit<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
He was the sullen Piston—at times a
scowling player, even before there was anything to scowl about, as there has
been aplenty lately.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
He was the one with arms like
Stretch Armstrong and shoulders like a men’s store hanger. He had the babiest
of hooks and a left-handed jump shot that had the rotation of a knuckleball and
the trajectory of a soft line drive.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Tayshaun Prince didn’t smile much
as a Piston. He was, at the same time, the team’s best on-ball defender and a
recluse. He was the Garbo of the Pistons. You didn’t dare go to battle without
him, yet he was as overlooked as a valley.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
In the most recent salad days of
Pistons basketball—the championship of 2004 and the near-miss the following
year—Prince was content to be the Piston in the shadows of the satellites
around him. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Chauncey Billups, the point guard
and unquestioned leader. Richard “Rip” Hamilton, the beanpole sharp shooter
with the big smile and the “Yes sir!” rallying cry. Rasheed Wallace, the
brooding hot head. Ben Wallace, he of the ‘Fro and the biceps, who if he played
baseball would be known as a “good field, no hit” kind of player.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
These were the four satellites, and
then there was Prince, the quiet kid from Kentucky, with arms so long they
looked like they could swat a basketball away near the rim, even if he was
standing at the foul line.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Prince was content to let the
others take all the glory—certainly content to let them talk into the
microphones and look into the TV cameras that invaded the Pistons locker room
every night.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
When the four satellites made the
All-Star team in 2006, Prince was the only one of the five Pistons starters to
stay home that weekend. And that was OK.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Prince didn’t only play small
forward, he played small ego. He showed up for work, punched the clock, and
when the work day was over, he had his 13 points, his six rebounds, his two
steals and a blocked shot. You’d have been hard pressed to recall any of it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
A Billups triple, as the shot clock
expired? Check. A Hamilton jump shot off a screen to cap a 10-2 run? Check. A
Rasheed Wallace technical foul? Check. A Ben Wallace blocked shot to turn the
tide? Check.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
All of that, you could recall. But
any of Prince’s points, rebounds, assists, etc.? Not so much.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Then one by one the rest of the
party was traded. Prince was the last of the 2004-05 powerhouse Pistons team
remaining, once Hamilton was jettisoned a couple years ago.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Suddenly the team looked to Prince
for divine wisdom. Suddenly he was the elder statesman. The media went to
Prince on those nights—and there were many as the Pistons sunk into the
abyss—when they needed the answers to the age old question, asked of the
losers: “Hey, what happened?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Prince told it like it was, the
sewage unwashed from it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
But what Tayshaun Prince wasn’t,
really, at any time in his 10+ years in Detroit, was the heart and soul of the
Pistons. It wasn’t his fault.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Prince didn’t have the brashness of
a Bill Laimbeer or Rasheed Wallace. He didn’t have the flair for the dramatic
of an Isiah Thomas or Chauncey Billups. Prince didn’t have the smile of a John
Salley or Rip Hamilton. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Some have said, as the obits of his
Pistons career are being written this week following his trade to Memphis, that
Prince could be compared to the man who engineered the swap, which was one of
those three-team affairs that happen when two teams can’t come to terms and
need a third accomplice to make everyone happy.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Joe Dumars—the player from McNeese
State, it has been written, is the man you could most closely compare Tayshaun
Prince to, in terms of his team value, personality and wisdom.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
It says here that the comparison is
a broken one.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Dumars was, often, the Pistons’
silent assassin. Dumars’ offensive contributions were not stealth. They didn’t
sneak up on you. The stat sheet at the end of the game rarely surprised you
when looking next to Dumars’ name. Joe Dumars may have been less than verbose,
but his game spoke volumes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
The images, we can close our eyes
and see now. The images of Dumars, bouncing the basketball, 20 feet from the
hoop, as he sized up his moves. The shot clock winding down, and then there it
was—a simple step back to create the six inches of separation he needed from
his defender, so he could launch (and drain) a silky smooth set shot.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Or Dumars, curling to the ball off
a screen, the basketball delivered with precision from Thomas at the elbow of
the key, and No. 4’s effortless catch-and-release—a pretty 17-foot jumper that
did nothing but tickle twine.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Who can forget Dumars’ performance
in the 1989 NBA Finals against the Lakers, when he was the series MVP? Or his
rainmaking floater in the lane against Portland in the ’90 Finals, delivered
when everyone on his team knew that Joe Dumars’ father had just passed
away—everyone except Dumars himself?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Prince was quiet, and that was the
best comparison to Dumars. But Prince played his game in a vacuum on most
nights. His stat sheet was filled with numbers that made you ask, “When did <i>those
</i>happen?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
This is not a knock on Tayshaun
Prince, who frankly might be one of the last of the true small forwards in the
NBA—certainly based on the time that he entered the league, in 2002. He slashed
and passed and could shoot from the outside, when needed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
But he was no Joe Dumars. Again,
not a knock.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Prince had his block of Reggie
Miller in the 2004 Conference Finals. That’s true. It is certainly an iconic
moment for the Pistons franchise. Some say Prince lived off it for too long,
but was he the one who kept playing it time and again? Did he inundate us with re-telling
of the block? Was the block the only thing that kept him in the starting lineup
for years to come?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
No to all of the above.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Prince plays in Memphis now. The
Grizzlies are a team that is among the best in the Western Conference. Prince
will return to the playoffs, four years after his last appearance in the
post-season. Maybe Memphis can surprise and do some damage in the playoffs.
Maybe Prince can be that “X-factor” that the media loves to talk
about—something Prince was in the 2003 playoffs, coming off Rick Carlisle’s
bench as a rookie.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
It might seem strange to see Prince
in a Memphis uniform, after 10+ years as a Piston. But when you look back at
his time in Detroit, did we really <i>see </i>him as a Piston?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
Prince was present, but he wasn’t <i>there.
</i>And that’s OK, too.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
Greg Enohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08884412028028351344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12128130.post-7172158071223449422013-01-06T16:29:00.002-05:002013-01-06T16:29:57.084-05:00Johnson's Record-Setting Season Part of Lions' Problem, Not Solution<br />
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-top: 29px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
It’s a question that has tantalized the football fans in these parts for some 55 years (and counting).</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“What’s wrong with the <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/detroit-lions" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">Lions</a>?”</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
At this point in their inglorious history, I can give you 1,964 reasons why the Lions<span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">aren</span>’t winners.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
That number, 1,964, happens to be the total yardage rolled up by receiver <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/calvin-johnson" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">Calvin Johnson</a> in the 2012 season. It was record-setting stuff. More yards than any <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/nfl" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">NFL</a> pass catcher has accumulated in a single season. Ever. The previous record holder was the great Jerry Rice, no less.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
It’s a remarkable achievement, for sure. The 1,964 represents over 120 yards per game. Just call him Two Yards a Minute Calvin.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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 <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">limburger</span>cheese.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.”</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
It clearly <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">didn</span>’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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
That number would be five.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Johnson scored just five touchdowns to go with his 1,964 yards. In 1995, when Rice caught passes totaling 1,848 yards, the <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/san-francisco-49ers" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">49ers</a> receiver caught 15 touchdown passes.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
I started this by saying that there were 1,964 reasons why the Lions <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">didn</span>’t win diddly-poo (to steal from Jim Mora’s lexicon) in 2012.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
As yet another lousy Lions football season went down the drain, the focus became, yet again, on hollow personal stats.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Would Johnson break Rice’s record? Would quarterback <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/matthew-stafford" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">Matthew Stafford</a> throw for 5,000 yards again? Would he set a record for most passes attempted in a single season?</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
These are questions asked by losers, as the calendar flips to December.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/green-bay-packers" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">Packers</a> of the 1960s featured the running back tandem of Paul <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Hornung</span> (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. <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Hornung</span> never rushed for more than 681 yards in any given season of his career.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Taylor’s individual auspiciousness and the Packers’ great team success in 1962 is an anomaly. And even so, the Packers’ emphasis <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">wasn</span>’t on Taylor leading the league in rushing or scoring more <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">TDs</span> 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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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 <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/buffalo-bills" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">Buffalo Bills</a>, missed the playoffs.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Eric Dickerson was the second runner to hit 2,000 yards, in 1984. His Los Angeles<a href="http://bleacherreport.com/st-louis-rams" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">Rams</a> lasted one playoff game.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The Lions’ Sanders rushed for 2,053 yards in 1997. Those Lions <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">didn</span>’t win a playoff game, either.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Even Rice’s 1995 49ers lasted just one playoff game in his record-setting year.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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?</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
I have one more question for you, to go with those.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
WHO CARES?</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
We were down this road before with the Lions. It happened, ironically enough, during Rice’s great 1995 season.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The ’95 Lions had Sanders running the ball, Scott Mitchell throwing it, and Herman Moore and Brett <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Perriman</span> catching it.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Sanders had 1,500 yards rushing, on the button. Moore caught 123 passes for 1,686 yards. <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Perriman</span> had 108 catches for 1,488 yards. Mitchell threw for 4,338 yards and 32<span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">TDs</span>. Moore and <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Perriman</span> became the first teammates to each have 100+ catches in one season.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Yards, yards, yards. And more yards. Bodacious in nature. A whole <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">lotta</span> yards.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
So the Lions took all those yards and went into the playoffs against the <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/philadelphia-eagles" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">Eagles</a> in Philadelphia. That was the embarrassing 58-37 loss, a game in which the Eagles once led 51-7.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Yards, <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">shmards</span>.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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?</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
1,964 yards. Five touchdowns. A TD every 400 yards, just about.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Whoopee.</div>
Greg Enohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08884412028028351344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12128130.post-13391164197454636272012-12-24T03:03:00.000-05:002012-12-24T03:03:00.614-05:00Merry Christmas: Some Holiday Gifts for the Nice (and Naughty)<br />
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Wax up the sleigh. Check it for flight. Shine St. Nick’s boots. Make sure Rudy’s nose is bright and squeaky clean.<br />Test the GPS. Gather the weather reports. Check the sack for rips. Tell Mrs. C not to wait up.<br />It’s gonna be another long night, but then it always is on December 24.<br />The jolly, old, fat man is set to make his annual trek. Chimneys the world over wait. Fireplaces are about to be pounced on.<br />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.<br />For Calvin Johnson, a new NFL record, but more importantly, a football team worthy of his gargantuan talent.<br />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.<br />For Jim Schwartz, a general manager who will draft him some defense.<br />For Rick Porcello, a team who wants him.<br />For Jhonny Peralta, a new nickname: The Kitchenette, because they say he has no range.<br />For Torii Hunter, nothing—because he already had his Christmas when he signed with the Tigers.<br />For traffic lights throughout Metro Detroit, Anibal Sanchez’s timing.<br />For Alex Avila, health and happiness—and for him, they’re one and the same.<br />For Miguel Cabrera, the abolition of sabermetrics.<br />For Tigers fans, also nothing—because they already have their new third base coach.<br />For Tommy Brookens, the new third base coach, the best of luck.<br />For the NHL, coal in its hockey boot.<br />For Mark Dantonio, a quarterback.<br />For Brady Hoke, a headset.<br />For Joe Dumars, a slashing, scoring small forward in the draft, because it sure isn’t on his current roster.<br />For Lawrence Frank, a book on the Pistons of the 1960s—oh, wait, he’s already writing the remake.<br />For Andre Drummond, the career of Shaquille O’Neal, because Ray Scott told me that Andre reminds him of a young Shaq.<br />For Greg Monroe, the career of Bob Lanier, because (see above).<br />For Pistons fans, a new RV, because you can all fit in one.<br />For George Blaha, some recognition (finally) as a damn good football play-by-play guy.<br />For Charlie Villanueva, no regrets.<br />For Tayshaun Prince, a nice twilight so his career will be properly book-ended.<br />For all of us working stiffs, the longevity of Jim Brandstatter.<br />For all of us husbands, Brandy’s marriage, too.<br />For Cecil Fielder, Prince Fielder’s smile at the next Thanksgiving table.<br />For Notre Dame football fans, you don’t get anything—your prayers were already answered.<br />For NHL fans, never Fehr.<br />For Alex Karras’ legacy, a diabolical plan to gain induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.<br />For Miguel Cabrera, whatever he wants.<br />For Dominic Raiola, a seven-second delay.<br />For Ndamukong Suh, peace.<br />For Louis Delmas, two good knees.<br />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.<br />For Jerry Green, many more Super Bowls.<br />For Rob Parker, see Dominic Raiola.<br />For Mark Sanchez, the hell out of New York.<br />For Toronto Blue Jays fans, somebody to pinch them.<br />For Chicago Cubs and Lions fans, a support group.<br />For Billy Crystal, the only known celebrity Los Angeles Clippers fan, a winner.<br />For Billy Crystal’s movie career, the same, for it’s as overdue as are the Clippers.<br />For Magic Johnson, all the success with the Dodgers as he had on the basketball court.<br />For the San Francisco Giants, the antithesis for Magic.<br />For Linda McCoy-Murray, happiness with her new man. But he’ll never write like Jim.<br />For Jim Leyland, we folks off his back already.<br />For our daughter, anything she wants, because she tamed Oakland University as a freshman like she had ice water in her veins.<br />For my wife, see Charlie Villanueva.<br />For all of you who read me every week, a year’s supply of Zantac.<br />Ho-ho-ho!!!</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Greg Enohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08884412028028351344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12128130.post-26252604024051089442012-12-04T00:54:00.002-05:002012-12-04T00:54:54.706-05:00Lions Cannot Win With This 2-Minute Defense<br />
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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?</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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).</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Yet Stafford couldn’t bear to watch the ending.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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?</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
That would be four big time NOs.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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 <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">weren’t </em>made than by the ones that were.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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 <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">didn’t </em>make. A typical NFL game breakdown is filled with coulda, shoulda and wouldas, along with a healthy dose of ifs, ands or buts.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Imagine the Tigers blowing three straight games in a pennant race, all in the ninth inning or later.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Or the Red Wings coming from ahead to lose three straight games in a playoff series.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Hey, imagine the Red Wings playing, period.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Just off the top of the head…</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
And what happened on Sunday against the Colts.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
You hear a lot of talk about two-minute offenses. The Lions need a two-minute defense.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
They cannot do any of the above when the game is truly on the line.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
You can crab about that, and you’d have a valid point.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
But the Lions’ two-minute defense is too often bereft of playmaking. See? We’re talking about plays that <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">weren’t </em>made.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.”</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The Lions gave up 160 yards worth of offense to the Colts on Indy’s final two drives, which each ended in touchdowns.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 10px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
They are 4-8 for a reason.</div>
Greg Enohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08884412028028351344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12128130.post-65123647839803925782012-12-04T00:05:00.000-05:002012-12-04T00:05:08.656-05:00Pistons Fans Again Proving to Be Fair Weather In Nature<br />
<div style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Charter', Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-top: 29px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Life on the road in the <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/nba" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">NBA</a> is supposed to be a battle of attrition, fraught with jet lag, living out of suitcases and sleeping in airports. It’s supposed to be filled with games in enemy arenas tilted with unfriendly whistles and acerbic leather lungs in the champagne seats.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
There are supposed to be no gimmes on the road in the NBA. Even the dregs of the league can manage to play at least .500 ball in their own building.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
That’s the way it is, pretty much, for visiting teams. Until they come to Detroit, er, Auburn Hills.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
They’re papering the houses for <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/detroit-pistons" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">Pistons</a> games again. Just like they did when the team got dropped off on Detroit’s porch by owner Fred <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Zollner</span> in 1957, when he moved his Pistons from Fort Wayne, IN.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
First at Olympia Stadium, then at <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Cobo</span> Arena, the Pistons would be lucky to fill a third of the building. Phony attendance figures would be announced over the PA. Even among the puny crowds, a good portion of them got in for free or at reduced rates, thanks to all the coupons floating around town.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
When the Pistons grew up enough to build their own basketball Palace back in 1988, it was thought that the days of papering the houses were long gone.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
But the franchise has returned to its old ways.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
They’re not counting too good at the Palace, and it’s getting embarrassing.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The Palace can’t possibly afford the Pistons much in the way of a home court advantage these days. It’s too quiet, too polite an atmosphere. Once again the building is less than half full, like the old days of Pistons basketball, when the shorts had buckles and the socks were wool and sagging.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The attendance figures are again papering the house. The other night against the<a href="http://bleacherreport.com/phoenix-suns" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">Phoenix Suns</a>, the public address announced a crowd of 10,000-plus. Like the old joke goes, maybe there were 10,000 people—but 7,000 came disguised as empty seats.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
I watched the game on television, and try as you might as a director in the production truck, you can’t hide empty seats—especially when they were in as long supply as they were that night. No offense to the ladies, but the crowd looked like that of a <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">WNBA</span>game.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The Pistons would make a basket, make a defensive stop, do something else good—and there was plenty of good in the 117-77 romp—and the efforts would be greeted with polite applause. Golf claps, if you will.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Fans dotted the landscape at generous distances from each other, as if everyone had consumed garlic for dinner. It was a good night if you had to get up often to run to the bathroom or the refreshment stand, or merely stretch out.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Yet the Pistons had the gall and audacity to announce a crowd of over 10,000 on a night when the fans could hear the players talk—and vice <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">versa</span>. Maybe they counted everyone twice, to be safe.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
This was Pistons basketball, some 45 to 50 years ago, when <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Cobo</span> was visited by only the most curious, and sometimes for free. They announced phony crowds back then, too.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
I never thought those days would return.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
But maybe I <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">shouldn</span>’t be so surprised, because once again, Detroit is proving itself to be a front-running town when it comes to pro basketball.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Two of the loudest venues I’<span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ve</span> ever experienced, however, have involved Pistons games.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
They were 20 years apart.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The first was in April 1984, at Joe Louis Arena. First round of the playoffs—the Pistons first appearance in the postseason in seven years. The fifth and deciding game—the night Isiah Thomas went crazy against the <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/new-york-knicks" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">New York Knicks</a>, scoring 16 points in the final 90 seconds of regulation in a game in which the Pistons lost in overtime.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">JLA</span> was as loud that night as I’<span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ve</span> heard it for Red Wings playoff games—and I’m including Stanley Cup Finals tilts.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The crowd was spellbound by the drama being played out on the court, in a game that would decide the series—Bernard King of the Knicks seemingly going 1-on-1 with Isiah Thomas, the other eight players on the court merely place setters, bit players on stage.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The other occasion of loudness took place two decades later—Game 3 of the 2004 NBA Finals, at the Palace. The Pistons were manhandling the mighty <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/los-angeles-lakers" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">Los Angeles Lakers</a>, on their way to a third league championship.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The Palace reverberated. If you wanted to think, you <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">couldn</span>’t hear yourself doing so. I<span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">didn</span>’t know that building could be so loud—and I’d attended rock concerts there as well.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
But those were shrieking crowds pulling for playoff contenders. Not papered houses, and the term “fair-weather fans” comes to mind.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Detroit, from the moment the Pistons showed up, kicking and screaming on the city’s doorstep, has never truly been a basketball town. It never will be. Detroit, when it comes to its pro basketball, is a front-runner’s town. The fans have been fair weather since 1957.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Ah, 1957.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
That’s the last time the Lions won a championship. It’s been 55 years, and in that time, the Lions have won a grand total of one playoff game. One.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
There have been winless seasons, and seasons nearly so. There have been poor coaching hires, bad drafting and the handing over of the team’s reins to a color analyst.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Yet the Lions need only to open the doors at Ford Field and the place will be packed on Sundays. And on Thanksgiving Day. The folks here can’t get enough of its football, the same way a masochist can’t get enough lashes with a whip.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The Red Wings have a fan base deeply rooted and passed down by generations. It's a core group that has never abandoned its team, even in the darkest days—and from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, those days were dark indeed, and they <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">couldn</span>’t all be blamed on Ned <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Harkness</span>, whose name formed an unfortunate rhyme.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Mention the Tigers and folks’ hearts naturally warm. The mention will invoke memories of first visits to Tiger (or Briggs) Stadium; of family and Boy Scouts outings; first dates; the thrill of seeing <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Kaline</span>, Cash, <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Colavito</span>, <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Lolich</span>, <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Freehan</span>, <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">McLain</span>, Gibson, Parrish, Whitaker, <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Trammell</span> <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">et</span> <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">al</span> doing their thing in their creamy white uniforms with the Old English D branded over their hearts.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
No fair-weather baseball fans here. No sir.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The Pistons, today, are losers. They are trying desperately to remake themselves on the fly, so as not to be tagged with that dreaded “rebuilding” label. Rebuilding smacks of years and years of suffering. But the fans won’t be fooled. They know how far away the years of playoff contention and shrieking for winners are, and those days <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">aren</span>’t exactly right around the corner.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
So the Palace is half empty, at least, on most nights, while the 10 players do their thing on the court. Detroit can open its wallets and its hearts to losers in the other sports, but not with the Pistons.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Some say the detachment is due to geography. The Pistons should move back downtown, they say. I think you could plop a Pistons game across the street from some of the so-called fans here, but if the team is losing, they won’t bother to make the walk.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The Pistons have been Detroit’s redheaded stepchild and always will be.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Fair-weather fans!</div>
<br />
Greg Enohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08884412028028351344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12128130.post-21732804313724792022012-11-25T18:31:00.002-05:002012-11-25T18:31:42.443-05:00Lions' Lack of Discipline, Calm Directly Tied to Schwartz<br />
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-top: 29px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Vince Lombardi is dead. Mike Ditka has faded away.<a href="http://bleacherreport.com/bill-belichick" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"></a></div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<a href="http://bleacherreport.com/bill-belichick" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">Bill Belichick</a> is all the rage. Mike McCarthy lives on.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/detroit-lions" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">Lions</a>, the team that can’t shoot straight and <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">hasn</span>’t since 1957, is once again<span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">zigging</span> when the league’s winners are <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">zagging</span>.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
They are a team wound tight, and it all starts with their coach.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Lombardi and Ditka, two larger-than-life coaches, were godfathers of their time. There was no coach in the <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/nfl" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">NFL</a> that could evade the shadow cast by Lombardi in the 1960s, a decade he and his <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/green-bay-packers" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">Green Bay Packers</a> owned.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“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! <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Didn</span>’t look like it to me! Eighty yards down the field, just like that!”</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Nobody’s tackling out there! Everybody’s grabbing. NOBODY tackling. Grab, grab, grab!”</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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?</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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, Steve<span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">McMichael</span>, Jim McMahon and at whoever else Iron Mike wants to rattle his saber.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Like Lombardi in the ‘60s, Ditka was the coach with the big shadow in the 1980s. His <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/chicago-bears" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">Bears</a>only 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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Lombardi and Ditka were coaches wound tight at a time when that worked. They were rah-rah and fiery and the <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Knute</span> <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Rocknes</span> of their time, when <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Knute</span> Rockne was still relevant even in death.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
That was then.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Having a head coach that is a loose cannon <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">isn</span>’t what works in today’s NFL.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Belichick, the <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/new-england-patriots" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">New England Patriots</a> 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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
McCarthy, today’s Packers coach, is the anti-Lombardi. McCarthy <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">doesn</span>’t toss his rolled up play sheet to the ground. He <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">doesn</span>’t bark. He <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">hasn</span>’t uttered any iconic quotes and never will. Whereas Lombardi <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">looked </em>like a football coach, McCarthy could be your next door neighbor who borrows your lawn mower. Probably even the one who loans you his.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Boring works in today’s NFL. Staid is the way. A general calm, from top to bottom, is what today’s winning franchises exude.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Today’s winners don’t bitch about not getting respect, especially when none is deserved.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The Lions are a team wound tight, in a <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">freefall</span> 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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
This is a guy who can’t even get through a post-game handshake without a hockey game breaking out.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
I’<span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ve</span> 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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Teams like the Patriots, Packers, <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/pittsburgh-steelers" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">Pittsburgh Steelers</a> and <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/baltimore-ravens" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">Baltimore Ravens</a> <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">et</span> <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">al</span>, 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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
If the Lions are going to be more than occasional (read: <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">flukey</span>) playoff participants, they have to calm the heck down.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
They have to stop stewing about lack of respect, as center Dominic <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Raiola</span> did before last Sunday’s game against the Packers. The (then) 4-5 Lions, <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Raiola</span> felt, <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">weren</span>’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 <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/new-orleans-saints" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">New Orleans Saints</a>.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“But then the Saints are 4-5 and they’re right in the hunt,” <strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.freep.com/article/20121115/SPORTS01/121115056/detroit-lions-dominic-raiola" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Raiola</span> told the <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Detroit Free Press</em>.</a></strong> “How the (bleep) does that work out? I don’t know. Whatever. We’re 4-5, too. So they’re basically writing us off.”</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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 <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Raiola</span> wonders why the Saints’ 4-5 <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">isn</span>’t treated the same as the Lions’ 4-5.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
When was the last time you heard a player from the Patriots, Packers, Steelers, Ravens<span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">et</span> <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">al</span> complain about a lack of respect?</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Raiola</span> was at it again earlier this week, after the Lions imploded against the Packers and before the 9-1 <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/houston-texans" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;">Houston Texans</a> 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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“Bring it,” <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Raiola</span> <strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.freep.com/article/20121120/SPORTS01/121120083/detroit-lions-houston-texans-jj-watt" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #003366; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">dared Watt through the media</a></strong>.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
So Watt <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">brung</span> it, to the tune of three sacks, several quarterback hurries, five tackles and a couple of batted down passes. And the Lions lost.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The Lions, against the Texans, let another game slip away largely because of a gaffe committed by their head coach that was borderline incompetent.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Schwartz tried to challenge a touchdown scored by Houston running back Justin <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Forsett</span>, an 81-yard gallop that should have been nullified by virtue of the fact that <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Forsett</span> was clearly down according to TV cameras, yet the officials’ whistles <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">didn</span>’t blow. A booth review, automatic on all scoring plays, surely would have called the touchdown back.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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.”</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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 <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Mornhinweg</span> taking the wind and Bobby Ross going for two.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
“I was just so mad, I had the flag out before (<span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Forsett</span>) got to the end zone,” Schwartz told the media after the game.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The Lions are undisciplined, mouthy and in a <span class="spellcheck" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">freefall</span>.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #373737; font-family: 'Droid Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 16px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Just like their coach.</div>
Greg Enohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08884412028028351344noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12128130.post-53216378414082501472012-08-26T13:08:00.001-04:002012-08-26T13:12:30.540-04:00With Stafford & Co., OK For Lions to Be Pass-HappyWayne Fontes, the moon-faced, chubby Lions coach
from 20+ years ago, had been on the job for only a few months in early-1989
when he had a plan.<br />
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Fontes had taken over the Lions from Darryl Rogers,
which was like taking over Japan after Hiroshima. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The Lions were a sickly, offensively-challenged
platoon in 1988, when Rogers was given the ziggy in November and replaced with
Fontes, his defensive coordinator.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
It was Bill Ford, the owner, who levied the stinging
indictment against Rogers after announcing his cashiering.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
“We’re boring,” Ford complained to the media guys.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
No one argued.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Fontes had five games with which to prove himself in
1988, the Lions 2-9 at the time of Rogers’ dismissal. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Fontes was saddled with
that tag of “interim,” which was usually code for “After the season, you’ll
never see this chump again.”</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
But that didn’t stop Fontes from trying his hardest
with his five-game contract.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
He brought in former NFL quarterback Lynn Dickey to
work with the offense and impart his pass-happy wisdom to Lions starting signal
caller Rusty Hilger. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The Lions won two of their final five games, and
even though both wins were over awful Green Bay, the Lions played the very good
Bears very tough in Chicago, and it was all enough to show Ford that Fontes
didn’t need the interim label any longer.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Fontes returned Ford’s generosity with a big old
bear hug in front of the local TV cameras and ink-stained wretches.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Not long after being named the <i>real </i>coach of
the Lions, Fontes went to work on that whole “boring” thing that his owner
crabbed about in discussing Darryl Rogers.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
First, Fontes drafted a running back, Barry Sanders
from Oklahoma State. As good as Barry was in college, no one could have
predicted the greatness that he would embody for the next 10 years.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
His running back in place, Fontes went against NFL
form and decided that he would build an offense not necessarily around the
running game, but around the pass.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
A strange idea, indeed, considering Fontes had the
best running back on any college campus in America set to don the Honolulu Blue
and Silver in 1989.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Undaunted, Fontes looked at the Houston Oilers, a
pretty good NFL team, and became enamored with the Oilers’ offense, which
placed one runner in the backfield, four receivers spread out, and which
eschewed a tight end.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Fontes, a defensive coach to the core, thought
through the prism of an opposing defensive coordinator. With someone as dynamic
as Sanders in the backfield, what would be nightmarish?</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
So Fontes decided to copy the Oilers’ pass-happy
offense, leaving Sanders to do his thing against defenses spread out to guard
against all those pass receivers.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
They called it the Run-n-Shoot, and while Sanders
took care of the Run part, the Lions weren’t nearly as good at the Shoot.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Fontes had his receivers, but they weren’t exactly
Pro Bowl in quality, like the Oilers had in Houston. And Fontes’ quarterback,
rookie Rodney Peete, was no Warren Moon of Houston.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
But Fontes tried. He did succeed on one point: the
Lions weren’t boring any longer. Peete and the other QB, Bob Gagliano, flung
the football all over the field, with various degrees of success. And Sanders
was a one-man highlight reel; never before did fans ooh and ahh over a
three-yard loss, as they did with Barry.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The Lions scored as never before, but their leaky defense
turned many games into shootouts. Still, the Lions made the playoffs four out
of five years between 1991 and 1995. They weren’t boring, that’s for sure.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The Lions ran various versions of the Run-n-Shoot
for most of Fontes’ tenure as Lions coach (1988-96). Not only were the Lions
not boring anymore, some folks even worried that they scored <i>too fast</i>,
thus not giving the defense time to catch its breath.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The Lions under Fontes had a supreme running back
and a few good receivers here and there but never could come up with “that”
quarterback, the same old refrain four decades running.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Today’s Lions are just a few weeks away from Opening
Sunday, 2012. They are the exact opposite of Fontes’ Barry Sanders teams.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The Lions of today are a premier passing unit, among
the best in the league. And they have more question marks at running back than
the Riddler’s costume.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
In the Run-n-Shoot days of the 1990s, the Lions
tried to be a high octane passing team, sometimes at the expense of their best
weapon, Sanders.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
If I was an opposing defensive coordinator back
then, I’d have looked to the heavens and said thank you every time Sanders
didn’t touch the football.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
It’s called playing to your strength, no matter what
the Pro Football Handbook might say about striking a balance between running
and passing.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The football handbook people are wringing their
hands over this year’s Lions. They look at the running game and worry that it
can’t crank out enough yards to keep defenses honest.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Ha!</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
With Matthew Stafford throwing and Calvin Johnson
catching, plus all the other competent receivers on the roster, it really won’t
matter if the Lions run the football well or not. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The Lions’ fortunes, make no question, will ride on
Stafford’s golden arm and Johnson’s Velcro hands. They are the best QB/receiver
tandem in the NFL, bar none.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
Why force feed a cache of questionable running backs
the football, just for the sake of laying claim to running and passing balance?</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
It makes no sense.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
It makes no sense to suppress Stafford and Co.,
because great players make great plays, whether the other team is stacked to
stop it or not.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The Lions ought to play to their strength. They
ought not to worry so much about running the football. </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
In a perfect football world, you’d gain four yards
on a first down running play, all game long. But life isn’t perfect, and
neither is any football team.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The Wayne Fontes Detroit Lions force fed the
Run-n-Shoot when they didn’t really have the proper personnel, other than the
best running back on the planet.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
The Lions of today would be foolish to run the
football for the sake of running it, when they possess a passer like Stafford
and receivers like Johnson, Nate Burleson, Titus Young and Brandon Pettigrew.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
It makes no sense.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent">
<br /></div>
Greg Enohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08884412028028351344noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12128130.post-11418046151980690582012-08-05T12:52:00.002-04:002012-08-05T12:53:12.377-04:00Lions' Hanson Still Kicking After All These Years<img _mce_src="/images/pixel.gif" alt="" class="slot" src="http://bleacherreport.com/images/pixel.gif" />It’s fitting, really, that the <a _mce_href="http://bleacherreport.com/detroit-lions" href="http://bleacherreport.com/detroit-lions">Detroit Lions</a>, lovers of tumult for decades, should have stability at a position that doesn’t even really qualify as a football player.<br />
<br />
Since Jimmy Carter was president, the Lions have employed two full-time place kickers. Two.<br />
<br />
Eddie Murray arrived as a rookie in 1980, and 12 years later, Murray was usurped by <a _mce_href="http://bleacherreport.com/jason-hanson" href="http://bleacherreport.com/jason-hanson">Jason Hanson</a>, a rookie from <a _mce_href="http://bleacherreport.com/washington-redskins" href="http://bleacherreport.com/washington-redskins">Washington</a> State.<br />
<br />
Today,
Hanson is 42 years old and is about to begin his 21st season of
sidewinding his right leg toward an oblong pigskin for the boys in
Honolulu Blue and Silver.<br />
<br />
Not that he’s a football player, any more than Henny Youngman was a violinist or Elvis Presley was an actor.<br />
<br />
Hanson
isn’t a football player, but in twisted irony that proves God has a
sense of humor, he has been the most consistent of anyone wearing a
Lions uniform since first suiting up in <a _mce_href="http://bleacherreport.com/chicago-bears" href="http://bleacherreport.com/chicago-bears">Chicago</a> back in September 1992.<br />
<br />
You want proof that Hanson isn’t a football player? Just look at his face.<br />
<br />
With
the exception of a hairline that has retreated more than the Italian
Army, Hanson looks pretty much now as he did when he was a rookie 20
years ago.<br />
<br />
A real football player, had he been able to survive in the <a _mce_href="http://bleacherreport.com/nfl" href="http://bleacherreport.com/nfl">NFL</a>
for two decades, would have facial skin as tough as a dime steak, a
beard like sandpaper and would creak when he walks. He’d have more
concussions than teeth.<br />
<br />
Yet there Hanson is during Lions games
and practices in his football costume, holding his helmet absently and
sighing, acting like an adolescent bored at his grandmother’s house, and
whether you choose to believe it or not, he’s a paid NFL player.<br />
<br />
<img _mce_src="/images/pixel.gif" alt="" class="slot" src="http://bleacherreport.com/images/pixel.gif" /><br />
Hanson is not only not a football player; he’s an exception to the rule.<br />
<br />
Few kickers in league history have enjoyed the job security that Hanson has since 1992 with the Lions.<br />
<br />
More times than you can count, the shelf life of an NFL kicker is shorter than a gallon of milk. It’s the ultimate <i>what have you done for me lately?</i> job in sports. Kickers make hockey goalies look as entrenched as Supreme Court Justices.<br />
<br />
A
kicker can find himself in several training camps—in one month. He can
be signed on a Thursday, flown in on a Friday, kicking in a game on
Sunday and, if the wind doesn’t go his way or the laces aren’t spun just
right or the snap is a little low, can be back in his hometown on
Monday night, jobless yet again.<br />
<br />
Have leg, will travel.<br />
<br />
But not Jason Hanson.<br />
<br />
Hanson
not only has been the Lions’ kicker since 1992, he hasn’t had any
serious competition for his job since then. The guys who have kicked in
Hanson’s stead have done so only because injury has necessitated the
Lions bringing in an understudy.<br />
<br />
Even when Dave Rayner kicked for
the Lions in 2010 and did a fine job filling in for the injured Hanson,
who was then 40 years old, there wasn’t really any serious threat to
Hanson’s job.<br />
<br />
Usually, when the Lions have brought in a kicker
during training camp, that guy’s job amounted to little more than giving
Hanson a fellow kicker with whom to talk. By the end of camp, the other
guy was sent packing, his chances of unseating Hanson about as good as
you hitting the lotto.<br />
<br />
<img _mce_src="/images/pixel.gif" alt="" class="slot" src="http://bleacherreport.com/images/pixel.gif" /><br />
It’s a great gig Hanson has had since 1992, so it’s no wonder that he’s in no hurry to give it up.<br />
<br />
"I'm working so that my goal is, if I'm going to play, to show up and have them be like, 'He's the same',” Hanson <a _mce_href="http://www.freep.com/article/20120802/SPORTS01/308020131/Lions-kicker-Jason-Hanson-I-can-still-hit-long-ball" href="http://www.freep.com/article/20120802/SPORTS01/308020131/Lions-kicker-Jason-Hanson-I-can-still-hit-long-ball" target="_blank">told the <i>Free Press’s </i>Carlos Monarrez this week</a>.
“And if ever that day comes where it's not, then maybe I'll be fishing
in the fall. But it's not going to be this year. And that's always just
been my goal, to make sure I can still kick like I always have."<br />
<br />
Let’s
be clear—Hanson’s job security hasn’t been charity by the Lions.
Kickers don’t stay in the league for 21 years, much less for the same <i>team</i>, unless they can kick the stuffing out of the football, with accuracy. Hanson has earned his keep.<br />
<br />
And he has a message for those who think his leg has lost too much of its thump.<br />
<br />
"I
still have the distance we need, I think,” he told Monarrez. “(My
length) won't limit us in any way. I can still hit the long ball when we
need it."<br />
<br />
He hit it last year, when Hanson connected on 5-of-7
from 50-plus yards, a 71.4 accuracy rating that put him in the top 10 in
the league.<br />
<br />
The problem with Hanson has been that there’s been too much Hanson.<br />
<br />
Actually,
you don’t mind seeing Hanson trotting onto the field, except that it’s
too often been to kick field goals instead of extra points. That changed
dramatically in 2011, when the Lions’ Silver Bullet offense emerged as
one of the most lethal in the league.<br />
<br />
Hanson kicked a lot of extra points last season—54 of them, by far a season high for him. It was the Year of the Anomaly.<br />
<br />
<img _mce_src="/images/pixel.gif" alt="" class="slot" src="http://bleacherreport.com/images/pixel.gif" /><br />
Usually,
Hanson has been the symbol of both the Lions’ ineptitude and his own
success. The more the Lions offense has sputtered, the more we saw
Hanson, kicking field goals. And the more he kicked field goals, the
more we marveled at his consistency and cursed his teammates’
deficiencies.<br />
<br />
For years during the Black Hole of the Matt Millen
years, Lions fans looked at Hanson and saw the best player on the
team—which is ironic because, as has been determined, he’s not a
football player. No kicker truly is.<br />
<br />
Now, with the offense
finally coming around, maybe the Lions won’t need all those 50-plus-yard
kicks. But Hanson doesn’t want to turn into some sort of short-yardage
specialist, kicking style.<br />
<br />
“I'd rather have them cut me than have
them have me do that," he told Monarrez of being looked at as a
short-distance kicker. "That's my attitude. If it came to that, I don't
know, maybe I'd be like, 'Well, I can still kick under 45.' But I don't
want any part of that.”<br />
<br />
Spoken like a true football player—even if he isn’t one.Greg Enohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08884412028028351344noreply@blogger.com0