I never watched football until the ‘85 Bears came along. I owened the 45 single of the Super Bowl Shuffle as well as the extended single “Chillin with the Fridge” starring the Fat Boys and William Refrigerator Perry (get well soon Fridge, we’re all pulling for you!). I danced happily as the Bears stomped all over the Patriots in the Super Bowl. Watching football is fun! I figured I would be a Bears fan for life.
The next year the Bears tanked and I lost interest in football. Until one fateful day when Jeff LaPorte told me about a new guy with the Detroit Lions named Barry Sanders. He was supposed to be pretty good. Intrigued, I started watching and Barry started running. I was dazzled by a highlight reel of runs that will never be seen again in the NFL. Then other Lions began to emerge. Herman Moore made leaping catches at the back of the end zone. Chris Spielman laid the smack down on any running back who dared come up the middle. They were a team to be reckoned with.
The Lions courted greatness for the next few years, stopping just one game shy of the Super Bowl. It never got any better than that though, and they slid into mediocrity. I tried to stop caring and was horrified to find that I couldn’t. I was now a member of the most tortured souls on the planet: Detroit Lions Fans.
We thought we had it bad until Matt Millen showed up and plunged the Lions to the deepest depths of Hell. It finally ended last year with the impossible perfect season, 0-16. It was truly a privilege to watch. Now Millen is gone, and the Lions have been rewarded for ineptitude with the first pick in the NFL draft. Fate has given them a chance to undo the damage. They can make up for all the nightmare picks of Charles Rogers, Mike Williams, and Joey Harrington, a rookie quarterback unfairly asked to fix a broken team with his strong arm.
Last year the Lions ranked last almost every defensive category. At the mini-camp journalists reported “a glaring hole at middle linebacker.” Drafting Aaron Curry will fix that and upgrade the linebacker core to elite status. Yet for some reason the genius analysts at ESPN believe the solution to Detroit’s problems is the strong arm of quarterback Matt Stafford.
Thank god Matt Millen is not here to buy in to such insanity. New GM Martin Mayhew will see through the glamor and recognize that Stafford couldn’t win big games in college. Even if he could, the Lions have no offensive line to protect him. Only Matt Millen would make Stafford the highest paid rookie in history, dooming the franchise for years to come. Right? Right???
Matt Stafford is going to look awesome holding up his Lions jersey today. Too bad it’s going to be covered in grass stains next season.