Streaking Detroit Lions Win First Straight Game

Every dog really does have his day.

Every blind squirrel really does find a nut.

The longshot came in. The House lost.

It was “any given Sunday,” finally. The dice came up snake eyes.

Someone had to be the victims of the Lions’ losing streak ending, and it happened to be the team with some of the most ravenous, venomous fans in the NFL.

The Washington Redskins are today’s NFL patsies. They will now officially spend the longest week of their football lives.

The Redskins have lost to the Detroit Lions. No team in the league has been able to lay claim to such a distinction since December 23, 2007.

Oh, what a week they’ll have in Washington, with all their radio shows and TV shows and chat rooms.

These aren’t the Houston Texans the Lions beat. Not the Jacksonville Jaguars. Not some team that plays in a city where you can hear a pin drop.

These are the Redskins, and their followers were scared to death of this matchup with the Lions.

Worst fears, realized.

Like my friend Big Al wrote over at The Wayne Fontes Experience, let another team’s fan base pull its hair out this week. Let another city’s radio airwaves be filled with hate and frustration.

The Lions walked off the field winners Sunday, a homely 19-14 win over Washington, but it was the Lions’ homely win and they’ll take it.

Linebacker Larry Foote, the Detroit native and U-M grad, was caught by the candid cameras in the locker room after the game, pouring champagne over head coach Jim Schwartz’s head. Not sure where Larry got the bubbly from, but someone obviously was holding it for just such an occasion.

The Lions won a football game. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will have to hold their 26-game losing streak longer in purgatory. But here come the St. Louis Rams, who are halfway there with 13 straight losses.

Let the Rams’ fans wring their hands now.

It’s off now, that King Kong the Lions were lugging on their backs for 19 games. But ole King wasn’t easy to pry off.

You just knew it couldn’t end with QB Matthew Stafford taking a knee as the time ticked away. You knew the Lions wouldn’t be able to be streak busters that easily.

No, it had to come down to a heart-stopping final drive by the Redskins, who managed to get to the Lions’ 35 in the waning seconds.

But this wasn’t Brett Favre, it was Jason Campbell. And this wasn’t 31 of the 32 coaches in the NFL, it was Jim Zorn.

Zorn ought to know better. He was a gunslinging QB when he played for the Seattle Seahawks, bombing away to Steve Largent et al.

But he stared down the barrel of a franchise-shaking loss and shook like a leaf.

Instead of chucking the ball into the end zone—for who knows what can happen when you do that, especially when the other team wears Honolulu Blue and Silver—Zorn had Campbell try one of those goofy hook-and-lateral plays after a measly 12-yard toss. The ‘Skins didn’t even sniff the 20 yard line, much less the end zone.

Ever since Cal beat Stanford in 1982, football teams have been trying to recapture that miracle. Hardly any have been successful.

Zorn would have been better off with a Hail Mary, but that’s the other guys’ deal to worry about today.

Zorn also made a questionable move to accept a penalty against the Lions, turning a 4th-and-four and a long FGA into a 3rd-and-14, which the Lions converted, enabling them to score a TD later in the drive.

They say you should never take points off the scoreboard, if you’re on offense. And you should probably not take fourth downs off the board, either, if you’re on defense. But Zorn did—more fuel for the fire that will engulf Washington and Redskin Nation this week.

They’ll be talking about this one for years in D.C. The Lions—a team the Redskins have dominated (never having lost to them at home in over 75 years)—mustered their first win in 20 games against Dan Snyder’s bunch.

The fun thing is, you don’t have to be relegated to wishing you were the proverbial fly on the wall in order to see what they’re saying in Washington. Thanks to Internet chat rooms, you can get a very nice picture indeed.

The Redskins fans want Zorn fired. Immediately. Some wanted him canned somewhere between Ford Field and Metro Airport. No joke.

The Lions are on the outside looking in again, but this time the view is just fine. This time the Lions can peer through the glass and watch debauchery and barroom brawls take place. The subject is still them, but in an entirely different way.

The Lions can watch as Redskins fans hurl empty beer mugs at Snyder and Zorn and Campbell and the like. They can press their noses against the glass and see a football team’s entire fan base bust up the joint, beside themselves.

All over the little Lions.

The 1-2 Lions—same record as the Redskins.

Stafford was pretty good—21-for-36, 241 yards, a TD and NO interceptions. He played smart. He “left some plays on the field”—his words—but he made a veteran move by slinging the ball downfield when he saw Bryant Johnson in single coverage at the goal line in the fourth quarter, drawing a pass interference penalty.

There’s the smattering of a connection developing now between the kid QB and the star receiver, Calvin Johnson. Stafford was also allowed to pass the ball on first down, when offensive coordinator Scott Linehan sensed a momentum shift.

The Lions will still likely only win two or three games this season. The Redskins are hardly a barometer against which to judge your team’s development. But a win is a win as they say, and though it was no Mona Lisa, it’s the Lions’ and they’ll take it.

The million-to-one shot came in. The tortoise won a race. William Hung came away with “Best Singer.” The Italian Army won a war.

The Lions are 1-0 in their last one game.

But keep the champagne chilled. No more bubbly in September. Never again, right?

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Streaking Detroit Lions Win First Straight Game

Every dog really does have his day.

Every blind squirrel really does find a nut.

The longshot came in. The House lost.

It was “any given Sunday,” finally. The dice came up snake eyes.

Someone had to be the victims of the Lions’ losing streak ending, and it happened to be the team with some of the most ravenous, venomous fans in the NFL.

The Washington Redskins are today’s NFL patsies. They will now officially spend the longest week of their football lives.

The Redskins have lost to the Detroit Lions. No team in the league has been able to lay claim to such a distinction since December 23, 2007.

Oh, what a week they’ll have in Washington, with all their radio shows and TV shows and chat rooms.

These aren’t the Houston Texans the Lions beat. Not the Jacksonville Jaguars. Not some team that plays in a city where you can hear a pin drop.

These are the Redskins, and their followers were scared to death of this matchup with the Lions.

Worst fears, realized.

Like my friend Big Al wrote over at The Wayne Fontes Experience, let another team’s fan base pull its hair out this week. Let another city’s radio airwaves be filled with hate and frustration.

The Lions walked off the field winners Sunday, a homely 19-14 win over Washington, but it was the Lions’ homely win and they’ll take it.

Linebacker Larry Foote, the Detroit native and U-M grad, was caught by the candid cameras in the locker room after the game, pouring champagne over head coach Jim Schwartz’s head. Not sure where Larry got the bubbly from, but someone obviously was holding it for just such an occasion.

The Lions won a football game. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will have to hold their 26-game losing streak longer in purgatory. But here come the St. Louis Rams, who are halfway there with 13 straight losses.

Let the Rams’ fans wring their hands now.

It’s off now, that King Kong the Lions were lugging on their backs for 19 games. But ole King wasn’t easy to pry off.

You just knew it couldn’t end with QB Matthew Stafford taking a knee as the time ticked away. You knew the Lions wouldn’t be able to be streak busters that easily.

No, it had to come down to a heart-stopping final drive by the Redskins, who managed to get to the Lions’ 35 in the waning seconds.

But this wasn’t Brett Favre, it was Jason Campbell. And this wasn’t 31 of the 32 coaches in the NFL, it was Jim Zorn.

Zorn ought to know better. He was a gunslinging QB when he played for the Seattle Seahawks, bombing away to Steve Largent et al.

But he stared down the barrel of a franchise-shaking loss and shook like a leaf.

Instead of chucking the ball into the end zone—for who knows what can happen when you do that, especially when the other team wears Honolulu Blue and Silver—Zorn had Campbell try one of those goofy hook-and-lateral plays after a measly 12-yard toss. The ‘Skins didn’t even sniff the 20 yard line, much less the end zone.

Ever since Cal beat Stanford in 1982, football teams have been trying to recapture that miracle. Hardly any have been successful.

Zorn would have been better off with a Hail Mary, but that’s the other guys’ deal to worry about today.

Zorn also made a questionable move to accept a penalty against the Lions, turning a 4th-and-four and a long FGA into a 3rd-and-14, which the Lions converted, enabling them to score a TD later in the drive.

They say you should never take points off the scoreboard, if you’re on offense. And you should probably not take fourth downs off the board, either, if you’re on defense. But Zorn did—more fuel for the fire that will engulf Washington and Redskin Nation this week.

They’ll be talking about this one for years in D.C. The Lions—a team the Redskins have dominated (never having lost to them at home in over 75 years)—mustered their first win in 20 games against Dan Snyder’s bunch.

The fun thing is, you don’t have to be relegated to wishing you were the proverbial fly on the wall in order to see what they’re saying in Washington. Thanks to Internet chat rooms, you can get a very nice picture indeed.

The Redskins fans want Zorn fired. Immediately. Some wanted him canned somewhere between Ford Field and Metro Airport. No joke.

The Lions are on the outside looking in again, but this time the view is just fine. This time the Lions can peer through the glass and watch debauchery and barroom brawls take place. The subject is still them, but in an entirely different way.

The Lions can watch as Redskins fans hurl empty beer mugs at Snyder and Zorn and Campbell and the like. They can press their noses against the glass and see a football team’s entire fan base bust up the joint, beside themselves.

All over the little Lions.

The 1-2 Lions—same record as the Redskins.

Stafford was pretty good—21-for-36, 241 yards, a TD and NO interceptions. He played smart. He “left some plays on the field”—his words—but he made a veteran move by slinging the ball downfield when he saw Bryant Johnson in single coverage at the goal line in the fourth quarter, drawing a pass interference penalty.

There’s the smattering of a connection developing now between the kid QB and the star receiver, Calvin Johnson. Stafford was also allowed to pass the ball on first down, when offensive coordinator Scott Linehan sensed a momentum shift.

The Lions will still likely only win two or three games this season. The Redskins are hardly a barometer against which to judge your team’s development. But a win is a win as they say, and though it was no Mona Lisa, it’s the Lions’ and they’ll take it.

The million-to-one shot came in. The tortoise won a race. William Hung came away with “Best Singer.” The Italian Army won a war.

The Lions are 1-0 in their last one game.

But keep the champagne chilled. No more bubbly in September. Never again, right?

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Detroit Last Won When Hillary Clinton Was Running, Team Missed Memo About Change

The Detroit Lions have been kings of the incompletion.

Not talking about passing here; talking about overall performance.

On select Sundays, the Lions will play perhaps 15, 20 minutes of decent football. On special occasions, they might squeeze out 30 minutes. Things could even get dicey and they might tease you with 45 minutes, just to mess with your mind.

Two years ago, the Lions were also kings of the incomplete season.

They sprinted out to a 6-2 start and folks who should know better started to talk about the playoffs.

Their hideous won/loss record in the 21st century has been pocked with weekly displays of incomplete football games.

Maybe they’ll fall behind in monstrous fashion (often in the opening few minutes), only to put together 15, 20 minutes of acceptable football before collapsing again into a heap.

The Lions have many other variations of this theme; but they switch it up, though…you have to give them that.

Sunday at Ford Field, in the home opener, the Lions gave us a rather simple, meat-and-potatoes version of their incomplete performance displays.

This version against the Minnesota Vikings wasn’t very creative, but it was no less an example of the Lions’ propensity not to put it all together.

The version was this: play 30 “not bad” minutes of football, then slide into oblivion for the second 30.

It was another example of halftime vexing the Lions and reviving their opponents. New coach Jim Schwartz and his crack staff have proven to be just as feeble as their predecessors in matching wits with their counterparts during intermission.

The Lions jogged into the locker room at the half, holding a precarious yet well-earned 10-7 lead. The seven points by the Vikings weren’t gotten until the waning moments of the second quarter.

The Lions had established a bit of a running game, and were keeping Brett Favre and his offense in check.

Matthew Stafford had thrown his first career NFL TD pass. The Vikings looked out of sorts.

Fast forward to the final few minutes of the fourth quarter, and there were the all-too-familiar, telltale signs of another Lions game.

The other team on the sidelines, laughing, joking, relaxed. Relieved even. A safe 27-13 lead in their vest pockets as the clock ticks away.

The Lions hanging and shaking their heads on the bench, and wearing that look of defeat.

It may as well be their official look, like how The Joker’s garish white makeup with the blood-red and green accents is synonymous with him.

Defeat isn’t just makeup on the Lions’ faces, though…it’s now embedded into their skin, like tattoos.

The Vikings played with their dinner for the first 30 minutes of Sunday’s game, then returned from another of those infusing halftimes and started devouring hungrily.

Lions rookie QB Matthew Stafford was sacked right out of the gate in the third quarter, and the rout was on…despite the scoreboard showing the Lions with a three-point lead.

The Vikings made those adjustments that every NFL team supposedly makes at the break, and the Lions were ill-prepared for them. Again.

Turnovers, those guaranteed haunters, did the Lions in. They made three of them, which the Vikings turned into 14 points.

Fourteen points also happened to be the Vikes’ margin of victory. Fancy that.

About Stafford: the kid is hellbent on learning the hard way, which all kid QBs do. Matthew’s favorite seems to be the forced pass that turns into an easy interception. That mistake du jour might as well be on the rookie QB’s “Greatest Hits” album.

In the fourth quarter, the Lions were down just ten, 20-10, and were beginning to twitch. They made a couple of first downs. The crowd was being reintroduced into the game.

Then Stafford struck again, throwing a groaner of a pick that Favre and Co. turned into a touchdown and an insurmountable 27-10 advantage.

So that’s 19 losses in a row, if you’re scoring at home. The last time the Lions won a game was two Christmases and two Pistons coaches ago.

Hillary Clinton was the front runner to be the Democratic nominee for president. No one had heard of Susan Boyle, Jon and Kate Gosselin, or Twitter. Everyone still used MySpace instead of Facebook.

But the Lions were playing incomplete football games back then, and beyond. And very much so, today.

Nice to know that there are still things in this world on which you can count, isn’t it?

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Sadly, Cemetery Beckons Monte Clark for Real

“See you at the cemetery.”

Sadly, those words are no longer simply metaphorical.

Monte Clark is gone—dead at 72 after a long illness—and this has been a ghastly year for sports deaths, if you’re a follower of the teams in Detroit.

The following list is only partial: George Kell; Bill Davidson; Chuck Daly; Mark Fidrych; Brad Van Pelt; John Gordy. And Ernie Harwell is likely dying.

Most tributes to Clark, the former Lions coach (1978-84), like this one from my friend Big Al, have mentioned in vivid detail the “praying hands” that Clark displayed prior to Eddie Murray’s FG try in the 1983 playoffs in San Francisco. As well they should, for that might have been one of the most iconic images in Detroit sports history, bar none.

But the opening line of this post resonated with me almost as much.

For there would have been no playoff appearance in ‘83 if the Lions hadn’t rebounded from a 1-4 start.

It was in Anaheim, after that fourth loss, when Clark—a former offensive lineman and a hulk of a man—stood before the cadre of media folks who all wanted to know the answer of the typical post-game question for the loser: “What happened out there?”

In a hushed tone, filled with gallows humor, Clark placed himself on the hot seat—practically giving himself the ziggy.

“See you at the cemetery,” he said, then stepped away from the microphones and notepads.

The inference was impossible not to understand. Monte knew that the papers on Monday morning were going to be filled with poison, so might as well do a pre-emptive strike.

Well, now we truly will see Monte at the cemetery, thanks to his passing.

Clark was the first football coach in Detroit to be given the highbrow title of Director of Football Operations, even though GM Russ Thomas was far from retirement. Monte wanted some control beyond just that of drawing up plays and game plans. He wanted some say-so in drafting, trades, and other personnel matters.

The highbrow title was mandatory if the Lions wanted Clark as their next coach. It was a distinct lack of control, working for eccentric GM Joe Thomas, that slew Clark after just one year as coach of the 49ers in 1976.

Thomas dumped Clark rather unexpectedly after that ‘76 season, and the experience stung Monte. So when the Lions came calling, looking for a coach to replace Tommy Hudspeth, Clark insisted on the broadened title and increased input, beyond that of “just” a coach.

Monte was Don Shula’s O-line coach in Miami for many years, and there are far worse folks from whom to learn your coaching chops than Mr. Shula.

The Lions started 1-6 in Monte’s first season but gathered themselves and went 6-3 the rest of the way.

Then came a fateful exhibition game at the end of the 1979 preseason.

QB Gary Danielson, who led the Lions to their fine finish the year before, went down with a serious knee injury in Baltimore. He was done for the season.

The Lions had creaky Joe Reed as their backup, and by the third game Reed was done, also by injury.

The Lions were then QB’d by rookie Jeff Komlo—he died this year, too—and the result was a horrific 2-14 season.

The Lions went through Reed, Komlo, Jerry Golsteyn, and Scott Hunter under center, but Komlo by far got the most playing time. He completed about 50 percent of his passes and threw a ton of interceptions.

But that 2-14 year enabled the Lions to draft Billy Sims with the No. 1 overall pick, and playoff contention was just around the corner.

Clark avoided the coaching cemetery in 1983 but fell victim to it one year later after a disappointing 4-11-1 record, thanks largely to losing Sims to a career-ending knee injury in October.

But yes, that image of Monte praying to the football gods prior to Murray’s 43-yard try on the final play in, of all places, San Francisco, will be burned into the minds of all Lions fans old enough to remember it when it happened.

I’m one of those, and that Dec. 31, 1983 game ruined my New Year’s celebration, as it did millions of others’.

The funny thing is, if you ask, most Lions fans will tell you that as soon as they saw Clark praying, they knew Murray was going to miss. I was one of those, too.

The Lions are the NFL’s fallen angels, and those types don’t have prayers answered.

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20 Years Ago, Barry Sanders Turned Lions Fans On From Carry No. 1

The rigors of another NFL training camp were past. The meaningless dress rehearsals known as exhibition games, all four of them, had been played. The fates of certain pro football players—the fringe guys on that imaginary “bubble”—were now hanging in the balance.

And the fate of a franchise tilted and swayed.

Would he, or wouldn’t he?

The Detroit Lions, 20 years ago last spring, became the beneficiaries of one of the most boneheaded, outlandish, and just plain stupid draft day moves—or non-moves—in league history.

Imagine—the Lions, taking advantage of someone else’s egregious personnel error.

But it happened, royally.

The Lions, with the third pick of the ’89 draft, prayed to the football gods that the jitterbug running back Barry Sanders, from Oklahoma State, would still be on the board. Only two teams would have to pass him up, and one of them—the Dallas Cowboys—seemed hellbent on selecting QB Troy Aikman with the No. 1 choice overall.

That left the Green Bay Packers.

The Packers were a rotten team in 1989—and a case could be made that they were more odiferous than the Lions, because of the four wins by the Lions in 1988, two of them were claimed against Green Bay.

A brand new, exciting running back like Barry Sanders would have been more than enough to put football back on the map in Green Bay, the tiny burg that once proclaimed itself “Title Town,” due to the championship ways of its pro football team in the 1960s.

The Packers had no running attack. They were a plodding, vanilla, boring outfit. Just like the Lions.

So with Sanders dangling in front of them, ripe for the picking, the Packers said, “Naah,” and drafted mammoth offensive tackle Tony Mandarich, from Michigan State.

I could scarcely believe my eyes and ears when NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle stood behind the podium at the draft and announced Mandarich’s name as the Packers’ pick with the No. 2 pick off the board.

I wasn’t alone.

Mandarich was a fine college lineman, and big as a house. He played left tackle, that prized position on the line, reserved for the very best blocker on the roster.

But he wasn’t worth that high of a pick, when Barry Sanders was also available.

The Lions, their prayers answered, nabbed Sanders. Rozelle might has well have just stayed at the podium and read Sanders’ name immediately after Mandarich’s.

Yet before Barry played one down, he was already showing off his elusiveness.

The Lions found out—the hard way, naturally—that it was much easier to draft Sanders than it was to sign him to a contract.

Barry was represented by dual agents, and neither of them were easy to deal with. And the Lions were represented by GM Russ Thomas, and no one gave old Russ bouquets for being an easy negotiator.

Training camp began in July, and when coach Wayne Fontes took attendance, there was a glaring absence: the prized rookie Barry Sanders.

Barry’s people wanted this; Thomas was offering that.

This and that weren’t jibing. Not even close.

Camp droned on. The media people and the fans kept talking about what Barry could add to the Lions’ moribund offense. If only he would sign a contract and actually suit up for them.

The talks between Barry’s people and Thomas became more and more acrimonious. Barry’s people made threats—likely empty, but who knew—of taking their client north of the border to play in the inferior Canadian League.

Lions fans became antsy. They wanted Barry on their team, and it’s always easy to spend other people’s money, so what’s the holdup?

Camp finished. The pretend games—the exhibition season—began.

Barry was nowhere near being signed, we were told.

The Lions’ other first-round pick that year, QB Rodney Peete from USC, was signed and progressing nicely. He was on pace to be the team’s starter.

Whether Peete would be handing the ball off to Barry Sanders was another matter indeed.

Some fans started to turn on Barry—accusing him of being just another spoiled brat athlete. Maybe he just wants to avoid training camp, they said. The word “lazy” reared its ugly head.

The week of the Lions’ regular season opener arrived, and Fontes took attendance once again. Barry was still absent, but with an excuse: he had no contract. Still.

The Lions prepared to play the Cardinals, at the Silverdome. The week marched onward. It was Friday afternoon—48 hours before the game—when the news broke.

Barry Sanders signed a contract!

He wouldn’t play in the tundra of Canada, after all. As if.

But he had no practices under his belt. No training camp to learn plays—although I’m not sure what Barry had to learn, in retrospect. Football players will tell you, though, that even a few practices are necessary—if nothing else but to get hit and immerse yourself into football mode, physically and mentally.

Barry would have little opportunity for that, since he signed his contract on Friday afternoon.

The Lions ran him through a few drills on Friday and Saturday, but certainly nothing too rigorous or involved.

On Sunday, Fontes inserted Barry into the game sometime in the second quarter. The Lions fans, maybe even those who spit on Sanders’ image and called him lazy, stood and roared.

Peete had been hurt in the final pretend game and so the QB was a journeyman—surprise, surprise—named Bob Gagliano. And so it was Gagliano who gave Sanders his first career handoff in the NFL.

And Barry, the ink barely dry on his contract, with little to no practice time, took the football from Gagliano and juked and slithered his way for a brilliant 19-yard run.

I was listening on the radio, and play-by-play man Mark Champion had a baby announcing Barry’s first carry. I might have risen from my seat, in my dining room.

So who needs practice? Who needs training camp?

That was 20 years ago this week. The adage is true: where does the time go?

Mandarich, by the way, got caught as a steroids user and was out of football within three years—one of the biggest draft busts in NFL history.

The Packers would make up for that transgression, however, while the Lions spun their wheels in the mud.

The Lions’ prized rookie of Sanders’ debut, 20 years hence, is QB Matthew Stafford, who was much easier to sign. He had himself mini-camps and regular camps and pretend games and everything. And his start Sunday in New Orleans is no less anticipated than Barry’s  20 years ago against the Cardinals.

Wouldn’t it be something if the kid tossed a bomb on his first throw?

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A Fair Fight: Matthew Stafford Won Detroit Lions’ Job On Merit

Occasionally, pro sports provides us with delicious irony and poetry.

Seven years ago, the Lions beamed with pride. Finally, a genuine article at the quarterback position in the second year of what would derisively and painfully come to be known as the Matt Millen Era.

The Lions would no longer be “married” to erstwhile QB Charlie Batch. The word was Millen’s, uttered shortly after arriving in town as the franchise’s savior in January 2001. From the day Matt Millen told the media that the Lions were, for the moment, “married” to Batch at quarterback, the marriage had no chance of succeeding.

Millen wanted his own man, his own quarterback to help stamp his mark on the Lions.

Joey Harrington breezed into town as the No. 3 overall pick in the 2002 NFL Draft and the Lions thought they found the quarterback they were looking for during the entire span of the Ford ownership, which began in 1964.

This week, Harrington, now a vagabond player, was cut by the New Orleans Saints—the same Saints team the Lions open with this Sunday. Around the same time, the Lions named rookie quarterback Matthew Stafford their starting quarterback.

The Matt Millen Era ended, in a way, when the Lions president was fired last fall. But it ended officially this past offseason, as the Lions released or traded one Millen-acquired player after another. The purge continued in training camp until almost nothing but a thin, brittle shell of Millen’s outhouse could be seen.

Joey Harrington’s career is on the ropes. The Saints might bring him back—they’ve done it before—but there are no guarantees. If the Saints don’t come through for him, it’s  questionable whether another NFL team will sign Pal Joey.

Seven years ago, in a game at Ford Field against the Saints, ironically, I saw Harrington throw some footballs which ended up nestled into the arms of Lions receivers—some 30 or 40 yards downfield. The balls were feathered, sometimes zipped. But with accuracy, either way.

“Finally!” I remember screaming at the TV. “A quarterback in Detroit!”

It wasn’t the first time I called it wrong, and it won’t be the last.

I hope this isn’t another one of those times where I’m wrong, because I’m telling you that Matthew Stafford has the best arm of any quarterback I’ve ever seen in Detroit.

At first blush, that might not seem like a very powerful statement. The Lions haven’t sent a QB to the Pro Bowl in nearly 40 years, after all.

So I guess I’ll switch that up a bit. Stafford has one of the five best arms of any QB, anywhere, who’s entered the league in the 21st century. At least.

I’ve written, many times, that the Lions would be best served to keep Stafford on the sidelines, ball cap firmly on head, clipboard firmly in hand. I fretted over the offensive line’s ability to protect the team’s prized signal caller.

But the decision has been made. Stafford has beaten out Daunte Culpepper, so why yammer on about all my concerns at this point?

Congratulations to The Kid. He exhibited a keen grasp of the offense, supreme confidence, and a je ne sais quoi that successful NFL QBs need—that ability to shrug off mistakes and move onward, among other intangibles.

I wish him well. Truly.

As for Culpepper, he released a statement through the Lions yesterday that was drenched in class and professionalism. He, too, wished Stafford well. And though terribly disappointed, Daunte maintained that he will be right there for the rookie, whenever needed.

Daunte Culpepper proved during training camp that he can, once again, be a productive quarterback in the league. I always suspected that he was playing for his next job, anyway. He’s not stupid. The future in Detroit is Stafford. Culpepper was using the Lions as an audition for future NFL work.

And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. It was a win-win situation, really.

The Lions held a spirited competition, both pushing the rookie and providing incentive to the veteran. The Lions won because they got their rookie ready in a hurry. Stafford won because he’s the starter. And Culpepper won because he proved his worth to potential employers after Detroit.

Oh, and the fans win, because they want to see The Kid sooner rather than later.

Matthew Stafford is the Lions’ future. Not sure you could have said that about Pal Joey Harrington, back in the day. The entire weight of the franchise rests on Stafford’s strong right arm, while Harrington was supposed to be merely a piece of the puzzle Matt Millen was cutting with his poorly-calibrated jigsaw.

Lions coach Jim Schwartz has a team that’s not going to the playoffs. Not even close. I suppose he figures that the best man for the job is Stafford, so why wait? It’s not like a few blown games with a rookie QB—if it comes down to that—is going to make much difference in the standings.

Stafford can, if this work according to plan, practically obliterate, with one giant sweep of the eraser, the ghoulish memories of Jeff Komlo and Chuck Long and Andre Ware and Batch and Harrington. Not to mention about 50 others who’ve stuck their hands under center during the wacky Bill Ford ownership.

I wish him well. The best man won the job.

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Dick LeBeau’s Playing Career Should Have Been Good Enough for Hall of Fame

Bobby Layne and Alex Karras: Unlikely Drinking Buddies In ’58 Lions Camp

Another football training camp has begun. Another opportunity for nostalgia.

Harry Gilmer, the beleaguered coach of the Lions between George Wilson and Joe Schmidt in the mid-1960s, stared out at the confounding young running back on the practice field.

The running back was easy to spot, for he was the only one not wearing a helmet on his bemusing head.

“Coach,” Gilmer calmly said to one of his assistants, “tell that boy to put a helmet on his head.”

The young running back, Joe Don Looney, might have played some football sans helmet, at some point in his life.

It’s another day at Cranbrook, the high brow school whose campus the Lions used for training until the early-1970s. Again, Looney is the focus.

Joe Don didn’t want to practice that day. Gilmer sent team captain Schmidt up to Looney’s dorm room to talk to him.

Schmidt found Looney on his bed, strumming a guitar.

“Joe,” Schmidt began, sitting across from Looney. “The team needs you on the field. I’ve played in this league for 12 years and I’ve never missed a practice.”

Looney, according to Schmidt’s re-telling, looked up from his guitar.

“Well then, Joe, I’d say you’re due for a day off! Stay with me.”

It’s the mid-1990s, and the Lions are training at the Silverdome, on a field outside of the big plastic bubble.

I’m one of the interlopers, with a TV camera man in tow, hoping for some good sound bites after practice.

I’m daydreaming, shifting my weight from one foot to the other, when I hear some raised voices and some “Whoas” and “Look outs.”

I turn just in time to see a golf cart zooming toward me.

Behind the wheel is a moon-faced man chomping on a cigar.

“Hey fellas!” Wayne Fontes says brightly as he stops to give us his post-practice report.

Alex Karras played 12 marvelous seasons for the Lions, as one of the best defensive linemen to ever grace their roster. And, dare I say, one of the best to not be enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

But he almost didn’t make the team as a rookie, to hear Alex tell it.

The late, great Bobby Layne, for whatever reason, took a shining to Karras when the latter arrived as a rookie in 1958.

Just a bumpkin from Iowa, Karras once described himself.

And now he was a rookie in the NFL, playing for the defending world champions.

Layne took Karras under his wing, which in the world of Bobby Layne took on an entirely different meaning than from what you and I take that to mean.

Karras re-told the experience in the early-’70s to the late Detroit Free Press sports writer George Puscas, who Karras grew close to while playing for the Lions.

Seems Layne turned Karras into his personal drinking buddy during that 1958 camp.

“I was drunk all the time,” Karras told Puscas. “I have no idea how I made the team because I was hungover at every practice.”

Karras wasn’t a drinker, per se, and definitely not one to partake of hard liquor. But Layne loved his Cutty Sark, which meant Alex had to love it, too.

Layne, according to Karras, only required one, two hours of sleep per night. The two of them would stumble into the dorms at Cranbrook after a long night of partying at a bar in Pontiac, and while Karras struggled to squeeze a little sleep into his body, Layne would head into the shower and sing his favorite song, “Ida Red,” fresh as a daisy.

Karras said that he heard that Layne’s lack of sleep was due to fear of sleeping, because when Bobby was a kid he lost his parents in a car accident and spent an entire night stuck in the overturned car with their dead bodies.

I can see that theory.

But on the practice field, while Karras battled hangovers, Layne was spry, imparting his knowledge of quarterbacking to his receivers and even the coaches.

“Tell that boy to take that route one more step before turning right,” Layne would say in his Texas twang. And, Karras said, when the receiver did it, he found the ball perfectly delivered by Layne.

“The coaches listened, because they knew that nobody knew quarterbacking better than Bobby Layne,” Karras said.

The routine was daily: practice would end for the day, and Layne, after dinner, would come looking for “Tippy,” which was short for Karras’s nickname, “Tippy Toes,” so garnered for the way Karras would make his moves toward the quarterback on the tips of his toes.

“Hey,Tippy! Time to go out!”

Karras said that one day, he hid under his bed, hoping that Layne wouldn’t find him. But he relented and made himself visible.

The odd couple combo of veteran QB and rookie defensive tackle would head into Pontiac, where Layne would throw down Cutty Sarks and listen to the live band perform.

Karras said the band would want to take a break, and Layne would implore them to keep playing.

“But we’re tired, Mr. Layne,” one of the band members said.

Layne would dismiss that and throw money into one of the horns. The band would keep playing.

One night, on the way back to Cranbrook, Karras said Layne was singing “Ida Red” and sticking his head out the window, which Bobby had done before.

But this time was different. The car was traveling at breakneck speed, faster than normal. To Karras’s horror, he saw that Layne had placed a brick on the gas pedal and was halfway out of the vehicle, singing at the top of his lungs.

“The car was moving so fast it was shaking,” Karras related. “I was begging him to slow down, to stop the car.”

Layne didn’t have a great camp on the field, but the quarterback blew that off.

“Just wait till the regular season starts,” Layne told Karras at the bar one night. “That’s when ole Bobby will shine. Yes sir!”

The regular season indeed began, with Karras on the roster, to his surprise.

The Lions opened with a loss in Baltimore, and followed that with a tie in Green Bay, when Layne, who also placekicked, scuffed the infield dirt with a potential game-winning field goal.

After that game, Layne was suddenly and mysteriously traded to Pittsburgh.

The following season, the Lions played the Steelers.

“Layne was scrambling and was headed for the sidelines,” Karras said. “I lined him up and really let him have it. I mean, I creamed him. It was almost an illegal hit because he was mostly out of bounds. I’m not sure why I did it.”

According to Karras, Layne looked at him and smiled.

“He liked that. He said, ‘How ya doin’, Tippy?’”

Yes, Virginia: Detroit Lions Had a More-Hated GM Than Matt Millen

Russ Thomas was a curmudgeonly soul, a sort of modern day Charles Dickens-type character.

He walked with a limp and had an old, craggy face and seemed to live in a time about two generations before the rest of us.

And he was tight-fisted with the cash that his boss charged him with overseeing.

Thomas was the Lions’ GM, way before Matt Millen soiled himself in that role.

Thomas had played for the Lions in the early-1950s, was a radio broadcaster for the team, and ended up in the good stead of Bill Ford when Ford bought out the syndicate owning the Lions in 1964.

Ford made Russ Thomas his general manager, and it was as if the Lions were under the thumb of Ebeneezer Scrooge reincarnated.

Thomas had yearly go-rounds with players and coaches, almost always about money. Ole Russ had this funny thought: why pay them fair market value before putting them through the wringer first?

And even then, Russ might not loosen his grip on the wad.

The Lions, maybe out of blind luck than anything else, had drafted some Hall of Fame players in the middle of the 1960s. Legendary names, truth be told.

Receiver Fred Biletnikoff. Safety Johnny Robinson. Quarterback John Hadl.

Trouble was, each and every one of them were legends for teams in the American Football League—Biletnikoff with the Oakland Raiders; Robinson with the Kansas City Chiefs; Hadl with the San Diego Chargers.

This is because the tightwad Russ Thomas wasn’t willing to meet the contract demands of these priceless players, so they jumped to the rival AFL.

Who knows how successful the Lions might have been with players like that toiling for them in the 1960s and part of the ’70s.

It was stuff like that, and more, that made Russ Thomas Matt Millen in Detroit before Millen even graduated from high school.

Thomas was vilified in Detroit; the most-hated executive this town has ever seen. And we’re talking about a city that has seen the likes of Ned Harkness with the Red Wings and the lightning rod Millen with the Lions.

It’s the view of this grizzled rabble-rouser that the hatred for Thomas ran deeper than that for Millen, because Thomas’ own players despised him.

Twenty years ago, Thomas had announced that 1989 would be his last season. But he had time for one last go-round with a superstar player.

The Lions, those blind squirrels, had lucked upon a nut in the ’89 draft. The Green Bay Packers gift-wrapped running back Barry Sanders for them after passing on Barry to take mammoth tackle Tony Mandarich.

Yeah, I know.

So here comes Barry, the most electrifying player the Lions had on their hands since the days of Billy Sims and, before Billy, Lem Barney.

But Russ Thomas was being miserly again.

Barry and his dual agents wanted a certain dollar figure to sign with the Lions. Russ balked. Lions fans rolled their eyes, but with a twist.

If Russ Thomas blows this for us, they said, then there’s no telling what we’re capable of doing—to the Lions financially, and to Russ physically.

There was no AFL, of course, for Barry to use as leverage, but there was the Canadian league. Rumors started that Barry Sanders might take his jitterbug running style north of the border.

Training camp came and went. The stand-off between Thomas and Sanders’ people dragged on throughout the summer.

The exhibition season came and went. Still, Sanders remained unsigned.

Then, just days before the Lions’ season opener against the Cardinals at home, the word came: Barry Sanders had, finally, come to agreement on a contract.

But it was only about 72 hours before game time. And Sanders hadn’t so much as attended one practice session.

The Lions hosted the Cardinals, and Barry was in uniform, though he didn’t start. Information leaked that Sanders would certainly play, at least a little—though it was unknown when in the game he’d get the chance.

In the second quarter, Sanders jogged onto the field with the rest of the Lions’ offense, and the Silverdome crowd went mad. He was wearing no. 20, the number worn so well by Sims and Barney.

He took a handoff, and, without the benefit of training camp, practice, or anything football-related, Sanders slithered through the Cardinals’ defense to the tune of 17 yards.

He earned his first contract on that initial carry alone.

Sanders’ contract squabble was Thomas’ going away present. He retired, as promised, at the end of the 1989 season.

Russ is gone now, but he’s not forgotten, at least not by fellow curmudgeons who’ve been following the team for almost 40 years, like the one banging on his keyboard right now.

Twenty years later, the Lions got their prized rookie, Matthew Stafford, signed in a heartbeat.

No CFL for him, I guess.

I wonder what Russ Thomas would think of Matthew’s contract terms? If he wasn’t already dead, it would no doubt kill him.

The Detroit Lions: FINALLY, a Plan in Place

It’s deliciously ironic that the last time the Lions had a semblance of a plan, it was designed by a moon-faced, cigar-smoking oaf of a coach.

One fall Sunday, back in 1988, owner Bill Ford levied one of the worst indictments any owner could on his football coach.

He had just seen his team get creamed once again, another mercy killing in a season careening out of control, and he gave the reporters a rare postgame analysis.

“We’re losing,” Ford said, “and we’re boring.”

It wasn’t long before the coach, Darryl Rogers, was shoved out the door.

The Lions of 1988 showed up at every Sunday gunfight with a penknife.

The offense was slow, plodding. The aerial attack was virtually non-existent, matched only by the nearly invisible running game.

It reminds me of a classic line by that crack-up/coach John McKay.

“We didn’t block,” he said about his Tampa Bay Bucs after another beatdown, “but we made up for it by not tackling.”

The Lions of ’88 couldn’t pass, but made up for it by not running.

Bill Ford was spot on: They were losers, and they were boring.

And the Silverdome was half-empty on Sundays, which also hastened Rogers’ canning.

Ford handed the keys to his Edsel to defensive coordinator Wayne Fontes with five games left in the wasted season.

After managing two wins in those five games—both against the nearly-as-woeful Green Bay Packers—Ford ripped the “interim” part off Fontes’ label and made him a full-fledged NFL head coach.

The jolly, maudlin Fontes may have projected a clown-like persona, but he had some ideas.

He had a plan, in fact.

The owner was right about the boring part, so why not un-boring things up a bit?

Fontes, during his five-week audition, managed to hire an offensive guru named Darrell “Mouse” Davis. Mouse espoused something called the Run-n-Shoot offense, in which anyone who wasn’t a lineman or the quarterback was a wide receiver.

Fontes’ order to Mouse was simple: Don’t be boring.

So Mouse scurried into town, his playbook and head filled with passing patterns and player movement and all those little receivers running all over the field.

It was a quantity-over-quality theory. The Lions weren’t blessed with talented pass catchers, but Mouse and Fontes (sounds like a vaudeville act) figured that if they sent as many of them into the secondary as the rules would allow, they might get lucky.

And the Lions, at least, wouldn’t be boring.

Wayne Fontes had a plan. For sure. He lucked into drafting the jitterbug running back Barry Sanders in his first draft. He picked up some more receivers, still not filled with talent but a little better than what he inherited from Rogers.

Then, in 1990, Fontes moved on to Phase II of his plan.

He had the run part down in the Run-n-Shoot offense with Sanders. He just needed a straight shooter.

Fontes chomped on his cigar and gave us that big Portuguese smile as he announced the drafting of Andre Ware, the gunslinger from the University of Houston.

Ware didn’t turn out to be a straight shooter, after all. His passes had a funny habit of drifting from their intended targets.

So Ware didn’t work out, but Mouse and Fontes plugged away. Eventually, Mouse left the Lions, mystified, but Fontes kept at the Run-n-Shoot, trying to emulate the success the Houston Oilers were having with it.

The Oilers, of course, had much better pass catchers. And a straight shooter, indeed, in Warren Moon.

That helped.

Fontes may have been a lot of things that weren’t so great, but he was the last Lions coach who had a plan and actually set about to implement it.

Until now.

There’s nothing clown-like or jolly or ostentatious about Jim Schwartz. He comes to the Lions with a defensive background, but that’s where the similarity to Wayne Fontes ends.

Oh, except in the plan-having department.

The Lions—and here’s where you need to fasten your seatbelt and make sure your tray is in the upright position—have a direction now. And it’s not just coming from the coach’s office.

It’s a cop out to say that, just because the Lions finished 0-16 last season, things simply can’t get any worse and that anyone would look better following such a lousy act.

To a degree, that’s true.

But Schwartz, the new head coach, and Martin Mayhew, the promoted general manager, are beginning to tantalize me with their approach to getting the Lions out of this sticky, gooey mess that they were served up upon their hiring.

Mayhew first impressed me last October, when as an interim (that word again) GM he fleeced the Dallas Cowboys—shaking them down for a first round draft pick for the confounding receiver Roy Williams.

He impressed me again when he nabbed All-Pro linebacker Julian Peterson for the overrated lineman Cory Redding.

The plan was simple, but not any less effective, if done right.

The Lions, Mayhew said, must get faster, stronger, and bigger.

So that’s what he’s setting about to do.

Aside from acquiring Peterson, Mayhew has smartly signed some free agents and made other, lower-profile trades. I say smartly because he’s not simply throwing money at his problem. He’s grabbing a mix of grizzled and younger veterans who fit into the overall scheme.

He’s doing it in lockstep with Schwartz, who displayed confidence in his job security by hiring experienced men to lead his offense (Scott Linehan) and defense (Gunther Cunningham)—two former NFL head coaches.

Mayhew was a Matt Millen disciple, which is like saying someone learned about racial equality from the Ku Klux Klan. But Mayhew is proving, to me, that he must have left Millen’s office rolling his eyes on many an occasion, overruled but not out-witted.

Mayhew seems to have a handle on this whole personnel thing. He made a couple of terrific draft picks—again, my opinion—in tight end Brandon Pettigrew and safety Louis Delmas.

He’s giving Schwartz, through other pickups, some halfway decent NFL players with which to work—enough, I suspect, to at least keep the Lions from being laughed at from sea to shining sea; until Mayhew can go back to the store and get some more provisions.

I haven’t seen this kind of level-headed, competent approach to putting together a Lions football team since Fontes tried the Run-n-Shoot to complement his hard-hitting defense.

Fontes’ teams won a little bit, and certainly weren’t boring. In that way, he accomplished his mission.

Schwartz and Mayhew. Doesn’t sound so much like a vaudeville act, does it?

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