Lions quarterbacks threw passes and he threw blocks.

Charlie Sanders doesn’t hold any team records for pass catching. He hasn’t for years, but no one who put on the Honolulu Blue and Silver put himself through what Charlie did every Sunday, lining up at tight end for 10 seasons.

He’d take on Dick Butkus, block for Mel Farr, and make a couple circus catches over the middle or in the corner of the end zone.

Sanders—and that surname is magic when it comes to Detroit football—didn’t put up gaudy numbers. There were no 1,000-yard seasons.

All he was, was the best tight end to ever play in Detroit. Hell, he might have been the best of his time.

And he was the franchise’s best receiver, as previously indicated.

Style, numbers, gaudiness be damned.

Fourteen long years went by after Charlie Sanders retired before we were again thrilled by footballs spiraling through the air and ending up in sure hands—on a consistent basis.

Herman Moore, who arrived from Virginia in 1991, was trying to make us forget Charlie Sanders and Pat Studstill. Not to mention the recently-deceased Terry Barr.

Moore caught passes with pillow-like hands. Lions passers couldn’t hit him in between the numbers because Moore didn’t let the ball get that far. He snared footballs, none of this clutch-to-the-chest jazz.

Herman Moore is where you go to if you’re looking for numbers of the gaudy variety, as he was known for his 100+ receptions and 1,500-yard seasons.

But if this was basketball, Moore was a perimeter player. Charlie Sanders was banging bodies under the basket, a big man in a big man’s game.

Herman Moore hasn’t played for the Lions since 2001. In that time, the pass catching has been handled by hacks, scrubs, and draft busts.

Only Roy Williams, a 2004 first-round pick who was dispatched to Dallas last year, proved to be somewhat competent in the receiving department in the years since Moore departed.

That’s about to change.

Calvin Johnson is a freak of a football player. At six-foot-five, you could put a tank top and shorts on him and you would mistake him for a small forward in the NBA.

He’s big and runs like a deer. He has the hands of Herman Moore and the physicality of Charlie Sanders. He’d just as soon run over you, than around you.

In the 2007 season, when the Lions were sprinting to a very un-Lions-like 6-2 start, there was a moment that made my jaw drop. I don’t even recall who the Lions opponents were, because it doesn’t matter.

Johnson lined up on the outside, then at the snap of the football, he eschewed running a pass pattern. Instead, he made a wide arc, toward the Lions backfield, and took a handoff. Your basic wide receiver reverse play.

Hardly!

Johnson took the football and proceeded to show one of the reasons why he’s going to own Detroit someday.

The poor defenders didn’t have a chance.

Johnson picked up steam as he rounded the corner, long legs reaching full gallop, and he didn’t seem to care who or what was in his path.

The other guys were the bowling pins, and Johnson was the 239-pound ball striking the pocket at full speed.

His strides could be measured in yards, not feet. It seemed that his prance to the end zone—and this was every bit of a 40-yard run—used up as much time as it would if he was crossing his living room.

I’d never seen a receiver run a reverse like that. Ever.

Earlier that rookie season, in September in Philadelphia, Johnson made a catch that had to be seen to be believed. I will attempt to recreate it here, but its justice won’t be done.

But I’ll try anyhow.

Johnson ran a fly pattern down the sidelines. He was some 30-40 yards from the line of scrimmage.

Lions quarterback Jon Kitna heaved the ball toward Johnson’s general direction. Such is Johnson’s deceptive speed that he had overrun Kitna’s pass, and therefore had to turn, stop, and leap. All at once.

The ball was still high up in the air when Johnson turned, so he jumped equally as high. The momentum of the leap, combined with the fact that the football was now just beyond his head, forced his torso back while his legs stayed forward.

The result was a crash landing for Johnson, but not before he brought the ball in from over his head to a cradle near his waist.

He landed with a terrible thud, on his tailbone, from several feet off the turf.

He made the catch, which was unreal, but the landing gave him a nagging injury that would bother him all season.

He was still able to run through everyone on that reverse play, injury and all.

A healthier Johnson, in 2008, racked up over 1,300 yards receiving on 78 catches. He caught 12 touchdown passes—all while playing for the only 0-16 team in NFL history.

There’s a fluttering feeling in the tummies of Lions fans—and players and coaches—that this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the potential of Calvin Johnson.

He could be a one-man wrecking crew for years. He’s still a baby, in football terms—more like a bulldozer outfitted with a racing car engine.

Calvin Johnson could own Detroit. He’s the most talented, most physically gifted pass receiver to come down the Lions’ pike in…well, ever.

All the Lions need now is someone to throw the ball in his general direction with some degree of consistency.

That’s been a need for half a century—the biggest caveat to Johnson’s potential as a Lion.

They’d better find someone to chuck it, because the Lions have themselves something here.

Finally.

Charlie Batch is an ex-Lions quarterback, but not paying any alimony, despite his divorce.

In fact, Batch wears two Super Bowl rings, collected as a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Life as a Lions “ex” often ends up being pretty good, after all.

Batch was gutting it out, leaving it all on the field in Detroit, gamely trying to lead a talent-challenged team to prosperity, when Matt Millen bounded into town as the Lions’ new president.

Then, in the time it took Millen to utter a gauche comment, Charlie Batch knew his days were numbered as a Lion.

“We’re married to Charlie Batch,” Millen said, speaking of the Lions’ quarterbacking situation shortly after being introduced as team president in January 2001.

It wasn’t meant as a compliment.

Millen may as well have substituted the word married with “saddled.”

Batch, despite that clumsy description of the state of his career from Millen, nonetheless went out in 2001 and worked his tail off, as he always had as a Lion.

“We’re married to Charlie Batch.”

That sentence clung to Batch, and to the Lions, like a school of zebra mussels.

And neither Batch nor the Lions could wash off the stench.

So when Millen drafted quarterback Joey Harrington out of Oregon in 2002, it didn’t take a clairvoyant to figure out how the “marriage” between Batch and the Lions was going to turn out.

Irreconcilable differences.

Harrington arrived in Lions Land, a smile on his face and with the reputation as an eternal optimist. He was a piano-playing quarterback in a guitar-playing town. A wine drinker among the shot-and-beer clientele.

Before long, Joey was starting, for a poor team with little pass protection and too few decent receivers.

Another match made in hell.

Harrington was routed out of town following the 2005 season after four turbulent seasons of marriage to the Lions.

In fact, Joey pretty much initiated divorce proceedings when he failed to show up to Mike Martz’s quarterback school in March ’06.

Millen consented, and Harrington took his piano to Miami.

Jon Kitna was then wed after a whirlwind courtship.

Matt Millen had become the Mickey Rooney and Liz Taylor of quarterback marriages.

Let’s hope the Lions have learned a little from the Harrington failure.

There’s a low rumble starting that I’m afraid is only going to get louder and more difficult to ignore as time goes by this summer.

Matthew Stafford, the Lions’ bonus-baby quarterback from Georgia, has his supporters, which is great.

But those supporters are taking their zeal too far.

They want Stafford to be the starting quarterback when the Lions tee it up for real on Sept. 13, Week One of the regular season.

What is it they say about those who forget the past?

If the Lions have even the tiniest peas for brains, they should at least be smart enough to know that Stafford shouldn’t so much as warm up during any game this season.

He and his money should remain on the sidelines, from the first week in September till the last week in December.

His jersey should be put on and removed week after week, never seeing a washing machine in between.

The Lions baseball cap should adorn his head at all times.

The clipboard should be firmly in hand.

Starting Stafford would be one of the biggest mistakes the Lions have ever made, and they’ve made some doozies.

Harrington wasn’t ready to start in 2002, and it may have ruined him forever. Certainly it set the franchise back several years, when they were already decades in arrears.

Stafford needs to sit. And watch. And learn.

But most important, he needs to wait.

Not on himself. On his team—to get better.

Stafford would arguably be working with an even worse offensive line than the one that feebly blocked for Harrington in 2002.

You start him now, you turn him into David Carr—flat on his back 60-70 times from sacking, and his confidence eroded.

Is that how you develop and nurture a franchise quarterback?

Of course, Harrington never had anyone nearly as good as Calvin Johnson catching his passes—when they were ever near enough to be caught.

That’s all right. Let Stafford throw to Calvin all he wants—in practice. Just not during a real game.

The Stafford-to-Johnson pipeline might be the most exciting thing to happen to Detroit football since the jitterbug Barry Sanders dazzled us.

But it’s not ready to be unleashed this season. Not even close.

Stafford, by all accounts, has an impressive football IQ and a seemingly good grasp of what being the No. 1 overall pick in the draft means.

That’s great. But you still don’t start him.

For one, the Lions have Daunte Culpepper, and that’s not chopped liver.

Culpepper has dropped weight, is working hard, and is embracing his role as leader. He’s still only 32 years old.

Remember David Krieg? Or Steve DeBerg? Guys who called signals competently at advanced ages?

Oh, you wanna talk active players?

Then what about Kurt Warner?

Culpepper may be several years away from his second retirement. There might be a lot of good football left in his tank.

So it’s not like the Lions have Tweedledee or Tweedledum listed first on the depth chart at quarterback.

But they will if they move Culpepper down a notch and replace him with the rich rookie.

This is no time for haste.

You’re coming off an 0-16 season. And you’d put a rookie in charge of those bums?

Stafford, if all goes to plan, could be the best thing to hit the Lions in over 50 years.

If you treat him right.

Everyone—Culpepper, the Lions, Stafford, coach Jim Schwartz—is best served if the kid spends 2009 on the bench waiting for even more reinforcements to arrive courtesy of the 2010 draft.

It gives Daunte a year to prove to the NFL that he’s still serviceable—in Detroit or elsewhere.

It gives the Lions a veteran QB to lead them through a new coach’s first year, coming on the heels of 0-16.

It gives Stafford a year to learn and saves him from a sack fest.

It gives Schwartz a smoother year of transition than if Stafford were the starter.

By my count, that’s a win/win/win/win situation—twice the usual amount.

And a much better chance of a long, healthy marriage between quarterback and team.

Resist the urge, Schwartzie!

All the rancor about the NFL Draft reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, uttered back in the day, long before the Internets, by a frustrated NFL coach.

Fed up with the supposed expertise of the blabbermouths in the broadcast booth and on talk radio, the coach had himself an idea.

“I’m going to Radio Shack to buy me one of those headset things,” the coach said.

Why’s that, coach?

“Because as soon as you put them on, you instantly know everything,” the coach said.

Zing!

I’d like to modify that a tad–bring it up to date.

In addition to a headset, the NFL coach of today should also discover the miraculous healing power of tapping onto a keyboard.

That’s all you need–a broadcast headset and a laptop by your side.

The blabbermouths on TV and radio and the bottom feeders on the Net know it all. I ought to know, because I’ve been both!

That’s the shortcut; the substitute for months of research and looking at film and conducting interviews and doing due diligence.

Ah, why bother with all that when you can just slip on some cans and pound away viciously on the keyboard?

I must laugh at all the letter grades that are doled out, sometimes within 24 hours of the completion of the draft. I chuckle at the disgusted tones I hear on sports talk radio — from the hosts and John on his cell phone tooling down I-696.

How can you properly “grade” a draft mere hours and days after it occurs?

You can’t.

How can you be 0-16, have as many holes as the Lions have on their roster, and say that you don’t “need” certain things, like a quarterback?

You can’t.

The Lions need pretty much everything, and last I checked, they were only able to select one player No. 1 overall. It would have been nice if the league had given the Lions an exemption and allowed them to grab as many players as they could in, say, thirty seconds — like one of those game show shopping sprees. Or the money tank that you step into as the dollar bills swirl all around you.

Snatch as many players as you can!

Doesn’t work that way.

The Lions picked QB Matthew Stafford No. 1. Then they selected TE Brandon Pettigrew with their other first round pick. Safety Louis Delmas was the second rounder.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, the headset wearers and keyboard mashers said.

“I’m really disappointed with this draft,” one of the WXYT loudmouths said the other day as I tuned in within my car. He said it with the proper tone of morose typically reserved for being told you’ve been laid off or something of true relevance.

Aww, poor baby. He’s disappointed.

Tough.

These are the players who, after the months of interrogation and watching film until eyes glazed over, are your new Detroit Lions.

But what about the past??

Gone. Water under the bridge. Milk, spilled. Done like dinner.

Look, we won’t truly know whether Draft ‘09 was good or not till a few years down the road.

As usual, it will likely come down to the players picked on Day Two, anyway.

Those are where the gems are found, the so-called diamonds in the rough. The players whose contributions provide depth and football accumen on the cheap. The ones who round out your roster nicely.

All the championship teams have such players. The Day Two guys are often the ones that save your bacon as a GM or personnel guy.

The Lions should have picked LB Aaron Curry No. 1 overall. What were they doing drafting a tight end in the first round? Why not grab Rey Maualuga in round two? He was sitting right there! Same with Ohio State’s James Laurinitis.

What the hell?

We’ll see soon enough.

Charlie Rogers, in his first game as a Lion in 2003, made two spectacular catches for touchdowns against the Cardinals at Ford Field. Matt Millen looked good in drafting Charlie as high as he did. You wouldn’t have had any arguments from any of the 60,000+ fans in the stands that September Sunday afternoon.

Great draft pick!

It wasn’t until 2006, when Rogers showed his true colors as a football talent, following some injuries and brushes with the rules.

Wasted draft pick!

One of the cell phone dudes called in to WXYT on Sunday.

“Stafford’s not going to make it. He’ll be a bust!”

Oh, really?

The Lions should have hired that guy. Would have saved them a ton of time on research and interviews and film watching.

He’s not going to make it. He’ll be a bust.

So says Cell Phone Guy.

No draft can be properly gauged before they pump up one football for the upcoming season. You can’t do it when the uniforms these players are wearing are Armani suits.

But Cell Phone Guy and Headset Dude and Keyboard Masher have it all figured out, already.

I wonder how much they’d work for, if hired? Probably could save a bundle of cash.