Lions are horrid, now and through history
By Reid Creager
rcreager@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Friday, Nov. 14, 2008
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/sports/story/353511.html
DETROIT - NOVEMBER 09: Daunte Culpepper #11 of the Detroit Lions looks to pass against the Jacksonville Jaguars on November 9, 2008 at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)
The NFC South vise grip doesn't figure to loosen this weekend: Atlanta hosts Denver and its Pop Warner defense. Tampa Bay is home, where its punishing defense seems to hit harder. So you could say the Panthers' home game against the winless Lions is a must-win.
But I lived in Detroit for 35 years, and I'm here to tell you: It's not a must-win. It's a musn't-lose.
Losing to the Detroit Lions isn't like losing to a bad team like the Bengals or the Chiefs or the Rams. It's a failure of mind-numbing proportions, simply because the Lions themselves have been a failure of mind-numbing proportions so very consistently for decades:
1 playoff win since 1957.
0 Super Bowl appearances.
2 winning seasons since 1996, and a record of 67-134 since. That's a .333 winning percentage, meaning the Lions have lost two out of every three games on average for the past 12-plus years.
Folks, 0-9 ain't that bad for the Lions. An 0-9 stretch is just a few wins less than they usually have over that span. It's not much of an aberration.
When you're this bad for this long, everyone has a hand in it -- from William Clay Ford, owner of the sputtering automaker who hires blatantly unqualified general managers and coaches; the aforementioned overmatched "braintrusts" who acquire and draft players with equal cluelessness; and last but not least, a lot of really crummy players.
Google "worst pro sports franchises," and the Lions are almost sure to come up in every conversation. It could be the worst-run sports franchise in the past quarter-century. To play for the Lions is to put a "kick me" sign on your back -- and to coach in Detroit, well, that's applying for the Witness Protection Program.
Since the team fired George Wilson in 1964, the Lions have had 12 coaches, and none of them has gone on to another NFL head coaching job. It's almost as though being a Lions coach dumbs you down, contaminates you in some way. Some of the names aren't even recognizable to most football fans: Harry Gilmer. Joe Schmidt. Don McCafferty. Rick Forzano. Tommy Hudspeth. Monte Clark. Darryl Rogers. Wayne Fontes. Bobby Ross. Marty Mornhinweg. Steve Mariucci. Rod Marinelli.
If you're a head coach who escapes Detroit with your sanity, you can try to move on and join someone else's staff. But that's as good as it's going to get. You're radioactive. You can't hide your Lion eyes.
Panthers fans, be glad your team and the Lions have only the same animal family in common. You have no idea how good you've got it. I covered some Lions games and worked for one of the Detroit papers for 18 years. Every autumn I was surrounded by Lion-ness. Before cable, I watched them on Sundays when they were the only game on local television. (My first memory of watching them on TV was seeing the players laughing on the field as some guy named Tom Dempsey lined up for a 63-yard field goal attempt in New Orleans.) I endured endless "what's wrong with the Lions" blabberfests on Detroit sports talk radio, which could be as lousy as the team on the field.
I've been here four years, and now I only twitch occasionally when I hear the word "lions." Counseling can only do so much.
I can only scratch the surface here in terms of what true Lion-ness is really like. You can get a much more comprehensive feel for it, and plenty of laughs, via www.curseofbobbylayne.com -- a fitting tribute to Detroit Lions ineptitude. (See "The Humiliations"; this stuff is out of a bad movie.) The site was established in the spirit of a curse by NFL quarterbacking legend Bobby Layne, who, when traded to Pittsburgh in 1958, said Detroit would never win another championship.
Chances are good that site will be around for awhile, because the dumbness that is Liondom continues to manifest itself in recent years. Even though the team routinely gets a high draft pick, that selection has gone to waste with duds including Reggie Rogers, Andre Ware, Aaron Gibson, Joey Harrington, Charles Rogers and Mike Williams. Note that many of these picks have been at the skill positions, where glaring errors can keep a franchise grounded indefinitely. Only a couple of months ago did the team see fit to fire general manager Matt Millen, whose prolonged bumbling prompted fan protests outside the stadium during his 31-84 reign of error.
Make your lives much easier on yourselves, Panthers. Win this game. And then look around the stadium and savor where you are -- and consider where you're not.
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