Sports

Yashinsky: For Lions, Names Change But The Story Remains the Same

December 23, 2013, 1:23 PM by  Joey Yashinsky

The names change.  The story remains the same.

Featured_reggie_bush_8081
Reggie Bush (AP photo)

Reggie Bush is James Stewart: A free agent rusher coming off a couple of nice years signed up to breathe life into the running game for the first time since Barry Sanders put away the cleats.  Like Stewart, Bush had his moments, the most memorable of which came all the way back in Week 1 when he took a short pass 77 yards to the house against Minnesota.  But as the year progressed, the flaws came to the forefront.  He couldn’t secure the football, an unforgivable offense for any tailback.  Many in the metro Detroit area have spotted the great Sanders #20 at various driving ranges around town, and reports are that he still looks like he could suit up.  Bernard Hopkins is a 49-year-old man toting around a legitimate light heavyweight championship belt.  Why can’t Barry carry the rock 12-15 times a game at a ripe 45?

Calvin Johnson is Herman Moore: A top-notch receiver trapped in Lions Hell.  Many assume that with a great receiver comes a great offense.  “We have Stafford and Johnson. . . . There’s no reason we shouldn’t be scoring 30+ points a game.”  But most every NFL team has a dynamic pass-catcher, albeit one not as gifted as Megatron.  It takes much more than a single receiver to get the whole engine working.  Moore would rack up huge numbers in the 90s and was showered with postseason honors, but he never got to strut his stuff on the big stage.  Johnson might be resigned to a similar fate.

Featured_stafford_9143

Matthew Stafford is Joey Harrington is Andre Ware: Home run picks from the NFL draft that never panned out.  Such picks are the definition of why the draft is deridingly referred to as the “Lions’ Fans Super Bowl.”  All were selected by the Lions in the top-10 with the thought that they would come in and eventually take this ill-fated franchise all the way to February.  Ware was never anything more than Rodney Peete’s waterboy.  Harrington was given more of an opportunity, but accomplished nothing just the same -- four years of uninspiring ball and it was on to the next.  Stafford is five years in, and people are still waiting for the light to come on.  The question remains -- is said light within reach or was it never there to begin with?  Glass-half-full fans continue to hold on to that 10-6 season of 2011 for dear life, insisting that is the real Stafford; this similar-looking gentleman that has regressed miserably in the last two seasons is somebody else entirely.  Such hopes are beginning to sound more desperate with each passing week.

Jeremy Ross is Eddie Drummond: A previously-anonymous return man that ignited a stagnant squad on more than one occasion.  But Drummond’s brilliance was short-lived.  Ross also wears a peculiarly low jersey number (12), like his predecessor Drummond (18).  Those numbers are for quarterbacks, not ace return men.  They need to saddle him with an 86 or even 23 (Mel Gray) next year to try and save his career.

Stephen Tulloch is Earl Holmes is Chris Claiborne is Allen Aldridge: Lunch pail middle linebackers that rack up tackles, but do little else.  They don’t make big interceptions or sack the quarterback at a crucial time.  These workmanlike ‘backers just keep replacing one another, doing just about the same thing as the man that preceded him.  Tulloch is a solid player, and not one to be blamed for the Lions’ collapse, but perhaps it’s time to install a young playmaker at this position in an effort to try and move away from this unending string of vanilla.

The secondary is every Lions’ secondary of the last 20 years. 

Bill Bentley is Chris Cash, Darius Slay is Bryant Westbrook, Chris Houston is some form of Dre Bly, Rashean Mathis is Fernando Bryant: This has and always will be the Achilles heel for the Detroit Lions.  The draft gives them eight to ten opportunities to improve, free agency another several chances; yet somehow, someway, the Lions always end each season with a wild collection of castoffs and misfits manning the defensive backfield.  Don Carey was thought to be one of the team’s smarter defenders until yesterday when he decided it would be a smart idea to very obviously prevent a Giants’ WR from standing up after a completion with only seconds to go in the first half.  The Giants were without a timeout, but after the senseless delay of game call on Carey, the clock was stopped and they were able to properly set and convert a now 52-yard field goal.  It was a definitive “Same Old Lions” moment.

And then there’s Jim Schwartz: He is like every single Lions‘ coach that came before him.  Thought to be a savior when hired, it only took a short while to realize he was long on bluster and bravado, but short on brains and backbone.  His game plans lacked any real originality or innovation.  He would present himself as a gunslinger at odd moments, none more so than the fake field goal in Pittsburgh, called with a four-point lead in the final quarter.  The Lions continually lacked discipline under Schwartz, all the way from day one (a thrashing at the hands of New Orleans in 2009) to yesterday’s nail in the coffin loss to New York.  Amazingly, the Lions have hired (and subsequently fired) 12 different coaches since 1965.  Not a single one of them ever got another head coaching job.  Schwartz is young and fiery enough to possibly put an end to that trend, but yesterday most definitely sealed his fate in Detroit.  There’s a reason this paragraph was written in the past tense.  

The Lions will put on their dancing shoes and do the same jig next year.  But make no mistake; some of the faces might be different, but the story will never change.  



Leave a Comment:

Photo Of The Day