Western Herald sports thought

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

For fans of the Detroit Lions, that phrase continues… fool me three times, four times, five times, six, seven, eight, and on and on it goes.

At the end of every disastrous season we all tell ourselves that it was the last straw. We all swear that we’ll never watch another game and we throw our blue and white merchandise into the dark nether regions of the closet.

But then, when football season rolls around and the Lions prepare to start with a clean slate, that bubble of hope begins to expand somewhere inside each of us. Try as we might, that bubble eventually wraps us in a cocoon of blind hope causing each of us to wonder, “why not?”

Why not this season?

Why not Calvin Johnson? We might have been the worst team in the league but Johnson is widely regarded as one of the best wide receivers in the game. We know we have a tendency to get caught in the hype of our own players (Marian Hossa, what were we thinking?) but Johnson is legit and everybody, from the lowliest NFL blogger to smartest SportsCenter analyst, knows that it’s true. Johnson ranked fifth in the league in receiving yards (1,331) and tied for first in touchdowns (12) despite a regularly rotating collection of utterly average quarterbacks.

Why not Matthew Stafford? Regardless of your opinion of his expensive contract, he couldn’t be the consensus first pick in the draft without good reason. His powerful arm and good instincts are a lethal combination when you factor into the equation Johnson’s height, hands, and explosiveness. Even the ghost of the once powerful Daunte Culpepper managed to get the ball in Johnson’s hands on regular basis.

Why not Kevin Smith? He may not be the most talented running back in the world, but he certainly managed to turn heads last year. His 976 total yards were the 17th best among all running backs despite sharing the backfield with Rudi Johnson for the first half of the season. Smith enters only his second season in the league this year and should certainly be able to take a major step forward.

There seems to be a sense in the air that after years of stumbling around the NFL looking like an older version of the local high school team, the Lions finally seem to find the path that leads in the right direction. Sure, the defense needs some work and the offensive line couldn’t stop an 89-year-old cripple, but there’s hope back inside Ford Field in 2009.

There’s still one platitude that all Detroit fans use to ease their broken prides and hearts: whatever the Lions’ faults, they definitely can’t get worse. After you break the record for worst ever season in professional football, the only way to go is back up. Another 0-16 season seems highly unlikely, and while the Lions have disappointed us before, the bubble of hope that they can manage to win at least one game this year is one bubble that just won’t be popped.

-Ryan Loren
Sports reporter

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Posted by heraldstaff on Jul 23 2009. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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