Detroit Lions: Now Is The Time, Carpe Diem!

From every generation comes a moment of unparalleled opportunity not likely to be duplicated for years to come. For professional football enthusiasts, 2010 is a moment like no other. What this means for a team like the Detroit Lions is that past mistakes, gross incompetence, and current failures can be wiped out with one mighty stroke of boldness.

As we have not seen previously, college underclassman are declaring themselves eligible for the NFL Draft in 2010. This mass exodus of talent into the professional ranks overflow the collective pool with first round talent that is likely to slide into the mid to low end of the second round of the draft.

The reason this is happening is well reported and known: underclassmen are seeking to circumvent the contract stalemate between NFL owners and the players union looming in 2011; with NFL owners seeking to assert a mandated salary cap on draft picks for the 2011 draft.

What this means for any keen observer, is that this year’s NFL Draft holds a unique opportunity for a team like our Detroit Lions.

This is the time! It will not come again for years, if decades.

For the Lions’ brain trust, this is not a time for timidity, lack of empowerment, or shallow thinking. It is time to think outside the ‘status quo’ box they have been mired in for decades! This is not a time for conservative thinking, or debating ad nausea among the shallow thinkers they have employed for years.

In recent days, many are calling for trades of people like Calvin Johnson and Ernie Sims in order to stock pile picks in the 2010 draft. I would only agree to the proposal of trading  anyone on the current team, including Stafford, if, in return, the Lions can get multiple picks.  

The Lions management history has shown the entire lot to be devoid of boldness, timid, cowardly, and conservative beyond belief. From decade to decade, we get recycled clones, churned out like sausage links, replicating wimp after wimp.

A contemporary metaphor, which stands as the antithesis of what we have been given might be a film like Dead Poets Society . In the film, Robin Williams is standing in front of a wall of photos of dead and gone students attired in football uniforms from years past, surrounded by his current students. He tells them to push in closer, closer, while whispering slowly, almost inaudibly, the phrase, “Seize the day, lads, seize the day.”

Carpe Diem!

Seize the day!

Now is the time!

The only question is, will they?

 

Read more NFL news on BleacherReport.com

Detroit Lions: A Retrospective Of Failure.

Being a Lion fan represents a feeling much like a salmon swimming upstream if one is going to have any fun at all.

So how did it ever get this bad?

Is there really any “hope” in our collective future?

If one consults with Bleacher Report authors, one would be inclined to think that the Super Bowl is just around the next corner. But turning into that slippery and speculative corner can sometimes be met with oncoming traffic speeding directly into one’s headlights and prompting a disjointed and jumbled refrain.  

The semi that just crushed the smart car turning the slippery corner is on its way to gridiron glory.

Those riding in the smart car are meanwhile recovering in the hospital, while dreaming of future events. This may represent a typical form of denial, but it does illuminate the mind set of those who take refuge in their dreams and why they landed in the recovery room in the first place.   

Most of the overly optimistic essays appearing on Bleacher Report lack something necessary for authentic transformation: a comprehensive view of history.

Maybe it is time for a stroll down memory—lane: and this is the first installment of a series on Bill Ford, Sr. the bringer of doom, obfuscation, and narcissism, to a proud city deserving of something better. 

As such, the most important historic qualifier since Ford purchased the Lions is that his team has never appeared in a Super Bowl.  

It is also interesting to note that the demise of this once prolific franchise began under Ford’s stewardship.

Ford purchased the Lions outright from a group of partners in November, 1963, making him the sole owner of the franchise; moreover, the single most defining observation of Ford’s gross incompetence since this tragic event, is that the team has only won a single playoff game under his stewardship.

Let me say that one more time: since Ford has owned the team, the Lions have only won a single playoff game. Forty—six years and counting, one playoff victory! If this represented any other industry, the company would have closed its doors long ago.   

After Ford became sole owner of the franchise, he promptly promoted Russ Thomas to GM of the front office.

There are stories about the rather eccentric relationship between Ford and Thomas circulating in historical accounts, but mostly the evidence is sketchy at best.

The story is that Ford had an out-of-control drinking problem, and Thomas did an intervention by taking Ford to a cabin somewhere up north to help him overcome his drinking problem. Apparently the effort worked leading to a long lasting friendship with Thomas, thus assuring the man a leadership role in the front office until his forced retirement many years later.

This narrative was advanced by former Detroit News journalist, Jerry Green, back in the seventies; I only mention it, if you are curious about the source of the story.

Moreover, it was never refuted by Ford publicly.

Thomas was to the ’60s what Millen was to the ’00s.

Both men played pro ball, but neither was particularly gifted or adept at running a NFL franchise; and neither was gifted at evaluating NFL talent as evidenced by their many failures.

Between 1964 and 1969, Thomas demonstrated his fetish for the RB position, in a similar way that Millen had a fetish for the WR position.

Thomas drafted four RBs during that period including Tom Nowatzke, Nick Eddy, Mel Far, and Altie Taylor. The best two RB to play the game during that era were OJ Simpson (taken with the first overall pick in 1969), and Gayle Sayers taken by Chicago (Gayle was taken four slots after the Lions took Nowatzke in the 1965 draft).

The rest—as they say—is history.

A couple of notable Hall of Famers that Thomas passed on was Gene Washington and Gene Upshaw.

To be fair, Thomas did draft Charlie Sanders using a third—round pick, and Lem Barney using a second—round pick; but all of his other picks were mediocre to incompetent at best.

In the 1964 NFL draft, Thomas took QB Pete Beathard out of USC. Beathard more or less laughed off Thomas’ financial offer, and then rode off into the sunset with the AFL Kansas City Chiefs; he never played a down in Detroit. As a consequence, Detroit forfeited its first round pick in 1964.

The sixties slipped into the annals of NFL infamy for the Detroit Lions; Bill Ford’s “broken toy” remained broken into the seventies: the subject of installment number II.

Read more NFL news on BleacherReport.com

Detroit Lions: A Culture Of Excuses

Watching the new Lions coach Jim Schwartz dodge and weave at his weekly press conference tells me a lot about the culture of incompetence and perpetual “wimp-hood” of those types who have been employed by Bill Ford Sr. over his 45-plus years of ownership of the Detroit Lions.

Schwartz unleashed a barrage of excuses, rationalizations, and what ifs, while kicking the can down the road of some imagined future.

When asked about the obvious disparity between Mark Sanchez and Matt Stafford, instead of sucking it up and acknowledging Sanchez’s stellar performance, all Schwartz would acknowledge is that Matt Stafford is the future of the Lions.

The question, of course, had nothing whatsoever to do with the future of Stafford—whose 40 percent QB rating places him dead last in the NFL in that category—but was intended to point out that the Lions screwed the pooch again, like they always do.

Whether it was Matt Millen, Russ Thomas, or Chuck Schmidt, one can count the ways to failure taken from a long history of burnt offerings. Mighty Mayhew, of course, was nowhere to be seen, let alone to fess up; instead, he was taking refuge in the shadows, while Schwartz had to face the music alone for his part in the characteristic “yes man” syndrome.

Of course, we cannot really blame Schwartz or Mayhew for their domesticated male-hood, tied to the corporate culture of kissing someone’s arse. Both have been in the corporate system their entire lives, leading to a man-hood never claimed.  

Conversely, the type of character I am talking about can only be found on a battlefield, in the middle of the desert without water, on top of a mountain, or in the wilderness on a solitary rite of passage.

Sadly—and this is especially true of corporate America or professional sports—Westerners grow up without rites of passage leading to manhood.

And this has nothing whatsoever to do with guild hazing found in different professions or the typical frat boy ritual on nonsense.

An authentic right-of-passage is taken by the individual alone and in the harshest of conditions. Its aim was to initiate one to another status within the tribe; it led to a leadership role.

In undertaking a rite of passage, the initiate sought closeness with the Great Spirit, the Mystery, or higher self. The time alone in wilderness with no food and little water, exposure to the elements without shelter, and being in an unfamiliar place often triggered a radical shift in self and world.

The trail of the passage led to a gift for the initiate at great risk to his of her own life, along with a ritual death and rebirth into authentic adulthood.  

Sadly, modern cultures seem to have forgotten most of what our ancestors knew about the importance of initiatory rites for sustaining individuals and their communities.

Instead, we find ourselves strangers in our own lives, unsure of our status and value and hungry for a connection with the abiding rhythms of the earth and an enduring spirit.

This is the case we find ourselves today with the emasculated males like Mayhew, Schwartz, Lewand, and Ford.

But it certainly reaches out into social praxis for anyone tied interminably to the corporate, fascist, state nexus power dynamic.

The endless fascination with fantasy scenarios is the abrupt severance with the deepest part of any male whose growth potential  has been truncated by the forces of emasculation.

Read more NFL news on BleacherReport.com

Detroit Lions: The Beautiful Dreamer

How does one really understand the beautiful dreamer of professional sport?

If you have not guessed it, I am talking about the fantasy elite who remain ever vigilant to squeeze every drop of blood out of their pet rock. In this case, the “pet rock” is the perpetual comedy known the Detroit Lions football.

But I suppose the metaphor transcends our local team, making it ubiquitous in the world of sport.  

So that leaves me to ask, what are the archetypes driving the platitudes, optimism, and denial so prevalent in our contemporary moment?

In case you are unfamiliar with the term I am using, an archetype is a pattern that is replicated collectively, often by memes or in the case advocated by the renowned Depth Psychologist, Carl Jung, through the collective unconscious.

Archetypes matter because it perpetuates the myths which help keep a class of sheep in perpetual bondage and servitude to the cause of wealth.

And in the case of professional sports, hope and progress need to be re-marketed from time to time so to disguise the real nature of the beast.

I don’t think it is any secret to anyone that professional sports exist as a capital venture to create as much wealth as possible for their owners.

For anyone who believes otherwise, my advice is to stop reading this essay right now, so to return to the benign and comfortable group-speak point of view to which you have become accustomed.

What perpetuates the fantasy acting out is what I like to call the Harvey Wunkerpud syndrome.

Harvey sub-exists, much like the domesticated animals he keeps in bondage for pleasure or food, while not recognizing he is one of them, also in chains.

Therefore, he is incapable of true compassion for himself or for the beasts he tortures because this type of compassion would require a formidable look from without, from outside his senseless condition.

Additionally, and because his bondage does not bother him or he is simply not aware of it, he fails to recognize political or social dissent.

The right to dissent or to revolt peacefully or with blood, against the cancerous, corporate, gluttonous, materialistic ethos seems to him the exclusive enterprise of some historical ancestor, “the Patriot.”

Finally, Harry refuses to take responsibility for his freedom, or to be responsible for anything worthwhile and good. True rebellion, righteous rebellion, is seen, alternatively, as bad form, a vice, or only to be employed as a means to ensure that the easy and disposable life he is addicted to continues.

Living perpetually in a self-imposed cage, he is anxious of the very idea of the cage’s door opening for good. As such, Harvey will bite the very hand of his liberator. Plenty of food, much diversion are nevertheless accepted.

Like the film Groundhog Day, Harvey wakes up each day to the same surreal and alienated life, parrots the expected script and meaningless text, moves from one thermostatically stable environment to another, pushing buttons, pulling levers, and punching cards.

He has transformed himself into a wheeled cyborg: half human, half car, for whom walking is seen as a form of rebellion, or deviant act he just will not tolerate.

He has substituted moral or righteous indignation with acting out behavior, violence, passive aggressive agitation, incessant complaining, or insufferable whining. His entire vocabulary comes either at the promptings of his handlers or is punctuated by a tendency of self-pity and injured ego dramatics.

The crescendo of his speech covers the spectrum of incessant complaining to insufferable whining and extends easily to projection, stereotype, and personal prejudice.

The world is always wrong for Harvey because of too many environmentalists, progressives, Turks, or Muslims living and working where he is used to whining about every other thing that captures his limited attention.

Of course, we cannot blame him for this. Harvey lacks an understanding of how his own consciousness is affected by propaganda and ideology.

He lacks any understanding of the way language is crafted by others, of how technical jargons make many important facets of life interruptible into a cohesive matrix that might inform him in ecological, social, and/or mythical terms.

Such is Harvey’s predicament and social plight or interminable existential angst against which he is a victim of his own ignorance.

Read more NFL news on BleacherReport.com

Detroit Lions: The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same.

I settled in to watch the Lions/Browns game with an ice-cold six-pack of Rolling Rock. During my first sip, Josh Cribbs takes the kickoff right up the gut of Lion defenders like a hot knife through butter.

A penalty saves the Lions, and the TD is voided.

The Browns line up for their first drive after the penalty, and five plays later, the Browns score a TD. This one stands, and becomes the Browns’ first offensive TD since the end of November last year. The final play of the drive is a pass over the head of one of General Manager Martin Mayhew’s free agent acquisitions.

Mayhew was Matt Millen’s right-hand-man for the last eight years, just in case you have been living on the North Pole without Internet access. In January, Mayhew is tagged as a genius guru by the fantasy elite, intoxicated with delusions of grandeur for Team Trauma. 

In the eyes of the fantasy elite, Mayhew can do no wrong. He is the mythical equvalent to Zeus. Every trade or free agent acquisition is a thunderbolt from on high. However, Mayhew has successfully transformed a young team into an old folks home of aging cast-offs that nobody else wants.  

Browns kick off, and the Lions get their first shot with the new the new franchise QB, Matthew Stafford. I take another sip of Rolling Rock as a sickening feeling of the ghost of Christmas past descends into my consciousness as Stafford is standing over his center.  

The ball snapped, Stafford drops back to pass, and he unleashes a dart directly into the hands of a Browns defender. A few plays later, the Browns take the lead 14 to zero.

The cameraman pans over to Schwartz, the new head coach. Schwartz, like all of Ford’s previous coaches, is on his way out the door the moment he is hired.  Coaching for the Lions follows a predictable script. Much like death and taxes, the end game is assured.  

A week earlier, Mayhew is shuttling his sugar daddy Ford Sr. around the practice facility showing off his handiwork and inviting visions of a new leaf turned. Ford soaks it up like a thirsty puppy that has been without water for two days. Such is the case with the recycled saviors Ford finds to run his team.

I am on my second Rolling Rock when the Browns score again.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Halftime rolls around, and I have had my fill. I change the channel to a Mel Gibson film called Ransom. Mel is clocking the character played by Gary Sinise. In real life, I suspect Gary can clock Mel. But such is the nature of film. It depicts fantasy instead of reality.

Suddenly the metaphor hits me. For the last 45 years, the Lions have been run by an assortment of incompetent “yes” men who turned the franchise into a movie set, a false front behind which there is an enormous empty lot crossed with shallow graves and broken glass.

Mayhew and his cheap advisers mimic the World Wrestling Federation by deliberately kicking the can down the road using marketing schemes, slight of the hand, and other delusions to create a movie script and a fantasy scenario.

They make believe something is true when in reality, it is false. What this demonstrates is that if enough people sign up and tow the company line long enough, you can make anything appear as what you want it to.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

NFL Sport Channel Latest

• Just How Far Would You Go?
• Sorry Rex, But It Isn’t Happening
• Super Bowl Predictions: Five Stat-Free Reasons Why the Eagles Will Reach The Super Bowl
• Seahawks Attempt to Turn Corner With Heavy Pursuit of Pete Carroll
• Bill Cowher Unlikely to Coach in 2010