Idle Hands Are the Devil’s Car Keys: An Oppressive Lions Summer

The blazing heat of the summer sun’s rays drill through me; the sweltering blanket of humidity smothers everything. Scorched grass crunches underfoot as I mop sweat off my brow with sweat from my arm. The air is pregnant with steamy moisture while plants lay dead from lack of water. Everywhere, there is radiant heat. Everywhere, there is blinding light.

Everywhere but the blue bonfire.

With a grunt, I drop the handles of the wheelbarrow I rolled here. Shielding my eyes with my hand, I take stock: a decent-sized flame flickers languidly on the ashes of what was recently a towering pillar of fire. A few empty mugs lay empty on the ground, along with party cups and paper plates and somebody’s Lions snapback. The rack of wood is almost bare; one keg is leaking cider.

I sigh. Time to get to work.

As Tom Leyden of WXYZ first reported, Aaron Berry was arrested on suspicion of DUI, amongst other charges. That makes for Detroit Lions arrests this offseason, by far the highest total in the NFL and so now I guess they are officially the New Bengals, a morally bankrupt group of thugs drunkenly rampaging across America, the example set from the team president on down.

Everything I know about the NFL and human behavior tells me this can’t be a systemic thing. The Lions aren’t coaching their players to go out and smoke weed and drive drunk and escape from the cops. The Lions, an organization which had the fewest arrests in the NFL from 2000-2011, didn’t suddenly become a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

Let’s look at the  Vikings’ Love Boat incident. Certain Vikings players had been annually organizing evenings of debauchery on private boats. It culminated in seventeen players flying in women of leisure from around the country and doing all sorts of ridiculous things with them during a booze-soaked rager, in full view of horrified boat staff and crew.

That, clearly, was a team thing. That was a systemic problem. That was a culture of lawlessness and criminality. That, also, was a winning team with a perennial Top Ten offense during their 2005 bye week—which magnifies both the deviousness of the behavior and the total and complete lack of effect it had on their job.

The Lions’ arrests are individual incidents. Mikel Leshoure, with friends in southwest Michigan. Nick Fairley, back home in Alabama. Aaron Berry, after participating in Lesean McCoy's charity softball game. There’s absolutely no connection between any of these player’s bad decisions—except who signs their paychecks.

It's time for some talking points. MGoBlog super-ego discussion mode, engage:

So what, are you saying this is okay?

Absolutely not. These young men have made some awful decisions that have put their own lives at risk in a metaphorical way, and others’ lives at risk in a literal way. It has to stop, and in fact it had to stop several incidents ago. It is UNACCEPTABLE in the grand tradition of being angry on the Internet.

So what should the Lions do to stop it?

There's nothing they can do to stop it. They can send them to counseling or training, read everyone on the roster the riot act, punish the guilty with fines and/or suspensions, cut the offenders off the team or any combination of the above. But as Terry Foster did a brilliant job of explaining, the Lions can’t just cut someone for getting a DUI; that sets a precedent they can’t possibly uphold.

Foster’s plan of aggressive testimonials (possibly combined with the NFLPA’s ride-share service) might be the most effective option, but none of that will guarantee any of the Lions’ young players won’t make a mistake.

Are the Lions the new Bengals?

No, the Lions aren't the new Bengals. The Bengals intentionally gambled on character and injury risks because they refused to shell out money for full-time scouts. They drafted on name recognition, and kept up with this strategy despite it repeatedly biting them in the butt.

The Lions' brass haven’t been seeking out character risks, but they may have had overinflated confidence in their locker-room culture. As I wrote for Bleacher Report, the Lions’ current leadership has made a habit of swinging for the fences on picks, drafting guys with the most talent and potential over mediocre guys with higher floors.

Going forward, they’re going to have to be more careful about drafting guys with these kind of issues in their background, but that’s about it.

So are the Lions going to suck now?

No, absolutely not.

Many have jabbed at the organization for the leadership on drinking and driving coming from the top—but they’re getting it exactly backwards. Tom Lewand was fantastic at his job before he got pulled over after a golf outing, and is still fantastic at his job.

If you’ve ever been to a golf outing, or involved in corporate golf in any way, knows they often end with a boozy parade of people who are really good at their jobs suckin’ it up and driving home. As I tweeted on the day of Berry’s arrest, how many sales managers are going to drive from Happy Hour to the golf club, and on the way call into the Huge Show and rant about the “thugs” now wearing Honolulu Blue?

No, no, clearly the talking heads at ESPN have it right: the Lions are going to miss the playoffs because DUIs, and the Bears are going in their stead because they signed Brandon Marshall, who has a rap sheet three iPads long but whatever. Obviously, the general ne’er-do-well-ness of Mikel Leshoure riding dirty in the back seat will directly correlate with being less good at football, while Marshall having played with Cutler before means they’re sure to make the playoffs, despite Marshall being a human time bomb back then, too.

Super-ego mode, disengage.

To reiterate: This is not okay. Lions players have to stop breaking the law. But what happens with these players in their personal lives from this point forward is not something we can, or should, have control over. Nothing will come of us proclaiming or declaring anything. They’ll be watched, they’ll be helped, they may be punished, and they may get treatment. Meanwhile, they’ll to do their jobs as best they can.

Ultimately, that’s how this story ends: with football. Once football starts, we’ll stop paying attention to these young men and the mistakes they’re making. We could sit around and blow a lot of hot air about whether or not football is really important, and how athletes are ceaselessly worshipped and given carte blanche, and how awful it is that these kids will get to go right on plying their trade like nothing happened.

But the only reason we’re talking about the arrests is because of football: the unending amount of attention we pay to it, and the huge pedestal we put it on. Nick Fairley getting arrested is the subject of national sport punditry and bloviating for a solid week, not because people care about Nick Fairley, gifted youth on a rocky path to community pillardom—or even the theoretical victims he’s lucky don’t exist—but because it might, or might not, affect the Detroit Lions.

Let's take it one step further: the reason the Lions’ arrests have been the subject of SO MUCH hot air and spilled in and battered keyboards is because we have to talk about football all the time, and if Lions DUIs is the only thing happening then we’ll just talk Lions DUIs until the next thing happens (in this case, it was the release of the Freeh report on the Penn State horrificness).

This all feeds off a gross, mucky instinct that sports fans (and, I fear, everyone) has: the desire to BE ANGRY all the time, to get up on a soapbox and rant and rave about how everyone else is doing it wrong and people these days have no humanity left and everything’s going to hell in a handbasket all the time. It’s a competitive RAGEFEST 24x7x365 to see who can be the first to be most angry and the most defiant and the most condemnificating. Every morsel of news gets thrown in the great whirling, threshing maw and it gets shredded and re-shredded and pulverised over and over and over until Deadspin or ESPN or whoever throws in the next hunk of meat.

I don't understand what we get out of this, except maybe the temporary emotional boost of feeling like we are RIGHT, in contrast to their WRONG. But as Michael Schottey drove home in a criminally underread piece, many of us have an awful lot of almost-skeletons in our closet on this issue, and we should stop and think about that before we throw our next beloved sports idol into the Rage Combine.

Meanwhile, I have to take my own advice. I’ve got a bunch of mugs to wash, trash to pick up, and cider to brew, and I’ve barely started chopping this wood.

I'm off to channel this energy into something productive: my axe.

Read more...

Detroit Lions at New Orleans Saints Retrospective

I have a thing about justice.

I want things to be right. I want things to be fair. I want the playing field to be level. I want people to get what they deserve. When I hear about a story or a news event without a clear right or wrong, I consume all the information about it I can; I have to know what I think is right.

Yesterday I sat down with my third cup of coffee (more or less (more)) and put my hands on the keyboard. My thoughts weren’t ready yet. Perhaps it was the short turnaround from Sunday Night Football to Monday morning, but the events of the Saints game had yet to percolate through my mind. With nothing but the title typed, I stopped “writing.”

Last night I didn’t go near the computer. I didn’t write a word. I let my thoughts brew slowly. I let frustration and disappointment dilute in the liquid heat of my id while I played some FIFA and ate pancakes. Eventually, I found the words to “Justice” on my lips. This morning, I went to the coffee pot and found that overnight my post had brewed.

The way fans talk about football with each other is a shadow of the way players talk smack on the field. As I said last week in response to a post on Cheesehead TV, it’s part of the illusion of fandom. We brand ourselves with their brand, we wrap our identity up in theirs, we take their successes and failures to heart, and others project their successes and failures onto us.

Complaining about the refs is for losers. It’s what happens when loser fans watch their loser teams lose. Winners know the better team usually wins. Why do you think Vegas sets a betting line? In the NFL, any fan can pick straight winners far more often than not. When upsets happen, it’s because the “worse” team showed up and played better on that day.

The Saints are better than the Lions; there’s no doubt about it. They’re undefeated at home. They went up to Lambeau in Week 1 and were a yard and/or bad playcall from taking the Packers to overtime. By SRS, they’re the second-best team in the NFC, and fourth-best team in the NFL. As the Watchtower showed, they’re scoring a little more, and allowing a little less, than the Lions.

The game’s stats reflect that exactly. The Lions gained 408 yards passing on 44 attempts; that’s an awesome 9.27 YpA. The Saints, though, threw for 342 on 36 attempts, a slightly-better 9.50. The Lions did okay on the ground, getting 87 yards on 22 carries (3.95 YpC). The Saints were a little better; 100 on 23 (4.35 YpC). The Lions were sacked 3 times for The Lions turned it over once, but only after the game was all but in the books. As I said in the Watchtower:

The Saints are like the mini-Packers, and the Lions are like the mini-Saints. These two teams hold up a mirror to one another, and the Saints are a little bit better in every phase of the game—except the Lions play much, much better pass defense. I could see this going either way.

So what turned my projected 30-28 Lions win into a 31-17 Lions loss? Well, the Lions had one field goal blocked, and missed another—getting zero points from two good drives. But that only makes it 31-23. Where’d that other touchdown go?

Oh, right: the Lions were flagged 11 times for -107 yards, and the Saints were flagged 3 times for –30 yards. The penalty differential was exactly one scoring drive.

It isn’t that the Lions didn’t commit these infractions; they did. But as with last week, the problem is consistency. Offensive and defensive holding, and offensive and defensive pass interference, are subjective calls. Much like charging and blocking in basketball, there are technical definitions but enforcement is done by “feel.”

When Nate Burleson is flagged three times for offensive pass interference—as Pride of Detroit user “NobodySpecial” pointed out, that’s as much as any offensive player in the NFL had been tagged with OPI all season long—the game “feels” rigged.
I mean, here’s the SaintsNation Saints blog:

In my entire life of watching football I've never seen an offensive player get flagged 3 times for the same penalty in a game, especially something rare like offensive pass intereference. That goes back to the poor discipline, but it's also just weird.

I don't believe the referees were being controlled by Vegas, mobsters, Roger Goodell, or any other outside force determined to make sure the Lions lose. But it’s impossible to claim with a straight face that the Lions are being officiated the same way other teams are. For instance: pushing a hand into another player’s face is a penalty, except when it’s a ball carrier stiff-arming a defender . . . unless that ball carrier is a Detroit Lion, then it’s a penalty again.

My personal belief is that the league and/or officials are trying to send a message to the Lions. Now that they’re a “dirty team,” the Lions not only have to play as clean as everyone else, they have to play cleaner. They’re going to get flagged for things no other team gets flagged for. Rough stuff from the other side is going to go unpunished. The league is sending a message to the Lions, and it’s up to them to listen.

For once, the one-way street of fandom cuts both ways: on Sunday, the Lions were just as furious as fans were. They were feeling just as confused, just as upset, just as impotent as everyone hollering at their TVs. They were playing the game just as well and just as clean as the Saints, but the refs were taking the results away from them. It’s not fair. It’s not right. It’s unjust.

Civil disobedience isn’t a choice here; the Lions cannot #OccupyTheNFL. There are two possible responses: have a tantrum, or grow up. Remember when Gosder Cherilus was our resident hothead? He of all people should be the first to jump in and make a stupid play after the whistle—but he got it. He gets it. He lets it roll off his back. The Lions are going to have to learn to do the same.

The great thing is, the Lions are talented enough to do it. They can win playing clean. They can win playing cleaner. They can beat the Vikings, Raiders, and Chargers with one hand tied behind their back—and that’s good, because they’ll have to.

Read more...

On Choosing Sides in the NFL Lockout

Last August, I wrote the following:

I’m the schmuck in line at the gate, ready to part with fistfuls of hard-earned jack I should spend on more important things. I’m the tool with a family of five, all dressed in jerseys on gameday. I’m the fool at the bottom of the pyramid scheme, the rube all this is built upon, the mark they’re all getting rich off of . . .

. . . and I’m the kid in front of the TV set, eyes as big as saucers, watching Barry run. Owners, players, coaches, front office, staff, agents, flaks, and all the rest: please. Remember me. Remember us. Remember who really bears the financial burden here—and ultimately, who really holds the cards. Baseball, 1994? Hockey, 2005? We are the golden goose, and you have your hands around our neck.

The union has now decertified, and the NFL has locked the players out.

Throughout this process, fans have had a hard time choosing a side. It’s almost impossible to identify with the players; they’re the top 1% of the top 1% of the top 1% of athletes. They achieve incredible levels of fame and success—in most cases, before they’re old enough to buy beer. They, likely, were the most popular kids in school from a very young age, and had grown adults following them around like puppies from high school on. They’re the ones we see on the field, week after week, making athletic feats we couldn’t dream about doing on our best-dreaming day look routine. We stand in line for hours for a chance at getting their autograph. We melt into babbling idiots when we do get that chance. They are our heroes, they are our idols, and we’d do almost anything to live life as them, even for a little while. What a charmed life, we imagine, they lead.

NFL owners are a different lot. Like politicians and bureaucrats, some seem like familiar characters: Jerry Jones, Al Davis, Dan Snyder. We know how they look, how they talk, what they like, the decisions they tend to make. Others, like William Clay Ford, practically never talk to the public, but we put words in their mouths anyway. Between the very public business decisions they make, and their few public statements, we come to know these men as caricatures: like Donald Trump or Bill Gates, we make them accessible—human—by reducing them to the ridiculous.

I’d like to credit our American ideals, our society’s ingrained belief that every single one of us is just some elbow grease and a lucky break away from being fabulously wealthy. The fact of the matter is that many of these men either built enormous businesses from the ground up, or had wealth—and the team itself—gifted to them. We simply cannot imagine how far removed we are from that world. Witness the public outrage when The Big 3 CEOs flew in private jets to Washington to ask for a bailout! Oh my goodness! As if that wasn’t the way they normally got around!

But NFL athletes? Most of them live in the same world we do for most of their lives. As I’ve said before, I went to college at Michigan State, in an athletes' dorm. I hung out with a lot of football players—and while I got to see just how Big of Men on Campus they were, I’ve also heard where they came from, and seen what’s happened to them since. Most knew they didn’t have a shot at playing on Sundays. Some couldn’t finish school. Some bounced around the Arena League, NFL Europe, and the CFL before getting regular jobs. One even signed with the Lions as a UDFA, went through one day of training camp, and hung ‘em up; through a mutual friend I heard he figured being a gym teacher was easier than two-a-days. One got drafted #2 overall by the Lions . . . now he’s got a horde of mouths to feed and an eight-digit settlement hanging over his head.

Of course, players like Matthew Stafford and Ndamukong Suh had supportive parents, charmed high school and college careers, and signed enormous NFL contracts that will set them up for life. But, for every single one of them, there are thousands that played D-I college ball, had a cup of coffee in the big leagues, and now punch a clock.

Throughout this process, the NFLPA has honest and communicative with me and the fans. Yes, they've tried to get "their message" out—but whenever they've stated facts, they've been facts. The players have repeatedly reached out to bloggers and fans on Twitter, through email, and via phone to explain what’s going on from their perspective. Meanwhile, I’ve written several open letters to the Commissioner, and privately tried to contact NFL spokespeople multiple times; I might as well be talking to a wall.

NFL lead counsel Jeff Pash said yesterday that “the absence of an agreement is a shared failure," and I wholeheartedly agree. But the Commissioner’s latest letter to fans does nothing but explain why it’s all the players’ fault. Meanwhile, DeMaurice Smith’s statement apologizes, at length, to the fans and players, while recognizing the efforts of past players who fought to build the league into what it is today. Whose statement rings more true to you?

What’s that?  It’s an internal NFL flowchart, created to explain their decision-making process. It’s one of the key pieces of evidence Judge Doty referred to when ruling that the NFL violated the CBA. It’s proof that they decided to lock the players out years ago, and jury-rigged the last round of TV contracts to fund a “lockout insurance” war chest. Maybe that just sounds like prudent planning to you—so here’s an analogy.

Imagine if Ford decided the current UAW contract gave too much money to the workers, and that they’d seek major concessions at the next renewal. So, they went to their dealerships and said, “Hey, will you guys agree to keep paying for cars, even if we’re not making any? We’ll sell the cars to you now at a discount.” Then, they sell the cars (that workers built) to the dealers at a discount, thereby making themselves less profitable. Then, they tell the UAW they’re less profitable these days, and demand major concessions. When the union asks for proof, they lock them out—then line their pockets with the money dealers are paying them for non-existent cars. Meanwhile, the workers with mouths to feed and mortgage payments to make have little but their personal savings.

There’s a reason Judge Doty ruled this trick violated the Collective Bargaining Agreement: it’s low-down, dirty stuff. First they shortchanged the players of deserved revenue, then they set up a war chest that would ensure the players caved first . . . all because they weren’t quite wildly profitable enough. This tactic puts the lie to all of the “give a little, get a little” talk the NFL office has been spouting from the get-go, and to all of the “the players decided to walk away for no reason” talk they’re spouting now.

Of course, it certainly appears as though the league made significant movement as the last minute. Today, the NFL and the Trade Association Formerly Known As The NFLPA have wildly differing opinions as to what the NFL’s last offer entailed. So now, a lockout, and the battle will be settled in the courts. Likely, free agency will start sometime before the draft, and business in the NFL will proceed in something kind-of resembling normal fashion.

There’s an argument to be made that we shouldn’t even be paying attention; that all sides admit there will certainly be NFL football in 2011. That it’s a dispute between two groups we cannot influence, who don’t care about us. That we should shrug our shoulders and focus on free agency and the draft and everything else we normally do, and plug our ears and go LA LA LA LA LA about everything labor-related until there’s football again. I flatly can’t do that; I’m too invested in these players and these teams. Plus, it tickles my Justice Thing.

I don’t know what makes people root for the most fortunate to get more fortunate. I don’t know why working folks repeatedly side with the people exploiting them. I don’t know why, after the owners opted out of the CBA, demanded a billion dollar give-back, and refused to justify it with financial data, almost 40% of ProFootballTalk readers think this is the “players’ fault.” If you want to ignore all of this and wait for football, that’s fine. But if you’re inclined to choose sides, stop and think about who really needs your support—the wealthy old men who’ve harvested billions from fans for decades? Or the young guys who’ll likely be selling cars or teaching gym in five years?

Technorati Tags: nfl,nflpa,nfl lockout,nfl cba,roger goodell,demaurice smith

Read more...

“Touch Down”: Lions Should Be 1-0

Chris Spielman once scored a touchdown for the Lions.  When he got into the end zone, he got both knees on the ground, and touched the ball to the turf—just as, many years ago, was required for a “touch down” to be scored.  He did it to pay his respects to the men who played the game sixty, seventy, eighty years ago—before multiple referees and a panoply of high-speed HD digital cameras continuously observed every square inch of the field.  Apparently, this is the standard we need to return to.

It's been beat to death by now.  The fires of my rage—not easily stoked—have cooled down.  Injustice has been done; the Lions had their game-winning touchdown against the Bears wiped off the books by a bad call.  As infuriating as it is, it is—and we either have to deal with it, process it, and move on, or seriously question our faith in the entity that rules the sport, and team, we love.

As The Big Lead and Pro Football Talk both explained very well, NFL officials incorrectly—or at best, zealously—applied one clause in the rule book, while steadfastly ignoring another.  The result is that the Lions lost what would have been a tremendous season-opening road win, and started back down the path to an 0-and-who-knows-how-many losing streak.

First, let's talk about what a catch is.  Per the NFL rule book:

Article 3. Completed or Intercepted Pass. A player who makes a catch may advance the ball. A forward pass is complete (by the offense) or intercepted (by the defense) if a player, who is inbounds:

(a) secures control of the ball in his hands or arms prior to the ball touching the ground; and (b) touches the ground inbounds with both feet or with any part of his body other than his hands.

If the player loses the ball while simultaneously touching both feet or any part of his body other than his hands to the ground, or if there is any doubt that the acts were simultaneous, it is not a catch.

The clause that was applied was the “going to the ground” clause:

Item 1: Player Going to the Ground.  If a player goes to the ground in the act of catching a pass (with or without contact by an opponent), he must maintain control of the ball after he touches the ground, whether in the field of play or the end zone. If he loses control of the ball, and the ball touches the ground before he regains control, the pass is incomplete. If he regains control prior to the ball touching the ground, the pass is complete.

It’s long been the rule that if a player catches the ball in midair, and lands on the ground, and the ball popped out, then it’s not a catch.  Picture a receiver with the ball cradled loosely in his arms, and then it popping out when he hits the turf—clearly, he never had possession.  If he didn’t have it secured enough to withstand hitting the ground, then he didn’t really have it at all.

But Calvin Johnson DID “maintain control of the ball after he touche[d] the ground.”  He caught the ball with his hands, landed with two feet, his knee hit, his butt hit, his other hand hit (possibly out of bounds, ending the play there if it already wasn’t over), and then Johnson touched the ball to the ground, and it popped out.  If that play occurs outside the endzone, he’s down by contact before the ball pops out.  But it wasn’t outside the end zone, he was in it.  That rule goes like this:

Item 3: End Zone Catches. If a player catches the ball while in the end zone, both feet must be completely on the ground before losing possession, or the pass is incomplete.

So we have several competing, conflicting standards in the rule book.  What we don’t have is any of the nonsense being spouted by Mike Pereira, former NFL Director of Officiating, and VP  of Officiating, and current FOX Sports analyst.  All the stuff we heard during the game, about “completing the process” isn’t in the rule rook.  Here’s his article on it for Fox:

Here's why: Rule 8, Section 1, Article 4.

A play from start to finish is a process. When you go to the ground, even after you've caught the ball, you have to maintain possession.

The rule states: If a player goes to the ground . . .

See what he did there?  He cited Rule 8, Section 1, Article 4, and then slipped in his own analysis.  The standards of a “complete process,” or of needing to complete a “second football act,” are not in the rule book, and should not be applied.  Calvin Johnson needed to maintain possession after he touched the ground, and he did that.  By rule, the play was a touchdown—and it was correctly signalled so by the side judge.

Mike Florio conducted a thought experiment that’s sure to illuminate (and infuriate):

Let's look at it this way. If Johnson's catch had occurred at the one, and if while swinging his arm to the ground he would have broken the plane of the goal line, the proper call under the "second act" exception would have been touchdown. And that's the heart of the problem. In an effort to take some of the perceived and/or actual unfairness out of a rule that takes away a catch that viscerally looks like a catch, the league has crafted an exception that isn't in the rule book, and that therefore doesn't -- and can't -- be applied with any consistency.

Tom Kowalski brought this up on 1130 AM this morning.  If everything happens the exact same way on the one-yard line, it would have been ruled a touchdown when he swung his arm down and broke the plane—OR, he would have been ruled down by contact at the one.  Yet, it occurred inside the end zone, where all he has to do is establish possession in bounds, and it ruled incomplete.

Of course, the fact that the Lions really needed this win can’t enter into the discussion.  That Matthew Stafford, and—how is no one talking about this?—Cliff Avril were lost in the effort doesn’t matter. That Shaun Hill’s outstanding job of leading the Lions down the field in the closing minute, and perfect rainbow thrown while being hit, were the kind of last-minute game-winning heroics we’re always the victims, and never beneficiaries of . . . none of it matters.  The refs couldn’t give the Lions the win because they wanted it, because they fought so hard for it, because they desperately needed it, or because they deserved it.

But they should have given the Lions the win, because the Lions won.

Technorati Tags: nfl,detroit lions,chicago bears,calvin johnson,referees,mike pereira,matthew stafford,cliff avril

Read more...

Peace, Justice, and Going Meta

Those who have been following me on Twitter, @lionsinwinter, know that I have jury duty this week.  Those of you who’ve been reading know that I take justice very seriously.  however, those of you who’ve served your civic duty before (I have not) know what I’ve discovered: a lot of jury duty is waiting.  So, either I’m going to get no writing done at all, or I might get a lot of writing done.  Either way, my update schedule will be affected.  I either appreciate your patience, or encourage you to check back often, respectively.

Read more...