Cross Road Blues

As the legend goes, Robert Johnson met the Devil himself at a crossroads, and sold his soul for the ability to play guitar like no one ever had. Though Johnson didn’t achieve worldwide fame and success until after his mysterious poisoning death, Johnson will reign as King of the Delta Blues for eternity.

A Faustian bargain made in a swirling mist of hoodoo, it’s an intoxicating tale that Johnson never shied away from—after all, it didn’t hurt from a marketing perspective. According to blues historian Robert McCormick (via Wikipedia, yeah what of it), Johnson’s friends and family believed Johnson’s death was divine retribution for making secular music instead of glorifying God with his talent.

Johnson, McCormick believes, accepted the idea of “selling his soul” as a metaphor for abandoning honest work and playing the blues full-time.

Last November, I made the same choice.

I accepted a full-time position with Bleacher Report as a National NFL Lead Writer. I continued working my day job full-time for weeks afterwards to handle the transition. Between that workload and my family life, I struggled to keep up TLiW.

For four years, I’d kept the blue flame burning while burning the midnight oil. The words written here were penned during lunch hours, stolen moments, and brain-melting early-morning sessions that often had me waking up to a darkened computer, both hands still on the keyboard.

Switching careers at 31—with a wife, three kids, two cats, a dog, a mortgage and two cars hanging in the balance—was not something I could afford to do halfway. TLiW is a labor of love, but owed my loved ones every ounce of my labor.

Old Mother Hubbard, Meet the Cubs, eulogies for the careers of Jeff Backus and Jason Hanson: these are all projects I sincerely meant to undertake and just… never… did.

This season, the Lions are at a crossroads of their own.

The 2013 iteration of the Detroit Lions made their preseason debut last night. Despite massive turnover on both the offensive and defensive lines, and shiny new toys on both sides of the ball, the 2013 model looked largely similar to the 2012 edition.

The Lions’ greatest flaw from last season—a total inability to cross the opponent’s 30-yard line in the first half—was there for all to see. The dominance of Stafford-to-Calvin, the not-dominance of just about every other Stafford-to-whomever combination, and the boom-or-bust running game looked spookily familiar (remember, Joique Bell hurdled fools last year).

The defensive line looked overwhelming, with Ziggy Ansah and Jason Jones combining with Suh and Fairley to form a front line shocking in its size, strength and athleticism. I mean, look at this:

The obvious size and strength of the line up front allows the Lions to be ridiculously aggressive with the back seven, as you can see. The much-maligned Wide 9 alignment maximizes this up-front advantage. At first, this made a hash of everything the Jets tried to do offensively. Then, the back seven fell apart, with multiple blown coverages making Sanchez look good.

The Ziggy thing? Yeah, that was awesome. Snagging a pick-six on his first series in Lions uniform? Awesome. Don’t make too much of it, though. As Jim Schwartz said at halftime, per the Detroit Free Press:

“We said from the beginning that he plays screens well, he plays draws well and all those kinds of things. We’ve seen that stuff on tape so wasn’t a surprise when he made that play.”

As I said all along (on Twitter, mostly), the Lions having coached Ansah at the Senior Bowl means the whole staff knew exactly what they were getting. Those speculating assumed Ansah would be raw and lack instincts because Ansah’s only been playing football for a few years. The reality is, Ansah’s grasp of the game is exactly that: instinctive. He’s still not the Pro Bowler they need him to be.

Don’t make too little of it, either. The strength, hands, athleticism and playmaking skills the Lions knew they were getting in Ansah were on full display against the Jets. That’s awesome. He definitely has the talent to be the Pro Bowler they need him to be.

There weren’t a ton of valuable takeaways from this game. Shaun Hill is still way too good to be a backup. The kickers and punters look good, and the special teams overall are improved. Riley Reiff is not going to put Stafford’s life in danger. Other than that drive, the Jets couldn’t do much against the defense—then again, the Jets have almost no offensive firepower.

There were still too many two-yard runs, incomplete passes, stalled drives and punts for a theoretically high-flying offense.

Throughout the offseason, I’ve fought the impression that this is going to be a tantalizing but unsatisfying “sim year,” one we’d simulate though if we were playing on Madden. There are too many young and inexperienced players in key roles, too many question marks yet unanswered, and too little proof that Matthew Stafford has enough rapport with anyone besides Calvin Johnson to take his game (or the Lions) to the next level.

Though this team has more than enough talent to make the playoffs, and my faith in the coaching staff is still strong, nothing I saw on Friday looks significantly better than in 2012—or 2011, for that matter.

This was the maddening thing (not the Madden-ing thing) about the 2012 season: the team looked so much like the 2011 squad, but the offensive touchdowns just evaporated. The margins were so thin and the outcomes so unlucky, it not only defied belief at the time but threw into doubt just how “real” the magical 2011 season was.

Even if the 2013 Lions perform at exactly the same level as 2012, they could still be a seven- or eight-win team, if they’re as lucky this year as they were unlucky last year.  If Reggie Bush can terrify defenses with more explosive plays like that hurdle, and Stafford takes advantage of the space, they could win the division. If not, they could struggle to reach .500.

Did I make a deal with the Devil himself to express myself for a living? No, but I did make a deal with you folks. I swore I'd never let the little the blue flame die out, and I won't this site go dark. I can't promise anything too regular or too specific, but I'll be writing throughout the season (and, Lord willing, Fireside Chatting again on game nights).

If TLiW's not already bookmarked or RSS feed'd, you can always keep track of new posts at my Twitter feed, and the VERIFIED (!!!) Lions in Winter G+ page.

If you're reading this (and surely, if you've read this far), you're part of the reason I was able to follow my dream and do what I love for a living. Even more than I was up all night writing for me, I was up all night writing for you.

It's the unique spirit of the Lions fan that compelled me to providing a warm, comfortable place for us frozen and weary souls. You came, in shocking and humbling humbling numbers, to join me by the fire. You encouraged me, supported me, let me know when I did well and let me know when I'd strayed from my Flamekeeping duties.

The Lions in Winter—its words, posts, community, comments, podcasts, UStreams, all of it as a whole—has changed my life. Thank you, all, for letting it be a small part of yours. I hope it still will be, for as long as the blue flame burns.

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On Taking the Wind

Marty Mornhinweg is not the worst head coach in NFL history.

Deadspin's Drew Magary and Dom Cosentino asserted the opposite late last week, based partly on Mornhinweg's 5-27 record as head coach, but mostly on the HILARIOUS STUPIDITY of taking the wind in overtime.

The article makes a lot of cogent points about the NFL having moved beyond coaches getting "hired to be fired," straight into a swirling vortex of hiring blatantly unqualified candidates to turn around talentless rosters, and poleaxing them if they don't immediately succeed.

As I've written before, trying to catch "lightning in a bottle" is the wrong way to hire a coach. As often as not, the young coach who pretends to have the NFL figured out is found out. (see: McDaniels, Josh).

Mornhinweg, in a way, was the model for this particular way to fail. Not only was he not an experienced NFL head coach, the 38-year-old had never been a head coach at any level. He'd been calling plays under Steve Mariucci in San Francisco for only two years, and the 49ers were 10-22 over that span.

Mornhinweg was hired to be fired, quite literally. As rumor had it, Matt Millen's relationship with Mooch was part of the reason the Ford family entrusted the franchise to Millen. Mornhinweg was basically there to install Mariucci's flavor of the Bill Walsh offense and keep Mooch's seat warm.

On December 31st, 2002, Millen announced that the Lions would be retaining Mornhinweg for a third season. Then Mariucci was unexpectedly let go by the 49ers. Three weeks after the public vote of confidence Mornhinweg was awkwardly terminated; a week after that the prodigal Yooper returned.

Marty Mornhinweg was then, and is now, a gifted offensive coach with a bright future. Mornhinweg did a lot of learning on the job, which included a contrived move-for-move reenactment of a Mike Holmgren training camp tirade-and-motorcycle-peel-out. Lions veterans profoundly did not buy it.

One thing Mornhinweg got right, though—or at least, did not get as wrong as everyone thinks—was taking the wind on that fateful day.

Now-defunct site Football Commentary did a beautiful win-probability analysis of the decision back in 2004. I can't find anything today that backs this assertion up, but my memory is that all 34 points scored in regulation that day had been scored with the wind.

I've talked and written many times about football's hilariously risk-averse culture, wherein even the game's greatest coach is pilloried for maximizing win probability instead of "playing the percentages" when he doesn't get a result.

In reality, Mornhinweg's mistake was accepting a holding call on a 3rd-and-8 incompletion that would have forced the Bears to send Paul Edinger out for a 42-yard kick into the hellacious wind—or even wave the white flag and send out Brad Maynard to punt it away. Had the Lions gotten the victory with that decision, Mornhinweg's outside-the-box decision would have been lauded as crazy-like-a-fox, instead of idiotic.

[Ed.- Per request, I used the Advanced NFL Stats WP calculator to judge this decision. The Bears had a 0.68 WP at 4th-and-8 from the 35, and an 0.62 WP at 3rd-and-18 from the 45. However, this is based on modeled leaguewide historical expectations, and wind into the teeth of which none could score is certainly unexpected.]

Continuing to shame Mornhinweg over that call is stupid and destructive and misses the point: Marty Mornhinweg was a great position coach, hired as a Plan D, and put into an impossible situation. 

Mornhinweg took over a not-talented-enough roster filled with veterans not much younger than he was, a brand-new front office with no idea what they were doing, got saddled with a No. 3 overall rookie quarterback he wanted nothing to do with, then was forced to lie through gritted teeth that he was completely on board hitching his career to Joey Harrington.

Mornhinweg made a lot of mistakes, but taking the wind wasn't one of them. Unlike Rich Kotite or Dennis Erickson or many of the others on the list, Mornhinweg has proven he's a quality NFL coach—and before long, will get another head-coaching gig.

Let's just hope he stays away from motorcycles.

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Biding Time on Prime Time: Saturday Night Football

The left boot’s lace snapped as I tied it. The axe was rusty and dull. It took a few tries to open the shed’s padlock, and I forgot to zip my parka. The wind driving the year’s first snowfall whipped into my chest, chilling me to the core. I steeled myself against it and set to work.

I walked the path to the bonfire, sled laden not with wood but with guilt. Too long, I’d let my tasks go uncompleted. Too long I’d left my duty undone.

The Lions aren’t going to the playoffs. They aren’t winning more games than they lose, or even winning as many games as they lose. They’re having a terrible season, and all the close calls and almosts and maybes and robberies adding up to a measly four wins out of 14 games.

The problems have been the same all season: a misfiring Matthew Stafford, special teams disasters, and a defense that can’t quite make up for all the offense’s mistakes. Calvin Johnson is going to break the single-season receiving yardage record, but the Madden Curse robbed him of his touchdowns—and the Lions of every other useful receiver.

Tonight, the Lions will take Ford Field for the second-to-last time this season. They face the 12-2 Atlanta Falcons, with nothing but pride at stake. Lions fans will fill Ford Field again, expecting to witness an excruciating loss for the fifth time this season.

And yet, the Lions will play, and the fans will watch and cheer and roar.

Trudging through the woods, the cold red light in the west fading, I pulled the sled toward the bonfire spot, fearful of what I’d find. To my surprise, I could make out a wan blue light dancing off the tops of the trees. As I got closer, I could hear voices.

People. Fans.

The blue fire was nothing like the raging, towering inferno it had been. But it was bright and strong enough to keep the folks gathered there warm. There was no laughing, no singing, no loud carousing. The cider had long since run dry, the casks I’d last left weeks ago emptied and never replaced. But people were quietly resting, basking, keeping each other company.

Whether the Lions win or lose tonight, the blue flame is not threatened. Many, myself included, have had our faith tested this season, and the old bickering can be heard in murmurs around the edges of the fanbase. Many are questioning if the Lions are on the right path, but few have abandoned the flame completely.

Many have left the blue bonfire, but not for good. Not for long. Just for the winter.

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