long live the Lizard King

Frequently, when I’m at work, I forgo going out for lunch; instead I walk down to the corner store and pick up a pop, a banana, and maybe a sandwich. The other day, I was at said store, waiting in line to use the ATM, and I saw a dude wearing a black Ernie Sims jersey—just like the one I'd started saving up for in the middle of his rookie season.  At first, I felt a pang of regret--I never did sock away enough cash to pick up that jersey.  Then, I was alarmed: this guy was in a beat-up pair of denim shorts and work boots, and the jersey wasn’t in great shape either.  Being a weekday, this guy had almost certainly been working outdoors, and was just stopping in for a pop.  Was this guy wearing his Sims jersey . . . as a work shirt?

Of course, the Lions have changed their uniforms--the more recent jerseys are neither new enough to be cool, nor old enough to be throwbacks.  Further, they’ve done away with the black jerseys entirely—wearing a black jersey is both dating yourself, and repping the very darkest days of the franchise.  Then, of course, there’s the final piece of the puzzle: Ernie Sims has not exactly been the linebacking terror he promised us he’d be with his monster rookie season.

Coming out of high school, native Ernie Sims was rated the #1 overall recruit by Rivals, and the #1 LB by Scout.  After the native Tallahasseean terrorized people at Florida State for three years, the Lions drafted “Cinnabon” #8 overall.  Garnering 125 tackles in his rookie year, Sims immediately made an impression on his teammates—and left his impression on opponents.  This is about when I started saving my pennies.  A young, fire-breathing, game-changing linebacker?  Yes sir, jersey please!

However, his second season was kind of a mixed bag.  His statistical production went up, but he was clearly freelancing more and staying within the system less.  In the Tampa 2, that’s not just a problem, that’s a liability.  The T2 run defense absolutely depends on every single player being exactly where they’re supposed to be; if someone freelances, the potential to give up a huge play is . . . well, huge.  In the midst of the disastrous 0-16 season, it was painfully obvious that he’d tuned out the coaching staff.  Neither playing within the system, nor exploding to the ball on his own, it looked like Sims had officially checked out—and not buying a jersey looked like a mistake avoided (and in a house currently stocked with Charles Rogers, Roy Williams, Mike Furry, Kevin Jones, and Charlie Batch jerseys, I need to avoid mistakes as much as possible!).

However, this season promises to be different for Ernie Sims.  The Tampa 2 is long gone, replaced by Gunther Cunningham’s highly anticipated blitz-heavy hybrid defense.  The linebackers will be asked to blitz constantly, both to disrupt the pass and defend the run.  The operative word will be “downhill”.  Running downhill, attacking attacking attacking.  Running to the ball with maximum speed and maximum explosion; laying lumber to whomever’s unfortunate enough to be in the way.  This, it should be obvious, dovetails nicely with Ernie’s strengths.

It’s been repeated throughout the offseason, though most fans haven’t paid much attention: Ernie Sims is primed to be an incredible force in 2009.

• Back in May, Gunther Cunningham tried to tell us.
• Shortly thereafter, Ernie himself tried to tell us.
• Just recently, Tom Kowalski penned an article trying to tell us.

You know it occurs to me . . . all offseason long, we’ve been so obsessed with the Lions acquiring new talent, “filling” all of the “holes”, replacing all the 2008 starters with different players.  Here, Killer says that in Cunningham’s system, Sims will be a different player—and it really makes sense.  During the minicamp sessions, The Grandmaster said that in the 14-week offseason lifting program—which changed from an emphasis on strength without mass to an Olympic-style explosion- and mass-building program—team upper body strength increased 21%, and lower body explosion increased 14%.  Given the 95% participation rate, that means that some of the players have undergone serious transformations.  Now, Cinnabon is unlikely to be one of them, given his current physique.  However, a lot of players we think we know “the book” on might yet surprise us—players like Ikaika Alama-Francis, who’s been getting a lot of reps at DT, or Stephen Peterman, whose power hasn’t always matched his big frame.  I’m not saying that the team that went 0-16 is suddenly going to be stocked with Pro Bowlers . . . but don’t be surprised if guys you’d written off suddenly look somebody you’d never seen before.

Ernie, however, might look like the guy we all saw in 2006—and that guy I saw last week might want to take better care of that jersey.

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have the Lions left the safety off?

A few days ago, the excellent Chrissie Wywrot of the official Lions site penned a piece on embattled safety Daniel Bullocks.  It almost seemed like a direct challenge to recent articles by Mlive.com’s Tom Kowalski and the Detroit News’s John Niyo suggesting that Bullocks is simply not in the mix to start next to rookie Louis Delmas.  Wywrot discloses something only hinted at before: Bullocks never really recovered from the blown ACL that sidelined him in 2007. 

Safety play is something difficult for the HDTV-deprived fan to quantify (thanks, 4:3 aspect ratio!).  We see the strong safety come up and lay the lumber, and we see big interceptions.  Sometimes, on replays from alternate angles, we can see a safety get beat deep.  However, unlike front-seven defenders, it’s impossible for the average fan to simply watch a safety for a snap, or series of snaps, to see how they’re doing.  Therefore, when it comes to ‘grading out’ a safety, we’re beholden to those who have access to game film.  Kowalski’s sources tell him that Bullocks’ angles were all wrong in 2008, and that the fluidity, quickness, and aggressiveness he displayed in 2006 appeared to be “gone”.  Killer added that when a defense gives up many long runs (as the Lions did in 2008), that’s often the result of poor safety play.

Interestingly, the Niyo piece I linked above appears to have been edited.  Here is the original quote, as snagged from The Den, Scout.com’s Lions forum: Correction: the below quote is actually from rotoworld.com, adding their own analysis to Niyo's.  The article linked above is apparently as it was first published.

“Gerald Alexander and Kalvin Pearson split time at strong safety with the Lions first-team defense during Tuesday's minicamp.  While rookie Louis Delmas is locked in at free safety, the new coaching staff has been less than content with its option at strong safety. They no longer see Daniel Bullocks as a starter, and free agent Marquand Manuel was recently brought on board as another option.”

This jibes with the other reports: the post-trade safety pecking order has Pearson and Manuel splitting time with the ones—but Pearson is thought of as a valuable backup, but too athletically limited to be a starter in the Lions’ new symmetrical defense.  This leaves the door wide open for Bullocks—but Bullocks has to recover his physical skills, rebuild his confidence in those skills, learn the new system, and then incorporate it all, so he can play as aggressively and instinctually as he did his rookie year.  Both from published reports, and my talks with some folks in the know, it sounds like he’s got about 1.5 out of 4 down pat right now—and an uphill climb to be relevant this fall.

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big willie style struts his stuff

Recently, I wrote a speculative column about the role of Bill Ford Jr. in the day-to-day operations of the team.  Given the usual reclusiveness of his father, William Clay Ford, the Lions’ owner, and the recent sweeping changes in both staff and attitude, I theorized that maybe the baton had already passed.  Perhaps, the heir apparent had already ascended to the throne; the king abdicating in favor of the crown prince.

Apparently, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Big Willie Style rolled up on minicamp in dramatic fashion:

rashaun rucker – detroit free press

He proceeded to pimp slap his media bitches, making pronouncement after eyebrow-raising pronouncement, claim after jaw-dropping claim.  Fans who have followed this team obsessively for years, fans who have postulated and speculated as to this man’s behind-the-scenes actions, fans who have presumed and assumed they knew this man’s motivations , were told point-blank that they have no idea what they’re talking about.

The many, many quotes he dropped were spread throughout several stories on each of the major newspaper’s sites—but here are a few doozies:

• “I feel so sorry for the fans in Detroit. I mean, I give them full marks for showing up. We didn't perform the way we should've performed or the way we could've. I felt worse for them than I did for myself. I thought it was horrible every time we'd lose. But the guys who stuck through it, I can't tell you how great that makes you feel. And for the ones that walked away, I couldn't blame them. It wasn't much fun to watch. It was pretty boring because you could about guess the outcome.”
• “People were getting fed up. And I don't blame them a bit. We didn't put up much of a show for them. And God knows what's gonna happen this year, more than anyone else does. But I think we'll give an honest day's effort and I think that's all they want. Of course they want us to win, and so do I, more than anything, but I think if they realize we're going down with our guns blazing, I think that'll be a very positive thing to have happen.”
• [did he take fans’ protests personally] “I mean, not that the yelling at the stadium does much for you. You get a couple of drunks and they can say anything. But you pay attention. If there's a noticeable decline in attendance and the comments are not favorable, you pay attention to it. The fans are really the people you want to please here. God, especially now in Detroit, the shape it's in, we gotta try twice as hard to give them their money's worth. The money is tough to come by for all of them, I understand that. But the least we can do is put on a good performance for them. I think we will. I certainly hope we will.”
• “No, I don't not, contrary to public opinion, interfere with the football side of it. I mean, if so-and-so plays lousy on Sunday, I think he's a bum (laughs). But no, I've never said, "Don't say play this guy or play that guy," uh-uh. These guys know more about the game than I do by 10 miles. So I'm not going to try and second-guess them. If something goes wrong, we'll talk about it.”

• [on the hirings of Lewand, Mayhew, and—incredibly—Jim Schwartz] "Well, this is going to sound a little egotistical, and maybe it is, but because this was solely my decision. Rather than being influenced by a lot of other thoughts and people who -- I respected their opinions -- but they were not exactly the same as mine, which is fine. But they influenced the decisions that were finally made. If Jim Schwartz doesn't work out, you can blame me 100 percent. I just have confidence in him."

There’s a lot here to take in.  I can’t possibly do a review of everything he’s done for the past thirty years, and marvel at the sharp relief cast by those actions in light of these statements.  It’s easy to say, “well, this is all a bunch of mularkey from the mind of a senile old man with delusions of grandeur who happens to have more money than God and owns my favorite football team.”  However, let’s ignore Blore’s Razor for a moment (Blore’s Razor being the maxim: “when presented with two possible theories, take the one that is funnier”), and work on the premise that absolutely every single word he said is true.

First of all, this is validation for both the “optimists” such as myself—the fans who espouse, you know, rooting for the team you say you root for—and the most virulent pessimists—the kind of worthless jerks who say stuff like “DIE FORD DIE” on message boards, or espouse boycotting the games.  It’s validation for everyone who ever said that the Millen Man March, orange-out, walkouts, etc. don’t matter and won’t work--they didn’t, and they didn’t.  Now, all the protests and chants didn’t fall on deaf ears, per se—they were willfully ignored by a man who pointed to his sold-out stadium and said “the real fans still care”.  It wasn’t until those fans, too started turning their backs on the team that he knew he had a problem—and, in that sense, he was right.  When the hardworking families of Michigan no longer find it worthwhile to spend a couple hundred bucks going to your team . . . you’ve hit the wall.  Ford was asked, did he stick with Millen for too long?

“Well, maybe. I think circumstances and timing were important. You don't want to jump ship after two games or one game. When the fans were really getting fed up, it's like, 'OK, it's time to make a move.' I thought about it obviously. The timing just worked out the way it did.”

Profootballtalk.com mocked this quote by jesting that instead of jumping ship after one or two games, Ford stuck with Millen for three games . . . and seven seasons, har har.  To me, however, that quote is quite telling.  It means that he was going to keep Millen on until either he turned it around, or the fans found the performance of the team completely unacceptable.  It apparently wasn’t even an option until the fans stopped coming.  The obvious reaction to this is that it “hit him in the pocketbook”—but what does Ford care about money?  The Lions could play to an empty stadium 16 weeks a year for the rest of his life, and he still wouldn’t lack for anything.  I’m going to take the high road here and say that Ford really didn’t think he’d lost the fans until the fans stopped coming.  I mean, they were losing 10+ games per season, raising prices, and still selling out!  That doesn’t happen if fans are really fed up, right?  I mean, from Ford’s box, what changed during that time?  The writers were ripping him?  They’d been doing that for forty years.  There were boos and chants?  Sure, from 50,000 paying customers.  How could he know that throughout the city, state, nation—and yes, judging from my traffic, the world—Lions fans were giving up and tuning out?

To an extent, I am playing Devil’s advocate here; giving Ford the benefit of the doubt.  In a world where Mark Cuban blogs and Tweets, an owner being so austere, aloof, even cloistered, seems antiquated.  Yet, from Mr. Ford’s perspective, it’s entirely possible that he didn’t realize the extent to which his team’s fans had walked away.  And yet . . . given how long it took for the fans to actually stop coming, and given how desperate everyone is to jump back on the bandwagon at the first sign of success--was he really wrong?  How many of us really did walk away in ‘04, or ‘05, or ‘06 . . . Really, for all of the griping, whining, pissing, and moaning that Lions fans did, it took 0-16 for us to actually walk away.  I can’t count how many times I have heard a fan say or read a fan type, “THAT’S IT!  I am DONE with this team!!”, only to have them chat me up about the latest Lions stuff the next day, or log back on to that Lions message board. 

It really does speak to the depth and breadth and passion of this Lions fanbase.  The Jaguars are perennial contenders--and can’t sell out their stadium even if they cover up half the seats!  Yet we kept coming and kept coming and kept coming, no matter how bad it got, for nearly a decade.  We kept buying jerseys and shirts and footballs and concessions.  We held on until the Lions hit absolute rock bottom.  Now, maybe Ford really is a crazy old coot who walks around completely clueless of everything that happens in the world around him—or maybe, just maybe, Big Willie Style had us all in check.

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