Boys of Summer, Men of Autumn

The purest expression of sports fandom can be found on elementary school playgrounds.

Still learning (and arguing over) the rules of the game as they play, kids merge their identity with the players they know and love from TV. Just as fights broke out over who got to be Barry Sanders or Cecil Fielder when I was a tyke, kids today call out "I'm Calvin Johnson!" or "I'm Miguel Cabrera!" when they take the ball field at recess.

They learn the game by mimicking the moves and styles of their favorite players. On the rare occasions they shake a defender with a jump-stop, or hit one over the playground fence into the scary old lady's yard, for an instant sports superstardom is their reality.

Since I was tiny, in sports—heck, in life—I've always been drawn to spectacular talent. I watch sports for many reasons, but there's nothing I love more about it than when a surpassing athlete deploys screw-you ability at a critical moment, defying physics and reality to win at will.

That's why I've always loved players like Dominik Hasek, Clint Dempsey and Barry Sanders--local allegiances aside. 

When I watch sports, I want my jaw dropped. I want to throw up my hands, shake my head and laugh out loud at the absurdity of the skill required to pull off what I just saw.

When I played youth sports, I wanted to drop jaws.

As a baseball playing tyke, I was very short, very thin, but pretty quick. For someone of my limited gifts, the only path to jaw-dropping baseball I saw was "infield glove wizard" in the mold of Ozzie Smith. 

I played wall ball for hours, honing my glove chops. I watched Johnny Bench's wierd baseball technique show for kids. I demanded my tee-ball coaching father play me at short, or MAYBE I'd deign to play second base. As soon as we were allowed to lead off and steal, I'd park my skinny white butt halfway between first and second and DARE pitchers to pick me off.  I decided to be a switch-hitter, because of course great utility infielders switch-hit, right?

Here's the thing: I was terrible.

I had no glove, and a horribly inconsistent  arm. I could throw to the first base region-ish, or I could throw ten feet short of the first baseman's waiting glove, and I was never sure which it was going to be. I had no instincts to where to go with the ball, turning every fielder's choice into Sophie's Choice.

My father, who typically coached the team, was remarkably patient with all this. I HAD talent, but I wasn't using it right. I had a good natural right-handed swing with relatively strong pop in the bat (though my small size usually meant I hit towering outs rather than towering home runs). 

One game, after several fruitless left-handed at-bats, I came up in the order with two runners on. Dad insisted I bat righty. On the first coach-pitched lob, I drilled it deep into the right-center gap--which, in fourth grade, might as well be the Atlantic Ocean.

I skipped around the bases, sticking a two-footed landing on home plate while my teammates cheered. Dad was waiting for me, and immediately grabbed me by the shoulders. He growled, "Look: Do you want to be DIFFERENT, or do you want to EXCEL?"

This is how I feel watching Matthew Stafford.

Watching this dude play football in my team's colors is a joy, a blessing and an honor. He has the talent to be as good as anyone is; to be his generation's John Elway. By the end of this season, he'll hold nearly every Lions passing record that matters; by the end of his current contract he'll hold all of them, period.

That's why it's so infuriating to watch him play.

As a grownup, as a father, as a bill-having taxpayer with a mortgage and insurance and all those stupid things, it drives me absolutely crazy to watch Stafford incompletely apply his incredible talent.

I've written, tweeted and spoken at lengths about his tendency to get cute with arm angles, get sloppy with his feet and miss critical passes. It was there in force on Sunday, as Stafford threw what seemed like 16 sidearm passes into the arms of the Bears defensive line. Game after game, week after week, we've seen Stafford miss wide-open receivers, tying one hand behind his back by going all Elway instead of just executing like he's clearly capable of doing.

We've also seen him win those games, coming back from the brink with one hand tied behind his back and a blindfold over his eyes, threading needles through double- and triple-coverage, making plays with his legs, and beating the Dallas Cowboys--his hometown team--with a jaw-dropping mix of natural quarterbacking talent and balls the size of his oversized brain.

When he and Calvin Johnson--together, the most talented QB/WR pair in the NFL--went to Solider Field and won for the first time in forever, it felt like the tipping point. It felt like the mountain had been climbed. It felt like Stafford and the Lions had finally realized the potential we've spent five years daydreaming about.

When Nick Fairley followed up a game-losing personal-foul penalty with a game-winning TFL, it hit me: these are the Lions.

Like Barry Sanders and negative yardage, like Dominik Hasek and the occasional four-goal brain fart, the Lions are always going to be a mix of pleasure and pain. They're going to beat themselves with sanity-testing mistakes and beat other teams with searing, unstoppable talent. They're going to turn blowouts into close shaves and close shaves into heart attacks.

You can't separate Stafford from sidearm, Johnson from bumps and bruises, Suh and Fairley from penalty flags or Schwartz from spending all week in the film room with a MacBook only to break it over his knee and throw the pieces at a ref on gameday.

As Jack Nicholson once shouted at a room full of mentally ill folks in the movie of the same name, "What if this is as good as it gets?"

There's snow on the ground in Michigan, and the Lions are effectively two games clear of the rest of the NFC North. They have one of the league's easiest schedules from here on out, and they fully control their path to their first division title since 1993, when my middle-school baseball coach told me I was a natural centerfielder and everything made sense.

There's no use denying it: I love this team, because of the rough edges as much of in spite of them. Nothing thrills me like seeing the impossible made possible; if the Lions have to do that every week just to overcome their own mistakes, so be it: my favorite team in sports is delivering heaping helpings of my favorite thing about sports, week after week.

What more could I ask for? What more could any of us ask for?

The other day, I walked into the living room to see my seven-year-old son playing Madden. "Dad," he excitedly said, "I built my Madden Ultimate Team!" Oh yeah, I asked, who's on it?

"Pretty much all the Lions, but with Aaron Rodgers," he said.

With this season just halfway over, I guess we can't hang a banner just yet. Stafford and the Lions haven't answered all the questions yet--and until they win a Super Bowl, they never will.

But right now, the Lions are different, AND they excel. Let's appreciate that.

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"Tactical Advantage" on Bleacher Report

I know, I know. It's been a while.

Once again, the Lions travel to the (perfectly balmy) tundra of Lambeau field, in an attempt to slay the green and gold dragon.

Over at Bleacher Report, I did a film breakdown of the Lions defense, and how it effectively slowed Aaron Rodgers last season, and how it could improve on those methods this season:

Something that surprised me was just how vanilla both units played, especially at Lambeau. Part of that, no doubt, was the weather, but both teams seemed more nervous to make a mistake than revved up to make a play.

Once the Packers got out of their (seemingly) scripted opening drive, which was ludicrously effective until Lawrence Jackson short-circuited it with a sack-fumble.

Speaking of which, Jackson--who had one of his best games as a Lion in this fixture last season--will be watching from home. In his place is (The Great) Willie Young, who got manhandled by Bryan Bulaga in the run game when rotating in for Jackson last year.

Young and Ansah, who'll have to contain Eddie Lacy instead of DuJuan Harris, probably hold the keys to this game. I have no doubt that Ansah is a pass-rushing upgrade from KVB, but if Lacy can control the ground game that shifts the dynamic considerably.

The one thing the Lions must, absolutely must do is hold on to the football. Stafford cannot throw an oopsie pick, or lose a snap. The margins on this game are slim, but--as I wrote at B/R, the upside for a Lions victory is enormous.

Presuming the Bears don't upset the Saints, the Lions taking one from the Pack would grant the Lions dominion over the NFC North; first place outright, a one-game lead on the Bears, two-and-a-half game lead on the Pack, all tiebreakers in hand and a sweep of the division half-completed.

Don't underestimate the power of a sword buried in the heart of that writhing dragon of a losing streak, either.

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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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