9709220050
DETROIT FREE PRESS
970922
Monday, September 22, 1997
METRO FINAL
1D
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 1997, Detroit Free Press
WELL, FANS, WE'RE LEFT HOLDING THE BAG AGAIN
Down on the bayou, they have this tradition: When their football team stinks,
they wear bags over their heads.
Grab a bag, Lions fans.
Cut out one eye to see the gaping holes of the Lions' defensive line Sunday.
Cut another out to see Scott Mitchell throwing the ball to the wrong team. Cut
a mouth so you can scream "NOT AGAIN!" when a New Orleans never-heard-of-him
waltzes into the end zone.
Then pull that sack over your head so no one can identify you.
"We got our a-- kicked," Robert Porcher said after the Lions' 35-17 collapse
to the previously winless Saints. "They opened holes in us like it was the Red
Sea."
Well, as long as we're getting Biblical, let's also add that the run defense
was like Methuselah, the secondary was a burning bush, and the offense handled
the football the way Moses handled the first set of tablets.
Oh, yeah. And the Saints went marching in.
Right over the Lions' lifeless bodies, in fact. This was shameful. This was
sad. The Lions faced an 0-3 team and gave up five touchdowns. They faced a
castoff quarterback and made him look like Johnny Unitas.
Slow? The Lions made gumbo look fast. Out of position? Like Tom Arnold doing
Shakespeare. The front of the Lions' defense didn't deserve to be called a
line. More like a string of dots.
"We took a licking at the line of scrimmage," said coach Bobby Ross, "and just
about everywhere else, too."
This was a collapse not seen since, well, since the man with the cigar and the
Hawaiian shirts was calling the shots. Of course, that was only last year.
But if anything was supposed to separate the Ross era from the Wayne Fontes
era, it was consistency. No more losing games they were supposed to win
easily. Instead, Sunday was the same old same old. Interceptions. Dumb
penalties. Third downs surrendered. Game lost.
Honest to goodness, you'd think they were trying to quit smoking, the way the
Lions keep returning to this habit of blowing the little ones.
"Some of the things we were concerned about are surfacing now," Ross said.
Yeah. They're called your players.
Iron Mike and Super Mario
Where's the life in these guys? Where's the professionalism? The Saints are
not a better team than the Lions. But they played a lot harder. "It seemed
like after they scored the second time, we went into the tank," Porcher said.
"Myself included. We didn't do squat."
There's no excuse for that. It's early in the year, and these guys are
supposedly being led by organized, passionate coaches. So why the
inconsistency?
Remember, this is worse than losing to Tampa Bay. Other teams have lost to the
Bucs, too.
But nobody had lost to the Saints. The Lions made history Sunday. They gave
Mike Ditka his first conquest in black and gold, his first NFL win since the
Bears fired him after the 1992 season. And the NFL's most famous gum-chomper
didn't even have to get fancy. In the first half, he simply had his
quarterback hand the ball to Mario Bates, a guy who's had his knee
reconstructed and his jaw broken and who wasn't even a starter until this week
but still managed to gain 162 yards, ripping through the Lions' defense as if
he were a tank and they were a clothesline.
"This is Saints football!" Ditka declared.
Sorry, Mike. The truth is, this is Lions football. Trust us. We've been around
it longer than you have.
They just can't kick their past
It started when Glyn Milburn fumbled the opening kickoff out of bounds at the
Lions' 4. It continued when Mitchell threw two interceptions in his first
three possessions. It got worse when Bates burst 74 yards through the Lions'
defense for a touchdown. It got pathetic when Larry Tharpe decked a defender
after a play was over, and drew a 15-yard penalty for unnecessary roughness.
And it was cemented when the Lions came out after halftime, and they dug in
and hunkered down and tried really, really hard -- and immediately surrendered
a 64-yard scoring drive.
"Our offense did such a good job of staying out there," said New Orleans
safety Anthony Newman, "we defensive guys were just sitting on the sidelines
drinking water."
They could have been drinking NyQuil.
The Lions allowed the Saints to convert all but four of their 14 third downs.
Remember this is Heath Shuler, Mario Bates and Andre Hastings. Not exactly
Hall of Famers.
"Last week we were so much better," Porcher said. "What baffles me is how we
play when we have the slightest bit of success."
Hey, Robert. You think you're baffled? The Lions are now a quarter of the way
through the season, and they are 2-2. They have beaten two terrible teams,
Chicago and Atlanta, lost to one good team and to one bad team. They face
Green Bay this Sunday.
This is not what we call an inspiring picture.
It is, however, a familiar one. All too familiar. There is something about
this team that is like a tin can tied to the back of a car; no matter which
direction the car goes, there's this same annoying noise.
The Lions have to find a way to stop the run. They must avoid dumb penalties.
They also need a leader who will light a fire, week after week, and will not
allow complacency, a word which by now should be outlawed with this franchise.
Otherwise, the news will not be good. Otherwise, I have seen the future of
Detroit football fashion.
It is brown paper.
Mitch Albom's new book, "Tuesdays With Morrie," is now available in
bookstores. To leave a message for Albom, call 1-313-223-4581.
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