Is Drew Stanton any good? However long it was going to take to find out, add 1 year

The Lions felt they needed a young quarterback they could groom. Thus, the decision was made to draft MSU's Drew Stanton with an early 2nd round pick in the 2007 NFL draft.

The Lions' brain trust must have decided that Stanton wasn't needed as badly as originally thought. That was made clear when they decided to write off his rookie year by putting him on injured reserve, ending his season before the 1st exhibition game.

Sure, Stanton's knee injury was going to sideline him for the majority of training camp. He was assuredly ticketed for 3rd string, which meant a season of mostly holding a clipboard, and watching Jon Kitna turn the ball over. So the spin you are currently hearing from the Lions, and their Kool-aid drinking, and cornbread eating, fans and media, is that this is not an issue, as Stanton wasn't going to play anyway.

Some people will believe anything.

I'm not going to rip the Lions for picking a college QB known to have a injury history longer than the list of games MSU has blown over the years, or that they could have taken the higher rated Matt Leinart or Jay Cutler in last year's draft. They can be ripped for not using their picks wisely, basically condemning Drew Stanton to a 2nd rookie season, while wasting a high pick in the process.

The decision to sit Stanton for the season seems counterproductive at best, and outright idiotic at worst. It leaves the Lions having a QB doing nothing but learning the playbook for the next 6 months, rather than learning how to actually play the QB position at the highest level under certified QB guru/Super Genius/Legend in his own mind, Mike Martz.

If putting a rookie QB on IR ice is such a good thing, then why doesn't this happen more often? Because missing a year of football, for any reason, is NEVER a good thing. Just ask Mike Williams. Haven't the Lions learned anything? No.

If given the choice between NFL Europa reject JP What's-his-name, or a raw 2nd round draft pick who played at a big time university, give me the 2nd round pick every time. There's a reason why What's-his-name was playing in the reject's league, and Stanton was one of the highest ranked college QB's entering the NFL draft.

For those that say Stanton will learn just as much of the uber-complex Martz offense without being able to practice, you're deluding yourselves. Admittedly, he wouldn't get much in the way of taking snaps, but just being on the practice field is invaluable. At least the opportunity to take snaps later in the season would still be there. But while on the IR? No snaps at all till next spring.

And who's to say that Stanton won't be needed later in the season? Kitna not missing a snap in 2006 was fluky. What are the odds of it happening again? I'm sure Vegas would love to take that bet.

Shit happens, especially to the Lions. I remember the 1979 season, when they lost both their starting (Gary Danielson) and backup (Joe Reed) QB's for the season in the same exhibition game. That left the Lions with an undrafted rookie free agent, Jeff Komlo, to run the team. Komlo was beyond awful, and the season was an unmitigated 2-14 disaster.

The only upside was that the nastiness of 1979 allowed them to draft the great Billy Sims in 1980. (Those of you too young to remember Sims, using the word "Great" is not overstating his talent...But that's another post.) And if the worst case scenario does happen, do you really trust the Lions brain trust with another high draft pick? Yeah, I thought so...

Hell, we just need go back a couple of seasons, when Jeff Garcia broke his leg in the final exhibition, leaving Joey Blue Skies as the only option. Their own past history shows that the Lions may have been premature in sending Stanton to the IR, to make room for Calvin Johnson. Couldn't they have waived a rookie free agent tackling dummy instead?

It's just more typical convoluted Lions logic. Come on, admit it. You just know, somehow, someway, the Stanton decision is going to come back to bite them on the ass.

Cutting off your nose to spite your face is no way to live life

In today's Freep, Michael Rosenberg talks to one of the founders of the misguided, though they admittedly had good intentions, "Tiger Stadium Fan Club." A group that just can't let go of the past. Turns out, that the one of the co-founders of the club, Frank Rashid, is no longer a Tigers fan, thanks to their leaving Tiger Stadium.

"What I liken it to is what it must be like to fall out of love with someone," he said. "You make the separation, and I made the separation."

How did he get here? It began with Yost's home runs and stayed in Tiger Stadium for the next three decades. That is when the Tigers started clamoring for a new stadium.

Rashid, who considered Tiger Stadium and the Tigers to be intertwined, objected. So, of course, did thousands of people. Rashid cofounded the Tiger Stadium Fan Club, determined to keep the Tigers at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull.

As you may have heard, the Tigers moved anyway. Most Tiger Stadium fans moved with them -- if not initially, then by last year, when the team finally started winning again.

Frank Rashid did not move with the team. He has seen Comerica Park from the outside, and that is as close as he cares to go.

He sounds like I did after my divorce, bitter and angry. Save for the fact I was upset about a failed marriage, and he's upset about a building.

Personally, to deny yourself something you once loved so much, because of your irrational attraction to a inanimate object made of concrete and steel, is certifiable. This guy has made himself a martyr over, of all things, a baseball stadium. It's a building, nothing more, nothing less.

It's thinking like this that has Detroit endlessly trying to move forward, yet going absolutely nowhere. The city has been on a treadmill for decades, taking 1 step forward, then 1 step back. Nothing ever gets done, leaving vacant buildings, and a stadium rotting from the inside out, still standing.

Were there legitimate issues in regard to how the Tigers were able to leave the Corner, and build Comerica Park? Of course. The Tigers refused to do any more than just the bare minimum to keep Tiger Stadium functional. They did use some public funds to get Comerica built. Mike Ilitch had built an empire of sorts in Foxtown, and he wante a new stadium in his territory, by hook or crook. Why the new park was designed to be so different than Tiger Stadium can be debated as well.

I will agree with the Tigers on one issue, and it's a big issue, in that they needed a new stadium to compete in the 21st century. Comerica's not perfect, but it's immensely better than the alternative.

As things turned out, the Tigers were shown to be correct. They now have a impressive showplace, a world class baseball stadium in a growing neighborhood, and one of the best teams in baseball. Comerica Park is not the only reason, but it's a big reason, why the Tigers are now a model MLB franchise.

Even if somehow, someway, back in the day a compromise had been made, paving a way to refurbish/rebuild/re-whatever of Tiger Stadium, it never would have been the equal of Comerica in infrastructure, convenience, and comfort. Let alone it paved the way for another world class stadium to be built right next door, the gem that is Ford Field.

I'm not saying that the things that were done above, and probably below, board, to build Comerica were correct, or for that matter, right. No matter the route taken, when all was said and done, Detroit is better off, much in thanks to the building of stadiums in the Foxtown area.

At this point, if you really want to help Detroit, and denizens of the Corktown area surrounding Tiger Stadium, knock the SOB down and build a grocery store, or a shopping center. Anything other than letting rusting hulk stand.

I feel for this guy, I really do. Obviously he loves the city, and once loved the Tigers and Tiger Stadium. But the needs of the city, and the Tigers, changed. Often, it's either move forward, regardless of the past, or die. If Detroit doesn't move forward, well, it couldn't get any worse already, could it? Actually, it could, because we are talking about dysfunctional Detroit.

Sometimes, at a restaurant, the old love of Frank Rashid's life will be on the TV above the bar, and Frank will watch for a few minutes. He says he does not feel rage, and he does not feel the tug of fandom. The flame has burned out.

"For me it would really be a violation of what I believe, to go back to the kind of naive faith I had in the Tigers," he said. "It gave me a lot, and they gave me a lot. But it's not the same anymore. I know too much."

I wish things hadn't changed, at times for the much worse, in my own life. But I moved on, best I could, as I was making myself miserable otherwise.

I have to say that Mr. Rashid needs to move on as well. Which he says he has, but at the cost of something he claims he greatly enjoyed. All I can say is that I could never get so upset over a baseball team, that I would deny myself the joy I get from the game. Let alone doing so because of a stadium...

Trash talk and the Detroit Lions = 50 years of BS

Detroit Lions WR Mike Furrey claims they should win 10 to 12 games in 2007. The following quotes are proof enough for me that he's on something mind altering.

"I’m telling you right now, we have high confidence right now. We know what we have. We know how good our offense was over the last four or five weeks of last year. We know that we added depth to the spots that we needed to add depth to. … Our defense looks phenomenal right now. … We believe what Jon’s saying. That’s how we feel as a team right now."

Obviously Furrey has been dipping into the same Kool-Aid and cornbread as Jon Kitna.

It's as if Lions players have become members of a cult. The Cult of Millen. Before every season, we hear that the Lions will improve. The Lions players say so. The front office says so. The local beat writers say so. The newspaper articles never change from off season to off season.

Every year it's the same old, same old.

The team sure looks good during the off season workouts! The new crop of rookies will make an impact! The returning players that have never lived up to their so called "Potential" will actually do so! Injury prone players have overcome their injury proneness! The Lions are going to do more than just improve, they are going to make the playoffs! The Lions are turning a new leaf, and changing their losing culture!

We're told that this coming season will be different that the previous year.

Or the previous 10 years...

Or 20 years...

Or 50 years...

Talk is cheap, and the Lions have been cheap talkers for decades. From playoff victory guarantees, to draft pick hyperbole, to coaches threatening to give "Bus tickets out of town," to predicting 10 win seasons, the Lions have never, ever been able to back up whatever crap comes out of their mouths.

How stupid is it for a 3-13 team to talk trash? To predict 7 victory turnarounds? To say that everything is now A-OK? It's gotten to be a bit much, considering this comes from a team that had to win the last game of the season to keep from getting the 1st overall draft pick.

The Lions were 1 Tony Romo yard from being the worst team in the NFL. The only team worse than the Lions is run by an loopy octogenarian who dresses like it's 1956, believes it's 1966, and runs an offense from 1976. There's not much room for the Lions to talk.

But they still do.

I've used this Benjamin Franklin quote in the past, but when it comes to the Lions, it bears repeating...

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

If you go by the what we've seen of, and heard from, the Detroit Lions, they've been insane for 50 years.

So I have 4 words of advice for the 2007 Detroit Lions. It's advice they really should take to heart...

"Shut the FUCK up!"

It seems like the only people who don't buy into the Detroit Lions off season trash talk anymore are the fans themselves. Burn me once, shame on you. Burn me twice? Shame on me. Burn me 50 times? Then we are talking about the Detroit Lions.

It's a thin line between love and hate for Sheff

Why all the flip-flopping over the Tigers' Gary Sheffield?

The hate is in thanks to his childish tantrum that showed up both the home plate ump and Jim Leyland, got him tossed from Thursday's Indians game, and has earned him a 3 game suspension. (Currently on appeal, so he's still in uniform)

The Tigers are already short Brandon Inge and Carlos Guillen for the weekend. Most think that this is, well, sort of an important series. Yet Sheff decides to get his anger on, and will sometime soon leave a short handed Tigers team less one of their most important bats. To call his stunt stupid is being kind to stupid folks all over.

But it also made me smile. After the fact, anyway. Thanks to his statement after the game in response to the umpire's claim that Sheffield threw his broken bat at him...

"Umpires do lie, too, He just told a bald-faced lie. He's a bald-faced liar."

I'm sorry, but that's just hysterical! Could Sheffield be anymore blunt? Hell, no.


It's going to be one interesting summer with that crazy SOB in town.

Rod Allen's one shining moment

As I was reading Bill Simmons' column today, to my delight, a reader sent him the You Tube link to one of the more infamous incidents in pro baseball history...

Rod Allen nearly starting World War III.

I can't remember the last time Fox Sports Detroit ran the clip during a Tigers game, so it's been ages since I've seen it. We are talking a slice of baseball history here, along with it being a mainstay of the "Rod Allen Drinking Game."

So, without further ado, here's Rod Allen's one shining moment, his chasing a Japanese pitcher around an entire stadium.

One warning: The clip has strange music and Japanese narration. It looks to have taken from some sort of sports bloopers clip show.

Enjoy...