Fear and Loathing in Lake Wobegon

Hi. Miss me? I could explain my extended hiatus, talk about dark days in the jungle with nothing but hallucinogenic berries to eat and my own urine to drink in order to survive, but frankly the details are boring and involve my brain overheating and my fingers telling me to go fuck myself every time I tried to make them type something about the Lions and so I won’t gibber on about it too much other than to apologize, tell you that it was needed and that from here on out, I should be back to posting regularly again. I mean, that’s the plan anyway. That doesn’t mean every day. Not for now. But once or twice a week for the next several months you can expect something new from me, and then when the season starts, it will be back to three or four times a week. Hell, maybe every day like I did a couple of years ago if I’m feeling frisky, but let’s face it, probably not. Anyway, get used to me being around again, like your psychotic uncle who lives in the attic and gets the cops called on him every couple of weeks because the neighbors hear screaming and chainsaw noises coming from his place.

Speaking of people calling the fuzz, I wasn’t really planning on writing about anything specific for my reemergence into blogger society but then the Lions turned themselves into an old NWA video and I’m pretty sure that Gosder Cherilus is going to be spotted rolling down the street strapped with an AK sometime within the next week so I should probably write about all that, huh?

Yeah. So anyway, it all started a couple of months ago when Johnny Culbreath was arrested down in South Carolina because some nosy hotel clerk smelled something funny and called the cops. Thanks to her snitchery, they found Johnny Culbreath doing what a lot of dudes his age do and rather than just being cool about it, they wagged the finger of the law in his direction and he was forced to prostrate himself before a judge, beg for forgiveness and then pay a dumb little fine. Sheriff Goodell will probably put him over his knee and give him a spanking – or at least he would if he knew who Culbreath was, which I’m assuming he doesn’t because Johnny isn’t someone who can get the Sheriff’s name in the papers – and that’s that. Who cares? Blah blah blah, life goes on and if you give a shit about this in any way you are very likely a moron and should be castrated with a butter knife to ensure that you don’t spread your dullard genes to the next generation. Hey, don’t blame me for yelling at you. Jesus said shit like that all the time in the Bible. At least the one I read.

Anyway, life in Lionsville was sleepy and prosaic after that. Martin Mayhew laughed in the face of The Great Cap Crisis of ’12, signed everyone he wanted to sign and we all rolled over and went back to sleep and dreamed of Matthew Stafford bent over his center, grabbing for balls and barking in a frenzied cadence meant to convey both leadership and a desire for dominance. We also dreamed about him playing football. No, but seriously folks, all rimshots and rimjobs aside, as Lions fans we have entered into a weird world in which we simply don’t have that much to worry about, which is disorienting as hell when you realize that worrying was pretty much our most cherished pastime. When I first started writing about this shit, it was a natural fit. Everything and everyone was on fire and so it made sense that some weird half-man/half-dragon from hell would be the one to try to make sense of it all. But now, it sorta feels like Garrison Keillor should be writing about the Lions, doesn’t it? Everything’s all apple pie and quiet sunsets and kids playing down by the lake while the Lions calmly go about their business and we all breathe fresh air for the first time in our fan lives and reflect on what it means to be alive and free in such calm and fulfilling times.

And then Mikael LeShoure ate a bag of pot. Nothing like that shit happened on the shores of Lake Wobegon so fuck off Garrison Keillor because it’s time for me to take the wheel again.

Naturally, everyone made jokes and the hysterical wing of the fanbase flipped out and demanded that he be fed to the Sarlac for his crimes against humanity but I just can’t judge him. I mean, after all, I ate an entire vat full of acid just this morning after I spotted a cop walking my way. Sadly, it turned out to be battery acid and not the fun, hallucinogenic kind and now I have no internal organs and all I am is a brain hooked up to a computer which translates my thoughts. So, I get it, Mikael. I get it.

This probably would have all went away if Nick Fairley didn’t just get busted for the exact same thing down in Alabama, which now has that hysterical OH GOD THINK OF THE CHILDREN wing of the fanbase clutching their pearls, claiming an epidemic and demanding that Jim Schwartz take these ingrates behind the barn and shoot them dead as an example to the rest of the cattle milling about. This is because we are a people used to worrying and hyperventilating about every little thing. In a way it makes us feel more comfortable because it’s familiar. It’s sad and pathetic but it’s familiar.

Look, we’ve all made jokes. I said on twitter that the next Tale of the Great Willie Young (yes, I’m going to write some this year) would have to be set in an opium den. People are sniggering and joking about Titus Young getting busted for operating a meth lab. That’s fine. That’s what we do when these things happen. But there is a very real and very sizeable portion of the fanbase that views this as a legitimate, significant problem. This portion roughly correlates to the same percentage of the general population who still think of weed as the demon drug from Reefer Madness.

Wait, I should back up a little bit because honestly, that’s a whole different argument, a socio-political can of worms that would consume us all in a hurricane of dumb gibberish and worthless rhetoric. Regardless of your views on pot – and everyone has one, you can probably guess mine – the real argument seems to be one of personal responsibility. People just can’t understand why a young millionaire would risk everything just to get high. My take on it is this – who cares?

I would be creeped out if I found out that no one on the team smoked weed. That would just be unnatural and weird. This is not a case like Sam Hurd’s. Nick Fairley does not own a plantation in Colombia. Mikael LeShoure isn’t running guns and counterfeit money on cocaine boats out of Havana. Johnny Culbreath isn’t sucking dick in an alley because he’s hopelessly addicted to smack. These are just young dudes doing what young dudes do. You can’t really control it. If you went into every locker room in the NFL, you’d probably find that half the dudes in there smoked weed. To say the Lions somehow have a problem here is absurd.

The only thing that bothers me – THE ONLY THING – is that because people predictably overreact about this shit, this becomes an issue that has to be addressed, discussed, written about, etc. and all that is, is a distraction. The good news is that it’s early April and so who cares? This isn’t November and this doesn’t really mean a goddamn thing. All it is, is a tiny skirmish in the wider culture war which never seems to end in this stupid country. Two of these dudes were busted because some nosy uptight asshole smelled something suspicious and called the cops. The cops came and were all “Well, yeah, technically you’re in violation of the law, so . . .” They were essentially busted for jaywalking. Marijuana laws in this country have become so riddled with holes and shredded down to their bare essentials by shifting public sentiment that no one really cares about them anymore, not even cops, and the only way you’re going to get busted for it is if someone points it out and says “Hey, that’s illegal, you should do something about that.” Then the cops are forced to make a passionless arrest, someone pays a fine and then it’s forgotten about. I’m serious, it’s fucking jaywalking. If they see it, they’ll do something about it because, hey, that’s their job, but they’re not going to go out of their way to make more of it than what it is.

It’s hard to talk or write about this in any serious way without turning it into a cultural referendum on marijuana. That’s actually pretty telling. If these dudes were busted with bags full of coke or heroin balloons up their ass, people would be freaking out and there would be no arguing that hey, these dudes are fucked. But because it’s marijuana, the discussion immediately shifts to the culture war, to whether or not we should care because in the end, it’s just marijuana. This should tell you something – even the people who disapprove recognize on at least some level that this is not a big deal. They’re not arguing whether the act itself was intrinsically bad, but that it was bad because it exemplified poor judgment. That’s it. They don’t seem to really care that these guys were smoking weed. They care because they did something they’re technically not supposed to be doing and, in their minds, that raises questions about their overall level of maturity and decision making abilities. That alone should tell you that even the most ardent critics of these dudes understand that, in the end, none of this was a big deal. They’re pissed because these guys were arrested, not because of what they were arrested for. That distinction is important to understand.

The more I write about this, the more I hate it, and I hate it because I feel like it’s a stupid thing to have to write about and I suspect that this is what the majority of Lions fans are feeling too. They hate this story not because of what actually happened but because we have to waste time dealing with this bullshit. This is stupid and I feel debased for having to even talk about it. Some dudes smoked weed, they got caught doing it, one of them did something really dumb and really funny. The end. There. That’s all I should have to say about it. But I can’t because people are incapable of putting things in perspective and so it falls to someone like me to try to do it for them. I know that sounds arrogant and dickish but I don’t care. There are “journalists” out there (I put that in sarcastic quotation marks because Drew Sharp is a credible journalist like Snooki is a credible neurosurgeon.) who are blathering on about how the Lions should cut these dudes. That’s why I have to talk about it and fuck them because of it. Fuck you, Drew Sharp. Because you are an idiot and a worthless troll and because there are people who actually agree with you and listen to you, I have to waste my time dealing with this shit, like Batman dealing with the world’s shittiest Joker. I have to exist because you exist.

This is going to become a stupid meme, because that’s just what happens these days. I’ll get in on it too and make jokes about Jeff Backus shaking and shivering like a junkie every time he gives up a sack and I’ll do this because it is easy, because it is something to riff off of, but as a serious story with serious consequences, this is a story that can fuck right on off. Great, now I’m depressed. My first Lions piece in, like, three months and I’m already annoyed and telling people to get off my lawn.

On the other hand, I guess I should look at this more optimistically. It’s actually good that people are bitching about this because it shows that we have nothing else to bitch about. Instead of worrying about the actual team, we’re worrying about trifling bullshit like this. When it comes to what happens on the field – and that’s the only thing that matters – this is all meaningless. In that context, it is a story that basically doesn’t even exist. It has no bearing on anything other than our own tendency and need to bitch. This is good. It’s also really, really annoying. But I guess that’s the price to pay for living in Lake Wobegon. You get riled up by stupid shit, like your neighbor not mowing their lawn or the LeShoure kid eating a bag of weed. No one’s getting shot. There are no mass murders. There’s nothing to worry about and so you invent things to worry about, because that’s just what people do and people are dumb.

The bright side is this – we all trust the regime of Mayhew, Lewand and Schwartz. They have earned that trust and so we can trust them to handle this rationally and with a minimum of dumb noise. Wayne Fontes would have broken down into tears, retreated into his office and drowned himself in a bowl full of spaghetti while anarchy reigned in the locker room. Rod Marinelli would have cut half the team, gibbered about personal responsibility and pad level, had Jon Kitna lead the rest of the team in a prayer meeting and then called in a bunch of faith healers to cleanse the locker room of the pernicious effects of the demon weed. He then would have had Shaun Rogers beaten with a sack filled with quarters just because. And then the team would have finished 1-15 and Marinelli would tell everyone he was proud because they did it the right way. Jim Schwartz, on the other hand, I suspect will just shake his head and tell these dudes not to be dumbasses and that will be that. And that’s the right way to go. That’s the only way to go. You know how you don’t turn this into a giant distraction? You don’t treat it like one. And I think our dudes understand that.

And really, if we’re going to focus on anything it should be that – no matter what happens, our dudes have got this. They have it covered. That’s the story, that’s the only thing that matters. Everything else is just dumb noise. The kids have acted up and the parents will deal with it. Because that’s the sort of thing that happens in Lake Wobegon, and in Lake Wobegon everyone lives happily ever after. The end.

Johnny Culbreath

For years, Lions fans have bitched about the state of the offensive line, and, well . . . they’re not wrong. It has been a big problem for way too long. But at the same time, they’re not exactly right either. I know, I know, that sounds confusing and kind of stupid, but I think that it’s true. It comes down to a patience issue more than anything else, I think. People want the quick fix. They want some 9 foot tall behemoth with a dragon’s head and the body of a grizzly bear to descend from the sky and eat Jeff Backus before settling in as our starting left tackle for the next thousand years. And so, every year, when the draft comes and goes and the Lions fail to take an offensive lineman in the first round, those people throw up their hands, gnash their teeth and start muttering about breaking out the torches and pitchforks. It happens every damn year.

I suppose the real crux of the issue is the human lightning rod named Jeff Backus. Now, I’ve written a bit about Jeff Backus here – feel free to search around the site for some of this delightful gibberish – and so I won’t beat the holy hell out of the argument yet again. But here’s the thing about Backus which is important to understand if we’re going to move forward here: he’s both massively underrated and massively overrated. This weird discrepancy is the natural byproduct of arguing in these strange and terrible times, especially when that argument has been going on for a solid decade. Both sides become entrenched and become obsessed more with proving their point than with actually being smart and reasonable and honest about the whole damn thing.

To Backus’ detractors – a group which includes probably the majority of Lions fans - he’s the devil himself, a miserable shit demon made of goo and failure who conspired with the Failure Demons and Julius Peppers to murder Matthew Stafford’s poor shoulder. He is the living symbol of the offensive line, for good or bad, and most people think he should be slung up on a cross and pelted with rocks in order to pay for the offensive line’s many terrible sins.

To Backus’ supporters – a group which includes scouts and his own coaches – Backus is the paragon of excellence, the lone glorious soldier doing all he can to win an unwinnable war, his heart and soul a shiny exemplar for all true warriors the world over. He’s been called the best offensive tackle in the NFC North by this group. He’s been touted as a Pro Bowl caliber player and the stalwart of the Lions offensive line.

Both of these sides are full of shit.

Now, I’m not a fan of the one sentence paragraph, but in this case I think it is justified. I want everybody reading this to internalize that sentence before we move on. Jeff Backus is a B- player who’s managed to hold on for a solid decade at left tackle because the Lions can’t find anybody better to do the job. He’s not the messiah but he’s not the devil either. He’s just a guy who’s a little bit better at his job than the average player would be. That’s not saying much, admittedly, but what people fail to realize is that the number of people who could do that job better – who could do it exceptionally well – is astonishingly small. Elite left tackles are like diamonds wrapped in platinum and blowjobs. If you find one, you should hoard it like Gollum did that goddamn ring.

That’s the real issue here. It’s not whether Jeff Backus is any good or not. He’s not the best but he’s not the worst either and the sooner people come to terms with that on both sides, the better off as fans we’ll all be. No, the real issue is that finding a guy who is obviously better than Backus is at best challenging and at worst almost damn near impossible. There are a lot of tackles drafted in the first round. Every year. And people freak out when the Lions don’t draft one of them, but the thing is, is that the reason why there are so many tackles drafted early is because people league wide have become victims to the same mass hysteria which drives the “Let’s tie Jeff Backus to a boulder and then roll him into the ocean” mindset. Nobody is happy with their starting left tackle, which only reinforces my point that those dudes are really, really hard to find.

That’s the lesson that everyone should learn – that elite left tackles are rare beasts like unicorns or happy Lions fans – and that reaching for one just to reach for one is a fool’s errand, which will inevitably only lead to more heartbreak and folly. But people don’t learn that lesson. Instead they go the other way. In their desperation they grab any tall bum off the street, slap some pads on him and tell him he has to stop Julius Peppers from legally murdering their quarterback. It’s the whole “Well, this sucks, so the alternative has to be better” trap. And the reason it’s such a terrible trap is because when it comes to offensive tackles, no, the alternative isn’t better, it’s usually just more of the same, and in a lot of cases, it’s actually worse.

That’s why so many left tackle prospects are drafted in the first round, because people are desperate to replace their average or shitty left tackle, not because so many of them are actually worthy of being picked that high. Now I’m not saying that you should never pick an offensive tackle in the first round. That would be dumb. (And by the way, that’s the same sort of polarized I MUST PROVE MY POINT AND SO I WILL TAKE THE MOST EXTREME POSITION AVALAIBLE kind of arguing and thinking that I mentioned earlier, which ends up just being only so much dumb noise in a wilderness already filled with the braying idiocy of the dumb and endlessly foolish.) If a guy who you know will actually be better at left tackle is there, then by all means, draft him. If Orlando Pace or Tony Boselli or some dude like that is out there, it would be dumb not to take him. But if that guy isn’t there, don’t turn to the nearest tall, fat dude who managed to play college ball and try to make him that guy. That’s all I’m saying and that’s the trap that too many fans and too many teams fall into.

It’s with all that as the backdrop that year after year Lions fans howl and shoot rifles at the moon and write their Congressman because the Lions passed up yet another possible replacement for the Devil Backus. It’s ridiculous. I mean, all you have to do is take a look at the Lions own history of drafting offensive tackles. Since drafting Lomas Brown in 1985, which worked out pretty damn well, the Lions have drafted 5 offensive tackles in either the first or second round. The list: Juan Roque in 1997, Aaron Gibson in 1999, Stockar McDougle in 2000, Backus in 2001 and Gosder Cherilus in 2008.

Take a moment and let that sink in. Okay, done? Good.

Jeff Backus is the best player on that list. Taking an offensive tackle just to take an offensive tackle because that’s what you’re supposed to do is dumb and those names bear that shit out better than anything I could say. Sure, sure, some of that speaks to the Lions own ineptitude when it comes to scouting and development, but let’s face it, all those players were going to be drafted by somebody early in all of those drafts. It’s not like the Lions were the only team out there willing to take a shot on Aaron Gibson. The names on that list typify the average first round tackle. Most of the time, you’re going to end up with Stockar McDougle instead of Orlando Pace or even Lomas Brown.

Which finally – finally! – brings us to Johnny Culbreath, the Lions 7^th round pick in this year’s Draft. It would seem to me that the Lions coaches and scouts understand all too well everything I just wrote. They are smart guys, guys who pay attention, who understand better than most that you have to draft the right guy at the right time, and that most of the time the tackles who are drafted in the first round are the wrong guys at the wrong time.

Look, it would be great to have a cyborg at left tackle, someone who can show up at camp and shotput Jeff Backus off the field, but if you can’t find the guy who can do that, why bother drafting someone in the first round who’s just going to give you the exact same thing? Or worse, someone who is just going to waste away on the bench because he can’t beat out Backus? That’s pretty much the definition of a wasted pick. And the worst part wouldn’t even be that the dude failed to make the improbable impact fans dream about but it would be that the Lions would have picked him and ignored some other potential impact player. Why draft a dude who’s not really going to improve your team in any meaningful way when you can draft a guy who can immediately improve your team?

I know, I know, I still haven’t talked about Culbreath, but all this horseshit is really about him so hang on. The point is that Jim Schwartz knows that he can’t get a dude who can just step onto the field at left tackle and be demonstrably better than Jeff Backus right away. He just can’t. And he has other needs all over the field, and there are dudes available in every draft who can step in and be demonstrably better right away than the dudes who are playing their positions and so he drafts one of them instead.

But he’s not ignoring the tackle position either, no matter how much the hysterics rant and rave about that being the case. His strategy – since he knows that he can’t find a surefire starting left tackle in the first round – is to look for a guy with a lot of tools late in the draft, a raw player who the coaches can develop into a starter and a force two or three years down the road, so that when the time comes when Backus has to be replaced, the Lions will have someone ready and able to do it. It’s kind of like this: Backus is like an old car, reliable, not too flashy and you know eventually you’re going to need to replace it. But you know that given a variety of factors – your finances, family size, insert whatever you want here – you know that any car that you could buy right now would just give you pretty much the exact same thing. So why even bother to buy a new car that would just be the same as your old car? Why not spend the money on, say, a kickass home theater system or a fine prostitute or maybe even your own private army of highly trained howler monkeys? Or a fine prostitute howler monkey? You know, one that’s had its teeth removed and . . . too far? I’ve gone too far again, haven’t I? The point is, is that you can find other, better uses for that money than just buying another used car which is going to give you the same performance – and the same problems – as the one you already have. But . . . there’s something else you can do too. If you have the know-how – which in this case would be analogous to good coaching – why not pick up an old Mustang or (insert whatever car you want here. I know people get all riled up about cars and get weird and particular about this shit, but I’m not really a car guy, so just imagine your ideal car and go with it, okay?) and then spend the next couple of years fixing that baby up until finally, when your car is ready to go you not only have a new car waiting in the wings but a badass car you built yourself, a car that you can be proud of and show off to all your friends? Fuck buying a used Subaru. Build yourself a goddamn Mustang.

And that’s the Jim Schwartz/Martin Mayhew style: they want to build Mustangs, not buy Subarus. (Nothing against Subaru, I just picked a name out of thin air. Leave me alone, car zealots!) All that is just another way of explaining and restating the Philosophy of Greatness which I have made the central point of all of these draft breakdowns.

It’s obvious that this is their style just by looking at their draft history: in 2009, they drafted Lydon Murtha in the 7^th round. In 2010, they drafted Jason Fox in the 4^th. This year, they drafted Culbreath in the 7^th. Not one of those players was drafted because anyone thought they would kick Backus in the ass and replace him right away. No. They were all drafted with an eye towards the future, because Schwartz and Mayhew looked at them and saw potential Mustangs. Murtha ended up getting caught in a numbers crunch and was poached off of the practice squad by the Miami Dolphins. He started four games for them last season in place of Vernon Carey and looks like he’ll at least be a serviceable NFL player. Fox is still with the Lions and is being groomed for better things. And Culbreath? Well, Culbreath gives the Lions another Mustang to work on in case Fox falls apart or never runs well in the first place.

The Lions know they have issues on the offensive line. The chicken littles running around screeching and bitching and asking anyone who will listen “Why won’t they draaaaaft a taaaaaackle?” need to understand this. I know it’s hard to have faith in the Lions decision makers after every terrible thing that has gone on in the last half century of unnumbered tears. I get it. Believe me, I get it. Just go back to my first post on this blog and start reading forward if you don’t believe me. I understand. It’s hard to accept that things are different and that there is real plan in place, and that the people in charge of this whole thing aren’t blithering idiots but rational, smart dudes who understand both the strengths and weaknesses of this roster. They know that the Lions need to build their offensive line, but they’re trying to do it the smart way, not the fast, sloppy way that most fans seem to want. People want instant gratification and at least in this case, that shit just isn’t possible.

Culbreath isn’t a perfect player. There’s a reason why he didn’t get drafted until the 7^th round. But his biggest flaw seems to be that he’s a raw athlete who isn’t anywhere near being ready to play every week in the NFL. That may frustrate some people, but that’s a correctable problem, you know? If you’re going to have a flaw, that’s the one that you want in a 7^th rounder.

Everything else seems to be there for Culbreath. He’s got good size – 6’5”, 320 lbs plus – he’s strong and he seems to be a pretty good athlete. He originally was headed for Florida St. out of high school but his shitty grades sent him instead to South Carolina St. where he was a four year starter, a conference player of the year and an FCS All-American. So it’s not like the dude is completely unknown. He was dominant at a lower level of football, a level which he was able to dominate through sheer size and athletic ability. He was the proverbial man amongst boys, and in that way he kinda reminds me of Sammie Hill.

If the Lions coaches can develop Culbreath anywhere near as well as they’ve developed Hill, then there’s a good chance that one day Culbreath will be the Mustang the Lions coaches hope he can be. Of course, that comparison isn’t completely fair. After all, while Hill was even rawer than Culbreath is now, and played at even a lower level in college, he also seemed like he had a higher ceiling. Like I said, Culbreath is limited. There are concerns about his feet and his punch coming off the line, but those concerns seem like ones that could be corrected with good coaching and I’m glad that we have a group of people in charge who are confident in their abilities to provide that good coaching. I’ll say again what I said about Doug Hogue: if this were Millen and Marinelli, then I would think this was a lousy pick, a dude who couldn’t possibly pan out because the idea of player development as part of a central, unifying plan was beyond absurd, like the idea of monkey nuclear physicists or, well, Matt Millen as anything other than a giant pile of failure. But with Mayhew and Schwartz, I’m willing to believe what they believe: that they have the ability to build a Mustang out of spare parts and one kick-ass body. (I swear I didn’t mean that to sound as homoerotic/disturbing as it came across. Also, I apologize for using the phrases “homoerotic” and “came across” in the same sentence. Shit, I’ll be right back. I need to get all this out of my system. Maybe I’ll take a break and write some Willie Young erotica. You know you want it! No? Okay, fine.)

And that’s the whole point here, I think – that we need to trust the dudes in charge and believe what they believe. I know that’s a huge leap of faith for some of you to take and I can respect that, but from what I’ve seen from these guys, they get it. They understand how to coach guys up and bring out the best in them. They believe in a Philosophy of Greatness and so do I. I see a pattern in the way that they work and the way that they draft. I see it. And there’s no way I can really explain that without devolving into weird psychotic gibberish and wild grunts and dumb howls that would just leave you shaking your head in disdain. I can see patterns, man, and I know that sounds like the fractured ravings of a loon on mushrooms or with a head full of acid, but goddammit, I can see them. I can. And I like what I see. I see how Johnny Culbreath fits into the bigger plan, how he factors into this new Lions universe. I hope I’ve managed to explain that at least a little bit in this post. I know I keep rambling on about the Philosophy of Greatness and I keep sliding away from the point to explain things that don’t seem like they need to be explained, but they do. They do. Because to me, that’s the whole point here. This Lions universe of ours is complex and bewildering and someone needs to be here to try to make sense of it all and for whatever absurd reason, I have taken that upon myself. I don’t want to just explain Doug Hogue or Johnny Culbreath’s strengths or weaknesses in a vacuum. I wanted to explain them in the context of that larger universe and I hope that I have – at least a little bit.

I’ve begun to ramble (begun???) but what I really wanted to say is that thanks to Jim Schwartz and Martin Mayhew, I can finally make some sort of sense out of the Lions universe that isn’t just a screaming blue light of pain, misery and confusion. The noise of the past has died down a little bit and now I am just watching as the new pieces of this universe slide into place and it makes me smile, like a retarded little kid watching balloons float overhead it makes me smile, because in this universe Johnny Culbreath isn’t just some nobody the Lions picked simply because they had to pick somebody. He’s a part of that universe and I see how he fits – or at least how he’s supposed to fit if everything goes the way it’s supposed to – and that makes me glad.

Of course, I might be drifting too far towards the optimistic, but so what? I recognize that Culbreath may never pan out. I recognize that he might just end up being a practice squad player who gets cut when nobody’s paying attention. I get all that. But then again, maybe he will pan out. Maybe he will one day be that Mustang that we show off and brag about to all of our friends, and really, that’s the whole point, isn’t it? That it’s possible, that even a 7^th round pick like Johnny Culbreath is worth getting excited about because there’s a pattern to it all, this universe is finally starting to make sense and even the smallest details, the smallest picks, even a 7^th rounder like Johnny Culbreath, could be the ones that one day take us to the playoffs and beyond, to an endless horizon where the only limits are our own imaginations and confetti falling from the sky as Roger Goodell hands Old Man Ford the Lombardi Trophy. This may be the dream of the perpetually foolish, the delusions of a broken and shattered and ruined mind, savaged by the unknowable realities of 0-16, but fuck it, what a dream.