Lydon Murtha, Welcome to the Jungle

For years now, the offensive line of the Detroit Lions has been a brutal killing field filled with the bodies of the dead and the dying. We can trace the decay of the line back almost twenty years, when Erik Andolsek got in the way of a runaway car while he was chilling in his yard and Mike Utley decided to spend the rest of his days using wheelchair ramps and getting the best parking spaces. Horrible freak events that mortally wounded a promising young line, and which the Lions have been unable to recover from despite spending multiple first round picks on offensive linemen who, frankly, have turned out to be, well, offensive.

Sure, there was Lomas Brown and there was Kevin Glover, but those dudes really just represented what could have been in Detroit had their other linemen stayed healthy, or, you know, alive. And when those dudes got old, the Lions looked around and realized that there was nobody else to take their place. St. Barry the Great noticed it, and he rode a river of tears straight out of town. It was a situation which needed to be addressed for years and, amazingly, the Detroit Lions still haven't done so. The end result of the rampant incompetence which allowed this to continue year after year was a line which greatly contributed to that oh so special season we'll always remember as 0-16.

And it wasn't enough that the talent on the line was obviously deficient. No, the Lions had to add to the misery by messing things up further through good old fashion incompetence. Anyone who has followed me on this blog for a while knows that I wasn't exactly the biggest fan of the Rod Marinelli regime(this is akin to saying that Jews weren't the biggest fan of the Hitler regime - was that grossly inappropriate or just terribly offensive? I'll leave you to decide.)

And now that Marinelli has been deposed and his assistants shot into space(with the bizarre exception of Stan Kwan, the special teams coach - dude must have pictures of Schwartz getting filthy at a chess tournament or something), the players who suffered under the raging incompetence which was the hallmark of the Marinelli years have begun to speak out about the atrocities, war crimes and other assorted fuck ups which they were forced to endure. Jonathan Scott, a little used offensive tackle came out and had this to say on BuffaloFootballReport.com:

In Detroit, the life of a lineman was maddening. Scott said the communication breakdowns between the offensive coordinator and his offensive line coach ran rampant. One told him to step left on a play, the other said to step right.

“So which one do I do?” Scott said. “If I don’t it the offensive line way, I won’t be able to play. If I don’t do it the offensive coordinator’s way then I’ll never get on the field. There were always situations like that.”

Chaotic fragmentation. The shoddy separation of powers triggered on-field breakdowns. Scott said the linemen became “chickens with their heads cut off.” Who was supposed to block where was a play-to-play mystery.

“You can sense frustration throughout the entire team,” Scott said. “Cancer is a disease and negative energy can be transmitted easily from one player to the next and one coach to the next. I’ve witnessed situations where coaches aren’t on the same page. So when you try to change all that negative energy and do a 180 on game day, your chances aren’t that great.”

Okay. I could launch into another tirade here on the buffoonery of the Marinelli regime, but why bother? The man will never be an NFL head coach again and I see no reason to kick his corpse - not out of deference to him, but really, why put myself through that bullshit?

Instead, I figured I'd talk about the future, and more specifically, what the Lions did in this year's draft to ensure that the future would be different than the horror show of the past. And because sending a terminator back in time to protect Erik Andolsek and Mike Utley while hunting down Matt Millen isn't feasible - at least for now - we have to be patient with this aspect of the rebuilding process and hope that this year's draft can be the start of that process.

Unfortunately, it seems as if the Lions missed the memo there, and while I have already expressed time and time again my willingness to cut these dudes some slack and embrace the alien concept of hope, I am left kind of uneasy with the fact that, given the pathetic state of the offensive line, the Lions bolstered it in the draft with a measly seventh round pick. Especially since they passed up Michael Oher in the first round and probably could have snagged somebody who could have helped in the wide expanse that exists between the end of the first round and the beginning of the seventh.

But that is a dangerous thing, playing the what if game, and it will leave us all in a pool of our own urine and vomit as we gibber and slobber over ourselves, our brains broken and finally beaten by the years of torment that come with being a Lions fan. Instead, we have to focus on what they did and hope that, in the end, they knew what it was they were doing.

And what did they do? Well, let's find out.

With the 228th pick overall, the 19th of the seventh round, the Detroit Lions selected Lydon Murtha, an offensive tackle out of Nebraska. Now, the good news is that Murtha was a highly rated and prized recruit out of high school, a terrific natural athlete with good speed and flexibility, the kind of guy who has the agility necessary to handle top flight pass rushers and the kind of size and strength needed in the running game. Sounds great, right? Well, the problem with Murtha is that he never managed to stay healthy while at Nebraska and never lived up to his seemingly immense potential. It would be a little naive to think that a guy who couldn't stay healthy or dominate at the college level would be able to do so once he took the enormous step up in competition that he'll be forced to do here.

Still, Murtha has outstanding measurables, and if everything breaks right for him, maybe, just maybe he'll be able to put it all together and become something worth, well, something in the NFL. The killing fields of that brutal league are filled with the bodies of the exceptionally talented and gifted, who, for one reason or another, didn't live up to their potential. This is probably the fate that awaits Murtha. But, hope is a funny thing. It clouds your judgment, makes you see stars in seventh round picks, and makes you think that the world will break right. And I have hope. For the first time in years, since St. Barry juked his way out of town - and really, if I am being honest here, a while before that even happened - I have hope, and even though my head is screaming at me to stop being an idiot, reminding me of all the vicious and terrible trials I have been forced to endure as a Lions fan, my heart wants to believe. It is a terrible battle, and Lydon Murtha is just another frontline in the war between head and heart.

My head tells me that he is a seventh round draft pick who didn't dominate in college. And even though he was a highly rated recruit, offensive line recruiting is notoriously a crapshoot. And what we're left with is a fine athlete who was a good high school football player and little else. Harsh? Certainly, but my head is a dickhead and a cynic.

But my heart sees that athleticism and begins to wonder. My heart thinks that all this dude needs is a break, that with the right coaching he can put it all together and use those raw tools to become a franchise left tackle. My heart tells me that it's a new day, that the old guard has been vanquished and beaten and we should celebrate this new era by excusing old injuries, forgetting the horrible and the profane, and moving forward. My heart sees Lydon Murtha and thinks that maybe his injury plagued college career was a fluke, that maybe his time in the NFL will be different. Nauseatingly rosy? Certainly, but my heart is an optimist and a gentleman.

So, who wins the war? Obviously, I am torn. I like Murtha, I really do, and for a seventh rounder, he's a great pick. Let me say that again. He's a great pick. Unfortunately, given the need along the offensive line, and the horrors of the past - specifically those of last year, I fear that Lions fans will want him to play like a first rounder instead of a seventh, It is unfair, it is brutal, but that is life as a Detroit Lion.

What they could have done differently: Picked a lineman earlier, like Oher. But they didn't, and so we're left with what could have beens and those are always awful and stupid. Then again, I have devoted a whole little section here to what could have been and so I will give it some space to breathe.

What we can expect this season: Not much. Murtha is a seventh round pick and a rookie. Those don't typically steal starting jobs and drive their team to the Super Bowl surrounded by a sea of groupies. I think we'll see Murtha stashed fairly deeply on the bench - at least to start. The Lions probably like what they have as far as his raw talent goes and they will do their best to develop it slowly. But, the situation being what it is, there is a good chance that at some point or another in the season, if Murtha shows them enough at practice, that he'll be thrown out there and asked to do something. I just hope he doesn't fall flat on his face or blow out a knee or start vomiting on himself.

Early Pick Grade: A-. I know this seems high, but I'm trying not to grade here based on what the Lions could have done earlier in the draft. For a seventh round pick, Murtha is a terrific pick - tremendous upside with little financial commitment. If he works, hey, sex and candy for everyone. If he bombs, well, it's a seventh round pick that didn't pan out.