2009 Lions Season Review, Part 7: The Defensive Backs

I know I said that this would probably be up sometime over the weekend, but that was lost in the vile haze of watching Team USA fall in overtime to Sidney Crosby and his gang of heathens. But that is another story for another time, and this here blog is supposed to be about football and not dudes on skates, so I'll just let that painful memory recede into the mists of the past and hopefully, dear friends, I won't break into some scathing anti-Canadian screed born out of sheer frustration that I don't really mean and which will cause my Canadian friends to utter foul words about me, but these are strange and terrible times and I cannot promise anything, and if this run on sentence proves anything at all it's that this post could be full of weird bullshit, dumb and barely coherent, but I will try to restrain myself because I love you dearly and you deserve better.

Okay, anyway, on with this infernal review, and in this edition, we'll focus on the defensive backs. And perhaps that is a factor in the depressed delirium which has already taken hold of this post. I mean, after all, when one thinks of the secondary of the Detroit Lions, one immediately begins crying bitter tears and wondering how on Earth a collection of reasonably qualified human beings could be so epically horrendous. If this gang of fools were a movie, they would be Gigli. If they were a starlet, they would be Lindsay Lohan. If they were a football team, they would be the . . . uh, the Detroit Lions. Just a train wreck, an utter disaster, and even if going in we could see that it would be bad, and that there would be pain - oh Lord how we knew there would be pain - it still didn't make it any easier when it was actually in front of our face and it was actually happening and the voices of the dead and dying were drowned out only by the mournful wails of those doomed to live through it all.

Yes, the 2009 edition of the secondary of the Detroit Lions was an epic disaster, worthy of much derision and scorn, and responsible for the tears of those too proud or too stupid to turn away from the disaster in front of them. And because I am one of those fools who is either too proud or too stupid, I suppose it falls to me to try to explain away some of this madness. At least to the extent a human being can, and even then, my words are but a dull echo of the savage and violent reality which gripped us by the throat and thrashed us around until we lay moaning and beaten in the muck, hoping against hope that maybe, somehow and someway, it will all be different next year.

All of that gibberish is one incredibly hyperbolic and melodramatic way of saying that it was bad, dudes. It was really bad. It all started only a short time after the Year of Unnumbered Tears drew to a merciful close. Our pass defense was ridiculously awful, and there was an obvious need to overhaul the entire back end of the defense. The Lions began that quest by trading Jon Kitna and his Bible to the Cowboys in exchange for Anthony Henry, a dude who had been a solid starter in the NFL at cornerback for several seasons. It seemed like an epic rip-off perpetrated by Martin Mayhew, getting a starting cornerback for a dude the Lions were planning on depositing in the dumpster anyway. Seemed like is the key phrase in that sentence, though, and we'll get to that a little later.

After the Lions made that deal, they went out and signed Phillip Buchanon, a one time first round draft pick by the Raiders who'd had an up and down career. A corner with blazing speed out of Miami, Buchanon never lived up to the hype that greeted him upon his arrival to Oakland, and it wasn't all that long before he found himself adrift, bouncing around until he wound up in Tampa Bay, where he reinvented himself as a solid if unspectacular cornerback who probably wouldn't kill you. That is kind of damning with faint praise, but for the Lions, it was a definite upgrade. People seemed to generally be happy with the pickup, but I was a little wary, particularly because I was fairly sure that my boy, Harpo, my favorite Raiders fan, thought that he was a dog.

It appeared that we might have the framework in place for a new secondary, but there was still much work to be done. At cornerback, the Lions further bolstered their pathetic ranks by signing . . . Eric King? Yes, Eric King. Don't get me wrong, King was a fine special teams player in Tennessee, where Jim Schwartz had become well acquainted with him, but he had never really shown the ability to be someone who could give you significant quality time at cornerback.

So, going into the draft, the situation at cornerback was a little dicey still. The starters seemed to be in place but their ability remained questionable, and the depth appeared to be, well, atrocious.

But cornerbacks are only half of the equation when it comes to the secondary. Indeed, while the Lions corners were bad in the Year of Unnumbered Tears, their safeties weren't exactly defending the halls of Ford Field with honor and grace either. It was obvious that changes had to be made, but the good news was that the Lions appeared to have a couple of talented young safeties to build around. Daniel Bullocks and Gerald Alexander had both shown flashes of ability as rookies with Detroit before suffering various injuries. Everyone figured that as long as they could get healthy, they would give the Lions a framework around which to build a quality secondary. Yeah, about that . . .

We'll get back to that a little later. Anyway, with the safety corps slightly better off than the cornerbacks, what with a presumably healthy Alexander and Bullocks returning, backed up by a vaguely competent Kalvin Pearson, I think the general belief was that we needed to pick up a cornerback somewhere in the draft, and then hit the pavement hard after the draft and convince more quality dudes to show up for camp.

And then the draft happened, no cornerbacks were taken, and all Lions fans were in an uproar because the only player drafted who played a position in the secondary was some dude named Louis Delmas, and everyone was pissed that the Lions passed over Rey Maualuga and James Lauranaitis and, well, just about everyone else, to take Delmas. Sure, sure, the experts said that Delmas might have been the best safety available, but fuck that, he wasn't a name. He wasn't a dude who made Todd McShay's nipples hard or made Mel Kiper need to change his panties. He was just some dude out of the MAC and to the raving masses, this was UNACCEPTABLE. Yes, in both bold and italics. I know!

After the draft, the Lions decided to bolster their cornerback corps by . . . well . . . uh . . . hmmm . . . it would seem that this didn't really happen. Indeed, apparently the Lions felt that they could somehow survive the coming season with a group of cornerbacks who between them were best known for being a washout, an old dude and a special teams player. That's not exactly the best sign.

Meanwhile, at safety, lucky us, it turned out that both Gerald Alexander and Daniel Bullocks were basically done as functional football players due to their injuries, which meant that suddenly, we were left with one of Marinelli's dudes in Kalvin Pearson and the dude from the MAC that nobody wanted. The situation, it, uh, well, it wasn't good. In fact, we appeared to be, in the immortal words of Plato, downright fucked.

When the season finally started, the lineup shook out like this: the starting cornerbacks were Henry and Buchanon, even though there were a lot of people agitating for Henry to move to safety, presumably because we had no one else to play the position and because he was - surprise! - too slow to start at cornerback anymore. Backing them up were King as the nickel back(and no, I am not above making the joke that he was about as bad as the band of the same name.), and William James, who had stumbled in off of the street. The starting safeties were Delmas, who had drawn praise from the coaches during camp and who had seen a groundswell of support gather behind him from the enlightened portion of the Lions fanbase, and Marquand Manuel, who, like James, had shown up presumably because the Lions offered him a hot meal and a place to sleep for the night. Backing them up was Pearson and Stu Schweigert. No, wait. Schweigert was the one defensive back who actually looked good in the preseason, so of course he was cut. Never mind.

So, with the stage set, and that motley and tired crew manning the walls of the final gate between us and terrible pain, the Lions strolled into New Orleans to face Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints. I will say that again, a little louder this time: TO FACE DREW BREES AND THE NEW ORLEANS SAINTS. Yikes.

Indeed. Six touchdown passes and a billion tears later, the Lions defensive backs were left dazed and confused, beaten stupid by Brees and left for dead. Oh well, thanks for coming boys, maybe next year will be better.

The sad truth was that it took only that long for every Lions fan to realize that the season was basically a lost cause - at least as far as the defensive backs go. This collection of stiffs and street free agents couldn't cover a drunken and drugged ground sloth. It was awful. Of course, it wasn't enough that the dudes we placed all our hopes in weren't nearly good enough, they then all decided that it would be fun to go out and get hurt, opening things up for a cavalcade of bums and freaks who streamed in from the cold and were given a place to stay by the kindly Lions management. It was a touching gesture, very noble, and it came at a time when the city of Detroit and the state of Michigan needed it the most, but operating Ford Field as a homeless shelter wasn't the best way to win games, and as the season wore on and on and on and on, the most merciful thing to do would have been to drown the poor retches in the Detroit River and start all over again. And that, sadly, is where we find ourselves today.

There were so many dudes - so many - who suited up for the Lions at defensive back this past season that a player by player breakdown would take twenty pages and would drive both me and you past the brink of insanity that I seem to constantly teeter on and then a couple of days later, they would find me driving down the highway naked wearing a dog's head for a hat and screaming obscenities about Bigfoot. That's not a place any of us need to visit and so I will mercifully avoid such a calamity. Instead, I will just focus on the principle figures, most of whom have already been named.

We'll start with Henry. Everyone was elated that we had stolen him from crazy Jerry Jones for Kitna and the nurse who performed the chemotherapy that caused all his hair to fall out - wait, you mean that his head looks like that on purpose? - but the sad reality was that Henry was their Kitna, a washed up dude who simply didn't fit into their plans at all and who they had planned on tossing in the dumpster before they had to pay him a roster bonus. If he had somehow managed to survive the axe in Dallas, they were going to move him to safety because they knew that he was just too slow to be a starting cornerback anymore. This should have all been obvious right for the start, but the wretched and the beaten have a way of deluding themselves. It's a defense mechanism. We convince ourselves that everyone else doesn't know what the hell they are talking about and that, somehow, someway, it will be different when they slap on our uniform. Of course, it wasn't, and Henry proved to be the dud that the Cowboys knew he would be.

But at least we had Buchanon. Yeah, about that . . . well, the good news, was it turned out that Buchanon was a decent tackler. Hooray! The bad news, though, was it turned out that he couldn't cover anybody. Hooray . . . I mean, awww, shit. Indeed. The sad reality is that Buchanon was just the inconsistent flop he had always been. Maybe that's okay in the right system or if he's only your third cornerback, but the Lions needed him to be their number one dude, their lockdown cornerback, and Buchanon, well, let's just say that he had some problems. The same way that Stephen Hawking has problems walking.

With both of our starters turning out to be duds, we were forced to contemplate the reality that our best cornerback might be William James. After Eric King proved to be as inadequate as should have been obvious, James stepped into the nickelback role and, well . . . he kinda sucked too, but not quite as badly. Hey! Progress! By the time the season ended, James was just about the only cornerback whose name didn't make my eyes roll back in my head and my tongue head for the back of my throat while my brain slipped into daydreams involving drain cleaner and razor blades. That's something, right? RIGHT???

Okay, moving on, before I descend into madness and end up on the evening news stumbling down the middle of the street wearing an old shower curtain as a sun dress and a wig made from a dirty mop. Anyway, those were the cornerbacks. I will wait a moment while you take a bathroom break to do . . . whatever it is you need to do. I won't judge you. Shit, vomit, whatever. Maybe you even got a little excited. I don't understand it, but some people are masochists. Like I said, I won't judge. Have a good time.

Alright, now we can move on to the safeties, and here we will find the one oasis in this desert of terrible agony. Louis Delmas, that dude from the MAC who everyone hated, turned out to be the best defensive player the Lions had. Now, I know, that's not exactly saying much given the generally putrid state of the Lions defense, but even a nation of shit needs a king, and Delmas was ours. Hell, Jim Schwartz even said something to the effect that the Lions would be giving up 50 points a game if it wasn't for Delmas. That's a hell of a statement, and while it speaks to the gross ineptitude of the defense as a whole, it also speaks to how critically important Delmas was to the Lions as a rookie.

If there was a play to be made, Delmas made it. Just about every big moment the Lions had on defense involved Delmas, whether it was an interception, a pick six, a fumble recovery, a safety, you name it, Delmas did it. He was awesome, just awesome, and even though the rest of the world - and hell, let's be honest here, a lot of Lions fans too - couldn't see him shine in the middle of the shit heap that was the Lions defense, shine he did. He is the backbone of the defense now, the last line of defense and honestly, I feel pretty good about that. He's going to have a great career, and we are lucky to have him. Anyone who still says we shouldn't have drafted him is an idiot. I am sorry if that includes you, but now is not the time for soft words and gentle cooing. We are in hell and sometimes harsh words must be said and sometimes we must beat on one another in order to toughen us up for the hard climb back to the land of the living.

I am loathe to leave the Oasis of Delmas but I will anyway, just so that we can reach the end of this terrible journey before we all descend into madness and despair. Lining up next to Delmas was a parade of retreads and washouts, none of whom really merit a breakdown, and so they won't get one. I am sorry if this upsets you in any way, but please, think of me, and think of my poor fragile mind, and have a heart. The reality is the situation is cold and awful enough without having to delve into the particulars.

We stand on the brink of a vast crater, but finally, hopefully, that crater is behind us. There's a good chance that we'll continue to slide down into it from time to time but we have to keep marching back out, pulled along by Louis Delmas, until finally it's all just an ugly memory, never forgotten. That's the sad reality here. We won't forget this. We can't forget this. The past several seasons have been too ugly and too painful. They are ingrained in us and they will remain a shadow over our hearts for the rest of our fandom. But they will also make the sweet rewards of a better future that much more amazing. We have been to hell and heaven awaits. It may not come for a while yet, but Louis Delmas is a warrior from that fair place, and if we can follow his lead and if others like him show up to further our cause, then maybe, just maybe, we can find our way out of this awful place once and for all.

WHAT IT ALL MEANS FOR THE FUTURE

Well, it means that we still need a lot of help. Delmas is really the only piece worth saving here, and we drastically need to upgrade everywhere else. Once again, we find ourselves needing to find a lot of help before the season starts, and if there's one area of the team that has lagged behind, caught in the stagnant waters of that terrible flood of failure that was 0-16, it is the secondary. There simply hasn't been much progress made here, and we need to make some moves and we need to make them now before the situation as a whole stagnates and we are carried back down again by the failure demons. We need to make trades - good trades, smart trades, not trades made just for the sake of making them - and the rumored trade for Antonio Cromartie of the Chargers would be a good start. If we can get him for only a fifth rounder and maybe Maurice Morris, then we have to make that deal.

But that's only one step in a process that needs to be massive. We need to build depth through the draft, and we need to keep working the waiver wire relentlessly in the hope that we uncover someone - anyone - who someone else was wrong about. The situation next season will likely still be grim, but if we can get a ballhawker like Cromartie, pair him with a solid workmanlike vet - maybe Buchanon can fit the bill if he's healthy, but I am not overly optimistic - and then pair them with Delmas and hopefully a young safety plucked out of the air in the middle rounds by Mayhew, Schwartz and co., maybe we can finally start to move forward here, and then the rest of the team can lurch towards a new beginning, and a new day that's not quite so ugly, and a day whose dawn will signal the beginning of a new era - not necessarily one of excellence, but one that will allow us to finally watch someone like Drew Brees drop back to pass and hope that when he does, our dudes will be there to knock it down.

WHAT I SAID BEFORE THE SEASON

The Lions are going to be burned alive once again barring a miracle. Unless the terrible line or a horde of blitzing linebackers can somehow get to the quarterback before he gets time to rain down fire, the secondary is likely going to find itself picked apart over and over and over and over and . . . well you get the point. It's going to be bad - dark mutterings about werewolves and Hitler bad. The depth is terrible and the starters are mostly retreads. Delmas is the lone bright spot, the hope for the future, but we have hoped before and we have had those hopes deposited in a shallow grave and covered with lime. Henry is hanging on to his time at cornerback by a thread and Buchanon has become a vagabond after being a top shelf prospect once upon a time. The strong safety spot is just a mess, and the team apparently knows it and are desperate to stabilize it. It all adds up to way too many question marks for everything to come together like it needs to. I am, uh, well, to say I'm not optimistic would be a hilarious understatement after the parade of nonsense that has marched on by in this post. Fuck it, man. Just like last year, the further I delve into this terrible jungle the more removed I feel from the hope of humanity, and the more I feel like just posting pictures from Apocalypse Now while I drink the blood of a goat.

GRADE: D for Delmas who is the only thing keeping me from embracing the terrible F for Failure. I, uh, may be slightly down on this team right now.

FINAL GRADE : D for Delmas. He was the lone bright spot in a sea of terrible suffering. You will be happy to learn, however, that I did not drink the blood of a goat. So, there's that, I guess.