2010 Lions Season Preview: The Defense

I actually considered just quoting something from the Book of Revelations here, some Behold a Pale Horse bullshit or something and then just letting that stand as my preview for the defense. That would pretty much tell you everything you needed to know. In the end, I decided against that because, honestly, the Lions do have a couple of good things going for them defensively, and let's face it, the day I confine myself to a few simple words is the day the dude on the Pale Horse actually shows up.

Anyway, let's just get to it before I start rambling like a psychotic ether fiend. (Before? Uh . . .)

DEFENSE

BEST PLAYER: This is sort of a tough one. I am going with Louis Delmas over Kyle Vanden Bosch and Ndamukong Suh. It's tricky because each player is at a different stage in his career and so it's extraordinarily tough to pick one over the other. By the end of the year, their relative worth might be totally different. Right now, Vanden Bosch and Delmas are pretty close. But Delmas is on the upswing and Vanden Bosch is on the downswing of his career. By the end of the year, if Delmas stays healthy - oh Lord, that's a huge if - I think he'll be widely recognized as a better player than Vanden Bosch. That's not to say that Vanden Bosch isn't still a very good player, it's just that Delmas has a real shot at being a blue chip player, the same sort that Vanden Bosch was a few years ago, while Vanden Bosch will never see those days again. They are two players on the same road. It's just that they are traveling in opposite directions and I'll take the player who's on his way up.

But then there is Ndamukong Suh. By the end of the year, he could be the player universally recognized as the best the Lions have to offer on defense. He's that good. Yeah, he's only a rookie, but he's also a once in a decade type of talent. In truth, he should be the best player on this defense, but he hasn't even played a real down yet so it's kind of hard to anoint him. When it's all done, and all three of these dude's careers have played out, Suh should stand way above both Vanden Bosch and Delmas. Ideally, you would like to have all three at their peaks at the same time. That's not going to happen. It could - hell, it should - happen with Suh and Delmas which would definitely be cause for breaking out the candy and blowjobs, but for now, one's a rookie, one's a second year pro with still a lot to prove and one is a battle scarred veteran on the downside of his career. Who do you go with in that scenario?

It's a bit like trying to hit a moving target, but in the end, you just gotta hope you aim for the right spot. And that's why I'm picking Delmas. I'm aiming for that point where he takes the next step but just before Suh takes his next step. I'm probably not making any sense at all, but fuck it, when do I ever make sense?

WORST PLAYER: Well . . . uh, this could be a lot of people. It's sad but true. The back seven of this defense has a shot at being truly wretched and that dude riding his pale horse is about to start galloping to the forefront of my brain again. I'll just hold my nose and pick a dude and then get the fuck out before I start to weep tears of blood. And that dude is . . . C.C. Brown. Yes, in a sea of shit, C.C. is the biggest turd. That may be harsh, but I am not Mitch Albom, you know? Anyway, a few quick words on C.C. and then we can get the hell out of here. C.C. Brown's nickname is "Can't Cover" and when we signed him, my boy Will, a Giants fan, sent me a quick message via twitter offering both his condolences and laughter at my misfortune. So . . . yeah, I'm not too thrilled with C.C. Brown starting at safety. But it's either him or, uh . . . well, an undrafted rookie free agent named Randy Phillips (who I like, but still . . .), a practice squad player named John Wendling or another rookie who up until a couple weeks ago was a failure at cornerback in Amari Spievey. So, uh, I guess it's C.C. Brown and this nice straight razor pressed to my wrist.

MOST IMPORTANT PLAYER: Again, I have to go with Louis Delmas. It's hard not to when Jim Schwartz came out after last season and said the defense would have given up fifty points a game if it wasn't for Delmas. Well, I'm sold. Shit. Sure, there's some hyperbole in there, but man . . . that's pretty telling. Also, yes, I've noticed that I have fallen in love with ellipses in this post. I'm not sure why, but let's just accept it and move on.

Anyway, aside from Schwartz's puffery, Delmas is vitally important because not only is he a very good player, but he is a very good player playing in a secondary that has no one else. I almost wrote "literally no one else" and I wouldn't have felt that bad about it. I mean, shit, with the other dude's the Lions are trotting out in the secondary, they might as well be literally no one, just a void that Delmas must somehow cover for. Perhaps that is being overly harsh, but I have seen far too much carnage and far too much indecent bullshit and seen far too many of our boys lying in a pool of their own rancid blood to be nice about this. The truth is harsh and savage and mean, but we have to both face it and accept it if we are going to move on, and the truth is that Louis Delmas is the only thing keeping this defense from being one long Benny Hill highlight this season. With him, the defense will be merely pretty bad. Without him, you might as well crank up the Yakety Sax and start huffing paint thinner.

PLAYER WHOSE IMPORTANCE IS UNDERRATED: I'll say DeAndre Levy. If he can take a leap as a second year player and a first time starter at Middle Linebacker, then the defense, with Delmas patrolling the back and Vanden Bosch and Suh and company running wild up front, might - might - not be the worst thing in the entire world. (Yes, there is the possibility they could be the worst thing in the entire world. Worse than AIDS, worse than Nazis, worse than Zombies, worse than Nazi Zombies with AIDS, worse than Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. I know!)

If Levy can stabilize a Linebacking corps that's kind of in a state of flux, then the Lions have a shot at making just enough stops to win some games. If not, then the middle of the field is going to be exploited way too often, and it's not going to matter if the linemen blow up a few plays, because at some point they're going to need Levy and his group to step up and stop a running back that gets by them. After all, with a Fullback and a Tight End, that's seven blockers that the line will have to deal with. There will be times that they are neutralized and when they are, Levy and the Linebackers need to make some plays.

DEEPEST POSITION GROUP: This has to be the Defensive Tackles. No question. They are both the deepest top to bottom and the most talented. Ndamukong Suh is, as I said already, a once in a decade kind of talent. His presence alone makes this a formidable unit. But he's not alone. The Lions traded for Corey Williams who was good enough when he was with Green Bay a few years ago for the Packers to slap the franchise tag on him. He struggled a bit with Cleveland but he was playing out of position as a 3-4 Defensive End. Now, he is back at his natural Undertackle position in a 4-3 defense, where he can use his athleticism to get to the Quarterback. Teamed with Suh, the potential is there for an absolutely devastating middle of the Defensive Line.

But, wait, there's more. Sammie Lee Hill was drafted out of some tiny college that was barely above a high school level when it came to football and he managed to start in the NFL as a rookie. Now, granted, the defense he started for was terrible, but still, the dude went from pushing around tiny future accountants and dentists moonlighting as Centers in college to dealing with giant fat superbeasts playing Center in the NFL and he didn't get destroyed. That speaks volumes about his potential and should make Lions fans everywhere ecstatic about the possible trajectory of his career. If he could make that sonic leap in one year, imagine what he can do two or three years from now. I was excited about him going into last season, and that's when I thought he would be kept as far away from the field as possible. I figured if he played, he would be left gibbering and crying in a pool of his own piss, a broken man with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Every time he even heard a whistle, he would shit his pants. And I was still excited about his potential even with that as my expectation for the season. But then he started the whole year and while he wasn't great, he wasn't terrible either. Now, I'm really excited to see what Sammie Lee Hill can do. And the thing is, and this brings the whole point of this section home, is that he won't even be starting this year. No, he'll be coming off the bench in a rotation that has the potential to be absolutely frightening.

The Lions can roll out Suh or Williams or Suh and Hill or Hill and Williams and feel confident that they have a dominant group in there. That is enough to make me start clapping my hands like a retard, my mouth hanging open, my tongue lolling about like a simple idiot. Basically, thinking about the Defensive Tackles turns me into Simple Jack from Tropic Thunder. Which is good, because thinking about the rest of the defense turns me into Col. Kurtz. What can I say? I contain multitudes.

Anyway, the Defensive Tackles are so deep that the Lions were able to cut Landon Cohen even though Cohen was the darling of last season's training camp and has generally played pretty well when given the opportunity. They had to do this so they could keep Andre Fluellen, who's much more versatile - he can play just about anywhere on the defensive line - and who probably has a larger upside. Last year, Cohen was contending for a starting job. This season, through no real fault of his own, he's not even good enough to make the team. That kind of says it all.

SHALLOWEST POSITION GROUP: Son of a bitch. After all that giddiness, here comes the pain. And really, does anything sum up what this season's all about better than that? So much happiness, so much hope, so much pain, so much fear. It's all here, and right now The Pain and The Fear are being provided by the rest of the defense. Okay, the Defensive Ends are pretty good, with Vanden Bosch and Cliff Avril and of course, my man The Great Willie Young (I feel like I should do something, like make the sign of the cross, every time I say his name. Mmmmmm, Sacrilicious.) But the rest of the defense is, well, as Aristotle would say, straight ass. And the assiest bunch of all is . . . aw, hell, I'll go with the Cornerbacks.

I could have gone with the Safeties. I mean, after all, I did kinda blow them up earlier in this post, but they at least have Delmas. What do the Cornerbacks have? Chris Houston? The situation here is almost jaw droppingly bad. It's shocking, my friends. I just glanced at the depth chart to see exactly where we're at here and my eyes bugged out and my mouth dropped open in utter dismay. I look like a kid who just walked in on his parents having sex. Oh, the horror. The horror! It's just asses and elbows everywhere.

Indeed. Other than Houston - the only dude at Cornerback who can get away with calling himself a semi-legit starting Cornerback in the NFL - there's Jonathan Wade, who I'd be happy with as, like, a fifth Cornerback, but HE'S STARTING, so . . . excuse me, I need to take a five minute break to weep softly to myself in the corner.

Okay, I'm back. After Houston and Wade, the Lions have Alphonso Smith, who they just traded for this past week and Aaron Berry, an undrafted free agent. Guess what? THAT'S IT! Yeah, that's all the Lions have. When cut day came, Jim Schwartz basically walked into the Cornerback meeting with a flamethrower and went nuts. The motherfucker just massacred everyone. Dre Bly's body was found burnt to a crisp huddled underneath a desk. Eric King looked like he was found by some Stormtroopers hanging out with some Jawas and Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. You shouldn't have bought those stolen droids, my man. (I'm so sorry.)

Sure, the team then traded for Alphonso Smith, who was a second round pick only a year ago, but he failed so egregiously with the Broncos that they couldn't wait to dump his ass on some other team. That doesn't exactly inspire a ton of hope. And sure, Berry impressed the coaches in the team's mini-camp, but then he got hurt and missed most of the Preseason. I mean, that is almost unbelievable. The Lions decided to keep an undrafted free agent rookie who missed almost all of training camp. THAT'S HOW BAD THE SITUATION IS HERE. I'm sorry for degenerating into the type of dude who starts hollering in all caps but this is what I have been driven to and this is our reality. Good God. I'm going to slam my head in the door. Be right back.

X-FACTOR: I'm not going to pick an individual player here. Instead, I will take the chickenshit route and say it's health. That's right, health. If the Lions - specifically Delmas and Levy, who are both already banged up - can stay healthy, they have a chance to get just enough stops to allow the potentially explosive offense to score enough points to win some games. If they can't stay healthy, well . . . I looked and beheld a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.

CORE PLAYERS WHO THE TEAM CAN BUILD AROUND: Suh and Delmas. I'll also through Sammie Lee Hill in here even though he isn't a starter.

PLAYERS WHO COULD BE CORE PLAYERS BUT WE WON'T KNOW UNTIL AFTER THIS SEASON: Basically, this is for players like DeAndre Levy, players who the coaches hope develop into cornerstones that the team can build around but who could just as likely flame out and be off the team in a couple of years. If I would have thought of this when I was doing the offensive preview, I would have put Brandon Pettigrew here. But I didn't and this is the defensive preview, and so . . . yeah, DeAndre Levy.

PLAYERS WHO WE CAN WIN WITH: Again, these are players who aren't necessarily in the team's long term plans but who are good enough to win with, so long as they have the right talent around them. On this team, they are Kyle Vandenbosch and Corey Williams. And maybe Julian Peterson. I am torn on Peterson. I think he can still be a solid player but he also might be done. He didn't really do anything last season, and there's a real possibility that he might just be taking up space now.

PLAYERS WHO THE TEAM WOULD PROBABLY REPLACE IF THEY COULD: Uh, everybody else. Okay fine. Starters that need replacing are Houston, Wade, Brown, Zack Follett and Cliff Avril. I like Follett - I do - but the dude is probably just not good enough to be an NFL starting Linebacker. He is a special teams demon and an awesome guy and hey, that's great. I'm rooting for him. But just because I'm rooting for him doesn't mean I want him to be the starter if he can't get the job done and I think he's probably just a step too slow and just a tad too stiff to do that job. I also like Avril, but as a situational pass rusher. As a third Defensive End I think he's ideal. As a starter, I'm not so sure he can hold up against the run well enough. I could be persuaded by decent years by both of those dudes to change my mind though. And if Houston somehow learns to get his head around on the ball, then I'd bump him up too, but I just don't see that happening. The dude is a great athlete but he has no ball skills, which are, uh, kind of important. Wade and Brown are going to kill us.

PLAYERS WHO ARE IMMORTAL AND WHO MAY WELL BE THE ANGEL OF DEATH AND/OR THE SAVIORS OF MANKIND: Willie Young.

FIVE NO DOUBT TERRIBLE PREDICTIONS:

1. Delmas will be in and out of the lineup with injury, especially early, which will inhibit the growth of the defense. This will be frustrating as hell. There will be a few games where everything comes together though, where he's healthy and everything is cooking and these games will give us some hope for the future.

2. The Defensive Line will kick all kinds of ass and will manage to swing the result of at least one game. They will provide consistent pressure, which will take some of the heat off of the awful secondary and they will consistently stop the run. However, their final numbers will be only average because the secondary will be so shitty that opposing Quarterbacks will be able to get rid of the ball before the Lions D-Line can crush them and the Linebackers won't be good enough to consistently clean up after the D-Line blows up a running play.

3. We will be endlessly frustrated by the poor play in the secondary, which will cost us several games and will be the most obvious need going into 2011.

4. DeAndre Levy will play adequately at Middle Linebacker but he won't be a star. He'll be a slight disappointment but he'll still be the best Linebacker we have.

5. PAIN. TERRIBLE PAIN.