The Detroit Lions

The BBQ Pit
1

I’m a Lions fan. Hey, quit laughing, you fucker!

This is through no fault of my own. It’s a result of being Michigan born-and-raised, and from having irresponsible parents who should have known to nip this in the bud.

This is where you say, “Yeah, I can relate. I’m a (your football team here) fan.” No. Shut up. Wrong. You can’t relate.

You a Bengals fan? Your team’s been to the Super Bowl. Next.

Ditto the Falcons, Chargers, pretty much any other sad-sack franchise you can name. And if your team hasn’t been there, it probably hasn’t been around for even half as long as the Pontiac Pussies.

The Lions have won one playoff game since 1957. (And I was there! After the game, adult men, strangers, were hugging me with tears in their eyes.)

The vortex of this team’s ineptitude is inescapable, once entered. No Detroit Lions head coach has gone on to be a head coach elsewhere in the NFL for at least the past 30 years. Think about that. And name a Lions quarterback, running back, wide receiver - hell anybody - that has gone onto success elsewhere?

When the defense is good, the offense sucks. When the offense is good, the defense sucks. The year they had both together, and their best shot at the Super Bowl, they had that Fred-Flinstone-looking buffoon Wayne Fontes as the “coach;” Scott Mitchell went from the best quarterback in the league in the regular season to a pissing-his-panties deer in headlights against Philadelphia, and the Eagles built up a 51-7 lead on their way to dispatching the Lions from the playoffs in the first round.

While these jack-offs hire the Wayne Fonteses and Monte Clarks of the world, they let assistants like Don Shula and Marty Schottenheimer go on to do their thing elsewhere. Sorry, you’re just not “Lions material.”

They had one of the greatest, most consistent kickers in the league for about 10 years - until he had a 38-yard field goal to beat the 49ers and send the Lions into the championship game, with just a few seconds left on the clock. What do you suppose happened then?

The 49ers went on to become a dynasty. The Lions? Uh, er …

In 1980 they started the season 4-0, and had the sheer audacity to make one of those novelty songs about how they were going to The Super Bowl! (This is probably where the Bears later got the idea for “The Super Bowl Shuffle”)

“Another One Bites the Dust.” By the end of the season, the Lions didn’t even make the playoffs, and the local radio stations were playing the parody, “Another One Kicks Our Butts.”

The disillusionment playing for the Lions can have on the occasionally talented players that they have is best displayed by Barry Sanders, who became so fed up with the Lions snatching mediocrity from the jaws of above-average, he retired and didn’t bother to tell anybody. Those brainiacs in Lions management figured it out at training camp the following fall.

I could go on. I’ve gone on long enough. The mosaic of ridiculously heart-breaking disappointments this franchise has woven makes pointing to individual ones not quite good enough.

Now a few asshole NFL owners, led by Lamar Hunt in Kansas City, want to take the Thanksgiving game away from us, and rotate it among all teams. Hey, shithead – that’s not an NFL tradition, that’s a Lions tradition. They started it. Want to rotate it? Rotate the late-to-the-party Cowboy game!

Fuck, give us something …

2

Come on, Milo, don’t tell me I can’t relate. I’m a Packer fan! Now I admit they’ve had some success in the past years, but before that? Fuhgeddaboudit. I can say I feel badly for you because, after all, you are a Lions fan. Why you put up with Fontes for as long as you did, I’ll never know, but Packer fans thank you for it, believe me.

3

Ahh, you beat me to it, I was hoping to post the exact same thing.

Darn. :slight_smile:

4

I’m a Bills fan, so I can’t quite relate, although losing four Superbowls in a row is in fact a unique sort of anguish that doesn’t really fade from one’s psyche, not even with therapy. I will also give you my absolute guarantee that the Lions will play in the Superbowl before the Bills get there again (take that how you will).

But taking away your Thanksgiving game? What knob thought that one up? I’ll do my part and write a letter of protest to the NFL, and I’ll even try to make it sound normal so that the executive office doesn’t immediately associate it with the one woman letter writing campaign I went on a few years ago calling for the head of Randy Cross on a platter after he incorporated extremely insulting remarks about Bills fans into his boneheaded game commentary.

Thanksgiving without the Lions? That’s just un-American.

5

The first thing that should be done is to build a new stadium, OUTDOORS with a GRASS field.

That arena football doesn’t cut it in the NFL anymore. That goes for St. Louis, Minnesota and New Orleans also.

If Green Bay and Miami can play outdoors all teams can.

Didn’t the lions have Yale Lary and Milt Plum?

And at least Detroit had good Tiger Piston teams. You’ve had your share of world championships.

6

SPPPTTHF!!! cough-coughhack!@! snort!!#$

WHAT?!?!?

Are you insane? You went to two Superbowls in the last half-decade – and won one of them!

Don’t even try to belly-up to this morose bar …

7

I’m speaking with the empathy gained by the 30 years before that!

8

Yeah, but we had our memories of the Lombardi era to keep us warm, Augie. Little comfort to some maybe, but 'twas enough.

9

I too, can relate.

I grew up in SoCal, a Rams fan, and most of the 70’s, they were a Super Bowl favorite. Did they ever win a Super Bowl while in LA? No. Although they did get to Super Bowl, they really never lived up to exspectations.

When I moved to Minnesota, I was still a Rams fan. I hated the Vikings, they or the Cowboys, were usually the team to beat the Rams an the playoffs.

It took a few years to slowly change my allegiance, to the Vikings. It didn’t hurt that the Rams really started to suck in the late 80’s, early 90’s. And now I am a full-fledged Vikings idiot.

And what do the Rams do? Move to St Louis, beat the Vikings in the playoffs, and win the fucking Super Bowl.

WTF!

I guess I’ll have wait until the Vikings move to San Antonio, to see them win a Super Bowl.

And by that time, I just might be a…gulp…er…PACKER fan.:eek:
[sub]ps. a Lions fan, Baawaahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha[/sub]

10

Milo, until you are a “long suffering” Bucs fan (or maybe Saints fan) then you can’t know what anguish truly is. Sure, the Bucs look good now, but for oh-so-many years they were just abysmal. And now that they are good I am stuck living in Cincinnati, home of the Bungles. I had to drive down to Kentucky last night to watch them thump the Pats. (there’s another tragic franchise waiting to happen). At least you guys owned the Fifties (three titles, yes?), we’ve never had anything like that, ever, in any sport.

And I think that Matt Millen may do some good there as el presidente, unless he turns out to be sort of like Jesse Ventura as governor. But these things take time, trust me.

And no, I wouldn’t trade Tony Dungy for the world. What a class act. [sub]Wayne Fonts, bwahahahahaha[/sub]

11

Milo please allow me to commiserate with you.

Not only am I a Lions fan, but I am an MSU and a Red Wings fan (of course that doesn’t mean much now, but I was there for all of the “Dead Wings” era). Unfortunately I am also an fool, as I actually purchased the NFL and the NHL packages on DirecTV. My idiocy doesn’t just hurt emotionally, but it is now hitting me financially to the tune of about $300. All so that I can watch the Lions lose, and the Wing rip my heart out with a team that now seems to creepily resemble the 1986 NHL all-star team.

But when all is said and done, at least I’m not a Cubs fan!

12

Milo, I feel every bit of your pain. Born and bred Lions fan here too. Not only did my parents not nip my enthusiasm at an early age, they encouraged it.

For my fourth birthday they bought me a Lions varsity jacket. The kind with the real leather sleeves and it also had my name embroidered on the back (last name) and front.(first name) Yeah I was a spoiled brat, sue me.

My lowest point was when they hired Monty Clark. I looked at my father and said “They hired a guy who couldn’t even keep his job at Michigan State?” (This is a double insult since my dad and I are U of M fans.:smiley: )

Your right, no team in NFL has sucked so hard and for so long as our Lions.

13

Y’all have NO idea of NFL hell. Baltimore, the #1 NFL city, a town that loved it’s team like no one before or since,(Shut up Packer and Browns fans, you’re close, but no contest) had to live with 13 years of NO TEAM AT ALL!!! AND we had to watch that beloved horseshoe representing Indiana-noplace. If you go to the NFL hall of fame, it says that the winner of Super Bowl V was the Indianapolis Colts! Try THAT one on for insult. THE PLAYERS THEMSELVES have actually asked to have their items removed from the hall because they did NOT play in Indianapolis, but to no avail. NFL hell? Y’all aren’t even in the running.

14

That being said, it WAS sweet as hell to watch that asshole Paul Tagliabue(The Sun King) grit his teeth and hand us the Lombardi trophy last year.hehehe :D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

15

I feel your pain (lived in Baltimore for 5 years, but pre-Ravens). But this also spawned such a delicious quote:

And that is total bullsh*t from the NFL on the Hall thing. What 'nads!

16

Judging by the “What about…?” teams many of you are listing, I see you don’t seem to understand.

Remember that day you got to say, “Yes! We’re going to the Super Bowl!!!” ?

Grandparents are dying in this state without ever being able to say that about the Lions.

Buccaneers? Please. You didn’t bring the NFL the wonders of orange sherbet till the fucking Carter administration! The Lions had already gone about two decades without a playoff victory at that point!

And you made it to the championship game after three or four seasons, IIRC.

So, a team starting from scratch, that doesn’t win a game its first year, gets to the championship game in three years. The Lions have been to one in almost 50. And could they at least give us a game, a valiant effort, in that one?

What do you think? The Redskins dominated them starting in the coin toss. Riggins ran for like 500 yards. They fucking toyed with them. 41-10.

17

Cowboys fan checking in here, and boy do I feel your pain, Milo, about how tough it is to be a true fan sometimes through years of hardship and turmoil…

::tries to keep straight face::

No, really… IIRC, the Lions’ only playoff win since 1957 was against Dallas, was it not?.. YOU PUNKS!

From what I understand, Dallas and Detroit were the only two teams who actually WANTED to play on Thanksgiving. Now that these two bold, aggressive, and innovative teams have assumed the risk, and Thanksgiving has proven to be a great gig, everyone else wants in on the act. GO TO HELL… ALL OF YOU!

Turkey, stuffing, yams, Dallas, Detroit, turning a blind eye to historical atrocities… NOW THAT’S 'MERICAN!

18

Y’ever notice that the Bucs had, in addition to the hideous ice cream colors, “Mr. C” on their sleeves? Of course, I think this was only up to the point of Hugh Culverhouse’s death some years back (the Mr. C), but it makes the egotism of Dan Snyder seem paltry in retrospect.

19

Pain? You don’t know what pain is!!!

I’m a …a…
[choking back tears]

a Bengals fan!
[bursts into tears and runs from the room]

20

I’d commiserate, and point out the shortcomings of the Vikings, but really, no team has it as bad as the Lions.

In that line of thought, I’d like to thank the Detroit franchise for providing the Vikings with two free wins each year. :wink: