Most people who know me know that I am a strong individualist. I am so much of an individualist that I sometimes wonder if I’m doing it just to piss people off. Most notably, you can see this in my political and spiritual choices. And it doesn’t end there. My favorite sports team is the Detroit Lions. Nobody likes the Detroit Lions. I think that it has a little to do with Detroit itself, but for the most part I think it’s because the Lions never win. Everyone’s clamoring around the Colts, the Steelers and the Eagles because they win. Well, let the lemmings have their favorite teams, cause I’ve got mine and it’s the Detroit Lions.
Which is why I’m huddled around the TV at high noon on draft day. You have to be there early if your team perennially sucks. I’ve been there for the Andre Ware draft, the slightly less lame, but still lame Joey Harrington draft pick and the past three first round receiver picks. I thought that this year had to be better. Enough draft picks have been spent on offense lately, I was certain that it would be a defensive pick. I didn’t know if it would be a good one or not, since I don’t watch college sports. Watching college sports might lead me to watching high school sports, which would lead to middle school sports. Eventually this road leads you to have kids solely for the sake of them playing pee wee league sports. You’re the one who wants to be a big sports star — the kids just want to run around until they are tired and then get some ice cream. Most of the mock drafts that I saw had Detroit drafting either A.J. Hawk or Michael Huff. Again, totally meaningless to me, but at least they were highly touted defensive players.
This year, the fear set in for me after the fourth pick. The Titans decided to take Texas quarterback Vince Young with the third pick. Some were projecting the Jets to take the other heralded QB in the draft, USC’s Matt Leinart. But they passed him up to take an offensive lineman. The commentators all started saying that Leinart wasn’t capable of throwing in cold and windy games in New York. The thought then hit me — there’s no wind in a dome stadium and Detroit plays in a dome. Would this be a replay of the last umpteen years of first round offensive busts? I had a long wait to find out.
The Lions eventually took Florida State linebacker Ernie Sims with the ninth pick in the draft. Matt Leinart went tenth to the Arizona Cardinals. I drew a major sigh of relief. Except for the fact that this Ernie Sims guy has some sort of head problems. In the post-pick discussion there was a lot of talk about his concussion problems. That’s good. If he sucks, he’ll just knock himself unconscious so he won’t be able to embarass the team with his sucky play. But he better not suck, cause I want to see some wins — just like everybody else does.
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