Detroit Lions Fan Blog

Last night, I sent out an e-mail to my friends announcing the creation of this blog. The response was immediate. I’ll post the responses as they come in. To start off, here’s an excellent tale (are true stories tales?) from my buddy Mark. It’s called Scott Mitchell Falls Down and He Can’t Get Up.

“Who knows what year it was (after a while they all blur together in one sad montage of failure), but I remember watching a Lions loss with the usual gang of Lions apologists (Gino, Steve, Pennies and Epod), when out of nowhere Scott Mitchell collapsed in the pocket. No one hit him; he just dropped back to pass and fell down (or did he fall asleep?). He didn’t even trip over the Silverdome turf (which he was prone to do from time to time while waddling back into the pocket, shuffling his clown-like feet), he just crumpled and landed on his back, his arms and legs outstretched as if he were about to make a snow angel in the astroturf.

I remember the announcers were baffled, they kept saying things like, “no one even touched him” and “he just seemed to collapse, out of nowhere”. The overhead camera craned above Mitchell’s limp, lifeless body as other players and trainers gathered around him. It was like the scene in that Warren Beatty movie, Heaven Can Wait, when the spirit of the hero quarterback is taken away from his body. I was kind of hoping that life would imitate art, that Mitchell’s spirit would be mercifully whisked away and perhaps be replace by one form the past (maybe even Earl “Dutch” Clark who led the Lions to their first title in the 30’s, or the legendary Bobby Layne)

But after a while, Mitchell woke up and shuffled to the sidelines with some assistance, and a smattering of mercy applause. I’m sure the Lions lost (although perhaps not, since they were somewhat respectable during those early run and shoot years, at least until the playoffs began). The next week they did a battery of tests on him and couldn’t find anything wrong. Nope, Mitchell had perhaps just gotten over-excited and fainted, they theorized (swooned, I believe, is what they used to call it in the good old days when women’s emotions would overwhelm them and they would fan themselves, raise a hand to their head and collapse in a heap). And the next week he back behind center, handing off to Barry Sanders or throwing the ball up for grabs to Herman Moore.

And maybe the saddest part of the whole story is that these were the good old days for far too many Lions fans, when they were actually respectable (and dare I say it, almost exciting), when I still believed that maybe this year was the year, the year they would go all the way.”

Well said, sir.