A half-hour before kickoff, a heavyset man in a T-shirt walked down the Ford Field steps, holding hands with his 8-year-old son. They were wide-eyed at the sight of the gathering crowd, so many clad in blue and silver.The Lions were not their football team, but they were today. Sterling Adams and his son, Eric, had escaped the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina, had driven up in a stuffed vehicle from New Orleans, and now, thanks to the kindness of the Lions' public relations staff, father and son had tickets for the opener. The long wait for a day of fun was over.
But enough about the quarterback. Let's talk about the running back. We spend so much time in Detroit on who's taking snaps, we forget that our biggest stars have been the men who take handoffs: Billy Sims, Barry Sanders.And now Kevin Jones?"Yeah, I thought about that my rookie year," says Jones, 24. "There's a tradition here I want to be a part of. But last year wasn't a big indication of it."
Tomorrow, we remember. But today, we lament.Tomorrow, Sept. 11 - the five-year anniversary - we see the deluge of grizzly images, we hear speeches from politicians, we make vows to avenge those who perished, we make grim promises to fight on in the war on terror.But today is just as sad an anniversary. Today, in some ways, aches even more. If Sept. 11 was the day we never saw coming, Sept. 10 was the day we will never see again.And we miss it terribly.We miss when you could pull up at an airport without bracing for a military exercise.
OAKLAND, Calif. - Calvin Johnson took his place on the line, broke free on the snap and was open over the middle. Jon Kitna found him with a pass, Johnson cradled it in, took a few long strides with those two long legs and dove into paydirt. It was his first touchdown in his first game on the first week of the season, and he got up and ran excitedly through the end zone. In his exuberance, the youngest player on the Lions forgot about the ball. But Roy Williams, his fellow receiver, handed it to him as a souvenir.
So after all that, it falls back on Joey Harrington anyhow. All the Sturm und Drang about Jeff Garcia, riding into town, eyeing Joey's job, with his Pro Bowl history and his proud declaration that he was not coming to be a backup and here we are, two days from the season opener, and Garcia was right, he is not a backup, he's a scratch. The backup is now an untested kid barely out of college. And the offense, the season - and, let's face it, the national face of the Detroit Lions - is once again perched on the shoulders of Your Pal Joey, old No. 3. This is your quarterback, folks.
The sky was a gentle blue, but it was raining all afternoon on the Wolverines, a kind of rain they rarely experience in the Big House. They were getting embarrassed, shown up, outplayed on national television in every way you can get outplayed in football.And it was raining boos.Those were Michigan fans making that ugly noise, fans wearing maize-and-blue T-shirts, fans who came out believing last week's shocking loss to Appalachian State was a fluke. And perhaps it was. Last week was an upset. This was just a butt-kicking.
Ever see those Three Card Monte schemes? Guy shifts around three cards; all you have to do is follow one. You point to it, you double your money.Looks so easy. So does the subprime mortgage world. Get a loan. Pay below-market rates. Don't worry if you haven't got money. By the time the rates go up, you'll find some.Both are essentially con games. But nothing forces you to play.You choose to.
ATLANTA - This is why I never watch the exhibition season.Did that really happen? Was it really that awful? Shut it down before it worsens. It's a joke. It's a tragedy. It's as depressing as the Kwame thing, but not as interesting. There are few truisms in the NFL, but one of them is this: When the Atlanta Falcons put a whupping on you, it's time to close shop.Oh, wait. You can't. That was just the season opener.
Today is the first day of football season, and I will again watch a game from the press box. I have enjoyed this perch for many years now, but there was a time when it was the furthest thing from my mind. That memory came back to me last week, sadly, when I got the news: Ed Guthman had died at 89.
Spit, glue, tape, bubble gum. The Tigers are on a leaky boat, grabbing what they can to plug their spurting holes, hoping to survive until the tide washes them to postseason shores. Wednesday night, the grizzled pirate Kenny Rogers, who had a blood clot removed from his shoulder in the spring, was taken out of the rusty trunk and pushed against the gushing water, asked - after six weeks away from the major league mound - to right the ship for a night.
TO THE MICHIGAN WOLVERINES:Tomorrow marks the last day of your national embarrassment. And the first day of the rest of your football lives.Already, you have learned a valuable lesson. How one minute you're on top of the world and the next you're on the bottom of someone's shoe. Remember it well. Remember how certain people thought you were championship material and now, after one loss, think you should stay out of the Top 25 all year. Remember how certain analysts celebrated Lloyd Carr last season and now want him broomed out of town.Remember it all.
Keep walking, Kwame. Out the door, off the stage and into a jail cell. You had a chance, on what could have been the most honest night of your life, to truly stand up, to change the image of who you are and perhaps begin to change yourself. Instead, you put cops at the door, blocked reporters you didn't like from coming in, then bathed in sycophantic applause before leaving in a gush of phony bravado, like an ego-mad athlete being tossed from the game.
