It's that time of year again when football beat writers find themselves covering training camp and looking for some way to make talking about practice (not a game) newsworthy. Are fans excited for the new season? They are! Did the back-up long-snapper look good in stretching drills? He did! How many people tuned in for that pre-season game? Seven tuned-in, but five changed the channel by halftime.
That's why, when sportswriters finally run out of actual news and paint-by-numbers filler, they go looking for some player to wax philosophical about their team's importance to the community. And that player will spout off the standard cliché about healing wounds and being a symbol for a beleaguered city to rally around. Then said player says he's going to take it one game at a time and, the good Lord willing, things will work out.
Lions wide receiver Nate Burleson, in a story absurdly headlined "Lions believe they can lift bankrupt Detroit," is the latest pro athlete to get sucked into this tired act.
USA Today: Detroit on July 18 filed for bankruptcy protection from unions, retirees and a list of lenders the city owes as much as $20 billion — the most public, if least personal, insult yet to the region many Lions fans call home.
"I feel like what we can do for this city is similar for what the Saints did in New Orleans," Burleson said. "It's not going to fix everything. But it's a Band-Aid that can temporarily heal a lot of open wounds that we have in this city."
Well, one correction USA Today. Most locals view the city's bankruptcy as an unfortunate problem that needs to be fixed. The more public insult to the region is a pro football franchise that has won a single playoff game in the last half century.
But maybe that will change this year. Maybe the Lions will be Dan Gilbert plus Kevyn Orr times one thousand Mike Duggans.
Motivated by the need to inspire this down-on-its-luck town, the Lions will rise above their historic mediocrity and win an NFC championship. Then, as a dome team playing in the first-ever cold weather outdoor Super Bowl at New Jersey's Met Life Stadium, they'll probably lose 52-7 to the Patriots or Steelers.
