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The Lions had been one of just seven NFL teams not to feature its own cheerleading squad; until yesterday, that is.
With respect to David Letterman, here are the “Top Ten Reasons the Lions Decided to Add Cheerleaders to the Mix in 2016.”
1) Have you ever flipped channels and come across one of those Lingerie Football League games? Some of those women have very strong arms. Thus, when Matthew Stafford inevitably starts to falter and the thought of more Dan Orlovsky just doesn’t sound very exciting . . . here comes Sheila, Cheerleader #6, to start the second half under center for yoouurrr Lions!
2) When the Lions marketing group suggested that eye candy would be good for morale during home games, team owner and nonagenarian Martha Ford offered her services, stating: “I could scoot down there and bop The Charleston for a couple of numbers. Do we have any Jimmy Durante records?” The franchise immediately ends its lifelong ban on cheerleaders.
3) When your club starts the season 0-5 and misses the playoffs for the 14th time in 16 years, the obvious solution is not to go find a new quarterback or head coach. It’s to bring in dancers wearing short skirts to wave pom-poms during time-outs. That ought to really turn things around!!
4) The only other choice was to let Roary, the mascot, show his more artistic side throughout the game. Rumor has it that this deal contained a pole dancing duet with Paws, -- tasteful, though fur would be flying everywhere. The NFL voted 30-2 against this possible floor show. The Lions and Cowboys were the two dissenters, with a disappointed Jerry Jones saying: “Whole thing sounded kinda erotic to me.”
5) The most electrifying woman in Detroit sports has been Karen Newman for the last million years. That needed to change. Though, even with this addition of Lions cheerleaders, she’ll probably remain at the top of the list. Karen Newman is like Vanna White, or Halle Berry, or George Blaha. Time keeps ticking by, and they all just continue to get better looking every year.
6) The Pistons added Automotion, their on-floor dance/cheerleading team, sometime around the turn of the century. Boom, they won a championship a handful of years later. With yesterday’s news, the Lions announced that the person heading up their new cheer team was previously the leader of Automotion. Simple logic would suggest that the Lions will now be in line to capture the Lombardi Trophy sometime very soon. Winning a title is all about adding championship pedigree to the mix, and the Lions have done just that.
7) When you are the only NFC team (out of 16) to never appear in the Super Bowl, you’ll try pretty much try anything. I mean, this team signed Daunte Culpepper once to rescue the franchise. He was 51 years old at the time and in possession of knee cartilage composed entirely from potato latkes.
8) If the cheerleaders were in place last season, perhaps there would have been some small chance that the Lions would have properly defended Aaron Rodgers last-second Hail Mary attempt. Lions cheer team doing cartwheels to pump up the crowd before the play, one of them trips mid-move, tumbles into the end zone, and does just enough to distract the Packer receivers for the ball to fall harmlessly to the Ford Field turf. Unlikely, yes; but surely a more sound alternative than heeding the advice of Jim “Watch for the Hook & Ladder!!” Caldwell.
9) Calvin Johnson called it quits this off-season, probably in part due to the Lions instability as an organization and their slow-footed nature in trying to keep up with the rest of the league. Maybe this move -- the adding of cheerleaders -- shows Megatron that things are changing, that the Lions will now be at the forefront of every major NFL development. Or it will have no impact whatsoever, with Calvin joining the likes of Barry Sanders and Zeljko Rebraca on the list of “Detroit athletes we would have loved to watch for ten more years.”
10) Lions new organizational rallying cry for 2016: “We’ve lost 11 in a row, we had less than 5,000 fans at our last game, the league is in talks to eliminate our franchise entirely. But, hey, look over there! It’s a human pyramid!”
