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Sports songs are just usually terrible. Think of Prince’s Minnesota Vikings song, Scott Stapp’s Florida Marlins anthem. Just two of many examples. Kid Rock has represented his hometown Detroit Lions with…well you just have to play it after the jump to endure the awfulness.
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The Detroit Lions have been making headlines lately.
For marijuana usage and police reports. Mikel Leshoure and Nick Fairley have run into the trouble with the long arm of the law, and their news has dominated Lions related headlines lately. Leshoure faces a felony charge;
In January, offensive tackle Johnny Culbreath was arrested for simple possession of marijuana after he was spotted on a hotel surveillance camera putting two blunts in the drawer of a hallway dresser. Fairley faces a second degree marijuana possession charge.
But there is on-the-field news too. The Lions preseason schedule is out.
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This comes to me from a Detroit area man, and sports fan, who’s enduring a professional setback, and some personal financial uncertainty right now. Yes, you might have heard a thing or two in the news about the city of Detroit and its economic hardships. Now you’re hearing about their athletic successes as well.
Well the media often likes to present those two situations together, often into being something they’re not.
We’re here to tell you what really happens when sports triumph hits an economically depressed city. Here’s our piece from Detroit Sports Fan:
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Bloomberg News reported that the success of Detroit sports would inject another $140 million into the economy. As the Detroit Red Wings get started, the motor city’s most famous and successful sports brand complements the Lions winning ways (4-0, one of just two undefeated teams left in the NFL), the Detroit Tigers winning the AL Central and leading the New York Yankees in the ALDS 2-1.
And then you have the #11 Michigan Wolverines who are 5-0 and just down the road in Ann Arbor. Sure the Pistons are still a complete train wreck, but the NBA is on lockout, so we won’t really see that.
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The teams that met from the NFC North on Sunday in Minneapolis seem to be heading in vastly different directions. The Lions are a youthful and exuberant bunch, while the Vikings are a beaten down lackadaisical squad. I have some suggestions for Leslie Frazier on how Minnesota can join their divisional foes in the win column.
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The Minnesota Vikings staged a second half collapse for the second week in a row. Last game, the team fell prey to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, this week to an improved Detroit Lions. Given how impressive Detroit has looked in going 3-0, perhaps that’s progress. With all of his recent success, Detroit head coach Jim Schwartz should be negotiating for a contract extension right now. Then again for the Vikings, blowing a twenty point halftime lead cannot be considered a morale victory no matter who the opponent.
Hard to consider anything positive in that.
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Our good friends (and web traffic ranking twins) over at Real Clear Sports have a wonderful feature where they average all the major power rankings for the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB each week. They accumulate and average the rankings from 8 major media power rankings and the findings show that the Upper Midwest is ruling football right now.
Yes, it’s just week one, and power rankings are extremely subjective in nature- but the NFC North had the most impressive showing in the rankings thus far. Remember the NFL has no BcS.
The only other division that came even close was the AFC East.
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The Lions looked to be the better team for the entire portion of the game on Sunday and were able to hold on for the victory against the Tampa Bay Bucs. Matthew Stafford threw for over three hundred yards and passed for three touchdowns. He beat out his fellow first round pick of a few years ago, Josh Freeman. It is true that the former does have substantially more weapons, but the latter had greater success last year from which to build on.
Jay Cutler almost put up the same kind of numbers as Stafford on Sunday, but the difference was that the Lions needed all of those statistics to come up with a victory. It is easier to compile impressive numbers when it is not necessary to the outcome of the game. Stafford missed about eighty percent of the season last year with multiple separated shoulders, so fans certainly gasped when they saw him limping around during portions of the game and holding his hand awkwardly on occasion. Neither came to the forefront as issues to be addressed.
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