tonytalkssports My Take on Sports, particularly the Yankees, Maple Leafs and Browns

Take Your Pick: The Lions Are Turkeys & Pretenders

It was supposed to be a statement game. For once the traditional Thanksgiving game in Detroit was going to be a good one. Well, the game was good if you were a Green Bay Packer fan and the statement that was made was that the Detroit Lions are NFC pretenders and are as done as the turkey dinner we had yesterday. In the last three weeks, the Lions have played two divisional opponents where they had a chance to assert themselves in the NFC North and in the conference and both times they failed miserably. Losing is one thing but costly mistakes particularly from your young quarterback and the overall dirty classless play is enough to tell me that the Lions are done.

Matthew Stafford's interceptions led to two Packer touchdowns and turned what was a defensive struggle in the first half to a Green Bay blowout in the final two quarters. This against the second worst pass defense in the National Football League. With the whole nation watching it is obvious that Stafford has a lot to learn.

Meanwhile, the Lions continued to play to their image of being the dirtiest team in the league led by Ndamukong Suh. Suh's blatant stomping on the body of a fallen Green Bay offensive lineman is a disgrace. What's a bigger disgrace is his post game comments defending himself. Suh's inability to own up to his misbehavior is disturbing. It's a lack of accountability for one's actions and who I hold responsible for this is none other than Head Coach Jim Schwartz. As I have often said, a team takes on the personality of its coach. Schwartz is a high strung punk as evidenced by his actions after his team lost to the San Francisco 49ers. If you recall he took exception to Niner Coach Jim Harbaugh's slap on the back and charged after him. The guy is a whiner and it doesn't surprise me that Suh and the rest of the Lions play the game as if they are punks. It's one thing to play a physical, tough game. It's another to play dirty and classless and that's what the Lions are: dirty and classless.

What started out like a good story about a bad team finally turning it around has turned into a story about a head coach who acts like the leader of a street gang and will not be happy until someone seriously gets hurt. In the end, here's hoping that this band of hooligans don't make the playoffs and Mr. Suh finds himself sitting on the sidelines for awhile due to a suspension.