I have been a fan for the Lions fro a long, long time.  I became a superfan when this really funny charismatic overweight coach got the "interim" tag removed from his title and he drafted this short little dude named Barry Sanders.  I have known the elation of the '91 season and my faith and trust and hope have been repeatedly bludgeoned ever since.

I have been tricked.  I have been led on.  I have been fooled.  I have been heartbroken and i have been distraught and disgusted.

When the Lions were up by 14 in the fourth quarter...I was still wondering how they were going to give this game away.

And they didn't.

In point of fact, the Lions should have won this game by a much bigger margin.  Possibly by 21 or more points. 

Brandon Pettigrew dropped a touchdown in the endzone.  The Lions had two awful, stupid penalties by Stephen Peterman and Gosder Cherilus.  One that pretty much ended a drive and the other gave Tampa an extra 30 seconds to try and come back.  A ball bounced off the hands of Tony Scheffler into the hands of Aqib Talib who returned it for a touchdown.  The Bucs returned the opening kickoff to the Lions 20 yard line or so.

Take away all that bad luck, bad play, and a little downright stupidity and the Leo's utterly destroy the Bucs.

The Bucs didn't manage their first first down until well into the second quarter.  They went into the half up 20-13 and 10 of the Bucs points were pretty much hand delivered by the Lions.

The defense was dominant early, but did kind of fade as the 95 degree heat and 1 billion percent humidity sapped the life out of everybody as they went into the fourth quarter.

Stafford was 24 of 33 for 305 yards, 3 touchdowns and an interception--and that interception bounced off of Scheffler's hands.  Pettigrew also let one go through his hands that would have been a touchdown...his 118.9 QB rating...is actually less than it could have been...

Wow, how long has it been said in Detroit that we "haven't had a real quarterback since Bobby Lane?"

Now, granted there were still A LOT of things the Lions need to improve on after this win...like minimizing the bone headed after the whistle penalties and improving a mediocre running game that simply wasn't able to grind out the tough yards to end the game, but that's probably the most exciting part about this victory...they can still do a ton better!

Wow, I've got to stop and take a breath...the Lions are actually getting my hopes up again...

So how are they going to lose to Kansas City this week?

Former New Orleans Saints fullback Heath Evans has retired from football and gone on to become an analyst for the NFL Network.

Evans played for four franchises over his 10 NFL seasons.  He played in 143 games, scored 4 rushing TD's and 4 receiving TD's.  He rushed for 579 yards and caught 57 passes for 439 yards.  He never went to a probowl. 

Now, a lot of these mediocre numbers can be overlooked because in the NFL the fullback is a dying position and the the value players in this line of work bring to the table simply doesn't show up in the stat sheets.

But these still are pretty mediocre numbers...which of course says nothing about the man's overall intelligence. 

And I don't know enough about him to gauge how intelligent he is at all.

Here's what I do know...twice over the last week Evans has taken not pot shots, but well aimed bazooka shots at the Detroit Lions.  He states that the team will be exposed against Tampa Bay in week 1.  He states that he doesn't think the teaming of QB Matthew Stafford and Jim Schwartz has really shown nothing to date to garner the national publicity they've gotten this offseason.

Maybe I agree with that a bit.  I am all about the "shut up and show me."  I'm tired of hearing all the talk.

But the rest of his arguments are pretty much bunk.  He claims that Matthew Stafford is no better than rookie first overall pick Cam Newton.  He claims that the Tampa Bay defense is light years ahead of Detroit's.

He obviously has a bias towards the NFC South (where he played half of his career) and the SEC (Auburn in particular, where both he and Cam Newton played) as he continually tries to boost both his division and Newton in particular.

But even that doesn't bother me all that much.  The reason I think that Evans is a moron is because he's trying to use the oldest trick in the book to get himself some legitimacy.  He's coming out strongly, vehemently against the going trend in the NFL.  The Lions, for some reason, are the NFL's media darlings this season and talking out about them and denouncing them will get him instant recognition. 

If he ends up being right, and the Leos do fold over and wither away...like they have for so many seasons...Evans will be lauded for "going against the grain."  He will be considered insightful and to have a "great football acumen."

If he's wrong...he'll either disappear or the world will shrug and say "Who knew the Lions would come through?" even though prognosticators all over the country are calling it now.

And furthermore, these ARE the Lions.  What have we seen for almost 50 years?  Collapse after collapse after collapse.  Evans is betting with history.

Maybe he's not a "complete" moron...