I'm sitting around today wondering why the hell I had the luck of being raised in a state with a collapsing economy with no light at the end of the tunnel, with everything going wrong in the country in the peak of my life (24-years-old) ... no jobs, shitty health care (couldn't get it if i wanted), and on and on ... why I get the added pleasantry of the having the Lions as my home team. I've been a sports nut my whole life. I played football, baseball, soccer, hockey, basketball, bowling in organized leagues and many other in unorganized fashion.

Football has been the biggest sport in my life though. Ever since I was young I remember devoting the WHOLE weekend to football, playing or watching. I remember the obvious good times with Barry and the gang and even managed to stay ignorantly positive, enthusiastic and hopeful through the after-Barry years when we were touting James Stewart, Germane Crowell, Stoney Case and Cory Schlesinger as our prime weaponry.

But the thing I keep replaying in my head over and over and can't help but wonder if things had been a little different, what would have happened...

That situation is two years ago, when we led the division after 8 games, then collapsed from rising threat to laughing stock of the WORLD.  

Now I'm not gonna say we weren't a worse team than we let on those first 8 but I do believe there was a key to the fall. That key was Calvin Johnson. Once again, I remind you this is in no way blaming Calvin for what happened, I'm blaming the circumstances.

If you remember, the first few games of the season our offense looked like the Colts, well not the Colts but at least TCU. We put up 36, 21, 20 and 37 in the first four games and Kitna didn't have a game under 245 in passing yards. He even had a 446er in there. What I remember was that was this was Rod Marinelli's 2nd year manning the helms our offense was clicking on all cylinders, except one that is.

After the first four games, we had a 3-1 record with a blowout loss to Philly (If you remember, Kevin Curtis ran up and down the field on us for about 1000 yards receiving). Roy Williams and Kitna were hitting on all cylinders and Furrey and McDonald were fitting in nicely working the seams and underneath stuff. Our run game was nowhere to be found but that didn't really hurt our offense because we were so good passing in the second year with Martz as offensive coordinator.

A little niche in Martz's offense was if you get a hot receiver, go back to him until they stop him. Roy Williams was really taking to this quite well and was in top shape. I remember so many great catches and runs after catches that I hadn't really seem as a dimension from another receiver before. His hands were above average then, he ran like the wind, didn't give up on routes and shined beautifully in the first four games. But then something happened that I blame partially for his and the teams fallout — the fans and pundits started in on the Calvin Johnson era and demanded more playing time and to throw him in there.

While it didn't seem like a bad idea, even to me, it led to increased pressure to get him the ball, indirectly taking balls away from Roy and subsequently beginning the end for both him and Kitna, as well as the rest of the offense, mostly. 

Nothing from that point on clicked the rest of the season. We were blown out in Washington and managed to scrape together two more wins before disappearing into mediocrity and ultimately down right awfulness. Roy and Kitna never recovered the rhythm they had and if one concentrated you could see Roy giving way emotionally and physically in presence to Calvin to take over as the main guy.

It's hard to have two top level receivers on one team, ask Ochocinco or TO or Boldin or Marvin Harrison. To be a great receiver you have to always want the ball and want to push your team. But if there are two franchise receivers they aren't both going to get a significant number of balls thrown their way and eventually one will get significantly more or less depending on the quarterback relationship. QBs tend to subliminally pick favorite targets and with the shallow psyche of a receiver that only leads to destruction as was the case with Roy.

Like I said before, I don't put much thought behind it, but it does make you wonder for sure.

I think maybe had Calvin not been demanded to produce right away and had been eeked into the offense throughout the course of the year, things could have been a bit different. I'm not sure if anything could have kept the offense from imploding but who knows.

What do you guys think? Let me know in the comment section.