Jamie Samuelsen's blog...

In today's DFP Jamie was saying how the Detroit Lions fans have more faith in their team than the buyers of lottery tickets, evangelicals, and those weird guys in white robes who pester you in the airport about the UFO that going to come and swoop them into the 7th dimension, turning them into spiritual butterfly people. That's not an exact quote, but close enough. It is true, we love our Lions and like it was said on the X-Files..."I want to believe."

     Last year, being the super-genius that I am, I wrote a column outlining how I saw the 2010 Detroit Lion season playing out. After game 3, I started asking if Stafford was still healthy. Believe it or not, I had them winning 14 games losing at Tampa and Miami because we "always" play crappy in Florida. I know, I AM that smart. The season started out with Matt Stafford injuring his shoulder when someone dropped a schoolbus named Julius Peppers on his head.

     What, precisely, did I learn?  First, you cannot account for flying school-buses. Second, we have an excellent coaching staff, top to bottom.Third, words like "always" and "never" should always be excluded and never used again. Last, the fun part of football is it's inherant unpredictability, second only to watching Suh and VandenBosch treat quarterbacks like beer bottles with the twist off cap and if they throw them away, they lose the deposit.

     Did I get anything right from last year? Yes! It turns out that even a blind football fan can find a bag of peanuts in a grocery store. Remember last year, all the talk about how the NFC East was the best division in football? I do have a good nose for b*llsh!t, I have 3 teenage boys after all, and the stink of self promotion was all over that division. Wait...do you smell that? Is it teenage philosophy? Fashion magazine? Political opinion? It certainly smells like BS. Yes that's it, and it's coming from Philadelphia, Green Bay, and Chicago. Let's take a closer look....shall we?

     Philadelphia; great players no question. Reminds me of Washington and Dallas, yeah, they got great players too. Do they have a great team? I say no! The chemistry IS there but all I smell from that chemistry is BS. They'll struggle against teams who can penetrate the offense line, for at least the first half of the season.

     Chicago; they are not playing with confidence. The offensive line is playing like a republican party primary, easy to get into,  the best guys finish 4th,  and the goofballs run the show. It's tough to win with all of those burdens. I smell BS.

     Green Bay; one thing I have learned about good luck, it doesn't last for long. They are a good team, but last year they had luck and they had help. My experience has usually been, luck runs out, and help doesn't always show up on time. As Chuck Daly once said: "Never trust happiness."

Where else can the smell of BS be found in the NFL? Here's a short list:

Arizona: Kevin Kolb...franchise quarterback.

Seattle: a well coached team.

Oakland: and any word that resembles "excellance" or thinking ahead.

Indy: it's over before it starts and nobody named Payton can save them.

Carolina: JaMarcus Newton, I mean Cam Bustedpick...yes, that guy.

    I am sure you can all come up with the places where the smell of BS wafts through the air, but it's everywhere, however, one place where I don't smell a lot of BS in in the coaching staff offices of the Detroit Lions. The fans are hopeful but also understand how many things have to go just exactly perfect in every way for a team to make the Super Bowl. Now if we could just keep Matt Stafford away from the school bus parking lot...