FanPost

Congratulations Are In Order

I know I'll probably get ripped by some for this, but I'd like to take a brief moment to say congratulations to two former Detroit Lions who will be playing in the Super Bowl in just under two weeks. Those two players are DE Cliff Avril, currently of the Seattle Seahawks and LB Paris Lenon, currently of the Denver Broncos.

While I normally wouldn't take the time to publicly congratulate players on other teams, I feel like these two deserve special consideration because of when they played for the Lions. Both players were involved in the dreaded 0-16 season of 2008. They are members of an unfortunate club to which only a small percentage of NFL players belong, and now they have reached the pinnacle of their sport and have the opportunity to help their teams join a much different club to which all of their peers strive to join.

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via media.mlive.com

Cliff Avril, as you all know, was drafted by the Lions prior to the 2008 season and his career certainly had its ups and downs, but he was clearly starting to come into his own prior to leaving the Lions. I think it shocked just about everyone when he signed with the Seahawks (mostly because of the contract numbers), but clearly that gamble has paid off for Avril.

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via www.minnpost.com

Lenon on the other hand had been with the Lions for two years prior to the 2008 season and had his best year as a Lion in that season. He then moved on to the Rams and the Cardinals before joining the Denver Broncos this season. I, for one, remember Paris Lenon for frequently being out of position and being steamrolled by wide receivers (to be fair that's something that could be said for the majority of our team that year), it's nice to see that he's had a successful career and now has a chance to win the Super Bowl.

I wish like hell that I was writing this post to congratulate the Detroit Lions on winning the NFC and heading to the Super Bowl, and believe me when I say I'm looking forward to writing that post next year, until then I'll just have to settle for congratulating two players who have gone quite literally from the bottom to the top.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pride Of Detroit or its writers.