The Stinker Bowl

(Quick addendum to Friday’s column: thanks to Thy Drunken Rookie for posting a comment informing me that the statute of limitation for retroactive drug tests is eight years. There’s a lesson for the rest of you: if you post a name and a helpful comment or question, I will mention you in a future column)

The NFL season culminates in February with the grand daddy of all sports event spectacles: The Super Bowl. It typically pits the best two teams in the league against one another to decide the greatest team of that particular season.

Therefore, I find it only fitting that, at close to the midpoint of the season, the National Football League gave us one of the worst regular season matchups in recent history: the woeful Detroit Lions versus the pitiful Cleveland Browns (a more fitting team nickname I cannot fathom) yesterday afternoon.

Heading into the game, both teams had identical 1-8 won-loss records and offenses that could best be described as anemic. I already made my feelings clear on Brady Quinn last week; Lion’s quarterback Matthew Stafford hasn’t fared much better. However Stafford has more of an excuse because he’s a true rookie and is forced to play behind Detroit’s porous offensive line.

So what happened when Browns and Lions collided? Naturally, a shootout took place. Both quarterbacks played extremely well. Together, they combined for nine touchdown passes and 726 passing yards. What does this tell you?

Well, it tells me that despite how bad Quinn and Stafford have played this year at the helm of terrible offenses, the Browns’ and Lions’ defences are somehow WORSE. That is a terrifying thought. What happens if either Cleveland or Detroit has to face a hot quarterback with a, you know, good offensive playbook?

We could be at the forefront of witnessing the NFL’s first team to put up 100 points in a single contest. If given the opportunity, Peyton Manning could literally throw for a mile of offense against either team. His arm would fall off by halftime and every Colts receiver would be wearing oxygen masks.

I must say, The Stinker Bowl was an extraordinarily exciting game to watch. It was a back and forth affair that had a terrific denouement: a desperation heave into the endzone by Stafford, a shaky pass interference call and a short TD toss by Stafford with no time remaining to give the Lions their third victory in two calendar years (that is not a typo).

Kudos to Stafford for bringing plenty of M-A-N to the contest—he hurt his shoulder on his Hail Mary bomb when he was bludgeoned to the turf by a Cleveland lineman but, instead of coming out of the game, he hung in there long enough to win the game for his team. It was an impressively gutty performance, which undoubtedly won him the respect of his teammates.

Brady Quinn still sucks.