Lions Lose to Bears in week-17

Daunte Culpepper actually looked pretty decent in the Detroit Lions finale against the Chicago Bears. The Lions quarterback threw for 262 yards, 2 touchdowns and one interception. He completed almost 68% of his pass attempts.

It looked to be another repeat performance of the Culpepper / Stanton type of play in the last couple of weeks, but as the game carried on, Culpepper settled down and played well. He scrambled several times to keep a play alive and his play almost was enough to give the Lions a win in their final game of the 2009 season. Now I ask.... "What good does this do for the Lions now?"

The Lions lost. Culpepper will be a free agent and the Lions are not likely to resign him. In the off-season he will either sign with another team or retire... again! So what do the Lions gain from starting Culpepper and seeing him have a good game? The answer is absolutely nothing!

I did not believe Culpepper would have a good game. I don't believe anyone in the world actually believed he would look good this week. But he did look good. Why? Because it is always possible for ANY player in the league to have a good game if he plays. That is why it should have been Stanton playing instead of Culpepper. Because if that slight chance came through and he had a good game (as it did with Culpepper), then the Lions stood a chance of gaining from it. It would likely been a small gain but when you are consistently one of the worst teams in the NFL, any gain is important.

If Stanton would have played and looked good, there might have been a team out there who would be interested in him as a back up with potential. Maybe the Lions could have gotten a 6th or 7th round pick for him. But it wasn't Stanton who looked good. It was Culpepper! Now Culpepper will be gone and Stanton has another year on his contract and the Lions don't like him. The Lions have gained nothing! By playing Culpepper, the Lions never even allowed themselves a small chance of gaining anything.

In the end however, the day ended pretty happy for me. The Lions lost and that means they still have a small chance of getting the Defensive tackle, Ndamukong Suh and I won the Championship in one of my Fantasy Football leagues. The only disappointment in the day was that the Rams couldn't hold onto the 3-0 lead over the 49ers they held at half time. If the Rams would have won, the Lions would have had the #1 pick overall in the 2010 draft and only another ridiculous draft pick would have kept them from taking the best defensive player and probably the best player overall in the draft.

Once again the Lions allowed the opposing quarterback to have an all-star performance against them. Once again the Lions let the opposing running back look great. Once again Aaron Brown looked good when he got the ball but was only allowed to run with it three times.

Another long and suffering season as a Lions fan is over much too soon.