Don't get too excited...

Impressions from the Lions 25-20 victory over the Denver Broncos.

On HBO's series, Hard Knocks: Training camp with the New York Jets, the Jets' first preseason game was covered. During the game, the Sanchize threw an interception which was returned for a touchdown. After the play, Sanchez came over to the sideline and stood by wily old veteran QB Mark Brunell.

"That's a hell of a way to start the season," the second year QB grumbled.

"Don't worry, this isn't the season," Brunell answered.

And truer words were never spoken--even though I paraphrased the whole thing.

This is the preseason, the players that are too injured to play in preseason games are most likely not too injured to play when the games finally mean something. Most coaches are doing everything in their power to show less than nothing of the types of offenses and defenses they will be running once the first kickoffs boom into the air.

Being who I am, which is probably a crazy person, I want to point out two things about the victory Saturday night.

1. On November 4th, 2007, the Detroit Lions thoroughly dominated the Denver Broncos in a 44-7 victory, which improved the team record to 6-2...the Lions have only won three games since. That's 3-39 since the Leos last beat the Broncos. What does that mean? I don't have a clue.
2. In 2008, the Lions looked great in the preseason, going 4-0 with a fast defense and a rising star in Megatron...That's right, that was the 0-16 season.

The preseason is pretty much less than meaningless.

But what did it all mean?

Most of the starters for both Detroit and Denver played the entire first half. The Lion defensive line was very impressive in the first quarter...but looked to get tired and slowed down in the second quarter. This is a little scary and I'm not sure if it can be attributed to playing at Mile High, poor conditioning or Denver adjustments.

I'm pretty sure I saw The Kong get held on a half dozen plays with pretty much no calls. We better get used to it.

I don't want to jinx anything, but Jahvid Best is a stud. The kid has jets in his feet and an array of moves to get him out into the open field. Depending on which story you read, Best finished with eight rushes for either 49 or 50 yards. That's 6.25 yards per carry...(again, not to jinx anyone) but I can only think of one other guy in my lifetime that had an average yards per carry that high.

Randy Phillips still looks very solid in the secondary, but may get beat out by veteran C.C. Brown--due to experience alone, because he certainly hasn't outplayed the undrafted free agent.

Steve Hauschka, the Lions substitute kicker while Jason Hanson recovers from minor knee surgery, looks like a keeper. Not sure how much of it had to do with the extremely light air of Mile High, but he didn't miss a field goal and every one of his kickoffs resulted in touchbacks. That's the kind of stuff Jason used to do...ten years ago.

DeAndre Levy, Brandon Pettigrew and Kevin Smith all returned from injuries and played.

The bad news...

Kevin Smith played and he still looks slow. The idea of there being a running back competition in Detroit is a farce. It looks like Best will be the feature back, most likely spelled by Maurice Morris or Aaron Brown. If Smith makes the team, it will most likely be on sentiment alone.

The rest of the secondary still looks awful. Eric King couldn't cover a receiver with a blanket. That guy looked awful. And Chris Houston, our supposed #1 CB, didn't look a whole lot better. The defensive line will have to apply as much pressure as possible for the whole game, with no let downs, because if they ever take their foots off the throttle, the secondary will be eaten alive.

Conclusion...

The Lions are no longer an 0-16 team. They're not even a 2-14 team. But I don't think they're an 8-8 team either. They have some very nice pieces...in fact, the collection on offense may just rival the early '90 Barry teams. Maybe Best is no Barry, but Rodney Peete/Andre Ware/Erik Kramer were no Matt Stafford. David Sloan was no Pettigrew or Scheffler. And, as much as I loved him, Herman Moore was never anything like Megatron.

Too bad the Lions don't have anybody comparable with Bennie Blades, William White, or Ray Crockett.

And the Broncos have some fine cheerleaders, even though the broadcast in Detroit refused to show them.