Detroit's Jeff Backus is Lion to Fans with His Sad Displays of Hustle

There are many reasons for Lions fans to dislike Jeff Backus.

He seems like a nice enough guy, and I’m sure he is. You never see him get into trouble, and he has quietly been a Detroit Lions starter for almost a decade now.

But he gives up a lot of sacks, and tends to personify the entire Matt Millen era by being his very first ever draft pick.

It’s not his fault, but it’s the truth. He has worked to overcome that by starting every game since his draft date.

But last week against the Vikings, he made no friends and impressed no fans with his now-infamous “phantom block” play.

In case you missed it, in the first play of the second half, Backus allowed Vikings pass rusher Jared Allen to go by untouched, making a beeline for quarterback Matthew Stafford. Seemingly, he was waiting for some other, invisible man to block.

After a cartoonish scene in which Allen crunched Stafford from his blind side, leaving the ball suspended in midair for a moment where Stafford was holding it, the ball fell as a fumble at Backus’ feet.

Despite the mantra given to all lineman in a fumble situation, “fall on the ball,” Backus decided staring at it was sufficient, while Brandon Pettigrew came across from the other side of the line to recover the fumble.

It was as if Backus was unaware the second half had started.  Or that he didn’t care.

Regardless of the reason, it was decidedly the worst hustle play anybody watching the game has ever seen.

Yes, sometimes wide receivers take a play or two off, maybe they don’t run their routes very hard. Maybe a running back runs out of bounds to avoid a hit, rather than trying to cut it back upfield.

But when you make lots of money to play the left tackle position in the NFL, you cannot take plays off. Not like that. And even guys who do take plays off would still fall on a fumble that landed right in front of them. So he thought it was an incomplete pass? That’s fine, but if the whistle doesn’t blow, you fall on the ball, period.

According to Tom Kowalski of Mlive.com, the bizarre sack is not Backus' fault, but Jerome Felton's. Felton slipped up the middle on the play, hesitated, then ran toward the sideline in a pass pattern.

I can see how that would be if he missed his assignment, but if you're coaching a team, why would you put your young fullback on one of the league's top pass rushers, while your big-money left tackle stands and watches?

There was no blitz on the way, and no extra rusher for Backus to block. Even if Felton drew the assignment of blocking Allen, that still doesn't excuse Backus for not diving on the fumble.

Now, this one play is not really indicative of the way Backus’ career has gone, or even his game against the Vikings. But nobody in Detroit is a big Backus fan already, because he doesn’t play very well, but nobody seems willing to replace him.

There are lots of players who become fan favorites despite a low skill level, though. Know how they do it? Hustle and effort.

Baseball players who run hard on pop-ups and grounders; basketball players who hustle back to get on defense every play; quarterbacks who dive for a first down instead of sliding a yard short—these are the guys fans like to see.

Backus’ own fellow lineman Dominic Raiola is one of those guys. What Raiola lacks in size he makes up for in attitude, heart, and hustle, and even though he’s too small to be effective against stronger defensive tackles, he leaves everything on the field every game.

If Backus played like that, he would be a much better player, and fans would be a little more willing to keep him around.

But he’s not, and if he was trying to create the illusion that he was, he ruined his chance last Sunday.