The Detroit Lions All-Terrible Team: The Worst Lions Ever by Position

A couple years ago, when the Detroit Lions were just starting their current rebuilding efforts, I wrote a piece about the biggest wins in Lions history.

I figured it would cheer up the fanbase a little. I also said it might be the first time you see 10 Lions wins in a row. Maybe I was wrong about that part, but we'll see on Sunday.

Either way, now that the Lions are winning, my desire to keep the fanbase in equilibrium is starting to kick in.

Why else would I publish a list of abysmal players during a long winning streak, just after the first Monday Night Football game in over a decade? What would be the point of posting a list of draft busts, bad contracts and overrated starters now of all times?

Surely it couldn't be to give everyone a perspective of how far this team has come, a comparison to the bad old days of no-talent hacks at a time when fan sentiment couldn't possibly be any higher.

Could it?

Starting QB: Joey Harrington

The Lions have a long, sordid history of awful play at quarterback.

If I may sum up the progression of Lions QBs, it goes something like Layne, yuck, Landry, blecch, Stafford.

But in that progression, perhaps nobody let us down quite as much as Joey "Blue Skies" Harrington, which is why he gets the dubious position of starting quarterback for the worst Lions team ever.

This position is not necessarily an indictment that Harrington is the worst quarterback ever to wear Honolulu blue, but his is probably the greatest letdown. No other quarterback brought with him such high expectations coupled with such sorry performance.

Bench Players

Jeff Komlo

Rodney Peete

Starting RB: Aveion Cason

The Detroit Lions, for all their failures throughout the years, have perhaps one of the NFL's best pedigrees when it comes to running backs.

Barry Sanders, Billy Sims, Doak Walker and Mel Farr had nice careers in Detroit.

Failure in this area is something that has only materialized in the last decade or so, and part of that had to do with Aveion Cason.

For a while, Cason seemed okay. He wasn't hurting anybody as a return specialist and fourth-string running back. But then he moved up into the "committee" of talentless running backs the Lions used during the Rod Marinelli era.

And he wasn't good. He wasn't good at all, but that's not why he's on this list. He's here because he was bad and wouldn't go away. He was terrible in 2001-2002, then came back to continue his garbage playing in 2006-2008.

He wasn't the biggest stain on the Lions' legacy of running backs, but he certainly was the toughest to get out.

Bench Players

Tatum Bell

Rudi Johnson

Sedrick Irvin

Carl Smith (FB)

Starting WRs: Charles Rogers and Mike Williams

Sometimes football players love consuming other things more than football.

Sometimes it's food, sometimes it's marijuana.

On that note, meet Mike Williams and Charles Rogers. Oh, you've already met? Silly me.

Nobody is going to argue with me about Charles Rogers, but given that Mike Williams is back in the league playing for Seattle, you might be tempted to say he's not actually all that terrible.

But then, I would say, look at his performance so far this season. Eight catches for 79 yards and a touchdown. No, that's not in his last game. That's all season.

Though in Williams' defense, if he catches one more touchdown this year, he'll match his career high.

Bench Player

Az-Zahir Hakim

Derrick Williams

Carl Bland (best name for a sub-par receiver ever)

Starting TE: David Lewis

Like Brandon Pettigrew, David Lewis was drafted in the first round, 20th overall.

Unlike Brandon Pettigrew, David Lewis played only three years in Detroit and only once notched more than 20 receptions in a season (28 in 1985).

And I don't want to hear the "tight ends weren't involved in the passing game" argument, because this is the team that previously employed Charlie Sanders. Lewis just wasn't any good.

Bench Players

Marcus Pollard

Pat Carter

Starting T's: Aaron Gibson and Stockar McDougle

This might be a cop-out, because Gibson and McDougle were drafted in the first round in consecutive years.

But they deserve this position. They were both so bad, the Lions drafted Jeff Backus the following year, for their third first-round offensive tackle in three years. Backus has held down the starting position ever since.

In other words, these guys were both head-and-shoulders worse than Backus.

Gibson later became the NFL's first 400-pound player, and McDougle later got thrown in jail for beating up some old guy at a plant nursery.

Real winners, these two.

Bench Players

George "False Start" Foster

Chris Dietrich

Starting G's: Everybody Who Played in 2008

Incidentally, the only surviving guard from the 2008 squad is still starting and goes by the name of Stephen Peterman. Most Lions fans wonder each week how he keeps his job.

But let's track the rest, shall we?

Manny Ramirez: Nothing new for him, he currently is the backup center for one of the worst offenses in football, the Denver Broncos.

Edwin Mulitalo: Out of football since 2008.

Damion Cook: Now plays for the UFL's Omaha Nighthawks.

Junius Coston: North Carolina A&T Product who took a year off after the 0-16 season, and now plays in the CFL, so it's okay that you'd never actually heard of him.

I can't really place them in terms of starters and bench players, because they cycled in and out just about every week. So I'll just group them all in as collectively the worst group of guards in Lions history.

Starting C: David Thompson

To this point, I have tried to focus on players that were both terrible and notable to the Detroit Lions.

I have placed a premium on either sustained awful play over a few years, or disappointment stemming from high draft/free-agent expectations.

David Thompson is a little different.

David Thompson's greatest contribution to the Lions is being part of a mixup that cost the Lions a first-round pick in the 1974 NFL draft.

What the Lions heard was that the New Orleans Saints would trade their first-round pick for Thompson, who was a backup center/guard for the Lions at the time. The Lions, of course, took the deal, because who wouldn't take the eighth overall pick for a backup player?

As it turned out, the Saints were asking for Thompson and the Lions' first-round pick (13th overall). So the Lions sent Thompson (who was a second-round pick three years earlier) off to New Orleans, and prepared to pick again with their 13th pick.

Only it wasn't theirs anymore. Just as they prepared to make their selection, the Saints picked linebacker Frank Middleton out of Ohio State.

Epilogue: Both players were out of football by their fifth year, but Thompson has the unique distinction of being both a draft bust, and the center of a completely different kind of Lions administrative failure.

Bench Player

Tom Turnure

Starting DTs: Chatric Darby and Reggie Rogers

Chatric Darby was a run-of-the-mill bad idea for Rod Marinelli, who was determined to pick up every aged castoff possible from his former system in Tampa when building the Lions his way.

Darby was undersized, old and slow, but he should be insulted that I would group him in with Reggie Rogers. Darby might not have been a good football player for the Lions, but at least he wasn't a complete failure as a human being.

Rogers kicked off his NFL career as the seventh overall pick in the 1987 NFL draft by playing in six games as a rookie. He followed that up by playing five games in his sophomore season, registering his first career sack and killing three teenagers outside of Pontiac when he ran a red light driving drunk.

Just last month, Rogers was sentenced to a year in prison for his sixth DUI. He has more DUIs than he has years in football.

Rogers and his actions have been so indefensible, the only thing Rogers' lawyer could come up with to defend him this time was that it would be cruel and unusual punishment to send Rogers to prison, because the beds there would hurt his surgically repaired back (which he hurt during another DUI).

When the best a defense lawyer can hope for is house arrest on a technicality, it's time to find a new client.

Bench Players

Bob Bell

Billy Howard

Starting DEs: Kerwin Waldroup and Ikaika Alama-Francis

The good news is, Ikaika Alama-Francis wasn't around long enough for us to have to learn to pronounce his name.

The bad news is, he was a second-round pick in 2007 and he wasn't even around long enough for us to have to learn to pronounce his name.

Kerwin Waldroup, on the other hand, played three seasons in the NFL, but can best be summed up with this.

Bench Players

Ernie Price

Dewayne White

Starting LBs: Paris Lenon, Barrett Green and James Johnson

The problem with Paris Lenon is that he had to play the role of the great Derrick Brooks in a defensive scheme that was built around his incredible athletic ability.

And so by comparison, Lenon looks like the worst player ever to wear a jersey for any reason.

Barrett Green was slightly more talented, but failed to do much of anything with it but sit on the injured list. Even when he was healthy, he was underwhelming.

James Johnson obviously faded into the backdrop in part because of his generic name. But only playing 11 career games for the Lions after being a third-round pick helps, too.

Bench Players

Boss Bailey

Victor Jones

Jordon Dizon

Starting CBs: Ramzee Robinson and Stanley Wilson

Ramzee Robinson was Mr. Irrelevant in 2007, and yet ended up making the team and getting some playing time over the next couple of years.

I don't know if that says more about Robinson, the state of the Lions pass defense or Rod Marinelli and his son-in-law. What I do know is that not once during Robinson's tenure in Detroit could you consider him anywhere close to "good."

Stanley Wilson was somehow worse, despite actually being a third-round pick. He never did anything of note on the team, but that was par for the course at the time.

Really, the Millen era featured lots of missed draft picks, but cornerbacks were quietly perhaps the worst offenders. Here, let me put the rest of Millen's CB draft failures on the bench.

It'll be a crowded bench, but we can cut them if we need to. They're used to it.

Bench Players

Keith Smith

A.J. Davis

Dee McCann

Blue Adams

Andre Goodman

Chris Cash

Starting Safeties: C.C. Brown and Kalvin Pearson

C.C. Brown is probably not the worst safety ever to play for the Lions, and he was neither a high draft pick nor a scourge on the team for years.

So I'm breaking my own rules, but you'll have to indulge me, because the bad taste is still in my mouth.

For that matter, the same goes for Kalvin Pearson.

Luckily, the Lions have come to their senses and realized that there is no value in employing safeties that can neither cover nor tackle.

John Wendling, a career special-teamer, played a better game at safety last week than Brown or Pearson ever did.

Bench Players

Van Malone

Daniel Bullocks

Starting K: Ndamukong Suh

Look, all I'm saying is he missed. 

Besides, Jason Hanson is the best kicker ever to play the game, and I'm pretty sure he's been around since the team was founded in Portsmouth.

Starting P: Mike Saxon

Mike Saxon isn't the worst punter in Lions history. In fact, he isn't even a punter in Lions history.

Oh sure, he was drafted by the Lions in 1984. The problem was, Mike Black was drafted in 1983 and would retain the starting role until 1987.

There was no room for Saxon, because I hate to point out the obvious, but you either need a punter or you don't. The Lions didn't, and as a result, Saxon never ended up playing a single snap with the Lions.

Draft pick well spent, there. Even if it was the 300th.