Dominic Raiola and His Middle Finger Have Every Right

During Sunday's game against the Minnesota Vikings, Detroit Lions center Dominic Raiola flipped off a heckling fan who had apparently "gone too far."

When asked about it in an interview Monday, Raiola refused to take the gesture back or apologize in any way.

"I don't take one thing back," he said to the reporter.

Good for him.

I understand the desire to rag the Lions, and even Raiola personally, who has been with the team since 2001—the beginning of the worst eight-season stretch for any team in the last 50 years of league history.

An 0-13 record is difficult to swallow for a dedicated fan. But consider this, isn't it more difficult to swallow for a dedicated player?

Do these people in the stands, who drink beer and eat corn dogs watching a man sacrifice his body for their amusement, think Raiola, or any of the Lions, enjoy losing?

Since Raiola joined the team in 2001, he has played in every game, and done nothing but support a winning attitude in the locker room and the press.

This is not meant to be an article where I stick up for Raiola unconditionally. Raiola has his faults: he is undersized at center, and is part of a line that has difficulty blocking anyone.

Take the fourth-and-one in the Vikings red zone at the end of the first half of Sunday's game as a perfect example. All the line had to do is move forward a yard. Raiola, both guards, and Daunte Culpepper got crumpled—and may have even lost yardage.

I also understand that heckling is part of the game. Fans have a right to express their disapproval of an 0-13 team, but don't they also have a responsibility to support it?

Why are they even at the game if all they want to do is hassle the players that stick their necks out every week for the fans?

I can only imagine the kinds of things being said to a man who sits his consistently sore body on the bench, realizing that the team that drafted him seven years ago is fast approaching a previously unreached mark of futility, just as it looked like things might turn around.

I can only imagine the frustration Raiola feels. This is a man who, above all else, wants to win football games.

That is what he lives for.

We fans want to see the team win, but that responsibility is on his shoulders, every week, in addition to his own desire to win.

A few games into the Lions' winless season, Raiola came right out and apologized.

Apologized.

To whom? His quarterback? The organization? Was he in trouble for doing drugs or shooting someone?

No. He apologized to the fans for not winning football games. He said the fans deserved a winning team, and that he would bust his ass and do whatever he could within the law to make it happen.

Raiola is not a man who plays "me-first" football.

If that were the case, he wouldn't be an offensive lineman. He puts his body up against a half-ton of defenders on every play.

He doesn't deserve fans bashing him for putting up 1000-percent effort every down and staying out of trouble off the field.

So please excuse the man for displaying some frustration.

I'm sure everyone would be happy if he had just mailed in the season and didn't care what people were saying, right?

I'm sure he'll be fined by the league, especially after his defiance. I'm sure fans will jeer and call him a moron and tell him to show some class.

The hecklers will go back and continue to hassle the players, likely even if they win.

The world will go on. Neither this little diversion, nor this little article will change the donut in the Lions' win column.

The only thing mentioned here that will be working to change that goose egg is Raiola himself, and he will not stop until the final second ticks off the clock at Lambeau Field on the afternoon of December 28.

So why don't we all make a decision, here.

Either you're a Lions fan who wants to see the team win, or you're a fair-weather fan who only hangs around because you live there and it's fun to insult people more skilled than you are.

If you're the former, kudos to you, see you at the next home game.

If you're the latter, do the classy thing and stay home. If not, Raiola and anybody else on that bench has the right to say whatever they want to you.

Not so fun when it goes both ways, is it?