Detroit Lions Weblog

The Unreasonable Stupidity of Fans Turning on Matthew Stafford Already

During Sunday’s game, after not playing for three and a half weeks, Matthew Stafford struggled delivering the ball accurately to his receivers. There is no denying that fact. His receivers were also culpable, too. Six dopped passes were unacceptable. That being said, the much publicized verbal stand-off between a group of fans and Lions C Dominic Raiola, and Raiola’s subsequent comments, only partially touch upon the root of the Lions problems, one of them being fans directing their venom upon the Lions players.
Here are Stafford and Raiola’s accounts of the incident:

“I like to think I do a pretty good job of letting that stuff go. I’ve been in tough situations before. It’s great to have a guy like Dom on your side,” Stafford said.

“It did strike a chord,” Raiola said after the game. “You’ve got three or four guys yelling at him … you want to run him out of town already? You know what I’m saying?

“That just hit home with me. Because I’ve been through it with Joey (Harrington), I’ve been through it. They sent him packing, and they’re not going to do it to this guy. I’m going to be right here next to him.”

Stafford added: “We’re losing the game and it’s fourth-and-20 and we don’t convert. I was standing by the water cooler and just getting it from fans. That’s understandable. They want to win probably as bad as we do.”

Stafford said he appreciated Raiola’s support, but that he can handle the situation.

“(Raiola’s) right: They’re not going to run me out of town. I’m not too worried about it,” Stafford said. “They didn’t get to me, so I’m cool with it.”

Paying fans have every right to express themselves, and their displeasure in any way that they want. That being said, I wonder, are Lions fans hoping and wishing that Stafford will fail, meeting their lowered expectations for the Lions, so that they can cleverly vent their bile and vitriol and accomplish some brief, pseudo-fame with incidents like the one which occurred with Raiola Sunday?

Let’s be honest, any of the meager hopes that the Lions have as a franchise in the future ride directly upon Stafford’s shoulders. Lions fans, after watching so many horrible performances during the last 10 years, have every right to be impatient, but at what cost? Can Lions fan actually sabotage the situation by attacking a young player like Stafford?

Eric Edholm of Pro Football Weekly is among the many who is puzzled by the actions of Lions fans, that’s to be sure:

But booing the kid serves no purpose. And in case you’re wondering, they were booing him — not just the team. It was clear from what the players heard from the bench that most of the vitriol was aimed at Stafford.

It isn’t all his fault. And it’s a good thing the Lions have Dominic Raiola as Stafford’s watchdog. He’ll do the popping off for his young QB. Stafford, really, has composed himself quite well — through the pre-draft stuff, the early struggles in the offseason and now with this latest loss.

Yeah, he needs to be more accurate. Sure, he has to find other targets he trusts when Calvin Johnson is bracketed or, like Sunday, when he’s not on the field.

But there’s a lot to like about Stafford.

First, his toughness. We know that if he’s not mentally cracking — there has been no evidence of that so far — and he is only 21 years old, then I think we are dealing with a pretty steely young man here. Second, the physical tools are there. He can move around in the pocket well and make all the throws; he just needs to be more precise and gain a better command of the system. And third, Stafford just isn’t scared of success — or failure. Jim Schwartz has said it. The fact that his quarterback has taken most of the challenges he has faced head on, fighting through a pretty bad knee injury, shows that he wants to be good.

Eventually he will be. Lions fans will look pretty silly one day when they figure this out.

Or if Stafford eventually leaves for more hospitable environs, Lions fans will wonder why such a horrible thing could happen to this franchise. Lions fans have been through a helluva lot of losing and ugliness during recent seasons and have every right to be angry about the Lions on-field product. That being said, fans should give Matthew Stafford a season or two to try and figure things out, even as the Lions front office blunders around him, before passing judgement. What have we got to lose?

Maybe Drew Sharp has a point today, if William Clay Ford, Sr. would approach the Lions fans, he would be more in touch with just how bad the situation has become, and fans may not be so quick to become impatient with the current rebuild, which is Mach III or IV, of the Lions extended rebuilding process at this point.

There’s no defending the man’s(William Clay Ford) record as the sole Lions owner since January 1964. There’s no need for reciting the obvious. He doesn’t know that he doesn’t know how to build a winner. But at least you believed that he wanted to win. He’s a sportsman — somewhere under the power and privilege that comes from the Ford family stamp beats the heart of a true competitor.

That doesn’t forgive all the sins of ownership incompetence, but it’s the idea of indifference that truly infuriates fans.

That remains Ford’s biggest problem. He can’t shake the opinion that he’s a disaffected patrician.

Is that what is really about, the Plebs vs. Patricians? In that case:

Even so, the “Conflict of the Orders” over the political status of the plebeians went on for the first two centuries of the Republic, ending with the formal equality of plebeians and patricians in 287 BC. The plebeians achieved this by developing their own organizations (the concilium plebis), leaders (the tribunes and plebeian aediles). When the plebeians felt the situation had become dire, they would instigate a secessio plebis, a sort of general strike where plebeians would literally leave Rome, leaving the patricians to themselves.

Thus empty Ford Field seats…