By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com
June 29, 2013

I wasn’t sure I wanted to write this article for numerous reasons.  For one, this website isn’t TMZ, Perez Hilton or Radar Online.  It’s a Detroit sports website dedicated to honest appraisals of the Wings, Tigers, Pistons and Lions and extreme criticism of the dipshits who cover those four organizations.

Secondly, the person at the center of this article is probably as big a victim of the Detroit Lions historically incompetent organization as the team’s deflated fan base.

Furthermore, I am guessing I will get a significant amount of blowback for writing what I am about to post and it might not be a lot of fun for a person who operates this website in his spare time for no financial incentive at all.  If anything this piece of the Internet I have carved out for myself is financially detrimental for a variety of reasons.

Anyway, this story is about Jim Schwartz and the view of him inside the Lions organization.  The innocent bystander is retired offensive lineman and now part-time Lions coaching intern Jeff Backus and the Pandora’s Box I could be opening revolves around how I obtained this story and the vindictive and tin-eared organization that operates out of Allen Park.

When contemplating writing this article, I thought to myself “What would Michael Hastings Do?”

Now, I wasn’t the biggest fan of Hastings before he tragically died in a fiery car accident less than two weeks ago.  I really only knew him from some guest appearances on “Real Time” with Bill Maher and of course had read his Rolling Stone piece that ended up taking down General Stanley McChrystal.

But after Hastings’ death I started becoming obsessed with his life and couldn’t read enough about this true JOURNALIST.  Look, I am not taking down the commander of the US armed forces in Afghanistan or questioning Hillary Clinton’s people on Benghazi.  Nor am I having delusions of grandeur about the importance of questioning the Detroit sports teams and the media that covers them, but I do feel that the DSR is the ONLY unfiltered access for the Detroit sports fan who does not want to hear the propaganda being spewed by these teams and their willing media accomplices.

If there is one quote from Hastings prior to his death that resonated with me and what I am trying to do on this site it was the following quote to his editor-in-chief Ben Smith at Buzzfeed in response to a suggestion that Hastings was not only making his subjects look bad, but himself in the process:

“Everyone knows I’m an asshole. The point is that they’re assholes.”

I love that fucking quote so much that I want to put it over the masthead on the DSR immediately.

So, I am guessing if Hastings wasn’t an award-winning journalist putting his life on the line in the most dangerous hotbeds in the world and instead a moonlighting writer for a local sports website he would probably write this article.  So here it goes …..

Jim Schwartz isn’t well liked inside the Lions organization and based on the information leaking out of their compound that story by Mike Florio regarding the Lions potential interest in Notre Dame’s Brian Kelly at the end of this season might have come from team management directly.

Before I get into the dirty laundry aspect of this column , I will deal with Jeff Backus’ involvement in this article.   Prior to delving into Backus’ issues with Schwartz though, I do want to mention that I am a compassionate fan of the 12-year veteran of the team.

First of all, the guy is a big Howard Stern fan which is just about the number one character trait a person can have for me liking them.  If #76 isn’t too pissed off with me after reading this column, maybe we can bond over our favorite Sal & Richard Tradeo calls.

More importantly though, the guy had to suffer through 12 seasons in Detroit with the worst organization in professional sports.  The team’s record during his tenure was 53-139.  That’s a winning percentage of .276.

I don’t have the time to look it up, but there is no way in hell that any player in the HISTORY of the NFL who played a minimum of ten years has a lower career win percentage.

And while Backus had to suffer through the Matt Millen regime and the only 0-16 season in the league’s history, you never heard him bitch about his circumstance.  Compare that to his carpool pal and fellow offensive lineman Dominic Raiola who has incessantly whined about numerous Lions related topics over the years and who isn’t half the player that Backus was.

Shit, Bobby Higginson himself would probably like to tell Raiola to stuff a sock in it already.

Backus? Not a peep for a dozen years while Fredo Clay Ford, Sr.’s House of Ineptitude engulfed him.

And while the Michigan product never openly ripped his employer, it would appear that it didn’t take long AFTER his retirement for him to start espousing his true feelings of his last head coach.

Here is a brief synopsis of what Backus is telling people about Jim Schwartz:

• In 2012, Schwartz was lazy.
• Schwartz didn’t put in the necessary effort.
• Schwartz was resting on the team’s laurels of 2011 when they made the playoffs for the first time this century.
• Schwartz didn’t hold anyone accountable.
• Schwartz didn’t coach during practices like he had in previous seasons.
• Schwartz didn’t put in the necessary hours watching game film or preparing for the next week’s opponent.
• That Schwartz basically bought into his own hype and just thought things would progress in 2012 because of the team’s postseason berth in 2011.

I am sure none of that surprises you based on the team’s atrocious 4-12 record and some of the bizarre coaching decisions Schwartz made last season that directly led to losses.

(At this point you might be asking why Backus would have accepted a part-time job as a coaching intern on Schwartz’s staff if he had these feelings about the guy.  From what I have been told, it was more out of loyalty to offensive line coach Jeremiah Washburn and Backus’ desire to see the young lineman he left behind improve.)

If it isn’t alarming for Schwartz that one of the senior members of his team and a respected retired warhorse is sharing those types of feelings, well …. the next part of the story surely won’t make him happy.  (And I want to state that none of what follows is coming from the Backus source.)

Schwartz has become the butt of jokes and sort of a laughingstock within the organization for his behavior on the field (instructing Jim Harbaugh to know the rules when he doesn’t, mouthing off at opposing players, etc.) and off of it.

The worst kept secret in town is that Schwartz has a girlfriend in her late 20s.  I learned about this just weeks after he was hired in the summer of 2009 and it has been collaborated by many in the Detroit media who of course will only gossip about it amongst themselves.

And I really don’t care that the guy has a goomah even though he has been married for years.  It is none of my business and based on his brazen appearances with this chick in public (Union Woodshop, HELLO!!!) who knows if Schwartz has some understanding with his wife about it.

The only reason I am bringing it up now is it would appear that Lions management is leaking this information out as there has been scuttlebutt that Schwartz himself asked the ORGANIZATION to find his mistress a place to live.

Not only that, the joke inside Allen Park for awhile now is that Schwartz spent thousands of dollars to have his game day slacks custom tailored for him because the off the rack variety weren’t “tight enough” for him and didn’t show off his exquisite physique.

I wish I was making this stuff up, but not only does Schwartz want you to think he is the smartest guy in the room, he also wants us to know that he has the body to match.

I am not sure if this guy is the Detroit Lions head coach or a character on the HBO show “Rome” who is looking to topple Julius Caesar or Curt Hennig reincarnate.

Between the Brian Kelly rumors and the gossiping within Allen Park I would advise Schwartz that he might want to actually dedicate the 2013 season to coaching his ass off (and it does look good in those pants) and spending more time in the film room than on extra-cirricular activities.

And I am well aware that this article is going to get attacked by some in Allen Park and it wouldn’t be my first rodeo with this organization relating to threats and retribution.

Back in 2005, the late great Tom Kowalski and I had both written articles stating that the Lions coaching staff wanted to get rid of then QB Joey Harrington.

We had similar sources and the story was 100% true.  That didn’t stop the Lions from issuing press releases completely rebutting Killer’s story while smearing Kowalski’s name.

Of course, after Killer tragically died from a heart attack in 2011, the Lions Emperor of Disinformation Bill Keenist gave a eulogy at Tom’s memorial in which Keenist admitted that Tom’s story was correct all along.

That was mighty white of him™ (George Jefferson) since, ya know, Tom didn’t get that public mea culpa while HE WAS FREAKING ALIVE!!!!!

So, if the Lions do respond to this article I am guessing it won’t be pretty and I am fully prepared for any shitstorm this might ensue.  The last time I had to worry about Sherm Lewis’ “thugs” doing physical harm to my body.  This time? Who knows.

Just last night I read that retired four-star General Richard Clarke speculated that Michael Hastings’ death could have been caused by a cyber carjacking.   I had never heard of such a thing, but this is what General Clarke had to say on the matter:

“What has been revealed as a result of some research at universities is that it’s relatively easy to hack your way into the control system of a car, and to do such things as cause acceleration when the driver doesn’t want acceleration, to throw on the brakes when the driver doesn’t want the brakes on, to launch an air bag.  You can do some really highly destructive things now, through hacking a car, and it’s not that hard.”

 

Wow. I have never been so happy that I drive a General Motors product instead of a FORD.