Detroit Lions 2013 calendar is the worst holiday gift ever

Posted by Michael David Smith on December 5, 2012, 5:23 PM EST
AP

If you have a Detroit Lions fan in your life, and he’s someone you like and respect, you will certainly not want to buy him this Lions-themed 2013 calendar for Christmas. But if you have a Lions fan in your life and you really want to get under his skin, then it’s the perfect gift.

In a stunning display of holiday awfulness, the official NFL-licensed Lions calendar that is being pushed as a holiday gift somehow managed to get everything wrong. MLive.com details some of the problems with this calendar, including:

1. Titus Young is on the cover. Yes, Young, the second-year receiver who was just ordered to go home and not come back for repeated insubordination, is the person the makers of this calendar thought Lions fans would want on the cover. Not Matthew Stafford or Calvin Johnson. Titus Young. Really.

2. Open the calendar to the first month, and whose picture do you see to go along with January? Aaron Berry. The cornerback who was arrested twice during the offseason and cut by the Lions in July.

3. Other months have pictures of receiver Nate Burleson (whose future in Detroit is in doubt after a season-ending leg injury), defensive end Kyle Vanden Bosch (who’s 34 years old and not playing up to his contract and looks like a potential cap casualty), and running back Jahvid Best (whose repeated concussions call into question whether he’ll ever play again). Those are definitely the guys Lions fans are going to want to be thinking about in 2013.

4. The company selling the calendar boasts that it contains information about the Lions’ “Super Bowl History and more.” One problem: The Lions have never been to the Super Bowl. Apparently the Super Bowl history section will be devoted to the Super Bowls the Lions didn’t play in (all of them) or maybe the Super Bowls that were played on the Lions’ home field. (Did you know that Jerome Bettis is from Detroit? The people who made this calendar probably didn’t.)

5. The calendar includes the 2012 schedule. Very helpful in 2013.

So if you do have a Lions fan on your Christmas shopping list, you’ll probably want to skip the team’s official 2013 calendar. Much better to get him a T-shirt commemorating the Lions’ undefeated 2008 preseason.

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78 responses to “Detroit Lions 2013 calendar is the worst holiday gift ever”

  3. Priceless! You don’t even have to come up with your own smack talk this holiday season, the Lions are doing all of the heavy lifting for you. Definitely ordering one of these for every Lions fan I know, all 2 of them.

  5. Yes, it would certainly make for a terrible gift, but the failure(s) of this calendar quintessentially embody the Detroit Lions’ quality of play.

  6. Maybe there’s a Lions Calendar Cover curse to go along with the Madden and Sports Illustrated cover curses.

  8. I’m used to insane mistakes regarding Lions football. Everything about our team is a mistake, except the existence of Jason Hanson and Calvin Johnson.

    Everybody else associated with the team is to some degree a mind boggling puzzle. Without any mystery, there would only be excellence remaining. Merry Christmas to us, at least we have a neverending supply of coal to burn to keep us from freezing to death, but one day we should also be able to rejoice with a winning football team. All it takes is effort and smart people being in charge to make decisions.

  9. Maybe they also have a special Christmas message from President and CEO Matt Millen…

    (I know he no longer holds that job….)

  10. After the way lions fans conducted themselves during a rare decent season last year, it’s going to be a long time before anybody feels sorry for them again.

  19. My buddy and I say it all the time: our favorite teams frustrate us from time to time, but it could be worse. We could be Lions fans.

  25. I always thought the worst Christmas gift ever was a 12 month subscription to the Jelly of the Month Club.
    ________________________________
    What are you talking about?!?! That’s the gift that keeps on giving all year round!

    Signed,
    Cousin Eddie

  26. thestrategyexpert says:

    “…but one day we should also be able to rejoice with a winning football team. All it takes is effort and smart people being in charge to make decisions.”

    Yeah, good luck with that!

  28. This is too funny. I don’t have any Lions fan’s for friends. A matter of fact I’ve never met a Lion’s fan in my life, despite driving through Michigan every yr. But if I ever see one of them little rascals, I’ll bless them with this calender.

  32. Cover: Titus Young
    January: Aaron Berry
    February: Nate Burleson
    March: Kyle Vanden Bosch
    April: Jahvid Best
    May: Big Mike Williams
    June: Joey Harrington
    July: Charles Rogers
    August: Kevin Jones
    September: Dan Orlovsky
    October: 0-16 — A Celebration of Futility
    November: timeline of Super Bowls not featuring the Lions
    December: picture of Matt Millen laughing evilly

  34. When I clicked on the link for the calendar and scrolled down, it was next a to 2013 Penn State calendar and a Detroit Lions business card holder.

    Adjacent to a college program in dysfunction and an item for people with jobs in a city that is leader in unemployment.

    It almost makes you think someone is trying to make them look worse. It’s bad enough the way the Tigers ended the year. Sad, really.

  35. The picture for the month of November, to honor their annual Thanksgiving day game, is just a picture of the bottom of Suh’s cleat.

  36. As many screw-ups on the calender as there are on the team!
    Makes you wonder if Schwartz and Mayhew aren’t somehow involved!

  37. Well, it’s either this or a fruitcake for my in-laws this year. Thanks for the holiday gift giving suggestion MDS.

  41. brenenostler says: Dec 5, 2012 5:58 PM

    “The makers of the calendar are probably Packers, Bears, and/or Vikes fans.”

    Sorry, but those teams have a lot bigger fish to fry than the lowly Lions.

    This calendar is a tribute to Lion ineptitude, by inept Lion fans.

  44. The Seahawks had a similar problem when Peter Carroll and John Schneider came to town and turned the roster upside down. Only a couple of players shown on the tickets were still on the team and calendar was packed with former players.

  45. Wow…what a lamefest.

    Also, a significant number of the calendar pics feature the logos of other NFL teams prominently in the background (broncos and tampa bay). Photoshop, anyone?

  46. I must lament that I have no lion fan/friends to give this to this holiday season. I genuinely wish I did.

    I would love to comment further, but really, what’s the point? I feel everybody else is doing an adaquate job for me.

  49. This may ruin the comedic effect of this story for some, but I used to work for a company that publishes calendars and edited many of them over the years. The problem is that they are created months ahead of time so they can be printed in China and shipped via slow boat to the U.S. by June/July. This calendar was probably made in Jan/Feb, so all of the photos and players for a 2013 calendar would be from the 2011 season. That’s why my 2012 Vikings calendar includes former Vikings greats Steve Hutchinson, Asher Allen, E.J. Henderson, Sidney Rice, Visanthe Shiancoe, and Madieu Williams and has pictures from the Vikings’ historic Tuesday night game against the Eagles and the outdoor game they played at TCF Bank Stadium after the Metrodome roof collapsed.

    The reference to the Lions’ Super Bowl history is probably some boilerplate text that they used for all of the calendars, which was probably edited by some rube who knew nothing about football or not edited at all. Sloppy.

    Lastly, calendars go on sale in the fall, so the 2012 schedule would have been relevant to those who bought it as soon as it came out. (Although who ever buys/looks at a calendar three months before they can start using it?)

    So, uh, I’m glad y’all asked.

  51. Wife got me a Patriots 2012 calendar, same problem.
    Had Tully Banta-Cain and a couple other guys that were no longer on the team.
    Sent that to file 13.

  55. I’m buying one for myself and the rest of my Lions fan friends. This is hilarious. This has got to be the greatest marketing gag ever pulled off by a franchise.

  57. This could become a collector’s item.

    By the way, the Lions won the Superbowl in 1935, 1952, 1953 and 1957.

    And if you think championships before 1966 don’t count, you area…

  58. I’m a Lions fan and a proud owner of the 2008 Pre Season Champs shirt. At least I’m not a bandwagon fan.

    Also, to the Chiefs fan saying he and his buddy are glad they aren’t Lions fans….. I bet you are, especially after that 45 point beatdown last year!

  61. I took a friend who was a Colts fan to the game last Sunday.
    Even he felt bad for me…..he asked me how have Lions fans been able to watch the yearly implosion most years….I told him the truth….we have become numb to this stuff and expect it as the norm.
    This year we have migrated back to the mean.
    Water finds its level.

  63. You realize that when you’re making fun of a Lions Fan, you’re making fun of a person who refuses to be a bandwagoner right?

    You don’t know what it is to be a fan of a team, until you root for them when the rest of the world (you) criticize them.

  66. I’d order a bunch of them for any Lion fan I know. Problem is there about as rare as an albino unicorn.

  70. does anyone with a brain live/work in the cesspool state they call michigan?

    *********************

    Are all 49 of the “Thumbs down” on this comment coming from the people in Detroit that still have a job?

    Or all 49 of the people that haven’t been shot at?

    Hmmmmm….

  71. @ Chipwade
    The difference is Seattle was in full rebuild mode with a new coach, Detroit is a year removed from being a playoff team with the same coach and a roster that was supposed to compete and take the next step around a stable core of players such as Berry and Young, who have turned out to be huge disappointments.

  72. Funny as it may seem this is a accurate commentary on why the lions are the lions. This doesn’t happen in a REAL organization.

  75. Maybe there’s a Lions Calendar Cover curse to go along with the Madden and Sports Illustrated cover curses.
    ————————————
    Madden curse? Megatron leads both leagues in receiving, dope.

  76. mgmac says:

    does anyone with a brain live/work in the cesspool state they call michigan?

    ===============================================

    you mean the cesspool with 20% of the world’s fresh water, more shoreline, national forests and golfcourses than any other state. what an ignoramus.

  77. Best part is the 4-star review left by “slugbait”:

    “If you are a die-hard Lions fan, someone who clearly recalls the fortitude and intelligence of Lions greats like Matt Millen, then put this calendar on your Wish List. It truly reflects everything the Detroit Lions have been over the years, all encapsulated into twelve intriguing months.

    There is no potential for the so-called Madden Curse when it comes to the cover. Mathew Stafford or Calvin Johnson? Nope! Instead, the cover has a shot of Titus Young, who had already been ordered to stay away from the team due to repeated insubordination, before the calendar was published. Whew!

    The player used for the first month is defensive back Aaron Berry. It shows him wearing the wrong uniform, though. The only uniform he wore in a game during the 2012 season is green: he’s a New York Jet. But that’s a minor quibble, so it only docks off one star.

    Jahvid Best is in there! It’s great to finally see a picture of him wearing a uniform again!

    There’s also information in this calendar about the Detroit Lions’ Super Bowl history! It’s very short and to the point, but like any great mystery book, it has a surprise ending…I don’t want to spoil it for anybody, so I won’t post their Super Bowl history here. You’ll have to buy the calendar to find out!

    The best part: all 365 days are here!”

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