When will the NFL give us all a break and NOT schedule the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving Day. Who cares about tradition, when a team is as lousy as the Lions. Get good first, then we'll put you on national television. Same thing with the Cowboys, but for different reasons. Rotate teams so that every club has a chance to play on T-Day. There are now three games, six teams, who play on this day every year. 32-teams populate the NFL. That means, a team would get to play on Thanksgiving Day every five years or so. That, to me, makes more sense than sticking on a turkey like the Lions, on national television every Thanksgiving Day.

The mess in Cleveland continues. Romeo Crennel appears to be on his way out. Quarterback Brady Quinn's season is over. And, according to our pal Mike Florio (WHO STILL HASN'T ANSWERED ANY OF MY RECENT EMAILS!) general manager, Phil Savage might be shopping for a U-Haul. Check out Mike's videocast.

The Browns will celebrate ten years of futility for their 'new' team (to go with about 40-from the "old" Browns, next season.

I'm a traditionalist. I love Thanksgiving dinner at 7pm. I want white meat only and gravy made from the turkey. I don't like traveling for the holidays and, above all else, I don't want to be bothered while watching football on television. Full disclosure, I have to do that for a living. But when the game is on, I want to watch it. I want to see who blocks well, who misses tackles. I want to see if the quarterback can read a defense. I want to watch for the coaching strategies. But here's what I don't want to see anymore.

The Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving Day. I know, I know, I said I was a traditionalist. And the Lions on Thanksgiving Day pre-dates cranberries and stuffing. But until the Lions get better, until they prove to the football world they know what they're doing, the NFL needs to keep this team off national television on Thanksgiving Day. Watching the Lions is worse than indigestion.

The Lions have been so bad, for so long, it's borderline criminal. They can't draft (see Desmond Howard, Charles Rogers, Joey Harrington, etc.) and they haven't had a whiff of the playoffs since 1999.

When they had Barry Sanders, they used to be fun to watch. You knew the Lions were never going to get close to the Super Bowl, but at least their offense could score some points. And Sanders was always good for a couple of electrifing runs on turkey day.

Now the Lions are one of the NFL's doormats. Perhaps the NFL is aware that a lot of their teams don't want to play on Thanksgiving, have no interest in playing a 'short' week. Maybe the NFL is sensitive to the fact that Lions fans will leave their homes and dinners to watch their team play on a national holiday. But the rest of us deserve better. The Lions against the Dolphins? Time for a nap.

Ken

Couldn't let another minute pass with a thought on the passing of Bo Schembechler. I'm a huge MAC guy and Bo, of course, played his college football at Miami. His head coach was Woody Hayes. And later, Bo would be an assistant on Woody's staff at Ohio State. Then, of course, they had their classic battles when Bo moved onto coach at Michigan.

I was in Bo's presence several times, when I was the play-by-play broadcaster for the Cincinnati Bengals. We always saw the Lions in the pre-season and Bo was involved with their broadcasts. I found the man 'larger than life'.

It occured to me today, as I heard about his passing that there are no 'larger than life' coaches anymore. Bob Knight, for a lot of reasons, Bill Parcells and Joe Paterno come close. Maybe it's because we live in the 300 channel universe and all things sports seem to on TV. Television, particularly live television, has a way of de-mystifying people. In most instances, that's a good thing. In a sports sense, it's probably a good thing too.

But today, I miss that. Bo against Woody. Did it ever get any better than that?