Lions fans got a little bit of good news this morning, learning that they wouldn't be sucking this week with an old Jon Kitna under center. They'd be sucking instead with a younger and more promising Dan Orlovsky under center.

Significant Underdogs against the Vikings, they held the game scoreless through almost the entire first quarter.

But then the Vikings got the Lions backed up on their own goal line. Young Orlovsky took the snap in the shotgun, and began rolling back and to his right, which is normally fine. In this case, the area directly behind him happened to be that mythical area known in some NFL circles as "out of bounds."

It wasn't any kind of a safety taken intentionally. He wasn't forced out of bounds by a pursuing defender. It wasn't like he accidentally stepped on the line and was then dismayed at his mistake. He was a solid two or three feet into the line, and kept playing as if everything was normal. It's one of the strangest things I've seen in football.

Poor young fella. Obviously, the man knows that he's not allowed to run out of the back of the endzone with the football without penalty, but ... you know, a young guy gets a start, he gets all excited, and sometimes, he's thinking about everything except the most basic of things.

And poor Lions fans, too. They finally ditch Kitna, who, while he wasn't all the way terrible, offered no hope for the future. They finally get a dimly-lit beacon of hope in Orlovsky ... and he's out there ignoring the basic properties of professional football.

No NFL player has struggled with white lines like this since Travis Henry.