Detroit Lions: Nick Fairley and 2011 Draft Class Threaten to Derail Season

Heading into arguably their most anticipated season in team history, the Detroit Lions were hoping for an offseason chock full of positivity and hard work. They finished last season 10-6 and garnered the franchise's first playoff berth in over a decade. Goals for 2012 are even bigger and better.

The Lions finally had momentum in their favor and fans were returning to support a team they had long since abandoned. Detroit just needed to get the season started on the right foot.

Unfortunately, starting off on the right foot is difficult when that foot is being controlled by four young men in their 20s who lack any semblance of common sense or impulse control.

Of course I'm talking about Nick Fairley, Titus Young, Mikel Leshoure and Johnny Culbreath. All four had well-documented run-ins with the law due to their immature behaviors, and all four appear not to have learned their lesson.

According to Dave Birkett of freep.com, the most recent example occurred early Sunday morning when Nick Fairley was arrested, for the second time in two months, in Mobile, Alabama. He was charged with DUI and eluding police.

Fairley was also arrested in April for marijuana possession. Leshoure has two marijuana-related arrests of his own this offseason while Culbreath has one. Young stayed on the right side of the law but was recently banished from all team activities due to sucker-punching Louis Delmas.

Taken together, these incidents have put the Lions in the newspapers for all the wrong reasons. What should have been an offseason of positivity has turned into "same old Lions" talk.

The most ironic aspect of these developments is that each of these players was drafted in 2011.

They were selected—particularly Fairley, Young and Leshoure—to be cornerstones of the franchise. They were to be major parts of the Lions' transformation from perennial-doormat to Super Bowl-winning team.

Yet most of them are more concerned about getting their drink and smoke on.

I get it. They're young, they have new money and they're making bad decisions. We all did dumb things when we were their age, and it's not the first time in the history of the NFL that this has happened either.

However, it is the first time in the history of the Lions that they have such a good chance to do something truly special. They're on the precipice of becoming an elite team and are finally starting to get national attention for all the right reasons.

Now this quartet of youngsters is threatening to put the kibosh on all that positivity and derail the season before it starts.

Even so, I'll admit that each of them could still have a great season and help the Lions win. Many players in the NFL use marijuana—or other things—and are still productive on Sundays.

It's the cumulative effect these incidents have on the team that worries me.

Jim Schwartz has to take time away from other things to address these issues with the media and the players involved, and locker room chemistry could be disrupted due to the controversy.

For many fans, the focus has been taken off the potential greatness of the Lions and firmly placed on their wayward sons and how they represent what's wrong in professional sports today.

That's why it's time for Martin Mayhew and Jim Schwartz to throw the hammer down. If five arrests and one banishment doesn't show cause for decisive action on their part, I don't know what does.

Sending Young away was meant to be such a message but apparently the wires got crossed. The young guys still don't get it. A harsher penalty is needed for Fairley to make it stick.

In Birkett's article, Jason Hanson was quoted giving some not-so-subtle advice to the young Lions. He says that they are "'good players that are messing up and they just need to (straighten up).'"

With all due respect to Hanson, I don't think that is going to do the trick. 

Leadership needs to act swiftly to put an end to this nonsense so the team can move on and focus on the task at hand: taking the Lions to the next level and bringing a championship to The Motor City.