Finally some good news re Janis. That Durham thing really pissed me off.
Yeah me too. Most local sports people expected him to make the cut. He was one of their better receivers last year. But we know how it works in the Negro Football League, a white player has to be a superstar or else the fans want him gone because he is a bum holding back some black superstar in waiting that has unlimited upside.
Durham was a good friend of Matt Stafford, college roomies, and the cries of nepotism followed him around. Staffords ridiculously scatter shot passing didn't help, as he would regularly fire off target line drive bullets at his buddy instead of putting it up for grabs like he does for Calvin Johnson, and let Durhams height advantage take effect.
Durham had a high profile fumble during the Lions late season collapse and of course the DWF's fixate on stuff like that. I've mentioned a couple of times the odd media white-out on Durham before. It happened again a couple of weeks ago. Talk radio was going over the Lions receiver situation and they discussed each guy on the roster at the position, at that time there must have been about ten, and not one single word on Durham. It was like he didn't even exist. I think in their minds a white wide receiver that isn't a short slot guy like Welker is like a family embarrassment to a team.
Durham didn't help himself by not coming up with some tough catches, he was capable of making the tough catches, and frequently did not. A black receiver gets a pass for that but not a white one, they still talk about Welker not making a leaping, falling back, over the head catch in the Super Bowl, so the margin for error is very thin.
They might sign him back someday to the practice squad as he knows the offense and Lions receivers are from the gangster/injury school of athlete and often self terminate themselves.
