Out of 11 local games, we had nine winners. Even one of the losses, SMCC’s 32-26 heart-breaker in the final seconds against Detroit Crockett, was a pretty solid performance against a good team.

The most impressive teams to me in the opening week were Airport and Ida.

Airport beat what should turn out to be a pretty good Bedford team and Ida dominated on both sides of the ball against Huron League foe Flat Rock.

And kudos to New Boston Huron coach Dan Kalbfleisch, who showed a lot of class by emptying his bench after building a big lead against Erie Mason.

I can’t wait for Week 2.

One line of reasoning goes that the Lions want to make the announcement soon so that he gets the majority of the repetitions during training camp.

I certainly hope the Lions don’t plan to rush the young quarterback like this.

Daunte Culpepper is a capable veteran who can handle the quarterback duties until Stafford is ready. Culpepper won’t be the Pro Bowler that he was in Minnesota, but I liked some of the things I saw from him late last season and this year he will be in better shape and have more of a grasp of the offense.

If Stafford is clearly the better quarterback during training camp, then start him. But don’t throw him in there just because you’ve invested a lot of money in him. I’ve never heard of a quarterback being harmed by held back a few games, but many have suffered permanent damage by being rushed into action.

Will Jim Schwartz be a good coach? No one knows the answer to that question. Only time will tell.

I like what I have seen so far, but, then again, I liked my first impressions of R0d Marinelli and Steve Marinelli, too. I did have reservations about Marty Mornhinweg from the start.

Anyway, Schwartz seems to have a good resume. He has paid his dues as a defensive coordinator and has a record of success doing that. The people from the Tennessee organization that I’ve heard talk about him have lots of good things to say.

And I like that the Lions went for a defensive guy. Detroit’s offense was not all that bad last year. They have a dangerous receiver and a capable running back. The defense was the main reason they went 0-16. The Lions simply could not get stops at key times.

A lot has been made of the comment Schwartz made about the Lions needing to find a replacement for Bobby Layne. Everyone assumed he was talking about the draft.

What if that replacement is Vince Young? The Titans seem to have soured on Young and Schwartz might have some ties to him.

Calvin Johnson made a catch that appeared to give them a first down on the Minnesota 8-yard line. But their joy was short lived. A video review wiped the catch out and the Lions wound up settling for a field goal and still trailed by a point.

I have no way of knowing if that was a good call or not. The game was not televised and I haven’t seen a videotape of the play yet.

But doesn’t it seem like a lot of questionable calls have gone against the Lions this season? The team is bad enough on its own, the other teams don’t need help from the officials to beat them. It’s like piling on.

Maybe it’s just that good teams create their breaks and bad teams get what they deserve.

The Monroe Evening News will announce the All-Region football team next week.

The offense will be revealed on Monday (Nov. 17) and the defense the next day. The Coach of the Year will be announced along with the offense.

But I am beginning to have my doubts.

Their best opportunity might have been Sunday at home against Jacksonville, but that game wasn’t even close. The Lions were positively putrid.

The schedule the rest of the way will be tough.

They play at Carolina Sunday, come home for three straight games (Tampa Bay, Tennessee and Minnesota), play at Indianapolis, host New Orleans in their final home game and finish at Green Bay.

Green Bay and New Orleans are the only teams on the list with losing records and both of them are 4-5. It looks like every team the Lions play the rest of the way will have something at stake when they take on Detroit.

Well, the Lions will, too. They are playing for the No. 1 pick in the draft and a chance to make history as the first 0-16 team ever.

But they were very different games.

First of all, the local teams I was covering were on opposite ends of the routs. St. Mary Catholic Central blew out Allen Park Cabrinin 59-7 Friday night and Gibraltar Carlson was blasted by Inkster Saturday afternoon.

The second difference was the way that the winning coaches handled the rout.

SMCC’s Jack Giarmo went out of his way to keep the score from being worse. The Falcon starters became spectators in the second half. After running four four touchdowns in the first half, T.J. Lovell never touched the ball after the intermission. SMCC started kneeling down with the ball with eight minutes left in the game.

Inkster, on the other hand, didn’t show that kind of class. Two Viking touchdowns in the second half came on long passes. There was no need to rub it in against a clearly out-manned Carlson squad.

Remember the name Devin Gardiner. The Inkster quarterback, who stands 6-4 and is nearly 200 pounds, is an incredible athlete. The junior is drawing interest from Michigan, Michigan State and many of the elite college football programs in the country.

SMCC is the only Monroe County Region team still alive in the playoffs. That isn’t a huge surprise with the exception of Airport’s loss to Trenton. Ida and Summerfield got tough draws, getting sent on the road to play undefeated opponents.

Milan also had a tough assignment, making a trip to Chelsea. I felt bad for the Big Reds not getting a home game with an 8-1 record, then they lost all the momentum they gained from taking an early 14-0 lead when a power failure caused a delay of nearly two hours.

Airport was favored against Trenton, but fell into an early hole and could never recover. An interesting side note about Trenton – the Trojans wound up playing four Region schools this season (Jefferson, Monroe, Carlson and Airport).

So, it’s on to the second week of the playoffs for SMCC. Let’s hope that the weather is as perfect as it was Friday night.

It’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed a game so much. It was a perfect night for football and two good teams put on a great show.

It can’t be much fun for coaches to watch game tapes after a loss, but it sounds like Milan coach Steve Robb enjoyed this one more the second time. “It was a good game, fun to watch and be a part of,” he said in an e-mail to me Monday morning.

SMCC put together an inspired effort to hand the Big Reds their first loss of the season. The Falcons had no business winning this game, Physically, they could not match Milan and were playing without their starting tailback and quarterback.

But they found a way to get it done.

I just realized that I never posted any notes on Week 6 in this blog. So here are a few general impressions on the state of Monroe County Region football:

1. Erik Johnson of Summerfield and Jeff Wood of Bedford are doing great jobs in their first season as head coaches. Summerfield has never made the state playoffs and Bedford has been there just one, but both are challenging for berths this year.

Summerfield’s hopes probably boil down to beating arch-rival Whiteford this week. The Bulldogs finish against 1-6 Britton-Deerfield.

Bedford plays a week Dexter team this week before finishing against state-ranked Chelsea.

2. Another first-year coach doing a great job is Gibraltar Carlson’s Kent Sikora. Carlson has enjoyed more success in recent years than Summerfield or Bedford, but Sikora took over a team that was 3-6 last season and had to start the year with four straight road games. Despite that, he has the Marauders in playoff contention.

3. Flat Rock has to be the scrappiest team in the Region. Despite having just 18 players on the roster, they give almost everyone a good game. I love the way coach Joe Pruchnicki deals with the small roster. “The last time I counted, you could only play 11,”  he said.

4. Monroe has made a nice recovery after a rocky start, but squeezing into the playoffs is going to be tough. The Trojans take on undefeated Dearborn this week.

5. Dundee quarterback Daniel Bolster has a bright future. The sophomore has poise and talent. He throws the ball as well as any quarterback I’ve seen this season.

6. I was happy to see New Boston Huron finally get a victory Friday night. Dan Kalbfleish and his staff are working hard to get the program on track. The Chiefs have a chance to finish the season with a three-game winning streak.

When I wrote my previous post at halftime, there appeared to be some hope that they might rally to win the game. But the tackling didn’t get much better in the second half. I thought the defense would improve this year, but if they can’t stop a horrible Atlanta offense which had a rookie quarterback starting his first game, there isn’t much reason for hope.

And as bad as the defense played, the offense has to shoulder part of the blame as well.

Jon Kitna threw a horrible interception, threw an incomplete pass when he could have walked into the end zone and wound up a half-yard short of a first down when he slid to avoid tacklers.

About the only bright spots were the play of wide receiver Calvin Johnson and some flashes of potential from rookie running back Kevin Smith.

Every big play for Atlanta featured at least two missed tackles. Head coach Rod Marinelli preaches about the basics of football, but his defenders did not wrap anyone up in the first half.

The whole team looked disorganized. Offensive players were yelling at each other and all three timeouts were burned by midway through the second quarter.