Roy Williams is stupid, or is it smart, or maybe ridiculous?

Somebody break up the Detroit Lions’ offense. They’re so bad that Roy Williams seems to… Somebody break up the Detroit Lions’ offense. They’re so bad that Roy Williams seems to think it’s good.

After all, isn’t bad the new good and ridiculous the new incredible? Do we not live in a world now where someone is “sick” at something if, and only if, he has “mad” skills? If Will Smith has taught me anything in my 21 years of life, it’s that words with negative connotations can actually function as an even higher degree of good.

But I don’t even think the Fresh Prince himself can explain what Williams was trying to accomplish nearly two weeks ago by not only guaranteeing a win over a team better than his own, but by simply blowing the mind of anybody who read the statement.

This wasn’t just some slip-up that Williams accidentally allowed some reporter to use against him. It was the kind of brash, empty assertion that your parents might let you make when you’re young so that you learn your lesson later on in life. You know, the times you were wrong.

“We will win this game. You can take that as a guarantee if you want,” he said of his team’s upcoming divisional game with the better-than-advertised Chicago Bears. “I’m saying when we play the way we are supposed to play, and there’s no reason we shouldn’t, there’s no defense in the league that can stop us. We are our only defense.”

As if it wasn’t enough for him to call out the defending NFC North Champs, he then went on to say something that was already receiving votes for the quote of the year. Something so astounding that still, after nearly two weeks of hardcore analysis, fails to have meaning.

“It was stupid how close we were to putting 40 points on the board,” he said of the team’s loss to Seattle the day before.

Yes, he was, in fact, referring to the team’s 9-6 loss to the Seahawks to open the season. It would appear that the only thing stupid surrounding this statement was the source. It was a baffling claim in that not only was it wrong, but it made no sense. How were they close? Did they drop six touchdown passes only to miss the field goal each time? Is there an NBA Jam-type hot spot on the field that would have given the team 34 more points had they scored while standing on it?

Does he believe that six is the new 40? What about the basic fact that he could have squared his team’s points, added three and still not have gotten to 40? Why some reporter didn’t simply ask the thought-to-be best follow-up question in all reporting, “why?” disappoints me. What on earth does that mean?

I just don’t know. I do know, however, that only one team came within a football field of 40 points, or double-digits for that matter, and it wasn’t the Lions.

Chicago, playing in the shadows of that always-threatening Roy Williams guarantee, put up 34 points while Williams’ “stupid” offense managed only 276 total yards and one touchdown. Through two games, this offense has scored 13 points, meaning it might hit 40 points for the entire season by week six. That’s if the offense can get past the best defense in the league, which, by Williams’ statement, is the same offensive juggernaut that has found the end zone once?

Again, I just don’t get it.

But just how stupid is an offense that may never reach 40 points? When does stupid mean “stupid,” and when does stupid mean “close to scoring 34 more points than we actually scored”? Williams has either seen one too many episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, or he wasn’t being facetious — maybe he honestly believes their ineptitude is stupid.

This comes from the same guy who celebrated making a catch for a first down later in that blowout loss to the Bears. In T.J. Duckett-esque form, he acted like he had just won a Bingo game, fully knowing that his opposition had already made not just one line, but probably three lines once it already got hold of the four corners on the scorecard. I’d hate to think he’d waste an opportunity to boast his awesomeness that could only be described as stupidity.

In defense of his celebration, he cited his carelessness about the score, another endearing quality of this upstanding individual.

“I celebrate first downs all the time. I’m not gonna stop that. I’m an exciting player. If I do something exciting, I’m gonna show my actions, K” he told Detroit Free Press columnist Mitch Albom.

Albom responded with what probably everybody is thinking.

“But you were losing, 10-0,” he said.

“What does that mean?…That means nothing to me,” Williams said in all of his stupidity. “The score means nothing.”

I’m glad it doesn’t mean too much to him because he plays on a team that is apparently too stupid to score double-digits. If this guy is so far gone that he is going to guarantee points and victories that he doesn’t even care about, why not just bench him? He’ll still talk to the press from the pine, saying things like “stupid is as stupid does” as he watches his team come close to scoring 60 points, which, by my guess, is somewhere around 13.

Besides, we know the Lions will probably draft a first-round receiver again in 2007, so maybe they can make this a long-term decision. Some will probably call it a stupid decision to bench Roy Williams, which is what the team should do.

But doesn’t that mean it’s a good idea? You see, I just don’t understand.

Geoff Dutelle is a senior staff writer for The Pitt News. Tell him how close you thought the Lions were to scoring 40 by e-mailing him at gmd8@Pitt.edu.