Almost Halfway Through Hell

Of the seven quarterbacks the Lions have faced this season six of them have had career best passer ratings against the Lions. Think about that. Six out of the seven quarterbacks the Lions have faced have had the best game of their entire career against the Lions. That is just...I mean, there are no words. Now, you could say that all those quarterbacks are young and/or inexperienced and thus, the fact that they had the best game of their career doesn't mean quite so much as if, say, Peyton Manning did. But, the other side of that coin is that it means that the Lions have been torched by a bunch of young and/or shitty quarterbacks. I can't even imagine what would happen if they played Peyton Manning. Jesus! It would be fucking apocalyptic.

Which is not to say that hasn't already been the case this year, including against the Lions opponent this week, the Bears and Kyle Orton. Now, I love Kyle Orton. He should be commended for being a drunken pussy hound. As I have said before it worked for the best quarterback in Lions history, Bobby Layne, and it worked for Ken Stabler and Joe Namath so why shouldn't it work for Kyle Orton? I can't cheer against him. I just can't. He is everything that I wish the NFL still was. So I am stuck in the unenviable position of cheering either against one of my favorite players or my favorite team. Of course my team will win out in the battle for my heart and mind but I still want Orton to do well. I just want the rest of his team to suck monstrous amounts of cock.

Unfortunately, you and I both know this is unlikely to happen, especially given that we have already seen what can happen when these two teams play one another. The Lions lost 34-7 in their earlier game and really it wasn't even that close. And that game was in Detroit. This one is in Chicago. This will likely get ugly fast, and like last week, the only quotes coming out of Chicago are those same guarded and yet patronizing statements that just make you realize how shitty things really are in Detroit. Brian Urlacher said that the Lions are still an NFL team and have to be treated as such which is just terrific. I mean, the Lions are so bad that other teams are having to remind themselves that the Lions actually have professional football players and not drunken transients who were paid five dollars and a bottle of Night Train to pretend to be football players for a day. Meanwhile, Lovie Smith is out there saying that the Lions are playing their best ball right now which is just hysterical given that they are 0-7. In other words the Lions absolute best is still an eight point loss. Good to know.

In other news you may have heard about the story of Roy Williams going to Mike Furrey's Halloween party as Tatum Bell, complete with a bellhop outfit and underwear with Rudi Johnson's name written on them. Now, everyone else is talking about how hilarious this is, and okay, sure, there is that, but at the same time we are overlooking the fact that none of these fuckers have anything to laugh at. If anything, Tatum Bell got off lucky. He may be an underwear thief, but at least he doesn't have to suffer the indignity of being a Detroit Lion. Then again, neither does Roy Williams so I guess he is entitled to cut loose and party now that he has escaped from Hell. I assume the rest of those assholes went as the scariest monsters of all: themselves.

There is honestly not a lot to look forward to on Sunday. The Lions will likely lose, and there is a very good chance that they will lose badly. And then next week there will be more reports that the Lions are working out quarterbacks like Daunte Culpepper or Tim Rattay or Scott Mitchell or Bobby Layne's bones or Mike Utley's wheelchair and everyone will wonder who the quaterback of the future will be. Some are still clinging to the hope that it will be frat boy Drew Stanton who is the one man who could make me wistful for that Bible thumping dick Jon Kitna. I pray to God that is not the case, and apparently the Lions agree with me since, although he is the number two quarterback on the roster right now Stanton is apparently not getting any reps except for on the scout team in practice. Of course this means that if Orlovsky gets hurt that shit will get hilarious. But the point is that regardless of who plays the rest of the season it doesn't mean shit for the future, because come next year the Lions are going to have new coaches, a new quarterback, and really, a whole new team. So this Sunday doesn't really matter. Except that it does because it always does, and when you see your team colors you find yourself rooting for them even if they are being worn by a bunch of drunken bums. It doesn't matter, and sadly that's the theme for this season in more ways than one. It doesn't matter.

Drunken Retardation and the Detroit Lions

For a while on Sunday the Lions managed to run in a straight line without shitting their pants, thus going above and beyond what I said they would do in my preview of the game. Of course, they didn't run particularly fast or well and while they didn't shit themselves they definitely had a turtle head poking out the whole time just waiting to drop. And drop it did. When Santana Moss housed a punt to put the Redskins up 23-10 a few different things happened. Most Lions fans groaned, I laughed deliriously, like a loon, and my poor retarded kid, the Detroit Lions, finally let loose with the explosive diarrhea that we all just knew was waiting to come out, spun around, fell down and began crying.

Calvin Johnson did make a play to bring the Lions back to within one score and while they tried on defense those poor bastards couldn't make a play when it counted. Jason Campbell looked like he could have thrown for a million yards if he wanted to. Every time the Redskins threw the ball down the field they were successful and I was left with the distinct impression that Raven was right in his analysis of his team. Jim Zorn is not a particularly good coach and his game management both from a play calling perspective and a time management one were suspect. More plays down the field to Santana Moss would have broken the Lions back long before they actually did and the last drive at the end of the first half was absolutely atrocious. The Redskins continually fucked up and putzed around, eating a lot of time off the clock but the Lions bailed them out again and again by allowing big plays when all they needed was one measly stop to head into the locker room with a 10-3 lead. The Redskins managed a field goal, cutting the lead to 10-6, which did its part by zapping all the life out of Ford Field, but also should have left Redskins fans upset that they couldn't manage a touchdown which the Lions were determined to gift wrap for them. But, this is about the Lions and not the Redskins and so I will let that go. And instead, I will focus on the immediate ennui which set in once that field goal sailed through the uprights.

The Lions stink. That much is obvious, and you should all know by now that such a statement is almost criminal in how little it does to actually describe the futility going on here. Despite all this, they caught a sleepwalking Redskins team and got out to a 10-3 lead. But because of how depressingly putrid the Lions really are any lead is going to come with an inherent sense of fragility. It is like hanging out with your horrible drunk of a friend at a party. Even though he hasn't had anything to drink yet and everyone is having a good time you know it is only a matter of time before someone hands him a beer or a bottle of Jack and when the night ends with him pissing in a house plant or the fish tank or drunkenly groping your other friend's girlfriend, leading to a bunch of drama that nobody wants or needs, you're not gonna remember that for a couple of hours he was on his best behavior. No, you'll remember the black eye he mysteriously acquired at some point in the night and the vomit he left in the backseat of your car and you'll know and understand all too well that it is his nature and any hope that may creep up on you is just a false hope. It is evil, it is cruel, and it will happen every goddamn time.

And sure enough, when the third quarter started the Lions took their first sip of the devil's brew and by the end of the quarter they were getting loud and aggressive, threatening to fight random people and smashing bottles and putting out their cigarettes in the carpet. And then Santana Moss returned that punt, the Lions pissed in the closet and started grabbing random asses. After that, it was over. It just was, and even though the Lions tried to play it straight, said that they were cool and that they were going to maintain, it became obvious that the party was over and the Lions just had to get the fuck out of there before someone got hurt. But still, somehow they managed to walk the line between just drunkenly stupid and full on disaster, getting the ball back with enough time to move down the field. And again, somehow they managed to barely function, moving in fits and starts but when Calvin Johnson was smacked down short of the marker on fourth down by London Fletcher, the Lions finally shit their pants, began bellowing incoherently and had to be dragged out of there so they could sleep it off and live to disappoint us all again another day.

Sadly, there is no rehab for what the Lions are going through. Maybe the best thing is to just let them stay at the party and get the shit kicked out of them over and over again. That might be the only way they learn that they are too fucking miserable to be around. Let them get completely cleaned out and start over again at zero. Look, in my last two posts I have compared the Lions to a retard and the worst kind of drunk. I don't know what else to say. I mean, that shit speaks pretty clearly for itself. I just want to go back to the days when the Lions would get a few drinks in them but could still control themselves. They were fun to hang out with back then. Sure, by the end of the night they would usually do or say something stupid but it was easy to laugh it off because fuck it, we've all been there. But now, shit's just out of hand. My loveable old friend is now just a drunken retard.

Fever Dreams and Pants Shitting

I think I'm getting sick. My throat hurts and when I woke up today I had that dehydrated vaguely hung over feeling, but it hasn't gone away all day. I'm not what I would call sick yet but the signs are definitely there and by Sunday I may feel like complete shit. Which is fine because the sicker I am the less I will give a shit about what the Lions do and if it gets really bad I am hoping that I will just be able to chalk it up to a fever dream. If anybody tries to talk to me about the game I will just nod politely all while thinking to myself that I need to get the fuck out of there. I mean, a fever dream is not something to be shared and if some asshole saw what I saw then that either means that I have to face the horrifying thought that it actually happened or that son of a bitch is a wizard and I'm not real fond of either scenario since each would probably end with me projectile vomiting. Fucking wizards.

Look, I know that Raven says that he doesn't really trust the Redskins and he wants them to score some fucking points before halftime, but I can assure him that this is the game when his boys will break out. So far, Jason Campbell has been good for the Redskins and if you go through the early part of the schedule you will see that just about everyone who has played quarterback against the Lions this year has put up Hall of Fame numbers. They have all been like that asshole who only plays Madden on rookie because he wants to put up ridiculous stats built from 1 play 87 yard drives. That is what the Lions are now, the rookie level in Madden. So, yeah, Jason Campbell by himself is probably enough to eviscerate the Lions but then you throw in Clinton Portis who is running all over fools and the outcome of Sunday's game becomes painfully clear.

Offensively the Lions have one player who is any good. Calvin Johnson may be the Christ child but he is still young and he is still all alone and the Redskins know all this. I expect him to be harassed and beaten until he finally just says fuck it and punches Dan Orlovsky after another failed play. Meanwhile, my man Lennie Small is being pulled yet again in favor of Gosder Cherilus which is just mean. The man is a retard, it is just cruel to keep allowing him the opportunity to run and play one week only to shove him back in his cage the next. Have some class Rod Marinelli. Come on.

Look, the Redskins are going to beat the Lions. Everyone knows this. Which makes Washington's desperate attempts to avoid giving the Lions anything to build off of that much funnier. The Redskins' players and coaches have all been bending over backward in order to compliment the Lions and every time Chris Cooley or Jim Zorn mention how hard they play and how they don't quit it is impossible not to picture the Lions as the retarded kids who get stickers and ribbons just for trying to play. Sure they look ridiculous and they are at least as likely to shit themselves, take their clothes off during the middle of a game or run away crying as they are to do anything right, but they are trying damn it, and everyone will clap for them and cheer them on and yell and scream when they manage to run in the right direction. This is what it has come to, the Lions opponents just pity them at this point and are patting them on the backs and saying "Awww, atta boy, here's a popsicle. Go have fun now!" It is as if the entire team has become a 53 man roster made up entirely of Lennie Smalls, and as much as you know I love my boy Lennie, this is not something I'm all that proud of. But it is what it is, there is nothing I can do about it and so on Sunday, whether I am watching the game with a clear head or whether I am watching through the haze of a fever, I will still be rooting for my big dumb retard of a kid, hoping against hope that maybe this time will be different. But deep down, I just know he's gonna shit his pants again.

Predicted Final Score: Redskins 34, Lions 10, Number of Pants Shit 7

Help Us Calvin Johnson, You're Our Only Hope

I will be honest with you right from the start here. I missed the majority of Sunday's game because my dad called me up and wanted to take me out for a late lunch for my birthday. So, I hung out with the old man for a few hours and basically ignored the fact that there was any football going on at all. And I was fine with this. Of course, I got back home just in time to see the Texans go up 28-10 on the Lions and it is my understanding that the game started out like most of the others have this year, with the Lions spotting the other team three scores before realizing that they were actually in the stadium and not still sitting around jacking off in their hotel rooms. Perhaps I should have hung out with my dad a while longer.

I did see Calvin Johnson turn in a huge play in the fourth quarter though to put the Lions within striking distance. The Lions were stuck at their own goal line and Johnson, with his 4.3 speed flew by the dipshit covering him and hauled in a pass and ran the rest of the way for a ridiculously long touchdown. It was one of those plays resulting from pure talent and it was one of those plays that superstars make when they need to. It was not a play made because of a brilliant scheme or because of a defensive lapse, like so many of those types of plays often are, but it was a play made simply because Calvin Johnson was better than anyone else on the football field. It made me smile and gave me a small bit of hope for the future. Now, we just have to make sure that Calvin stays happy and gets the ball as much as possible. I don't give a fuck if they have to start doing goofy ass shit like lining him up at quarterback and taking a direct snap or using ridiculous double reverses or whatever the fuck they have to do, they need to just give him the ball and let him go make plays. He is the only thing they have going for them and I really, really don't want to see him turn into Roy Williams and just say fuck this shit and quit trying. There have already been signs of this early in the season and the Lions have to do whatever they can to make sure it doesn't mushroom into something ugly and, well, to be honest, Lionesque. The coaches should be forced to draw straws each week to see who has to blow him every day after practice. Fuck, buy him some whores and let them lounge around his locker all week. I don't care. Just keep him happy.

The thing that had me most excited in the football world on Sunday though had nothing to do with the Lions - at least not directly anyway. The Cowboys were fucking abused by the Rams of all teams and not only does that mean that it looks like my hopes that we will see Jerry Jones drunkenly pistol whipping Wade Phillips - pantsless of course - will come true, it means that there's a decent chance that the first round pick the Lions acquired from the Cowboys in the Roy Williams trade will be better than any of us thought. Perhaps if the Cowboys continue to implode and the season does end with Terrell Owns sashaying across his front lawn wearing Tony Romo's skin as a coat, the Lions might actually end up with two high draft picks, and maybe, just maybe, with Matt Millen dead and buried, someone with competence might actually make something of this unexpected boon. I know, I know, it is asking a lot, but it is all I have as a Lions fan and so I will put all my eggs in this admittedly rickety basket. Also on the plus side, Roy Williams didn't do shit against the Rams and I suspect that I will be watching the Cowboys the rest of the season and praying for their demise even more fervently than I normally do. I am sorry Cox, this is what my season has come to.

The Death March Continues

The good news is that the Lions are playing the Houston Texans this week and the Texans kind of suck. The bad news is that the Lions are something that goes beyond sucking. Their own brand of awfulness is something that defies description or name. The Texans appear to be an NFL team, not a very good one, but an NFL team nonetheless. The Lions would get abused by a team from the local YMCA. They are bad in a way that almost cannot be comprehended.

To actually analyze the upcoming game between the two teams would be almost meaningless and an exercise in idiotic folly. Instead, I think it's important to really hammer home how miserable the Lions are as a franchise. After Roy Williams was allowed to escape from hell, these were his fellow receivers' thoughts on the deal: “Good for him, though. He hit the jackpot.” That was from Mike Furrey. "We're going to miss the guy, but hey he's moving on to better things." That was from Calvin Johnson. Can't you just feel the excitement for Lions football? For fuck's sake, it almost feels like even the Lions own players feel like Roy Williams got some sort of call up to the big leagues. Even they know their team is an abomination.

Meanwhile, Jon Kitna is telling anyone who will listen that the Lions are a bunch of dishonest fuckers who used his back injury as a way of getting rid of him, which I said was the case all along. I am not sure how to feel about this. On the one hand, the Lions really have acted like a bunch of slimy assholes here. They look like cowards and liars, too feeble and afraid to actually treat their quarterback with any dignity and respect. On the other hand, that quarterback is Jon Kitna and fuck him. I don't really care how they did it, I am just glad that I won't have to watch and attempt to root for such a notorious Bible thumper who bitches and screams at all his teammates and coaches in the middle of games, usually after he does something dumb. He is dead and he will be forgotten and good riddance.

Of course, that leaves the Lions in the less than capable hands of Dan Orlovsky who can't really throw the ball and makes decisions like casually running out of the back of the end zone giving the other team a safety. SOUNDS LIKE A WINNER TO ME. I don't know what to think anymore. We're caught in that weird area right now where the season isn't over with but everyone is just waiting for next year. The only problem is that this season still isn't even halfway through. We've got a long way to go and the whole time we are going to be stuck in this Twilight Zone of apathy and ennui, and we are going to have to try to root for idiots like Orlovsky, guys who are just thrown in there now because there is nobody else there, but who we know probably won't be around for the post-apocalyptic rebuilding of the team. There is no real reason to be invested in any of this nonsense, but I still can't look away. It is odd as this is still my team and these horrible assholes are wearing the colors that I support. Who am I even rooting for here? What am I even rooting for? It certainly isn't tradition or anything so nobly misguided as that. No, I think it's more just a habit, a sense of obligation that I have, like if I am going to continue to care about football I have to actually have a team out there to care about, and really, rooting for any other team now would just be weird and kind of suspect to be honest. No one likes or trusts those dudes who take up their fandom of a particular team when they are into adulthood. No, you ride with the same assholes you were born with. It is just the way it is.

Really, there are only two things I am looking forward to on Sunday. The first is that my man Lennie Small is getting yet another chance at right tackle. If we are going to suck, and we are, then why not give Lennie a chance? Sure, he is dumb, and sure he cannot be trusted around small animals or girls of any sort, and in the end you are just going to have to kill him both for his own dumbass sake and for the sake of everyone else, but for now, it will be good to let him run and play. It's not like it's going to matter. The other thing is that I have Andre Johnson on my fantasy team so at least I will be able to have some sort of hope that somebody on that damn field will be able to get me a win. It is not much, but it is something I will cling to.

Predicted Final Score: Texans: something, Lions: something else, Me: miserable

The Great Purge Begins

The events of Tuesday felt like the first salvo in the Great War to rebuild Lions football(That is, if you don't count Matt Millen's shitcanning, and I am choosing to forget everything about his terrible reign, including his firing, so...).The big news of course is that Roy Williams is safely ensconced in Dallas now where I would like to think that he would drop a million passes the rest of the season and whine and bitch his way into being pistol whipped by a drunk and pantsless Jerry Jones. Why panstless? Why not? But the truth is now that he is out of Detroit good ol' Roy will probably turn into Michael Irvin minus the coke and the whores.

As much as I have berated Roy Williams on this blog over the last couple of months the simple truth is that the Lions are going to be even worse without him. That's okay I guess, since the move was made for the future and with his contract up at the end of the season Roy would be long gone. The three draft picks the Lions got for him will aid in the rebuilding effort, but the first rounder is likely to be a fairly late one unless the Cowboys completely tank and Jerry Jones drunkenly pistol whips Wade Phillips - again pantsless - while Terrell Owens prances around like Buffalo Bill on his front lawn wearing a coat made from the skin of Tony Romo. But that is unlikely to happen, amazing as it would be, and the Lions will probably be on the lookout for yet another contributor with the pick instead of the star that they need. But hey, two first round picks are better than one so I shouldn't complain and a late first rounder is better than watching Roy Williams dance out of town, laughing maniacally while he wears his own coat made from dollar bills pulled from his new gigantic contract with whatever smitten team would have bagged him.

As for this season, he will probably be replaced by some combination of Shaun McDonald and Mike Furrey and while both have been surprisingly and astoundingly productive in the last two seasons, those hyper-productive seasons came in Mike Martz's pass happy system and while playing in the slot. Neither really is cut out for playing on the outside, and I predict that both will struggle in the new role. Adding to their struggles will be the fact that they will have Dan "I'll just run over here, and...oh shit, a safety" Orlovsky throwing to them the rest of the season. Then again, they might end up with frat boy extraordinaire Drew Stanton tossing them the ball, in which case...well, in which case they will still struggle but I can cackle with glee as that asshole Stanton gets splattered all over Ford Field.

Of course, the reason why the quarterback position is in such dire straits is because that other asshole, Jon Kitna, has finally been taken out behind the barn and shot. The Lions are saying it is a back injury and that Kitna just can't go and thus has been put on injured reserve, but as I have said all along this smacks of bullshit, and Kitna's own comments on the situation seem to back this up. According to him, the Lions told him not to fly to Minnesota with the rest of the team, and since then have essentially stopped talking to him even though he claims he doesn't think he needs to be on injured reserve. This of course is the classic "I'll just stop talking to him/her and hopefully he/she gets the hint" breakup strategy and it leaves me with the hope that the Lions, although classless, have dumped Kitna. Unfortunately, in this case they have left their aging old wife for a couple of crackwhores, but hey, it's a start. Also, yes, the him/her, he/she was in reference to my belief that Kitna is in fact a hermaphrodite.

The future in Detroit begins now, and it's going to be ugly as fuck for a while - a long while in all likelihood, but it is something new and it is something different and for now, all we can do as Lions fans is try to ignore all the shit that's been shoveled onto us over the years and pretend that maybe this time shit will be alright. Of course, if you've read anything else that I've written here you know that is a really fucking hard thing to do. But somehow, I found myself thinking about the future earlier today and wondering if maybe, just maybe, things would be different this time. I know, I know, I am the classic battered wife here, but Goddammit he told me he loved me and that it wouldn't happen again! Of course I know that I will just end up disappointed and disgusted once again but a small part of my brain - the same part that thinks I still might end up a billionaire paleontologist as I planned as a child - believes in the impossible. And let's face it, nothing is more impossible than these shitheads somehow turning things around. But if they do, look for me on the cover of Fortune explaining how I made my first billion examining dinosaur bones. I figure the odds of either happening are roughly the same.

Well, That Happened

The Lions only lost by two points to the Vikings, and they probably would have even won the game were it not for a pair of bogus calls late in the game that basically gifted the game to the Vikings. The defense played inspired football for the most part and managed to get almost constant pressure on Gus Frerotte while keeping Adrian Peterson pretty much in check. That said, in a way, this loss was even more depressing than the others. And the reason is because the Lions tried as hard as they could for the first time this year, played balls out football and still ended up losing.

The offense has gone from hilariously inept to terrifyingly worthless. Before, the offense was marked by laziness and general bitchiness, highlighted by the hysterics of Roy Williams every week and the bitch fits thrown by Jon Kitna from the beginning of each game until the bitter end. Well, Kitna was gone this week. No, I mean seriously, the asshole was too much of a worthless dick to even make the one hour plane trip. Now that's some veteran presence there. The official line is that the team was worried that his back couldn't stand the flight, but I call bullshit. Even if that is true, it just means that Kitna is an old pussy who apparently can't even sit in a chair for an hour. So, either he's a gutless dick who has turned his back on his team, or he is a doddering old shit bag whose back is too bad to even get on a plane. Either way, fuck him, he is done. The only problem is that Dan Orlovsky might be the worst quarterback I've seen start in Detroit. And believe me, that is REALLY saying something. Danny boy's most memorable play on Sunday was when he dropped back to pass out of his own end zone and then inexplicably ran too far backwards, out of the end zone, giving the Vikings a safety. Of course, the Lions only lost by two points, so no harm done really.

It was hard to see these guys actually give a shit for seemingly the first time all season only to lose anyway. I think this bodes extremely unwell for the remainder of the season. It took these assholes five games to even get up enough to play at a level befitting professional football players. Now that they have done so and failed it is hard to believe that they will be able to motivate themselves to care at all.

Look, there simply is not a lot to take away from that muddled mess of a game. Were the Lions better? Yes. At least in some ways. Does it really matter? No. This season is a wretched waste. Everyone knows it, including the players and coaches. Sunday was just their attempt to save a little face and feel some pride. Well, they played hard, they did their part, now they can go back to just riding out this shit storm. Some will hope that at the end they still have a job, but the saddest part is I'm sure that many of them will hope that they do get released or traded or outright fired, because the longer they stay in Detroit, the longer they know that their careers will just spiral down the drain like so many others who have found themselves trapped in the cesspool of Lions football.

Even though this year is a known disaster, the sad reality is that we know that next year will probably be just as bad because anyone with a pulse will not want to set foot in Ford Field wearing the Honolulu Blue and Silver. It will be an expansion team without the hope or enthusiasm that surrounds a new franchise. The Fords have owned this team for over 40 years and in that time the Lions have won one playoff game. One. ONE GODDAMMED GAME. And in all that time there has always been a sense that while things were bad they could potentially get better if one or two things happened the right way. That simply doesn't exist this year. We know that a million different things could break the right way and the Lions will still be bad. This is the lowest point in the Lions long, sorry ass history. This is not a low point like the 49ers are in a low point. This is not a low point like the Cowboys were in during the last days of the Tom Landry regime. Those were lows surrounded by highs. This is a low point in a landscape already below sea level. We are so low now that we might as well be digging towards the earth's core. There are some who will take hope away from Sunday's game. Those people are idiots. The only hope we have is that one day we can get back to hoping that if one or two things go right we might be okay. We are not hoping for a Super Bowl win or hell, even a playoff win. We are hoping for a return to mediocrity, for a time when we could at least fool ourselves into believing that we might have a shot at something more. Basically, we are hoping for a return of Wayne Fontes and Scott Mitchell. And really, that is such a damning enough statement that nothing more needs to be said.

Another Day, Another Disaster

The Lions game plan on Sunday against the Vikings is simple: try to run in a straight line without shitting their pants. Of course this is far too much to ask and so by the time we're halfway through the first quarter, I am sure we will all be treated to the sight of a random Lion (my guess is Jeff Backus - well, this week anyway, because, well, why not?)sitting in a pool of his own feces on the thirty yard line, weeping and slobbering all over himself while whoever the shitburger is playing quarterback lies in a broken heap behind him, his arms gnawed off by a celebrating Jared Allen.

The good news this week is that Jon Kitna is apparently out with a sprained vagina. The official explanation is that his back hurts, which just makes him look like the fossilized old pussy he has become. But I suspect this is just some lame ass cover given to him by the coaches who don't want to admit that Kitna has been publicly executed. I mean, come on you fucks, can't you even do this right? If there was one thing that was going to provide any solace to Lions fans the rest of this horrid year it was going to be the ritual dismemberment and public execution and humiliation of each and every one of these assholes. And Kitna is one of the biggest assholes there is, and we aren't even being allowed the satisfaction of knowing that he has been yanked for being too shitty for even the Lions? This is some serious bullshit. He should be forced to wear Rod Marinelli's diaper - after Rod has spent the game wearing it - and run around Ford Field while the fans pelt him with shit - both literally and figuratively.

To say the Lions have struggled defensively this year is an understatement. In fact they are 32nd out of 32 teams in total defense, and if there were 50 teams they would be 50th, if there were 100, they'd be 100th and so on and so on. This week they face Adrian Peterson, who will likely have time during runs to stop for a smoke break and to fuck a groupie or two before the Lions can even think of tackling him. Apparently, I am supposed to be comforted by the fact that Gus Frerotte is starting at QB for the Vikings. But it should be clear by now that the Vikings could line up a retard with polio and pediatric AIDS and no arms and he would still pass for 300 yards and 4 touchdowns.

Meanwhile, on offense, the Lions have already decided to scrap the no huddle they tried against Chicago, which was ineffective because the team failed to grasp that the point of a no huddle is to work at a fast pace, not allowing the defense time to adjust. Instead the Lions just sort of wandered around the field, presumably gossiping and exchanging recipes in between plays. Of course the no huddle was far too complex a system for Rod Marinelli and company to grasp and so it has been left in the dustbin along with anything else that these cretinous assholes are bewildered by, which is pretty much everything. The official reason for the no huddle being killed? Marinelli thinks that the crowd will be too loud for his dumbass players to handle. Of course, he is right, but still, what an enormous pussy.

If the Lions coaches had any guts they would just say fuck it and start doing crazy shit like, I dunno, putting Calvin Johnson in behind center and running the Wild Hog. Of course it would be a disaster, but at least it would be more interesting than the sad little death march they have going on now. I mean, things have gotten so bad that there is a chance that Drew Henson of all people could end up playing quarterback for them in the coming weeks. Why not see if Ryan Leaf is available while you're at it? My only hope is that this is the week when everything finally explodes and Roy Williams chokes Rod Marinelli on the sidelines, causing Marinelli to flip out and have a 'Nam flashback, followed by him randomly attacking various players and referees until he is sedated and carted off the field in one of those Hannibal Lecter masks. A full scale riot may be the only thing that can save this season. I can only hope, and if I am anything it is an optimist.

Predicted Final Score: Are you kidding me? FUCKING MISERY AND PAIN. LOTS AND LOTS OF PAIN. But for you anal retentive types I will do my best to translate that into an actual numerical prediction: Vikings 78, Lions 3, and hopefully a body count of at least 17.

A Year of Immeasurable Pain

- 4. That's how many total yards the Lions had in the first quarter against the Bears. 38-0. That is how much the Lions have been outscored by in the first quarters of games so far. 80-20. That is how much the Lions have been outscored by in the first half this season. 21-0, 21-0, 21-3, 31-0. That is how far behind the Lions have fallen in each game.

Look, sometimes the numbers don't tell the whole story. Sometimes weird shit happens and it's either not as bad as it looks or not as good. Sadly, in this case, it's actually not as good. No, honestly. As bad as those numbers are, the Lions have been even worse than that so far. In each game they've played in thus far they have been completely and utterly dominated, dominated in a way that even I have never seen them be dominated before. And, if I can remind you for a second, these are the FUCKING LIONS WE ARE TALKING ABOUT. For this to be the nadir of this franchise is really saying something. Not even when they started 0-14 in the beginning of the Matt Millen era were they this bad. I mean, this is apocalyptic. It is almost awesome actually. Their ineptitude is almost perfect in its purity. They can't do anything. Not one goddamn thing.

But the scariest thing of all is that every year, as Lions fans, we tell ourselves that it is the bottom. Every game, we think that this is the bottom, that starting next week they can only get better. But it never happens. There are always deeper and darker places for this team to sink. It is almost inconceivable, but they always do. And so even though right now feels like the absolute bottom of the barrel, I have seen enough of the Lions over the years to know that it could, and probably will, get even worse. I have no idea what that would even entail at this point. I don't know, maybe Ford Field could collapse and kill all 65,000 fans dumb enough to still go to the games. Maybe Old Man Ford could wander onto the field, senile and naked, covered in day old applesauce, Ford the Junior chasing him around with a fistful of baby wipes. Maybe Rod Marinelli's diaper would give out and he would leave a shit trail along the sidelines. I just don't know. But on the field it just doesn't seem like it could get any worse. Jon Kitna and Roy Williams are having a contest to see who can throw the most hissy fits during the middle of games. Calvin Johnson has apparently died. Everyone sucks. Everyone. There has not been one bright spot this entire season. Not one.

On Sunday, the Lions made Kyle Orton look like he was going to ride in on a river of King Cobra straight to the Hall of Fame. I will stand by what I said before and I will say that I am happy for Kyle Orton. The league needs more dudes like him and less like Jon Kitna. I will always believe that. But goddamn, the Lions just rolled over and took it. And then you had that mong Rod Marinelli blathering on at halftime that the team believed in what it was trying to do but they just needed to execute better. Someone should have punched that dumb asshole. Are you kidding me? Nothing is working. Nothing. If ever there was a time to be humble, bite the bullet and say you know what guys, we need to change it up, now is that time. But no, Marinelli will stubbornly ride this team of jackasses straight to an 0-16 season and he will be proud that he did it his way. Fuck that. Old man, get the fuck out of here.

During the game, the announcers were talking about how Marinelli spends all his time in practice working with the defensive line, since he is a defensive line coach after all. Well, shit, that just fills me with tons of confidence. While the team goes down the shitter, Marinelli is content to just sit around and play with his little toy defensive line. It's his baby, and everything else can apparently go to hell. Of course, that defensive line has only produced four measly sacks all season, so not only does Rod suck as a head coach, he is also inept as a position coach. This is all just unfathomable. If anyone but Old Man Ford were the owner Rod Marinelli would be stuffed in an oil drum somewhere.

People are just waiting for this season to end. Everyone is confident that there will be a complete overhaul of the team. All the coaches will be murdered or exiled to Siberia or demoted to the mailroom. Jon Kitna will be forced into the priesthood, and Roy Williams will sign somewhere, anywhere, for pennies on the dollar just to get the fuck out of town. Seriously, Roy looks like he is more desperate to escape than Snake Plissken. John Carpenter should follow him around with a camera and put out Escape from Detroit as a documentary. Rudi Johnson is on a one year deal and he will no doubt go somewhere where he can at least feel safe that his underwear won't be stolen. The defense will likely be overhauled again, especially as the new coaches, whoever they are, purge the team of all of Marinelli's ex-Bucs. It is going to be a bloodbath, and when everything is done, this team will look like an expansion team. Only it will be an expansion team that no one has any enthusiasm or patience for. And the saddest part of all of that is that it is by far the only scenario that Lions fans can even stomach. Seriously, we are all just praying that this whole thing gets blown up. We are rooting for a scorched earth. That's how bad it is here. If, somehow, Rod Marinelli is still the coach here next here I swear to God that Lions fans might kill someone. I'm not even joking. They might march on Ford Field and just burn that fucker to the ground with everyone associated with the team locked inside. It will be like when an army rounds up the towns people and locks them in a church or whatever and burns them all alive.

I just don't know what the rest of this season has in store, other than immeasurable pain. This is a team that has flat out quit. That much is obvious. And the dismantling has already begun. Jon Kitna was taken out of the game in the third quarter on Sunday and was presumably taken back to the locker room and euthanized. And it wasn't because anyone had any hope that his backup, Dan Orlovsky, would be any better. Fuck no. We all know that dude sucks. And on his first possession he almost took a safety and then threw a pick six. Kitna's benching was that rare kind not made for the sake of a team, but because we demanded a sacrifice. He was taken out and shot just because we were too disgusted to even look at him anymore. Fuck this team. Maybe Sunday was the bottom. Maybe that is as bad as it's ever going to get. Maybe. But then again, probably not.

Some Things Change, But Then Again Some Things Never Do

Now that Matt Millen is gone, the rest of the season seems anti-climactic, like the team is just playing out the string so that everyone can be shit canned in the offseason and we can all start anew. And the sad part about that is that it is supposed to represent a step up for this franchise, like if they go 2-14 this season everyone will just say fuck it, it's time to rebuild, ignoring of course the obvious, which is that this is a team that is perpetually rebuilding. It is a strange feeling really around these parts. There is a sense of optimism that hasn't been there in the better part of a decade, but nobody really seems to know what they're optimistic about. There is just the feeling that literally anything is better than the hell of the Matt Millen era and it doesn't even really matter that we lose, as long as that bozo isn't around to fuck things up.

This, of course, is fucking stupid. And I suspect that after this week, fans will even start to miss Matt Millen. Okay, okay, I know that sounds dumb as fuck, but hear me out. The Lions being a shitty team was almost a sideshow to the real issue around here for the last several years, and that was Matt Millen inexplicably still having his job. Every pent up emotion Lions fans had, accumulated from years of suffering, was channeled at Millen. He was a fucking whipping goat, a huge ass goat, and every time the Lions fumbled and fucked around on the field, everyone's anger turned towards that dumb asshole. People grabbed a hold of that shit like a life raft. It became a mantra of sorts for Lions fans: all we needed to do was get rid of Millen and things would get better. Well, now he's gone, and the team is still going to be an abomination. Only now, the fans won't have anyone to turn on. They'll just have this shitty team, and in a way that's more depressing. No one to bitch at, no one to take aim at week after week, no one to point to as the reason why the team just can't get any better, just a bunch of fuckups and assholes playing on Sunday, a team that just plain sucks. And now we just have to face it.

Of course, everyone is curious as to how this shit is going to play out on Sunday. But really, why should we expect anything different? I mean, come on, the same players are there, and the same dipshit coaches who have been so horrible are still there, calling all the plays. In fact, in the last couple of seasons, much of the Lions horrible personnel decisions came from Rod Marinelli. He's the one that wanted to bring in all the former Bucs. He's the one who insisted the Lions trade Shaun Rogers. He's the one who insisted that the team switch to a power running game. And that dumb asshole is still here, so let's not pretend like the Lions are going to come out onto the field on Sunday a new team, ready to whip everyone's ass now that Matt Millen has been murdered.

Of course, there are rumblings that the Lions are going to open the playbook back up against the Bears, which should mean a lot more of the four wide sets which the team has had its only success with this year. Okay, fine. The only problem with this is that Jon Kitna has been fucking horrible this year, and both Roy Williams and Calvin Johnson apparently have some sort of bet going to see who can drop the most balls and cause Kitna to hang himself by midseason. Of course, he won't have to hang himself, since he will likely be dead long before then, a victim both of his own incompetence and that of the atrocious offensive line. Still, this is probably the only chance this shit heap of a team has of staying in the game against the Bears.

Defensively, the apocalypse will likely continue unabated as Matt Forte runs for roughly eleventy billion yards, becoming the latest player to look like a Hall of Famer against the Lions. On the plus side, the Bears have Kyle Orton. But fuck that shit. Kyle Orton is a loveable drunk and although he may suck, against the Lions nobody sucks, and if you can't cheer for a degenerate like Kyle Orton you can go straight to hell. Fuck it, I'm going to outright cheer for Orton to rip shit up against the Lions. I like him better than any of the dumb assholes on my team. Boring ass motherfuckers. I mean, there is a good chance that Orton plays the game hung over, or maybe even still a little drunk from the night before. I will always support that. Anything that puts you in the same discussion with Bobby Layne and Ken Stabler is never a bad thing. Meanwhile, Jon Kitna will probably be coming straight from church or a lynching or from beating the shit out of some poor gay dude after Kitna made him suck his dick or jerk off in front of him or something like that dude in Boogie Nights. Fuck Jon Kitna.

Look, I want the Lions to win. I do. But there is just a listless sense of damnation right now. And I fear the only way to get through this shit storm of a season is to look for stories, real or imagined, and if that means cheering on a drunk over a bible thumping asshole, regardless of which team they play for, then so be it. I don't give a fuck if this is some sort of sport's heresy. I've gotta watch these goddamn games, and I have to find a way to get through them without becoming so drunk that I end up naked in the street pissing on old ladies or something. I spent a lot of years watching every Lions game hung over. It's what happens when your team plays almost every game on Sunday at 1 pm. I think this is the only thing that kept me from getting really fucking drunk during those games. But now I tend to temper my drinking a little bit and usually by the time I go to bed I've already got that shitty headache thing going, which sucks, but at least it means I won't be hung over the next day. Sundays are the one day that I miss that, because it really did make the games easier to take. I just lay there and watched the Lions get the shit kicked out of them and it was easier because I was hung over to just lay back and let whatever happened happen without getting too worked up over it. I don't know. All I know is that I associate watching the Lions with feeling like shit. And the sad part is that even though I can watch them clear headed, without the stink of death surrounding me and the taste of some rot gut horse swill gurgling up in the back of my throat, I still feel miserable when I watch them. I guess my point is that no matter how much things seem to change they just stay the fucking same. I'm in a different place in my life now. I'm a little more mature, a little less prone to behaving like a fucking viking, and maybe less apt to be found puking in my bushes when I stumble home as the sun comes up. For fuck's sake, I'm a vegetarian now. But, on Sundays man, I sit down in front of the TV and no matter how much I've changed, and no matter that I have more blood than alcohol coursing through my veins now, watching the Lions still makes me feel hung over and miserable. It doesn't matter though, because they are my team, and if I would have given up on them it would have happened a loooooooonnnnnnng time ago. Look, I know this a bunch of rambling nonsense, but fuck it, this is what happens when you are a Lions fan. Gibberish becomes a second language. It's the only way to survive. And just because Matt Millen's dead now, it doesn't mean that is going to change anytime soon.

Predicted Final Score: Bears 28, Lions 17