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.