Thanksgiving and Other Bullshit

Rod Marinelli made a big deal before the Thanksgiving day game about how this was the Lions opportunity to show the world something and that they craved the spotlight because it was...you know, to tell you the truth I'm not sure because it was then that Marinelli rambled on about Twinkies and creamy middles and all that ridiculous bullshit. But, in the end the Lions did show the world something, that they were a team that was even worse than most people thought. They are a franchise in freefall, which is sort of ridiculous because it has seemed that way for almost an entire decade, and if we are brutally honest, for the last half century. Which begs the question how much farther can they fall? No matter how deep the descent there are always deeper places, sadder places, unfathomably horrible places for this team to sink. Thursday's game was just another bottom in a history littered with bottoms, and if that history teaches us anything it is that there will be many more bottoms to come. Which is frightening, but that is our reality and so we must face it.

Look, at the end of the day the Lions are the Lions and not a lot is going to change that and what it means, especially not in the near future. But what can change in the immediate future is this Lions tradition of just standing pat and saying "Well, we just need to give it some time." Well, guess what assholes? YOU'VE HAD FIFTY MOTHERFUCKING YEARS. There needs to be some level of accountability here, someone who says "You know what? This shit is beyond broken and we can't fix it from within." It needs somebody who understands that what's needed is a total house cleaning, not just a change in philosophies, but a complete and total reinvention of the franchise from the top on down. We need new leadership in every single area. We need front office people who know how to win, we need coaches who know what they are doing from day one, not positional coaches who might grow into the job because they have the right attitude, whatever the fuck that bullshit is. We need players who don't give a fuck that the Lions are losers, because they are winners and they won't be part of a team that stumbles and bumbles its way through a season. We need more than a change, we need a cleansing, and then when everything is torn down and ruined and broken, we can start over and build something, anything, other than what is there now, because what is there now is broken beyond repair and will never, ever be anything more than a shambling mess.

The Titans killed the Lions. Just fucking killed them. You know it. You all saw it. There's not a lot of need to break down the particulars. That game stands as its own statement, its own snapshot of everything that is the Detroit Lions. It's sad, and it's frustrating but it's also undeniably true. What do you do when that is your team? How do you come back next week for more? Well, you just do, because the funny thing about sports is this: you never really do know. You just don't. You may be right 99% of the time but then that 1% of the time happens and it is exciting as hell. It makes you feel giddy and makes you want to say fuck you to everyone who isn't a fan of your team. The best times are when that happens over the course of a season, like I experienced with the Tigers a couple of years ago. In those seasons, you look back and remember how you thought things would never change and now that they have you just sit back and smile and take the whole thing in. And when they start to fade again you remember what that felt like and you remember that next year is always different, that next week is always different. You never know when things are going to change, when that game will come when it all starts to turn around. You could be 0-12 or you could be 7-4, you could be a perennial loser or you could be a championship team on its last legs. You never know. The Lions could pull some weird shit out next week, fire everybody, finally get their shit together as an organization and stomp the shit out of someone and we'll all be going "Holy shit, where did that come from?" Or they could lose again. And again. Which they likely will, but fuck it man, that's all just the nature of the beast. The good with the bad. That's sports fandom. One makes the other. Otherwise its just hollow bullshit.

I know this a rambling mess of a post, but in between people quitting on their teams and my own team getting the shit stomped out of them, I just want everyone to look at their teams and ask themselves why they care? I mean, there is no good reason in the world to give the slightest fuck about sports. But if you're reading this you do anyway. It's not logical, it's not rational, it just is what it is, and I know that I can't walk away from that. No matter what. Shit happens, people get hurt, people get traded, people are disappointments, but at the end of the day you never know what's going to happen tomorrow. You may think you know, but who the fuck wants to be right? Not to get too hokey, but sports is about the journey man, it's about caring when your team wins because you've been there to see the shit get kicked out of them, and it's about caring when they fall back to earth because you are proud that they are your team and about what they did when they were on top. You suffer through the shit to get back to the top and on the way back down you never stop fighting to get back up there. Sports are dumb as shit, and sports fandom is even dumber, but fuck it, if you're a fan be a fucking fan. Stay there and bitch and moan and get mad about your team. Yell about the coaches, bitch about the owners, but don't just walk away from it and pretend it's not there just because you don't like what's going on. Because when they do start winning again you'll find that you don't identify with them anymore because you won't know them, and when that happens you'll just find yourself shrugging and halfheartedly trying to make yourself care again while everyone else around you is going nuts.

Look, I have barely seen the Lions do anything in my lifetime, but there have been flashes that I remember. I remember the Lions murdering the Cowboys to get their one and only playoff win of the last fifty years. I remember Barry Sanders going apeshit on Monday Night Football. And I know how fun it can be when that happens. I'm not going to quit on the Lions because I know that someday that shit could happen again. I don't see a clear path to that happening, and much of what I write and bitch about is because of that. I don't know how it's going to happen. I don't see it and that is depressing as hell, but it could happen and that's all that matters, even if the odds are ridiculously small. And that's what will always keep me coming back for more.

Thanksgiving with the Lions

The Lions have lost the last four games on Thanksgiving by an average of 20 points, and have lost by double digits in all four of those games. So I think we pretty much know what we're in store for this Thanksgiving, especially since the 0-11 Lions are playing the 10-1 Tennessee Titans.

Every year around this time I cringe because I know what's coming: the Lions will be embarrassed with everyone watching them and in the days leading up to that inevitable defeat there will be hoards of talking heads and braying jackasses on ESPN, on blogs and in newspaper columns screaming about how the Lions shouldn't be automatically given the early Thanksgiving game every year. Which to me is just unspeakably cruel. I mean, come on, what else do Lions fans have? Jesus, you people are fucking animals. We have the shittiest franchise year in and year out in the NFL, virtually every one of our can't miss prospects ends up either being too shitty for even the Lions, playing for somebody else after tanking it with the Lions, or sitting at home smoking weed and playing X-Box after, well, doing the same thing with the Lions. Hello, Charles Rogers! We have one playoff win in the last fifty years and our greatest run of sustained success during that time period came with Wayne Fontes as the head coach and Scott Mitchell as the quarterback. Our offensive line has been in shambles ever since our two best players on the line were paralyzed or killed by a runaway car, and that was more than fifteen years ago! We have a head coach who speaks in nonsensical gibberish, raving this week about twinkies and soft creamy middles after a reporter asked him a question about wanting the spotlight. Perhaps there is a .0000000000000000001% chance that old Rod is some sort of idiot savant, and inside of his seemingly inane babble there lies a gem of stunning genius, but I doubt it. Instead, I think I am pretty safe in making the assumption that Marinelli just forgot where he was and who he was talking to and began rambling about twinkies because Old Man Ford told him that if he held his shit together without pissing and shitting himself during a game he would give him all the twinkies he could handle.

So that's what we are stuck with as Lions fans, that is the twisted, fucked up saga we follow year after year after miserable year and still you want to take away our Thanksgiving game, the one thing that we have to actually be somewhat proud of, the only thing that represents even a whisper of tradition for us. You vicious assholes.

Look, we all know that the Lions are going to lose tomorrow. They just will, and they will likely lose by a lot. But that's hardly the point. You take this away from us and what do we have? Not one damn thing. We're just a free floating disaster of a franchise, rooted in nothing but our own misery and decay. Maybe we were worth something once, back when dudes all still wore hats to work and James Dean was the hot shit, but fuck, that was fifty years ago, and with every year that passes that all seems like something out of some musty old library or museum, barely remembered yellowed news stories buried in the archives. They aren't alive, they don't resonate in any way with us today. They might as well have happened in Narnia or Middle Earth or some other bullshit fairy land. But the Thanksgiving game is the one thing that's still there, the one thing that reminds us that somewhere buried beneath all the shit there's a franchise that still means something. Even if we don't know what it is, even if we can't touch it, can't feel it, can't understand it, it still means something. It's all we have left.

Anyway, as for the actual game, expect the Titans to run right over the Lions defense with both Chris Johnson and LenDale White. The Lions have been especially woeful against the run lately, and the Titans should be able to march right through them with stunning ease and efficiency. Throw in a couple of Kerry Collins touchdown passes following blown coverages by the Lions shitty linebackers and defensive backs and you have the recipe for a Titans scoring binge that the Lions won't be able to even come close to keeping up with.

Offensively, I expect the Lions to struggle even more than they have the last few weeks. The Titans front four, led by Albert Haynesworth and Kyle Vandenbosch, should be able to completely suffocate the Lions run game, leaving the offense in the hands of Daunte Culpepper again, and if Daunte has proven anything since his return it is that given the opportunity he will fuck up and fuck up badly. I expect that Calvin Johnson will be able to get deep for a big play maybe once, but Daunte will throw a couple of picks, probably fumble it at least once, and everyone will go home knowing exactly what they knew before the game: that the Lions are terrible and they are going to be terrible for the rest of the season and that there are no answers on this team or on the sidelines or in the front office. And the more I think about it, the more I realize I was wrong. We don't have just the one tradition left. We have two: Thanksgiving and the Lions being a shambling wreck of a team. If we have to put up with the latter, at least let us keep the former. Oh well, happy Thanksgiving, or Happy Thursday if you are Canadian or European or Martian or whatever.

Predicted Final Score: Titans 38, Lions 14

I Wish I Could Say I was Surprised, But...

17-0. The Lions finally broke through and beat the...oh shit, they lost? Again? 38-20? Oh for fuck's sake.

Only the Lions could lead a team 17-0, gain favorable field position on more than one occasion due to fumbles and mistakes by the other team and still end up losing by 18 points. I mean, every week it is something else, something ridiculous and horrible and unfair and this week it was the Lions looking like they not only were going to win but might actually run away with it only to end up being left naked and beaten on the side of the road, confused and afraid. Again.

The game featured a little bit of everything that has happened this season, from Calvin Johnson looking like a completely unstoppable superbeast to Calvin being inexplicably ignored for long stretches of the game causing even the dumbass announcers to start openly deriding the Lions for not getting him the fucking ball. There was the usual flash of hope which was, as always, overwhelmed in a sea of failure and ineptitude. There was Kevin Smith running the ball effectively only to be taken out of the game plan because once again the Lions had to play catch up. There was Daunte Culpepper making a couple of big throws only to fall apart and throw retarded interceptions later in the game. There was a defense which attacked at times and utterly disappeared at others. There were big plays from the other team which the Lions could never counter, and there was the sight of yet another 108 year old running back effortlessly gliding through the Lions defense. There was Rod Marinelli excited on the sideline and then angry and then depressed and then confused. There was Drew Stanton bounding onto the field just in time to get horribly concussed. And finally, there was the score at the end of the game and there was another Lions loss and there was me laughing and there was me shaking my head and there was me turning off the TV and saying fuck this shit.

Thursday the Lions play again in their annual Thanksgiving game and I will watch again and I will hope that they don't lose and I will start to get irrationally hopeful when it looks like they might have something going and then the game will be over and the Lions will have lost and then it will be on to the next week and then the next week and then the one after that and then the season will be over and every goddamn week the story will be the same. 0-16. We are only five games away and this really does seem like just the team to do it, doesn't it?

You Mean They Still Have to Keep Playing?

It seems cruel to keep making the Lions play the games at this point. Just give the other team the win and let these dipshits stay home and go to shitty costume parties and steal each others drawers or whatever the fuck it is that they do. But no, the Lions have too much of that so called professional pride, enough to show up every week anyway, but apparently not enough to actually pull their shit together and win at least one damn game.

This week the Lions have Tampa Bay, which should be interesting if only because roughly half the Lions roster, their head coach, their defensive coordinator and even their new general manager, Martin Mayhew, are all former Bucs in one way or another. Which if you think about it is just sad. It really paints a picture of a lot of what has gone wrong for the Lions this season - aside from the mistakes and disasters of He Who Shall Not be Named that is. Rod Marinelli is so in love with his old franchise, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, that he has focused all his efforts on emulating them as much as possible, down to bringing in all of their old castoffs and leftovers, in terms of both coaches and personnel. Real coaches, real winners, don't slavishly follow along in the wake of more successful people and teams, hoping to somehow emulate whatever success they may have had. No, they do it on their own. They figure out what works, and what doesn't, and they add their own wrinkles to it, and their own players, ones that they have developed, not plucked from the dumpster of the more successful team. They take those new players and they take their own ideas, and they take those wrinkles that they got from the old and they blend it all together until finally they have something new, something that's theirs, and not some pale copy of a smarter and better coach. And that's one of the key reasons why we are here today, at 0-10, soon to be 0-11. Instead of figuring out how to win and how to inject his own thoughts and ideas into his team, Rod Marinelli is content to just try to make the Lions look as much like the Bucs as possible, and all that has gotten him and all that will continue to get him, is a team that looks and plays like the Junior Varsity version of the Bucs. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if we found out that Marinelli just spends every night sitting at home, alone in only his diaper, watching on an endless loop the footage of the Bucs Super Bowl win, alternating between masturbating and crying until he drifts off to sleep.

Of course, on the other side, the Bucs have a Lions castoff of their own. Jeff Garcia sucked when he was the Lions, and at the time everyone thought that it was just the dénouement to what had been a fine career, the quiet final passage in a tale that was ready to come to a close. But no, it turns out that Garcia was still capable of being a productive NFL quarterback for a playoff caliber team, it was just that shit was so fucked up in Detroit that he, along with everybody else, looked like they were either 100 years old or in way over their heads. Sounds familiar, right? I am sure there will be many more Garcias to come in the upcoming years, guys who seemed like they were done or couldn't hack it in Detroit but who magically come alive elsewhere. But, for this weekend anyway, the only one who really matters is Garcia. I figure it is not only possible, but also extremely likely, that Garcia will have one of those days where he goes something like 35 of 40 for 350 yards and a few TD's. Mostly, it will be one of those dink and dunk fests that the Lions will flail about hopelessly trying to defend, and when the game is over everyone in Detroit will be wondering the same thing: where the fuck was this guy when he was with Detroit? But don't blame him. Blame the Lions, because it is clear that they have the opposite of the Midas Touch. I don't know, call it the Shit Touch.

Offensively, the Lions will likely be a little bit better this week if only because Daunte Culpepper has one more week in the system under his belt. That is not to say that the offense will be good, but there will again be stretches of competence. However, there will also probably be at least a few horrible, game altering mistakes, which coupled with Garcia's steady hand will likely be enough to give the Bucs the win. I know that they have an ancient, over the hill Warrick Dunn running the ball, but as the Lions have so often proved this season, especially the past couple of weeks, just about anyone who has at any time in their career been a legitimate NFL running back can and will run the ball all over their shitty defense. On the other hand, Kevin Smith looked pretty good at running back for the Lions last week against a pretty good defense, but I doubt that it will be enough to counter what the Bucs will be able to throw at the Lions pitiful defense.

The death march continues, I just hope Rod Marinelli has that Super Bowl game footage cued up for those lonely nights once he is unemployed and the Lions are on to their fiftieth fresh start or so of this decade. Perhaps he will be taken back into the arms of his beloved Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They can have him.

Predicted Final Score: Tampa Bay 31, Lions 21

The Detroit Death March

Every time it looks like the Lions are making progress, like they are finally capable of doing at least one thing right, ten other things happen that obliterate all that progress and just make it all seem like some cruel joke being played on Lions fans. Kevin Smith actually had a decent game running the ball and Daunte Culpepper looked pretty good for much of the first half. But then the defense, after a couple of early stops, remembered who they are and let the Panthers run wild on them, exactly the same way that Jacksonville did last week. And then Culpepper remembered that he was retired only a couple of weeks ago and shit the bed late in the fourth quarter.

This game was a weird combination of the last several the Lions have played. They managed to combine the games where they played over their heads, keeping them in it until the end, with the games where they got the shit kicked out of them. They played well in fits and starts, especially early, but as the game moved on, those little bouts of competence became stretched further and further apart and in the spaces between Carolina ran the ball all over them. It didn't matter who was in there, DeAngelo Williams or Jonathan Stewart, the Lions couldn't stop them, and when it came time for the Lions to answer back with a big play of their own Daunte Culpepper did the logical and very Lionesque thing to do and threw the ball right to a Carolina defensive back for a game killing interception. Welcome home Daunte, we're glad to have you, you're going to fit right in.

Of course, this season has become in exercise in absurdity and crushing disappointment and when Daunte threw that interception it was just the latest in a long line of farcical plays this season. If they put out a highlight DVD of this season, they might as well call it Faces of Death: Lions Edition, and it will be hidden in the back rooms of seedier video stores with all the porno flicks. Everyone who rents or buys one will walk out of the room with their head down, afraid and too ashamed to make eye contact with everyone else who wishes they would just get their perverted asses out of the store. I mean, what kind of a monster would want to relive this horror show of a season, this ongoing snuff film of a franchise? Shit, the last game of the season will probably end with Calvin Johnson getting choked to death on live television in a breath play accident while a diaper clad Rod Marinelli panics and tries to dispose of the body.

This shit is so beyond absurd that it has come around to being routine. Dudes running out the back of end zones without a care in the world, guys throwing bewildering interceptions at the worst times, Rod Marinelli pacing the sidelines with that WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED OH GOD I WISH I WAS STILL IN VIETNAM look on his face, Lions players giving morose interviews and quotes about how fucking bad they are, dudes publicly being excited for teammates when they manage to get the fuck out of town. It's all just routine at this point, weekly reminders that the Lions are so bad that the horrific and the nauseatingly bad are just mundane. These guys are fucking abominations and when the season ends they will officially have the worst eight year record in the history of the NFL. That says it all right there.

Can We Just Forfeit the Rest of the Season? Please?

Holy Lord. This game against Carolina looks like it has the serious potential to have Lions fans screaming HEAD FOR THE HILLS ONLY THE STRONG WILL SURVIVE, and that will likely be before halftime.

For starters, the Lions are going to go with Daunte Culpepper again this week. Now, I don't want to say that Daunte looked bad against the Jags last week, but the Lions would have been better off throwing Scott Bakula on the field like in Necessary Roughness. And I don't mean the character either, I mean the actual dude named Scott Bakula. At least it isn't Drew Stanton, although I am sure he will be thrown out there at some point too, just in time to hyperventilate and get murdered and ground into dust by Julius Peppers.

Speaking of Peppers, he should have a field day against the Lions. Not only is he going up against the Culpepper/Stanton Non-Dream Team, he will be lined up across from either Gosder Cherilus or my man Lennie Small. Okay, it will be Cherilus, I just haven't gotten a chance to mention Lennie in a while and it gave me an excuse. But anyway, back to the Peppers/Cherilus match up. This will probably be ugly. Cherilus is known as a better run blocker than pass blocker and this season he has looked about as much like a rookie as a rookie can look. I mean, for fuck's sake, he has even been pulled a time or two in favor of Lennie and as we all know, Lennie is legit retarded. About all Rod Marinelli would say this week about the match up was basically that at least it's later in the season, implying that if this were earlier in the year Peppers would get fourteen sacks and would strut off the field wearing Culpepper's or Stanton's head as a hat. Well thankfully, he will only get six or seven and instead of the head he will be forced to take just their arms which he will then proceed to use to beat them to death.

So, the offense has that going for them. How about the defense? Well, fuck it all, wouldn't you know that the defense is about to get the shit kicked out of them too? Dewayne White is hurt and out for this week. And while the defense has been bad with White in there, whenever he is out the defense goes from bad to apocalyptic. I half expect to see four horsemen glide effortlessly across the field sometime around the third quarter. Behold the pale rider, because these assholes are gonna die.

The Lions have been savaged by a host of inexperienced and/or shitty QB's this season, so of course I am filled with total dread that they are facing a veteran quarterback who has actually piloted his team to a Super Bowl in Jake Delhomme. And, yeah, I know that automatically doesn't mean he is any great shakes. I mean, Sexy Rexy over in Chicago did the same thing a couple of years back, but Delhomme is a hell of a lot better than the Sex Cannon, especially now that he is healthy, and Steve Smith will likely light the Lions secondary on fire on the receiving end of Delhomme's passes. Although, to be honest, I think it is about time Brian Kelly or Leigh Bodden or any of those worthless turds light themselves on fire like those Buddhist monks used to do in Vietnam.

Meanwhile, the Panthers pounding two headed running game will likely be able to walk right through the Lions shitty front seven all game long. The defensive line and linebackers are bad enough as it is, but besides Dewayne White being out, Ernie Sims and Cory Redding are also hobbled and while they should play, neither is 100%. Those are the only three players in the entire front seven worth a damn and with them the Lions are still hideously awful. Can you even imagine how bad it's going to be on Sunday. Jesus. This is going to be horrible.

Of course, the weekly tradition continues of the opposing team and coaches talking about how the Lions aren't really all that bad, just unlucky. This week it is Jake Delhomme giving us the old backhanded compliment. Thanks a lot Jake, it really means a lot. Just one of these weeks I want someone from the other team to be asked about the Lions and then to say something like "Shit, those loser assholes? They still have a team? We're gonna fuck them up so bad they'll have no choice but to just tear Ford Field down and declare it a crime scene. Fuck, I hope we don't get put on trial for war crimes, that's how bad it will be." Just be honest you assholes. This condescending pity party bullshit is just annoying as fuck. Oh well, maybe after the Lions get eviscerated this week that shit will stop. Then again, it will probably just get worse. The players will just start sounding dumber and dumber as they pretend to respect the Lions and the pre-game jackoffs will just get more and more annoying as they slit each other's throats to make the dumbest joke about how much the Lions suck dick. GOOD LORD WHEN WILL IT ALL END???


Predicted Final Score: OH, WHO FUCKING CARES?

Shit's About to Get Dumb

What went wrong on Sunday? Everything. The offense was horrible, the defense was even worse, and there was even a blocked field goal in there just to make sure everyone knew that the Lions failure was total and team wide. From the second pass of the game by Daunte Culpepper, which resulted in an interception, to the Jags basically giving up in the fourth quarter, when they essentially decided to shower the Lions with pity instead of running the score up, it was clear that the Lions are still a long, long way from being truly competitive, a problem when you have yet to win a game and there are only seven left in the season.

So, all that's left is for me to ask the same goddamn question I've asked after every game in this horror show of a season: where do we go from here? It's clear that the Lions have hit the point where they are throwing everything against the wall and seeing what sticks. I mean, who else but a desperate madman would throw Daunte Culpepper out on the field after only three days of practice following an extended layoff due to his retirement? It's kind of astounding that he didn't pass out at halftime. About the only thing he could do was chuck it deep which worked one time on a bomb to Calvin Johnson which led to the Lions first score of the game, but that was it. He couldn't even manage little screen passes, or little roll out dump offs. His timing with the receivers was non-existent and it was clear that he was nowhere near ready. Unfortunately, the only other option was that asshole Drew Stanton.

Now I can't stand Drew Stanton. I think he's a wormy little prick. He looks like a date rapist, or like someone who gets too drunk and ends up getting a little too friendly with one of his frat brothers only to overcompensate for it the next morning by beating up some poor gay dude. I know I'm in the minority here among Lions fans who see Stanton as the plucky hometown underdog who can ignite the Lions with his scrappiness and heart and all that other bullshit that just means you're not good enough. I know everyone wants him to succeed, and maybe I will warm up to him later, but for now his being in the conversation at quarterback just depresses me. Of course, aside from my personal disdain(and okay I will admit it, my irrational disdain, but that is half the fun of being a sports fan, loving and hating rich dudes for no reason at all), there is also the fact that when he came in for Culpepper in the fourth quarter Stanton was not exactly a steadying influence. The dude was sacked five times and he looked like he was hyperventilating in the huddle. Not exactly inspiring.

But even if all the issues at quarterback were worked out and the Lions somehow were able to put someone out there who was on his way to Honolulu the team still would have lost because the defense...oh God the defense. The Jaguars were able to roll off one long, time consuming drive after another, just picking apart the Lions defense like it was some high school team they were scrimmaging against. Both Maurice Jones-Drew-Jones-Drew-Drew-Jones-Whatever and 400 year old Fred Taylor were able to run at will on the Lions shitty front seven and David Garrard was able to sit back and make plays like he was playing catch in the backyard. It was embarrassing and unfathomable how bad the defense looked. I mean, my God, you would think that they would have at least gotten lucky a couple of times, but no, they just flailed about like retards being taught the game for the first time, and the Jags rolled up 38 points in what was essentially three quarters. Had Jack Del Rio not taken pity on the Lions Jacksonville would have hit 50. It was that bad.

And so, where do we go from here? It is past the point of discussion about whether or not these assholes are horrible or not. They are and everyone knows it. Unfortunately the Lions won't even be able to suffer the rest of this apocalypse in relative anonymity, because with each game that they lose they will get more and more attention, and more and more pre-game shows will involve segments with a million jackasses crowing about the Lions being the first team ever to finish 0-16. We have been here before, in year one of the Millen era, and that was just horrible to sit through. If you'll remember that all culminated with Johnny Morton getting all bitchy and telling Jay Leno to kiss his ass on national television after the Lions finally won a game. That was just embarrassing and here we are, not even a decade later and it will only be worse this time. There are roughly a million shitty analysts now working for the networks, and each one of them is going to be falling all over themselves and each other to be able to make the shittiest joke about how bad the Lions are and all of them are going to have their dumbass opinions and blah, blah, blah, blah. It will be horrible and it will happen because the Lions aren't beating anybody. They just aren't. They gave it their best shot the last few weeks, couldn't get it done, and then the bottom fell out completely against Jacksonville. So far this season has been ugly and absurd. The next seven weeks are going to make that look like a Sunday picnic in the park. Shit's about to get dumb.

0-9

What's next, Vinny Testaverde?

Lions fans are approaching this week's game with an incredibly strange mixture of curiosity, hope and wide eyed terror. Dan Orlovsky's thumb has rendered him useless for the next few weeks - well, more than he normally is anyway, leaving the team in the hands of either frat boy asshole Drew Stanton or damaged Ferarri Daunte Culpepper. People are pretty sure that it is going to be Culpepper, which is both scary and hilarious, scary because he has only been in town for a week and has spent most of the season retired, hilarious because, well, this says an awful lot about how terrible Drew Stanton is, doesn't it?

Adding to this pending disaster is the fact that the Lions best offensive lineman, center Dominic Raiola, could miss the game with an injury of his own, something he hasn't done since showing up in Detroit in 2002. So, there is a very good chance that the Lions will go into Sunday's game against Jacksonville with a quarterback who hasn't played all year and has only been practicing with the Lions for a few days taking snaps from a center he has never worked with and who himself hasn't played all year. Yes, Andy McCollum is a veteran, but let's not pretend that this won't result in at least one hilariously botched exchange this week. Oh, and by the way, McCollum also has a finger that's broken in three places. JOY.

So, with all of this, Lions fans are pretty sure that Sunday could be even more apocalyptic than it normally is. But, Culpepper has been a good quarterback before which is something no one else on this team can say, and so Lions fans are hoping that maybe by some miracle, the last few years of his career will just melt away, his knee will finally be right, and his golden cannon of an arm will make Calvin Johnson look like Randy Moss. Images of those explosive Vikings offenses can't help but dance through our heads during these ridiculous and awful times. It's all we have left.

Thankfully, the Lions saving grace might just be the fact that Jacksonville looks like it is descending into chaos and civil war, with rumors that Mike Peterson will be suspended and that the team is only one argument away from Peterson and head coach Jack Del Rio settling things in the Thunderdome. The Jags are only 3-5 this season and it appears that it has finally gotten to them. They are not a team that is used to losing and their implosion might be the one thing that the Lions need to cravenly steal a victory before the season is out. Of course, it won't be because the Lions play particularly well, but we will take what we can get, and if that means Calvin Johnson scampering for a touchdown when the Jacksonville defenders start fighting each other on the field and Jack Del Rio is beaten by everyone on the sideline in a full scale revolt then so be it.

Still, Jacksonville is a much, much better team than the Lions. Sure they lost to the Bengals last week, who up until then had been the Lions only competition for the worst team in the league, but in my opinion that only makes it that much less likely that the Jags lose this week. They may be a huge disappointment, but it is incredibly doubtful that they would lose to the two worst teams in the league back to back. They still have more talent than Detroit and if things calm down just a bit this could be just the game they need to start to right the ship. If they see that and if they understand that then the Lions really don't stand much of a chance. If they are still caught up in petty bickering and civil strife, then there is a chance that the Lions can steal this one. We shall see.

Predicted Final Score: Jacksonville 24, Lions 23

0-8

The game against the Bears on Sunday started out just like most of the other ones this season, with the Lions fucking up and the other team opening up a quick double digit lead. But then a funny thing happened. Dan Orlovsky looked like he was a legitimate NFL quarterback and the defense decided to actually look like they were made up of professional athletes. The Lions outscored Chicago 23-3 the rest of the way and the Lions won the game. Wait. What? That was only the end of the first half? They still had to play the second half? Well fuck.

Once the second half started whatever magical potion the Lions had ingested, whatever pact with Satan they had made, wore off and Dan Orlovsky quickly realized that he was Dan Orlovsky. Meanwhile, the Bears had lost my boy Kyle Orton leading to the New Age of the Sex Cannon, and they still were able to erase the Lions lead and win 27-23. I mean, you can't have a team more where you want them than the Lions had on Sunday. They were up 23-13 at halftime, the Bears starting quarterback, the man who had torched them only a few weeks earlier, was injured and lost for the game, and there was the general sense from Bears fans that the roof had just collapsed. Well, leave it to the Lions to hold up the roof for just long enough for the Bears to squeak out one more win before the inevitable comedy of errors blows up in Chicago.

It's hard to take away anything positive from a game so heartbreaking. It finally seemed like the Lions were ready to pick up that first win of the season but when the game ended with the ball hitting the turf on a failed Hail Mary the progress made in the first half seemed suddenly far away and unreachable. And in a way that made it all that much worse. It was there. It really was. Calvin Johnson looked like a star, the stud that the Lions could lean on in order to have at least a respectable offense, if not an explosive one. Dan Orlovsky looked like he was blossoming from an afterthought soon to be forgotten completely once Daunte Culpepper showed up into a guy who could potentially keep the job for his own, and not just because there was no one else but because he had earned it. Kevin Smith managed to slash forward for enough yardage to keep the defense honest and as for the Lions defense they managed to keep the Bears from doing much of anything following the ugly start to the game. It was all there and then it was gone. And that can be worse than just seeing and accepting the sheer futility that the Lions had shown up to that point. At least then we knew what was going to happen. This time we were allowed to think "Hey, maybe these guys aren't so bad after all" only to be cruelly reminded that yes, they are.

So, where do we go from here? Well, not very far. The Lions will probably show flashes of competency the rest of the season and they may be able to even steal a win or two, but mostly they will sputter when it counts the most and they will lose a few by blowout and they will lose a few like they did against the Bears on Sunday. And through it all, Lions fans will look for stories to keep them interested, semblances of hope and intrigue that they can lean on in order to ride out the season without going completely insane and punching the family dog in the face. We've already got the question of who is going to be back next year and who will be playing and coaching in the Arena League or in prison or dead in a ditch or who the fuck cares, and we've got the further development of Calvin Johnson to watch. But now we've also got the curious case of Daunte Culpepper to keep an eye on.

The Lions just signed the erstwhile retired Culpepper and everyone is curious to see how ready he is to step in and play. Will he be able to start this season? And if so, will he be any good? Really, Culpepper hasn't done anything in four years, not since he exploded with the Vikings for 39 touchdowns in 2004 and led my Fantasy Football team to glory and a championship. And then he hurt his knee and turned into a limping pile of shit and since then he has bounced around conning teams who think that he still has a big arm so why not? But then he gets on the field, does nothing, and everyone remembers that he is washed up. That is why he had to retire at 31 after all, because everyone knew he was done and no one would offer him anything more than a one year deal to show up for training camp and probably get cut. As you can tell I'm really on board with Culpepper.

But the sad part is that Culpepper actually looks good in comparison to the shit heaps the Lions have at quarterback. He is like an old busted ass Ferrari that never runs right and which breaks down if you actually dare to take it out on the highway. You got it cheap from the neighbor who got rid of it after he wrecked it going too fast at two in the morning, drunk and stoned, and his wife made him dump it on you for pennies on the dollar. Now you just stare at it and think if you just get the right parts you might be able to get her as good as new again. Deep in your heart you know it's not going to happen. But you look at your driveway, you see the piece of shit you have been driving and you figure why not? Of course, that fucker is gonna break down on you after you've dumped a bunch of money into it, your wife is gonna scream at you and next year you're going to have to start all over again with either a new car or more likely, a hunk of shit you got for a good deal, and you'll be right back where you started. But fuck it, you've got a Ferrari for now and you are gonna dream big.

And that's what's left for Lions fans this season. We're gonna dream big, conjuring up ridiculous scenarios in which Culpepper returns to glory, Calvin Johnson finds a way to clone himself and the Cowboys lose every game the rest of the season and we get their number one overall pick and select Dick Butkus. That's all we've got.