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.