The Bitter End

So, here we are, two weeks away from infamy. It has been such a train wreck of a season that people are saying shit like "Well, at least Orlovsky is back," which if you think about it is so phenomenally depressing that. . .well, maybe you shouldn't think about it if you are a Lions fan, otherwise your head might end up in the oven. But it's been that kind of a season, the kind where so much goes wrong that even when something does go right, like Jason Hanson having a record setting season at kicker, it is pretty much ignored.

Poor Jason has been with the Lions for his entire career, and if anyone deserves to be rewarded for staying through all the shit it's him. He's always been the one player on the team who Lions fans never had to worry about, which is something that I think everyone probably takes a bit for granted. I wish he was going to Honolulu for the Pro Bowl, and he still might since he is the alternate in case something happens to the dude in front of him, but perhaps it is for the best that this team doesn't get rewarded in any way, so that their shame is total and complete. There are no bright spots when you're 0-14, or 0-15, or 0-. . . well, you know. But still, poor Jason. Poor Jason.

But even that says something about how awful this team truly is, that as the season winds down, the only thing we have to cling to is the Pro Bowl snubbing of a fucking kicker. If that's not desperation, I don't know what is. But, that is where we are, and we must make our peace with that. Of course, before we make our peace with the inevitability of the horrific fate that awaits this team and its fans, we must suffer through two weeks of hell. Merry Christmas.

We begin this weekend by hosting New Orleans, and there are some crazed optimists claiming that the Lions could pull one out this week. These are the words of wild eyed ranters and desperate lunatics however and so we should not pretend like this is something that will actually happen. No, the time has come and gone for this team to rise up and put an end to this horrible nonsense. Now, we must simply deal with the reality that is placed before us.

The Lions can't cover anybody, and the Saints and Drew Brees can throw on virtually everybody. Do the math. At best the Lions will be slowly picked apart until late in the game when the floodgates burst wide open and we are all drowned in that same foul shit water which has washed over us all season long. At worst Brees will throw for 500 yards as he tries to make a run at Dan Marino's single season yardage record, and the game will be over with by the end of the first quarter and security will have to hold back the angry lynch mob known as Lions fans from rushing the field and tearing the place apart and suffocating Rod Marinelli with his own diaper. It will be awful.

Offensively, the Lions should be able to move the ball some. The Saints defense, particularly its pass defense, isn't very good, and the Lions will probably try desperately to get the ball in the hands of Calvin Johnson, which should result in a couple of big plays and a few more points on the board then they normally manage. Unfortunately, while Dan Orlovsky probably won't melt down like Daunte Culpepper inevitably does in every game, he also has a pop gun for an arm and isn't likely to burn the Saints defense deep like Culpepper might. Still, he should have a decent game, but the Lions defense won't be able to stop Brees, and so the Lions only hope is that they can hang with the Saints in a shootout and really, that's not going to happen. The Saints just have too much firepower on offense. It would be a shootout between a guy with a howitzer and a dude with a BB gun and we all know how that shit will turn out.

Hope is a good thing. It is. But there comes a point where hope just makes it all hurt that much worse and we are heading to a place where no one has ever gone before. It is a horrible place, awful and obscene and it will eat the hopeful alive, and so all we can do is prepare, hang on with white knuckled terror and wait for the final blow to be struck. The end begins this weekend, and all that's left to do is show up and take it. That is what it has come to.

Predicted Final Score: Saints 38, Lions 21