Strange Hope and Savage Despair

These are strange times.

Watching the Lions lose sucks. Watching the Lions lose on Thanksgiving is fucking terrible. All Lions fans are used to the team losing with stunning regularity, and while it sucks, there is a feeling of inevitability to it too. As much as we don't want them to lose, we usually expect it. But Thanksgiving is another matter entirely. It's the one day that we hype ourselves up and allow ourselves to believe deep down that we will win because it is our day and we will do something ridiculous or memorable or wear throwback uniforms and end up winning. It happens every year, no matter the circumstance. Even if, during the days leading up to the game, we behave like rational adults and understand that the Lions are unlikely to win - like this year - by the time the game rolls around, our heads are swimming with images of Barry Sanders dancing around and Jerry Ball eating whole turkeys and we throw all sense of reason out the window and we blindly believe. So it only makes it that much worse when the game ends and our dudes are stumbling off the field, beaten yet again.

The Lions lost to the Packers and they lost by a lot. There are those that will tell you that the game was much closer than the final score indicated, and in a sense, those people would be right. The game was competitive, at least according to the scoreboard, into the fourth quarter. There are those, however, who will tell you that the game was even less competitive than the final score indicated, and in a sense, those people would also be right. The Packers absolutely dominated the Lions on both sides of the ball for vast stretches of the game. The Lions couldn't move the ball at all offensively, and the Packers passing game moved the ball down the field with ease virtually the entire game.

So, how did the Lions manage to keep the score reasonably close? Well, this was kind of the definition of the bend but don't break game. The Lions continually allowed the Packers to march down the field, but stiffened just enough to keep them from scoring touchdown after touchdown. It was tough to watch and kind of inspiring at the same time. The Lions kept getting the shit knocked out of them, but they wouldn't quit. That's something that should bring at least a half smile to the face of even the most hardened Lions victim(I should probably say fan, but, well, you know . . .). On the other hand, it's no fun to watch your team hang on for the whole game by the tiniest of threads, knowing that it's only a matter of time before that thing slips completely away and they plummet once again to their doom.

It was an odd mixture of feelings, one that sums up both this season as a whole and the schizophrenic Lions fanbase. We are hopeful but we are sick of losing, proud of the way our dudes keep hanging in there, but we can't stand watching them hang on for dear life only to be cruelly kicked in the face and flung off the side of a cliff. The reactions of Lions fans after the game was also interesting. There was some of the LOL SAME OLD LIONS bullshit, which was swiftly met by a horde of people telling them to fuck off. That shit is old and played out, and most Lions fans are just as sick of that as they are the losing. We want to hope, want to believe that better days are ahead, and most of all we want to think that even though we are still losing right now, that it's different. And it is. It just feels different. I know that's ambiguous and kind of ridiculous and doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it's also very, very true. It's hardy to quantify, and because of that there are people who will tell us all that we are fucking idiots, and yeah, maybe. I don't really care.

Conversely, there are people popping up now who would be entirely too comfortable hanging out with ol' Jim Jones and the Kool-Aid Kids. These are fans who flip out on anybody who dares to say a negative word about the team. This is just fucking dumb. Look, it's okay to hope. It's good to hope. I am with you on that, my dudes and lady dudes. But, it's maddening to have someone refuse to admit that the Lions are still a pretty fucking bad football team. They got whipped up on by the Packers and, hey, that's okay, you know? It wasn't entirely unexpected - Thanksgiving delusions aside - and we'll move on from this. But it still happened, and there's really no point in trying to argue that the Lions could have or should have won the game.

It's all a part of the strange schizophrenia that has sprung up in every area surrounding the Lions. I guarantee you that someone will read this and feel pissed off that I am being too negative. And I guarantee you that someone will read this and feel pissed off that I am being too positive. We are all over the map here, and if you go back and look at all the horseshit I've written over the course of this season - and really, from the moment Jim Schwartz was hired - I think you'll see that I have fallen victim to this weird nonsense as much as everyone else has. We can't help it. It's just a weird season.

Maybe we are all broken, finally shattered by 0-16. Maybe that season was just the culmination of years of too much pain. Maybe we are the weird ones, incapable anymore of handling what is an ordinary shitty Lions season. I don't know. Who really does? All I can say in our defense is that when we see Matthew Stafford playing with a separated shoulder suffered only four days before, or when we see Stafford throwing his fifth touchdown only moments after having his shoulder ground into hamburger, or when we see Stafford throwing for over 400 yards and keep coming back, game after game like the fucking Terminator, that it's all different. It just is. In this fucked up funhouse of a season, where nothing makes sense and everything is distorted, the only thing that truly feels real is Stafford. And for now, for the people who have been paying attention, and for the people who have suffered for so long with turds masquerading as quarterbacks, that's enough.

The numbers don't tell the story with Stafford, just like they don't with this season as a whole. He throws too many interceptions - way too many - and he can be wildly inconsistent, and yet, it's his team. Indisputably. He's 21 years old, and he's the man. There hasn't been a single quarterback in my lifetime who has been that for the Lions. Maybe Scott Mitchell, but even during his one dream season, no one really believed in Mitchell the way that we all seem to do in Stafford.

I kind of hate it when people start blathering on about intangibles, because it's a slippery slope from that to David Eckstein Super White Boy Scrappy-Doo Ol' Plucky Does It The Right Way Let's Throw a Parade For Grit And Wear Wranglers kind of bullshit. So I am trying not to run down that road, but it's hard, man. Right now, Stafford makes me want to do that, makes me want to devolve into a babbling idiot(yeah, okay, shut up), and makes me want to start talking about leadership and toughness and the ridiculous it factor. This is really the first time that a Lions player has made me want to do all that dumb bullshit, and I guess that's enough of an explanation right there for why I think things are different.

The Lions lost again and they will lose for most of the rest of the season. They will have a high draft pick and everyone will laugh and say SAME OLD LIONS SEE WHAT DID I TELL YOU, and, well, ha ha, good one Bob Hope, maybe you can take that one on tour. I, for one, choose to believe in the future, even if that means you all laugh at me and tell me that I am a stupid dickhead. It is important to be realistic, and that will often come with some ugly bullshit, but it's important to have hope too. After all, we are complicated dudes and lady dudes in complicated times, and while simple hope or simple cynicism may be easier, it is also hollow and utterly without merit. The only way to get through this strange wilderness in these strange times is to recognize the bad and embrace the good. We are all weary, we are all beaten and half-mad, but to hell with all that, we are going somewhere. Finally.

Thanksgiving With The Lions

Little did those poor Indians know, but their table cloth was a smallpox blanket. It's okay though, the pilgrims all died of dysentery. Happy Thanksgiving!

It's a short week because of Thanksgiving and that means that I have to skip all the usual midweek bullshit and just dive straight into the preview. The good news is that I am still in a good mood because of Sunday's game against the Browns. The bad news is that Matthew Stafford probably won't play against the Packers and apparently, Calvin Johnson's status is also up in the air.

Thankfully, this game is fairly anonymous, so it's not like anyone will see how bad the Lions are without . . . oh, wait . . . what? Oh. I see. Well, it turns out that everyone will get a chance to see how terrible the Lions are without Stafford and maybe St. Calvin, which is frustrating as all hell because the amount of hackneyed jokes that will be made about the Lions in the next few days increases from a lot to OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD JUST SHUT UP ALREADY.

Yes, it's Thanksgiving and that of course means that the Lions will be playing the early game while everyone is still waiting to eat their Turkeys or Tofurkeys or Turduckens or Turd Chickens or whatever the fuck all that bullshit is. And, like always, everyone will probably groan and bitch and moan and wonder why the Lions get to play on Thanksgiving every year. And, just like last year, I would like to take this opportunity to tell those people to fuck off. Thanksgiving football is our tradition. It's the one thing that we as Lions fans have to feel proud about. It's the only thing that keeps us from being the fucking Cardinals or some shitty franchise like that. Perhaps that is a bad comparison coming off of the Cardinals' Super Bowl appearance, but really, that just slams home the importance of Thanksgiving for us. Even shitty franchises occasionally get to make it all the way to the Super Bowl. But not us. No. This is all we have, one miserable Thursday every year.

So, when you heartless barbarians and heathen savages start railing against the Lions playing on Thanksgiving another year, just remember all that. Afterwards, when you sit down to eat, and you are all blathering on about what you are thankful for, remember to be thankful that you don't have to put up with all this bullshit every year. It's not fun to have your team be a perennial national joke. It sucks. And Thanksgiving just happens to be the day when all these Henny Youngman dickheads blow the dust off of their shitty old joke books and laugh their fat faces off. Jay Leno will do his annual Lions suck joke, the retirees and retards in his audience will laugh and won't you all feel so much better? If the Indians and Pilgrims knew this shit would go down every year they would have just dispensed with the pleasantries and gotten on with the genocide.

Okay, enough bitterness, there is a game to be played. Unfortunately, like I said earlier, that game is likely to be played without Matthew Stafford. That means that Daunte Culpepper will get the start, and, well . . . yeah, by now you all should know how I feel about Culpepper. Somehow, I don't see a 5 touchdown performance on the horizon for him. Culpepper is so synonymous with failure that a part of me would rather see Drew Stanton out there instead. And you all know how I feel about Ol' Plucky.

Obviously, the Lions passing attack will suffer without Stafford. This sucks because the Lions can't really run the football right now either. It's become increasingly apparent that Kevin Smith isn't very good right now. I'm not sure whether it's because he's hurt or because the Lions offensive line is just that terrible or because he's simply not that good. Regardless of the reason, he is struggling and without Matthew Stafford there to keep defenses from keying on the run, Smith is likely to struggle yet again.

It's not all bad news, I suppose. I mean, the Packers are without Aaron Kampman and Al Harris, both out for the year. I think the Kampman loss looks a little worse than it is for the Packers. They switched to a 3-4 this year, and Kampman hasn't been as effective as an outside linebacker than as a defensive end. He's kind of an ill fit for their new defense, and while he has still been able to get to the quarterback on occasion, he is not the every down pass rushing terror that he was at end. Rookie Brad Jones played for Kampman when Kampman missed the game against the Cowboys a couple of weeks ago and he did well. It wouldn't be shocking to me if the Packers defense was actually better with Jones in the lineup. That's not to disparage Kampman in any way, who is a far better player than Jones. It's just that Jones might fit the new scheme better. Of course, it's also possible - hell, incredibly likely - that I am just talking out of my ass here. It wouldn't be the first time, but what the hell, we are all gentlemen and lady gentlemen here and we can overlook such things from time to time.

The Al Harris loss is probably a tad more significant. This will probably only be the case if St. Calvin plays. If he doesn't, then it probably won't matter who the Packers have in the secondary because Daunte Culpepper and the rest of Detroit's shitty receivers will likely die in a firestorm of incompetence anyway.

Defensively, you know the drill by now. Even though the win against the Browns was awesome and magical and infused with the blood of a million fairies and the sperm of a leprechaun and all that goofy shit, the defense was still terrible. They couldn't stop the Browns, and the Browns are considered one of the worst offensive teams of ALL TIME. Yeah. That about sums it up.

Meanwhile, every time that Aaron Rodgers has played the Lions, he has rained down death from above, and with the members of Detroit's defense dropping like they were on the last leg of The Trail of Tears(I normally would have said Bataan Death March here, but it is Thanksgiving and I believe in remembering the trials and tribulations of our Indian brothers), it is exceedingly likely that Rodgers will have another career game.

I do expect the Lions front seven to fairly effectively shut down the Green Bay rushing attack but that means little when Greg Jennings, Donald Driver, Jermichael Finley, James Lofton, Sterling Sharpe, some fat guy with a cheese head on, and Robin Yount are running free down the field while Aaron Bart Favre Starr Rodgers drops passes gently into their hands all day long.

Yeah, it's probably going to be a long game, terrible and ugly, and when it is done, millions of people around the country will turn off the TV, shake their heads and think "same old Lions." That is immensely frustrating given the situation, but what the hell, to everyone else the Lions will always be a joke, an easy punchline fired off by lazy assholes and stupid degenerates, and really, we cannot concern ourselves with such nonsense. It is not easy being a Lions fan, and sometimes Thanksgiving makes it that much harder. But it's also awesome, a point of pride for all Lions fans, and what little we have to be proud of we must grab and squeeze tight. I love watching the Lions on Thanksgiving. That may be because I am a glutton for punishment and quite possibly mildly insane, but to hell with all that, it is a strange world and to survive sometimes you must be a strange man.

FIVE PREDICTIONS

1. Daunte Culpepper starts and throws for 205 yards on 18-37 passing. He throws one touchdown, does his stupid dance and then throws three interceptions. Charles Woodson takes one back for a touchdown and Daunte is donated by the state of Michigan to the people of Minnesota who have him bronzed and then dumped into one of their billions of lakes.

2. Kevin Smith gets plenty of work but is largely ineffective, rushing for 80 yards on 25 carries. Throughout the game, the announcers will talk about how the Lions think he is something special.

3. Calvin Johnson plays but doesn't find a rhythm with Culpepper. He catches just 3 passes for 32 yards and then has flashbacks to his days at Georgia Tech with Reggie Ball, which causes him to break down in tears on the sideline. He may be the model for Superman and Dr. Manhattan, but deep down, he is also just a man, and he has feelings too you jackals.

4. Aaron Rodgers throws for 1,485 yards and 5 touchdowns. He then calls his senator and tries to get legislation passed that would allow him to play the Lions every week. It passes the house but is filibustered in the Senate by Carl Levin, who is always looking out for us.

5. Jay Leno makes a joke about the Lions being a bunch of turkeys and is showered with granny panties and dentures. Still trying to compete with David Letterman, he allows a sex tape of him with his harem of 70 year old Iowa housewives to be leaked. When asked what this has to do with football, I shrug and say fuck if I know.

PREDICTED FINAL SCORE: Packers 31, Lions 17

What Is This Strange Emotion?

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Sportsgasm

Things like that don't happen to the Detroit Lions. They don't get those kinds of breaks. They don't win on last second miracles. They don't have the kind of leadership, the kind of quarterback, to keep clawing away long after they have been beaten and left for dead, their shoulders ripped apart and their hopes shattered. They don't get their Hail Mary's answered and they don't get to celebrate wildly at the ends of games while their fans jump up and down, high five complete strangers and scream idiot gibberish at the television, speaking in some wild tongue born out of both shock and joy. These things do not happen. Not to the Lions, not to us.

They did today. No matter what happened yesterday and no matter what happens tomorrow, they did today.

I might post something else later. I might not. For right now, I just want to smile like a retard.

They'll Win. They Have To . . . Right?

I am a hypercompetitive son of a bitch. It doesn't matter what I'm doing, I want to win. I would probably bean a six year old in a family softball game if I thought it gave my side the best chance to win. It is terrible but it is just the way it is. So you can imagine what being a fan of the Lions is like.

This week, the Lions play the Browns and I am excited because the Browns are fucking terrible. Now, a lot of people would get all high and mighty here and start yammering on about how it doesn't mean anything to beat a terrible team, blah blah blah, but fuck all that dumb noise. I would cheer and celebrate like a jackass if the Lions wailed on a team of legless half-retarded midgets. It wouldn't be pretty and you would find the whole ordeal reprehensible, but these are savage times and we cannot afford to be merciful to the weak and the stupid.

Of course, no one has been weaker or more stupid than the Lions have been for the last decade, so no one really has any reason to complain if we bash those waterbrained skulls in on Sunday. If the Browns are a team of legless half-retarded midgets, then the Lions are a team of armless, legless, fully retarded midgets. There is no honor here, no glory, just a bunch of shameful slap fighting that will end probably being embarrassing for both sides. But to hell with all that, somebody must win and we cannot afford to revel in the world of the prideful, because we are shorn of pride and bereft of dignity. We are in the muck, and we must drown everyone else stuck down here with us. It is horrible, it is vaguely obscene, but who cares? These are the things that we must do to slowly crawl out onto dry land.

We had one opportunity already, against the shittastic Rams, and we completely fucked that up, so this game isn't exactly a gimme. There will be all sorts of jokes about this being the Shitbowl or whatever, but this is what we are left with and we must drown our opponent in the toilet and suffocate him in the shit water or else he will do the same to us. It is ugly and it is wrong and it smells but we must be ruthless and terrible and without mercy.

The Lions have to win this game. There is no point in beating around that particular bush. If they lose, then it's 1-15 and a river of blood and tears. If they win, well . . . it's still pretty bad, but at least we won't be the shittiest team in the league. Progress! Furthermore, the Lions should win this game. I have only had one other opportunity to utter that sentence and the Lions fucked that game up, so who knows? Still, I would like to think that the word favored means something here.

The Browns are an atrocious team, just an abomination of a franchise with the stink of the circus all over them. They are this year's Lions, a franchise on the verge of utter collapse, with a fanbase that has degenerated into a bunch of feral werewolves, howling for blood, and a coach who seems completely overwhelmed by the whole debacle. It's a terrible scene, one that's impossible to escape from. It's a cyclone of failure that just sucks everyone inside and doesn't let them out until they are a thousand miles away from where they started and everyone's homes and cars are destroyed, their cows are mutilated and impaled on fence posts and there are gibbering lunatics crawling through the streets, naked and afraid, bleeding and bleating. The only humane, merciful thing you can do is put your boot on their already fractured skulls and stomp down as hard as you can. It is terrible and it is haunting, but, man, that is just not a place you want to be.

Who knows when that moment will come for the Browns? Some stranger will come along and put the final bullet or boot in their brain and then everyone can start to rebuild. It's probably a ways off still. Right now, they are still stuck somewhere in the middle of that horrible cyclone, and they don't know when they will be violently deposited into the street to be mercy killed. The only thing the Lions can do is to put their head down, dive into the cyclone, slap the Browns around a bit and get the fuck out.

The Lions have been there before. They know. They get it. There are some people in this world who would think that would inspire mercy and understanding. That is all bullshit. If anything, it should inspire righteous anger. Fuck the Browns for being there to remind us all of what went on last year. No one needs to remember that shit so vividly. The Lions should be enraged by having to confront the circus one more time. I hope they have it in them to burn all the tents down and lynch all the clowns. Shoot the ringmaster and pistol whip the elephants. This is not the time for mercy. This is the time to strike back at the fear and the terror that we all remember from last season. And after you're done, steal the clown car and speed the fuck out of there.

Things are so bad in Cleveland right now that Eric Mangini, the genius behind all this madness, has openly appealed for LeBron James to join the team. How fucking ridiculous is that? Why not get Shaquille O'Neal to play left tackle while you're at it? He's 900 pounds. He'll protect the shit out of your quarterback. And hell, you need a quarterback too. Call the Indians, see if they have a pitcher available. At least they'll have a good arm.

Good Lord. The only thing the Browns have going for them offensively is Joshua Cribbs and his neck is all fucked up and he hasn't been able to practice this week. Well, so much for that, I suppose. They are also struggling with injury along the offensive line, as tackle John St. Clair is questionable with a bum shoulder. That wouldn't be a huge issue if it wasn't for the fact that the Browns HAVE NO BACKUP TACKLES. I mean, holy shit, really? How do you get yourself in that position? Shit, maybe they will call Shaq after all.

Of course, they still have the golden arm of Brady Quinn to lean on. Wait, that's not gold, his arm is just covered in piss. My mistake. Quinn is just awful but it's not like they can replace him. They tried that shit already and it led to Derek Anderson being somehow EVEN WORSE. GOOD LORD! What a shit storm. Things are so bad that Eric Steinbach was forced to bust out the I'M NOT WORRIED AFTER ALL WE'RE ALL PROFESSIONALS sound bite, which is code for THIS THING IS FUCKED AND NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING. Remember, Lions fans have extreme experience with these sorts of things. We are professional losers, after all.

Defensively, the Browns aren't quite as hapless, but they could give up 45 points a game and that would still be the case. They've only held opponents to under 20 points twice all season. The first time was against Buffalo, whose offense is the only one on the planet almost as bad as Cleveland's. The second time was against Baltimore just this past Monday night. They only gave up 16 points, but it was enough to make them lose by 16 points. Not good.

Our old friend Shaun Rogers should be able to clog the middle and keep Kevin Smith from running wild - if he gives a fuck anyway. That's not always the case with Rogers as we all know and not so fondly remember. Meanwhile, Matthew Stafford should be able to throw the ball on Cleveland's defense, and Calvin Johnson has a definite advantage over cornerback Eric Wright.

This game will be ugly as fuck and everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves. But someone has to win, and it might as well be the Lions. Then again, the Lions were routed in the preseason by the Browns. Thankfully, as we have come to know and resent, the preseason is absolutely fucking meaningless. The Lions should win. Fuck it, I am saying they will win. If they lose, then MY GOD. It will be howling in the streets and Drano smoothies for everyone.

FIVE PREDICTIONS

1. Matthew Stafford will have a big game, throwing the ball 40 times, completing 28 passes for 300 yards and 3 touchdowns. He won't throw an interception for the second game in a row. After the game, Brady Quinn will charge him in a jealous rage, only to trip over his own feet. He will lay sobbing on the field while his own teammates ignore him.

2. Kevin Smith will have a middling day, rushing for 70 yards on 20 carries. His backups will have a slightly better day in terms of yards per carry and I will once again fret and moan about Smith as the feature back.

3. Calvin Johnson will have a huge game, catching 12 passes for 155 yards and two touchdowns. Bold? Crazy? Maybe both? Who cares? Who are any of you mere mortals to doubt St. Calvin? The dude can travel through time.

4. Brady Quinn will throw for 75 yards even against the terrible Lions secondary and after picking himself up off the field following his sobfest, he will be dumped into Lake Erie, causing the Browns to be fined for improperly disposing of toxic waste.

5. After the game, Eric Mangini will try desperately to convince Jim Brown to come out of retirement. Brown will slap Mangini around and Mangini will be forced to sign Maurice Clarett instead.

PREDICTED FINAL SCORE: Lions 31, Browns 10

Inane Observations and Stupid Gibberish

WAIT . . . HE MISSED IT?

I don't think most Lions fans realize how ridiculously spoiled they are to have someone like Jason Hanson as the kicker. He has been absurdly good throughout his career and even at the age of 168, he managed to have an all-time great season last year when the rest of the world was burning. Seriously, he was 8-8 on field goals longer than 50 yards, an NFL record, and he only missed one field goal all year, and that one was blocked. So, every kick he managed to get off was good. That's remarkable for a man whose primary meal staples are probably apple sauce and Metamucil.

Hanson hasn't been quite as good this year, missing three kicks, and every time he has missed it has produced the same reaction, from the fans to Hanson himself: "What the fuck?" That shit just isn't supposed to happen. The worst part is when they show Jim Schwartz immediately after and he is standing on the sideline with that cliched "Fucking kickers" look that every coach has. Normally, everyone would agree and be all "Yeah, fuck that bum," but this is Jason Hanson, man. Everyone loves Hanson. He is the village elder who has been through all the plagues and all the wars. He has seen things. If anything, he should look at the rest of the team with that disgusted grimace and scream FUCKING LIONS. He is beyond criticism.

IT HELPS TO CATCH THE BALL

Matthew Stafford is a rookie. Matthew Stafford also has a ridiculously strong arm. Matthew Stafford needs his receivers to help him out by catching the ball. His receivers can't catch the ball because they A.) Don't have a decent sense of timing developed with Stafford yet. B.)Can't handle a ball thrown a billion miles per hour. C.)They suck. D.)All of the above.

It is endlessly frustrating to see Matthew Stafford try to get into a rhythm, make the right reads, and then watch time and time again as his receivers fuck everything up. There was one play against the Vikings, when the Lions were driving for a touchdown, when Stafford came under heavy pressure, managed to scramble away and then threw an absolute rocket to a spot where only his receiver could catch the ball. The receiver dropped it. It was a brilliant play and a brilliant pass by Stafford. Sure, the ball was tailing out of bounds and it would have required a decent catch, but that was literally the only place where he could throw it that would give the receiver a chance. It was a perfect throw. Some people don't understand this and think that it was inaccurate, but that was a clear cut example of Stafford making a play that most other dudes can't make. From the presence in the pocket to avoid a sack, to the athleticism needed to scramble out of the pocket, to the absolute strike to a tiny, tiny target while throwing on the run, the play amply demonstrated why Stafford was the number one overall pick.

Unfortunately, the pass was dropped. Stafford is a lot like, wait for it . . . yes, Brett Favre, in that his passes will break fingers and take dudes by surprise. That, along with the timing issue, should resolve itself once Stafford and his receivers get used to one another. And as the talent level aside from St. Calvin increases at the receiver position, you'll see those sorts of passes being completed with regularity.

YOU SHOULD, UH, PROBABLY GO FOR IT THERE

A lot of people probably won't agree with me, but what the hell, these are savage times and we can't always be friends. Anyway, there was a point early in the fourth quarter when the Lions were down 24-10 and had a 4th and 6 near their own 40. They lined up to punt, and yeah, good call, but then a Viking jumped offsides(yeah, it was an actual Viking, he had an axe and everything . . . I . . . I'm sorry, that was awful). That made it 4th and 1. Hmmm. Sure, there was quite a bit of time left, but the Lions were down by two scores in the 4th quarter, the ball was basically at midfield, and they really needed to score to stay in a game that they really didn't have any right to be in. They should have gone for it, but Jim Schwartz elected to punt, the Vikings kicked a field goal and the game was effectively over.

It seems fairly obvious to me that Jim Schwartz is the type of coach who wants to have an ass-kicking defense and an offense that can make enough plays to get the job done. After all, he was weaned under Jeff Fisher, so you can understand that his end-goal is to get the Lions looking like the most successful of those Titans teams. It's not a bad vision to have. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a good, or even mildly decent, defense, and he can't really afford to play it so conservatively. This has bugged me on several occasions this season already. I have not been a fan of how the Lions have managed the clock on drives near the end of the first half a couple of times, and their lack of aggressiveness in general has been a disappointment.

The Lions don't have the talent that other teams do. They just don't, and when that's the case, you need to take advantage of every opportunity that you get to get something done. You need to push for the endzone instead of settling for a field goal at the end of a half, you need to go for it on 4th and 1 a little more than you normally would, you need to take advantage of the little opportunities that you get throughout the game. It's really the only way to subvert the talent deficiency the Lions face every week.

Okay, yeah, I understand that Jim Schwartz is who he is and he's going to coach this team the same way whether they are talentless or talent-rich. In a sense, that is commendable. It shows that he has faith in what he does, and hooray for that. But, remember, it's a slippery slope from that to "But he's a good man," Marinelli. And no one wants that shit again. At some point, a good coach has to recognize what he has and adjust accordingly. Otherwise, you just look stubborn and foolish.

I am mildly disappointed in Schwartz in general. I still think he's a good coach, but there have been a lot of frustrating little things like what I detailed above that have kind of taken the bloom off the rose a little bit. Perhaps this is because my expectations for Schwartz were a little too high - I mean, come on, of course they were. I along with everyone else was basically composing sonnets to the dude before he even coached a game. But, the thing is, is the reason why I was so excited was not because I thought he was a good solid football coach who believed in fundamentals, but because he seemed like the sort of dude who understood the mathematics of football - chess master, Georgetown, blah blah blah - and would be the sort of dude who would understand that it's in your best interests to go for it on 4th and 1 from your own 40 down two scores in the fourth quarter. It's not so much that I am disappointed that Schwartz is too rigid in his philosophy but that this isn't his philosophy to begin with if that makes any sense. This is where I figured his other mentor, Bill Belichick, would have hopefully influenced him. And yeah, yeah, yeah, everyone is all over Belichick's ass for the call against the Colts, but really, the percentages actually say that it was the right call. And the thing is, is that the Lions were already down by two touchdowns. What did they really have to lose by going for it there?

WELL THIS IS AWKWARD

Anyone who has followed my gibberish at all here knows that I am a fan of Ernie Sims. Along with St. Calvin, he is the dude about whom I have written the most ridiculous and weird bullshit. Hell, I think I talk about his monkey more than I do just about any other player. That is why this is so awkward.

You see, Sims tore up his hamstring and is out for most of the rest of the season. This sucks because, well, because it's Ernie Sims and he is my dude. The thing is, is that his replacement, DeAndre Levy, is probably better than he is right now. It pains me to say that, but Sims just hasn't gotten his shit together. He's still an unguided missile that runs himself out of plays and out of position way too often. Meanwhile, Levy has arguably been the Lions best linebacker when he's been on the field. I am so conflicted. I mean, on the one hand, of course I am happy that the Lions finally found a steal in the middle of the draft. On the other hand, this is all coming at the expense of The Lizard King, Cinnabon Sims, and that shit makes me sad.

I mean, I lean on Sims a lot around here. I need his menagerie of wild beasts. I need his monkey. I don't know what I will do if I lose them. Perhaps my posts will get a little less weird, but that would be a sad day. When Ernie comes back, hopefully the team will do the right thing and keep him around. I don't know, move him to the other outside linebacker spot and make Julian Peterson a rush end. Hell, I am desperate here. Make him the fucking punter, I don't care. I NEED ERNIE SIMS AND I NEED HIS MONKEY. If Sims has to go, hire his monkey as a janitor. I don't give a fuck, these are desperate times and this is a loss we cannot afford. I go through a lot of shit as a fan of this team, at least give me this. I may be a robot, but I am an advanced model with feelings and I dream of electric monkeys. Please?

Fun Fun Fun!!!

I am in a bad mood.

I lived through 0-16, and as terrible as that fiasco was, there was an air of unreality around the whole damn thing. Every week, I would write some freaked out gibberish about how the Lions were never going to win and there was no hope. The whole thing was like some sort of ghoulish circus, with fucked up clowns and freaks, dudes with hands for legs and asses for heads, bearded ladies and bearded clowns with asses for heads. It was awful, just a terrible thing, but it was also strangely surreal, and because of that it was at least interesting.

This season though feels very much like it does every time I look out the window. It's bleak, gray and cold, and some poor son of a bitch is going to freeze to death in a building again in downtown Detroit and a nation will shake its head and think what next? What next, indeed. I keep gibbering on about hope on the horizon and about how the pieces are starting to be put in place, but after a while all that noise just starts to sound like a parody of true belief. Every week that goes by, and with every new loss, it seems like I scream louder about hope and start banging some mythical drum of redemption in order to justify my fandom, but fuck all that, I am sick of doing it. The Lions are my team, and I will continue to hope for the best, and I truly believe that there is hope somewhere on the horizon, but it just feels like I am groping blindly for meaning in a season that really has none.

Oh sure, it's giving Matthew Stafford precious experience, but even that feels like something of a debacle. His injury threw everything off, and with everyone else taking a visit to the medical tent and having their broken limbs hacksawed off by weary and cynical doctors, no sense of rhythm or flow can be established and all we're left with are a series of games that cause us to throw up our hands and say shit like "Well that one didn't really mean anything because it wasn't a true representation of what this team can be or will be in the future." Well, that's just great. Hope is awesome. Hooray for hope. The thing is, is that in the end, all we're left with is a string of games that no one really gives a fuck about. They are just exercises in the macabre. Our dudes run out onto the field, half of them get hurt, they lose and then we all moan and tear our hair out and viciously turn on one another. It's a miserable cycle of stupid misery.

I want my team to win. That's it. Hope is awesome and good and I believe in the future and all that nonsense, but right now, I am just tired and I am sick of watching my favorite team lose every fucking week. I've watched it happen every week but one for the last two seasons, and really, I have watched it almost every week for the last decade. It's an awful thing, and maybe I have finally just hit my breaking point. We are all tired, we are all beaten and we are all sick of the utter misery which just never ends. Being a Lions fan can be tough, and some days are tougher than others. Today is one of those days.

But fuck all that. There is still football being played, and there is still something to root for each week. It's just getting harder and harder to find a point in any of it for this season, that's all. So, I think from now on, for the rest of the season, I am going to put the future on hold. It will play out however it plays out. I'm hopeful that it will play out in a good way. But this season is this season and like I said, I am sick of the losing. I may turn into an epic dick at times. Just know that beneath it all, I am hopeful and believe that something better lies on the horizon. I am just sick of talking about it is all.

Anyway, the Lions lost against the Vikings. Again. If this is surprising to you, then you are likely a great fool, and I apologize for your unfortunate condition. I'm not criticizing anyone or anything. I mean, I picked the Lions to win in my post before the game after all. It was stupid and utterly without reason or merit. It was, I suppose, my last gasp of hope for this season. It was a defiant fuck you to the realities of the situation, which are dreadful. I knew the Lions were going to lose, but I just shrugged my shoulders, said fuck it and laughed in the face of the failure demon while he ran me through with a sword made of cobras and razor blades. I said these are the things you must do from time to time to survive as a Lions fan and I meant it.

Unfortunately, sometimes you also must throw in the towel and turn savage. This is when my fandom turns feral and ugly and I start yammering on about escaped vampire apes and knuckle dragging werewolves on PCP. Do not judge me, for I have seen the belly of this beast and he is awful and utterly without mercy. Oh, the horror, the horror.

I'm not sure exactly when this season broke me. There was no real defining moment in the game against the Vikings that did it, or anything. I mean, there were ample opportunities - Adrian Peterson breaking yet another tackle, Brett Favre raining down fire to the waiting hands of Sidney Rice, any Lions receiver dropping a pass, etc. - but I think it was something that has been building with creeping dread for a while now. Maybe it started in the game against the Packers or maybe it wasn't until the Rams game. I don't know, but it has been coming on and I have been valiantly and stupidly trying to fight it. Hell, it might have never really gone away. This could still be carry over from last year, which was just a carry over from the rest of this ridiculous decade spent lost in the wilderness. Who knows? Trying to figure this shit out is a fool's game and will leave you delirious and staring down a terrifying rabbit hole filled with ghouls and flesh eating robots and clowns with asses for faces and oh Lord, it has been so long.

Even the strongest of us get broken sometimes, and it will lead to wild gibberish and idiot ranting. These things happen and we cannot look away for they are our terrible reality. This season is in flames, and although someone, somewhere probably has a fire extinguisher, he is a long way off, and for now, all we can do is dance in the flames and hope that we don't get burned too badly. We are all fools for staying, but our fandom is like a prison and it will not let us leave. This is the way of things and we must swallow that fire and spit it back out if we are to survive. We have suffered much, and now we must suffer some more. It's okay, we are tough, we are stupid, and we can take it.

Well, Here We Are

I wonder if he somehow knows that his noble species is associated with Detroit football. I mean, probably not, but man, if he somehow does, how frustrating must that shit be?

This season is starting to wear on even the most optimistic of Lions fans. There are days when I count myself in that group and there are days when I am lost in the wilderness, hurling obscene gibberish alongside the rest of the broken hordes who have had their sports humanity stripped by their unfortunate fandom. As always, this is because I am a complicated man. Or it is because I am an idiot and quite possibly mildly insane. I will leave it up to you to decide which.

It gets harder and harder to cling to the idea that things are okay. 1-7 is better than 0-8, and so, hooray I suppose, but it's still absurdly terrible. This speaks to how awful the situation truly was when Martin Mayhew, Jim Schwartz and company stepped forward as brave knights to slay the failure demon that has haunted us for far too long. Intellectually, you can know all this and say that it obviously will take time and that this season's record doesn't really matter all that much and that there is hope for the future, blah blah blah, but the heart and the brain don't always get along, and when you are watching your team dick around the field once again while the other team dances to victory, well, it's hard to stay positive.

The longer this goes on, the harder it becomes to really say anything interesting about it. We've been losing for a long time, and we're still losing, and hey, guess what? We're probably still going to be losing for a while. This is just the way of things and I suppose I should just leave it at that and move on. The reasons for this sinkhole of failure that we just cannot crawl out of are obvious and have been discussed both by me and by many, many others. It is a terrible situation, desperate and awful and there are days when it seems like it will never change. But, intellectually, I believe that it will and there are moments, when Matthew Stafford is rocketing a pass down the field or when Calvin Johnson is loping away from a helpless defender that my heart believes it too.

It seems like every time the Lions play the Vikings, I pick them to win. I'm not sure why that is, other than that I think, for whatever odd reason, the Lions play the Vikings better than they do just about anyone. Both of their losses to them last season were close - the Orlovsky "Whoops am I behind the goalpost?" game in particular. And this season, the Lions led at the half before Brett Favre efficiently shredded them the rest of the game. Everyone always thinks that Adrian Peterson will run for a billion yards against the Lions because, well, because it's the Lions, but he never really does. The Lions have mostly held him in check the last few meetings, and it wouldn't surprise me if they manage to do it again.

Still, the Vikings are a clearly better team than the Lions at this point. There really isn't all that much interesting I or anybody else can say on the matter. It's obvious. Brett Favre should be able to comfortably shred the shit out of the turdish Detroit secondary all game long and while Adrian Peterson could be held in check, that is a relative term, and a 100 yard game from him would hardly be surprising.

Hope for this season has faded away and become just another haunting echo of our constant failure, hovering just out of reach, always laughing at us, taunting us, reminding us of what could have been and what could still be. It seems like there is always hope, always a group of us shrugging our shoulders and saying "Well, why not this year?" And every year it's the same. This year I was in that group. Last year, I was not. I could say that it is easier to have hope or it's easier to not have any, but really they both sort of suck. In the end, you just get to sit there week after week and watch your favorite team lose.

The part of me that still wants to grab hold of that hope, even if the rest of me knows that it's just a ghost now, wants to hold onto things like the aforementioned tight games with the Vikings or that Antoine Winfield probably won't play, which could give St. Calvin a chance to run wild. But then the part of me that is tethered to terrible reality knows that Jared Allen is still there to beat the shit out of Matthew Stafford, that the Williams Wall will probably do a much better job of obliterating Kevin Smith this time around, especially since he is banged up, and that Matthew Stafford seems to inordinately struggle against the Tampa 2. In the first game against the Vikings, Chad Greenway picked off a pair of Stafford passes and last week against the Seahawks, Stafford threw five picks, including two to a linebacker.

I want to believe that the Lions can win every week, and this week is no different. My fool brain will concoct ridiculous scenarios that all end the same way: with the Lions winning. It will do this before the game, it will do this during the game and it will do this even when the game is no longer in doubt and the Lions trail by three scores with seven minutes left to go. It cannot help itself, damn fool optimist that it is, and it will just leave me feeling drained and irritated when it is once again laughed at by hope's terrible ghost.

Of course, even when things are going well, that other side of me, that pragmatic, endlessly cynical side of me won't allow me to believe that it will all turn out for the best. Even when the Lions were up 17-0 last week against the Seahawks, I couldn't fully enjoy it because there was a voice screaming at me from inside to stop being a goofy happy fucker and to prepare myself for the inevitable doom. It is a terrible thing, to be endlessly hopeful and to never have that hope fulfilled and to be completely unable to trust in that hope when it does offer you something. It's not a fun place to be.

Still, I wait and I watch, knowing that all that shit will finally be made worth it the day my favorite team, the Detroit Lions, puts it all together and turns this thing around. It's just that it's still so long away, and every time they lose another game or every time a new season's hope dies it all just feels that much further away, that more unreachable. It is only sports, and in the end it doesn't mean a damn thing, and I have said many times that we are fools for being roped into this ridiculous bullshit, but I cannot help myself.

This post is depressing as hell. I apologize. This is just the way of things. I wish it was all different, but it isn't. The Lions will probably lose to the Vikings again on Sunday and in the aftermath I will make a lot of dumb jokes and I will write the same old bullshit about the same old topics. It is hard to remain hopeful, hard to believe that there are better days ahead, but really, what choice to we have? We are champions in our hearts and warriors of light in our souls and we will laugh like children and dance like wild idiots the day that our belief, our faith, in this fool's hope is rewarded. My name is Neil and for some strange reason I am a Lions fan. Fuck the Vikings.

FIVE PREDICTIONS, SHORT AND SWEET BECAUSE THESE JOKEY ONES HAVE JUST GOTTEN OUT OF HAND

1. Stafford will look good for big stretches of the game, completing 20-35 passes for 250 yards and a pair of touchdowns. He'll also make a couple of critical mistakes, and I predict three interceptions.

2. Kevin Smith will struggle mightily this time against the Williams Wall. He will only run the ball 15 times for 35 yards. The backups won't do any better this time.

3. Calvin Johnson will finally start to get on track, catching 7 passes for 110 yards and a touchdown.

4. Brett Favre will throw the ball 25 times, completing 20 passes for 225 yards and two touchdowns.

5. Adrian Peterson will run for 120 yards on 26 carries and a touchdown.

PREDICTED FINAL SCORE: LIONS 27, VIKINGS 24 because I am a hopeful idiot and because this is the sort of thing you must do from time to time to survive as a Lions fan.

Well, This Was a Bad Idea, But What the Hell

Me too, friend. Me too.

We are at the half-way point of this terrible season. I didn't really want to call it a terrible season - I mean, it is already better than last year's abomination - but the Lions are 1-7, which projects to 2-14 over the course of a full season, and, well . . . yeah. Okay, so things haven't exactly gone all that great this season, but what the hell, we have been through worse, and I suppose ordinary failure is preferable to apocalyptic failure. I suppose that counts as progress, right? Just agree with me or there is a good chance that I will stick my head in the oven. And my oven is an electric oven so that shit will just hurt really bad before I am eventually burned to death. Thank you.

Anyway, in lieu of the normal gibberish, I thought I would give a short overview of where things stand right now at each position group. Of course, you know by now that whenever I say short, that the word is relative and there is always a sizable chance that shit could get out of hand and I will be left with chapped hands and bleeding eyeballs after writing a billion words. But that is stinkin' thinkin' as Socrates used to say, so let's just get on with it.

QUARTERBACK

It's kind of hard to judge where everything stands right now. Matthew Stafford is the unquestioned starter, but I get the sense that we haven't seen the true Matthew Stafford yet. His injury threw everything into a terrible tailspin that has been difficult to recover from. His timing with receivers is off, he hasn't gotten a decent rhythm going, and it's obvious that he's still a work in progress when it comes to reading defenses. Still, all that said, there is a reason why he is the unquestioned starter. His physical abilities are obvious, but he also has the sort of confidence and charisma that the best franchise quarterbacks have. He's a leader, and like I have said before, I think it's only a matter of time before the team molds itself around his personality, and that's when things will finally start to take off.

Unfortunately, aside from the flashes of the future that we have seen from Stafford, the other reason why he is the unquestioned starter is because the stooges behind him on the depth chart don't exactly inspire any confidence. It is telling that after a game in which Stafford threw 5 interceptions that no one really thinks that Daunte Culpepper should start. This is because, finally, it seems like most everyone is on board with the notion that he, well, sucks is one way to put it. Someone should euthanize him is another. A little meaner, but what the hell, these are terrible times, and none of us can afford to be delicate. Meanwhile, my irrational disdain for Drew Stanton, or Ol' Plucky as I have taken to calling him, is well known, and because this post will end up being long enough, I will not bring all that tired old shit up again.

RUNNING BACK

I am disappointed. Coming into the season, I thought that our running game actually stood a decent shot at being a strength. Kevin Smith came off of a surprisingly effective rookie season in which he got better and better as the year went on, and I figured that a year as the fulltime back would reveal him to be a player on the verge of stardom. Instead, Smith has been shockingly ineffective for most of the season. Sure, he's been banged up a bit, but aside from the anomalous game against the Vikings, Smith has struggled to find any running room at all. Smith has 460 yards rushing so far this season, which projects to 920 over the course of a full season. That's not that far off last season's pace, but you have to remember that last year, Smith didn't really become the full time back until somewhere in the middle of the season. Most troubling - and telling - is that Smith's per carry average is a terrible 3.3 yards. That's almost a full yard lower than it was during last year's hell ride.

Sure, you could say that the offensive line is terrible - and it is - but Smith's backup, Maurice Morris, has looked surprisingly effective whenever he's had to replace Smith in the backfield. Morris has run for only 126 yards, but his per carry average is 4.2 yards. If Smith was running as effectively as Morris, he would have run for roughly 580 yards so far, which would put him on pace for 1160 for the season. Okay, okay, playing around with numbers can be a fool's pursuit - I mean, after all, each number doesn't exist in a vacuum. If Smith were running the ball that effectively, chances are he would have seen even more carries already, and his numbers could potentially be even higher. Similarly, that would likely change the entire complexion of the offense, and then everything starts to go to hell. What we're left with is the numbers that are there, and right now, for Smith, they aren't good.

Besides Morris, the Lions have also gotten a little bit from Aaron Brown, who they have used with some success on outside runs. Brown has only run for 83 yards, but he's averaging 4.4 yards per carry and I wouldn't be surprised in the Lions tried to find more and more ways to get the ball in his hands as the season progresses. He could be a real weapon.

At fullback, Jerome Felton has been in and out of the lineup due to injury. I think he's a decent player, and he can also carry the ball a bit, which offers a nice changeup that teams have to watch out for. With Felton injured, Terrelle Smith has gotten the start at fullback and he has proven to be a decent lead blocker. He doesn't do anything else, but he's about all you can ask for out of a backup fullback.

RECEIVER

This has been frustrating as hell. Calvin Johnson has been injured for a good stretch of the season. He missed two whole games and virtually a third due to a knee injury and before that he was banged up with minor, nagging shit that kept him from being 100% effective. Due to all this ridiculous bullshit, St. Calvin has only managed 24 catches for 352 yards and 1 touchdown. That obviously doesn't project very well, but even if you take out the three games he missed, it still only projects to somewhere around 75 catches for 1150 yards or so and 3 touchdowns. Okay numbers, but they are a step back from last season when he had noodle armed Dan Orlovsky and shitty old Daunte Culpepper throwing him passes. He obviously hasn't developed much of a rapport with Stafford yet. I think this will come with time and as long as both of them stay healthy over the remainder of the season, St. Calvin's numbers should get better and better, and then hopefully I can talk about what he does on the field instead of writing absurd gibberish about Shakespeare, time travel and Dr. Manhattan every week.

The other wideouts have been okay. Bryant Johnson is a decent number two option who has struggled when he's been asked to fill Johnson the Greater's shoes in his absence. He only has 20 catches for 276 yards and 2 touchdowns, but he has flashed some big play ability and it seems like Stafford might be most comfortable with throwing him the ball so far. He drops too many passes, but hey, that's why he is Johnson the Lesser.

Dennis Northcutt and Derrick Williams are really the only other players who have seen significant time. Northcutt is the number three receiver and he's okay. He's what he's been his whole career, a decent slot receiver who shouldn't be asked to do much more. Unfortunately, with St. Calvin out, Northcutt was asked to play the role of the number two receiver and he didn't really do much. No big surprise there. He has 17 catches on the season for only 161 yards and a touchdown. Williams, meanwhile, has been virtually invisible despite the lack of numbers at the position. He only has three catches all season, and I remember that at least two of them were on the final drive of the game against the Steelers. He is threatening to turn into a bust, and if he doesn't pick it up, his struggles both here and in the return game might mean that he'll be kindly asked to leave.

At tight end, everyone grumbled early on about Brandon Pettigrew, which was dumb because the dude is a rookie and because he missed a lot of training camp with an injury. He has stepped it up lately and appears to be Stafford's favorite target. Against Seattle, Pettigrew truly looked like the safety valve that everyone expected him to be, and even made a couple of plays downfield. He quietly is third on the team with 21 catches for 239 yards and a touchdown. I look for him to only improve as the season goes on. The other tight ends, Will Heller and Casey Fitzsimmons, have both seen some time this season. Heller has been thrown to a lot more often than I thought he would, catching 10 passes so far, and up until the Seattle game, he was the clear number 2 tight end. But Fitzsimmons played a lot against the Seahawks, catching 6 passes. He has 12 for the season, and it will be interesting to see how the coaches use both players as the season wears on. Pettigrew is the obvious starter now, and I think his continual improvement will see minutes for the other two tight ends erode a bit. Heller is a better blocker, but Fitzsimmons is a better receiver. There is probably only room for one of them to see any significant playing time.

OFFENSIVE LINE

Well, this has sucked. No big surprise there, but there was some hope that a year of playing together would provide some cohesion and allow the line to operate as a unit stronger than its individual parts. Instead, the same old bullshit has gone on. Jeff Backus can't protect the quarterback's blindside, Gosder Cherilus is still kind of dumb, Dominic Raiola is too busy telling the fans to fuck off and Stephen Peterman is stiff and not athletic enough to be anything more than a marginal starter. Meanwhile, the Lions seemingly have a different starter at left guard every week, and whether it's Daniel Loper, Manny Ramirez or Jon Jansen, the results are always the same, which is a wall of shit that gets obliterated by the defensive line.

So far, the line has allowed 26 sacks, or a little more than 3 a game and that's kinda shitty, you know? Meanwhile, the running game has been a disappointment, as detailed above. While I laid a lot of that at the feet of Kevin Smith, a decent chunk of the blame has to go to the offensive line. There have been way too many runs where Smith has gotten the ball only to find defenders diving at his knees a couple of yards behind the line.

This is one area that went largely unaddressed during the offseason and it shows. These dudes kinda stink, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Mayhew/Schwartz regime makes the line a priority during the coming offseason.

DEFENSIVE LINE

The defensive line has actually been surprisingly effective so far this season. They haven't been great - or really, all that good - but they haven't been soul crushingly awful either, which sadly enough is a sign of tremendous progress. This is shocking, both because there doesn't seem to really be much talent here, and because there have been an absurd amount of injuries so far this season. Just about every player on the defensive line has missed time, either in practice or in games due to injury, and it's a minor miracle that on a terrible defense, this hasn't been the weakest part. That's really, really not saying much, but going into the season, I figured the line would look like something out of Guernica.

In the middle of the line, Grady Jackson and Sammie Lee Hill have provided a lot of beef that runners have had a hard time pushing through. They are both true run stuffers. Jackson is a giant fat man who is nearing the end of his career, but Hill is young and raw. I figured that he would spend much of the season on the bench, but he has started from day one and when he has been healthy, he has shockingly held his own. I am excited to see how good he'll be once he figures out how to actually play.

Dwayne White and Cliff Avril have both struggled with injury all season long, and as a result, the pass rush hasn't been quite as effective as it could have been. However, Jason Hunter has been something of a surprise. He's looked pretty good so far, but again, he's struggled with injuries.

If all of these dudes, along with Landon Cohen, Turk McBride and Andre Fluellen, can stay healthy, they might actually, dare I say it . . . be . . . decent?

LINEBACKERS

This has been the strength of the defense. That is no surprise, seeing as how, coming into the season, it was the only place the Lions had actual NFL players lining up. Still, I would actually say that I have been mildly disappointed with the linebackers. Julian Peterson is a former Pro-Bowl mainstay, but it's kind of obvious that he's nearing the end of his run as an impact player. He's been decent, but he hasn't dominated at any point. He leads the team in sacks, with 3.5, but a lot of the time he seems like just another dude out there. Sadly, I have also been disappointed with the play of my man Ernie Sims. The Lizard King is still overrunning plays, making himself ineffective way too often. He still has a ton of potential, but he needs to play more in control to be really good. Perhaps his monkey needs to slap him around a little. Larry Foote, meanwhile, has probably been the Lions best player on defense. He's made a lot of big plays in the running game and has given the Lions that anchor on defense they have lacked for years.

While I have been kind of disappointed with the starters, the backups at linebacker have really impressed me. DeAndre Levy has been pretty great whenever he has gotten the chance to play. It's going to get harder and harder to keep him out of the lineup as time marches on. He's great against the run and he has also been pretty damn good in coverage. Jordan Dizon, meanwhile, has done his best to shed the bust label that he's been carrying around, and I actually have hope that he'll be a productive player for the Lions.

It's a strange feeling, to know that not only the starters are quality NFL players, but that their backups are too. This is the one position group that is largely there already, if that makes any sense. A team can win with these linebackers, and hopefully, the old dudes will hold it together a while longer and the young dudes will just keep getting better. If the light turns on for Sims, then this group could be frighteningly good for several years.

DEFENSIVE BACKS

OH LORD, WHY??? To say that these dudes have been terrible would be like saying that Hitler was kind of an asshole. It doesn't even begin to describe the sheer scope of the horrors that have gone on. Virtually everyone the Lions have faced have been able to pick these shitheads apart all game long. It seems like every stat line opposing quarterbacks put up is something like 25-30 for 250-300 yards and 3 touchdowns.

The cornerbacks just aren't good enough. Anthony Henry is old and slow and looks like this year's Brian Kelly. Phillip Buchanon isn't consistent enough to be a top cover corner and William James is what he is, a decent backup who should never ever be a team's top cornerback, which, sadly, he is here. Other than those three, there has been a cast of thousands. New corpses are brought in every week to throw onto the shit pile while others are flushed down to hell or flung into the Detroit River or eaten by the demons who haunt Ford Field. Terrible, just awful, and there is no real hope that it will get any better the rest of the season.

At safety, things are a little better. Louis Delmas has struggled some. That is because he is young and always plays like he wants to kill someone. He's way too aggressive, but he's also the only dude who makes plays. When he calms down a little bit, he'll be a great player, and he's the dude the Lions will build the secondary around. Both Ko Simpson and Marquand Manuel have seen time at strong safety. Manuel isn't very good, and the only time his name really gets mentioned is when the trainers are helping him off the field. Simpson is more talented, but inconsistent. He was plucked from Buffalo right as the season started so he's had to play catch up all season long. There is a slight chance that he could get better as the season wears on, but I wouldn't really count on it.

The situation here is beyond terrible. Delmas is the only player who should be starting for an NFL team and even he is too young and reckless to really be all that good right now. All we can hope for is that, like the offensive line, the Mayhew/Schwartz regime makes the secondary a priority in the offseason. One piece of the puzzle is in place, but they need a whole hell of a lot more before things even become adequate here. Good is a long way off.

SPECIAL TEAMS

Every week, I have to try to find a new way to say that Stan Kwan should get fired. I like to think that I am reasonably creative, but fuck, there's only so many ways to say GET THE FUCK OUT OF TOWN before breaking down into a pile of tears. The return game is terrible once again and the kick coverage units have been a joke. Zach Follett murdered a dude once, but that's about it. Nick Harris is averaging a middling 42.8 yards per punt, and really this whole unit would be an outright disaster if it wasn't for Jason Hanson. Which is, sadly, what we have come to expect here.

Even Hanson has been a bit off this season, though. Part of this could be because he missed most of the preseason with an injury and part of it could be because he is 168 years old. Seriously, I'm pretty sure he fought at Gettysburg. Hanson is 11-13 on field goals, but both of his misses have been kicks that he always makes, including one from inside of 40 yards against Seattle. Still, in the land of the retarded and the worthless, Hanson is a beacon of light, as he has always been during his time with the Lions. The day will come when he is gone and that is a day that I do not want to think of. Hopefully, it comes later rather than sooner.


Okay . . . JESUS, this was a stupid idea. I should have at least broken it up into separate posts, but what the hell, these are strange times and occasionally we all get swept away in a sea of ridiculous ideas. I fear that none of this has been particularly interesting or entertaining and I am making a billion typos because I can't feel the tips of my fingers and my eyes are crying blood. I would start cursing out the Lions for being terrible, but really, this whole exercise in stupidity is my own foolish fault. I hate writing these kinds of posts. They are always entirely too long and they become torturous about the time you become sick of writing and you look and realize you are only halfway done. I am an idiot in a mad world, but who isn't these days? We will do this again, and I will bitch some more and you will skim the nonsense and laugh at a few dumb jokes and we will all go on and on and on and . . . I have lost it, haven't I? Oh well, as the great Patrick Swayze said in Point Break, I'll see you in hell, Johnny. Indeed.

Well, Hell, I Suppose 1-7 is Better than 0-8

Yes, this is a lion.

I am cranky and exhausted for reasons that are inane and utterly irrelevant and which none of you give a fuck about, but I feel I should mention this, just in case my ravings are particularly caustic or if I disappear in a haze of ridiculous delirium. Of course, my mood wasn't helped much by what happened in the game between the Lions and the Seahawks, but I should know better than to hope for success even when I am being cruelly baited.

I suppose I did know better, but still, you find yourself wanting to think that things will be different, that this will be the game when it finally all clicks and it's candy and blowjobs for everyone. Sure, I knew that the early 17-0 lead was as much the product of odd circumstance and dumb luck as much as anything, but what the hell, the luckless must take what meager offerings are laid in front of them without asking questions. I suppose I could blather on about looking a gift horse in the mouth, but earlier this season I already vomited up a tortured Trojan Horse metaphor that was entirely too bizarre to really work, and so I won't head down that road again.

The Lions couldn't count on Matt Hasselbeck throwing passes to Louis Delmas all day or having fumbles appear right at their feet the rest of the game. We were riding on a wave too big for us, and it was destined to break and leave us scattered and weeping, wondering how in the hell the rush of being on top of the world vanished in such a brutal and terrible fall. It was nice while it lasted, but we are too clumsy and too stupid and too inexperienced to understand how to properly ride the big wave all the way to the end. We will get there some day, or so we must keep telling ourselves, but for now, all we can do is hang on for as long as we can and hope we can get close enough to shore before we are plunged beneath the water once again.

32-3. That first number, ominous and mean, is the one put up by the Seahawks following our brief flirtation with respectability. That second number, pathetic and sort of embarrassing, is the one the Lions managed over that same stretch. I tend to gravitate more towards words and pictures and sounds and all that fruity bullshit than I do to the world of numbers, but I am pretty sure that 17+3 < 32. Yeah, 32-20 is not that terrible a final score, but if you take away that opening flurry of weirdness, all you are left with is 32-3, and that shit, well, it's not good.

Still, it never seemed that bad. Part of this is because of the aforementioned flurry of weirdness that somehow produced 17 early points, and part of this is because the Lions never seemed like they were completely overwhelmed. They were able to move the ball some and never seemed entirely out of it. Unfortunately, neither of those things are really reflected by that terrible number 3 because every time the Lions had an opportunity, some degenerate Seahawk would rise from the depths of Puget Sound and steal the ball out of the air.

Five interceptions is, uh . . . it's . . . yeah, sorry, I sort of spaced out for a moment there. Anyway, that shit will kill you every damn time. Of course, there were the requisite special teams fuck-ups, which incidentally led to a fantastic shot of Stan Kwan looking rattled as hell on the sideline, like he was trying to decide if he had time to get his shit out of the locker room before security roughed him up, and there were issues with ball distribution, and of course the defense allowed Matt Hasselbeck to do whatever the hell he wanted all game long, but 5 interceptions almost makes the rest of that shit irrelevant. The Lions could have played inspired defense, Zach Follett could have turned into the Incredible Hulk and smashed the fuck out of the Seahawks' kick returners and Calvin Johnson could have had a million balls thrown in his direction and it wouldn't have really mattered because of that number 5.

But before I get too carried away with this, I just want to say that I don't think Matthew Stafford is really the scapegoat here. I mean, even if he would have had a fairly error free day, all of the above issues would have been too tough to overcome. In the end, it was the perfect storm of suck, the sort of thing that allows you to get shredded by a score of 32-3.

But hey, I suppose I should be more positive. After all, the Lions did start the game well, and even if it was a bit flukeish, I suppose we should all take that as a sign of progress. After all, we are optimists and gentlemen and lady gentlemen and we do not need to wallow in the muck of failure any more than we need to. There were definite signs that this was an offense that could be reasonably effective. Aaron Brown looked good, Kevin Smith looked a little better, and when he wasn't throwing the ball to the other team, Matthew Stafford showed that he was very good at hitting open tight ends and receivers, and even the occasional deep ball. Perhaps that is damning with faint praise, but I don't mean it to sound like that. I really don't. I like Stafford's game. I think he's smart, I think he's got the sort of charisma you want your team's leader to have, and he's obviously got the arm. He's a franchise quarterback in just about every sense of the word. This team will mold itself to his personality sooner or later and when it does, I think things will start to take off. The thing is, though, is that he is 21 years old, he's a rookie and when I'm not talking up his skills, I am making jokes about him throwing kegs at sea monsters and shit.

Meanwhile, the defense showed a capacity for making some big plays before the bottom fell out - just like it always does - and there are signs here, I think, that the rudimentary foundations are in place for a workable defense. I like the schemes, I like the linebackers, I like Sammie Hill and I like Louis Delmas. We can build around that. It's just that, for now, it's not nearly enough.

There are good things here for a change, but there just aren't enough of them to sustain anything behind brief flights of fancy that leave us feeling even more stupid when they don't last than we did before. Everyone loves to hope, but most people hate having that hope thrown back in their faces week after week. Glimpses are wonderful things, but they are also painful because they are only that, a glimpse and nothing more. The day will come when we can live in that wonderful world, but for right now all we can do is catch little snippets of it as we are beaten and left for dead by those who have already lived there.

But, hell, we are champions in our hearts and warriors of light in our souls, and although we may laugh at Stan Kwan and shake our heads at embryonic quarterbacks, we will get through this, just as we always have, and we will come out the other side as the children of hope, beautiful and utterly without fear. This death march has been long and terrible, but at the end we shall slaughter the wicked and gnaw upon their bones.

This is getting unruly, and I would apologize, but I am frazzled and my eyeballs feel like they are on fire. This is not me at my best, but fuck it, neither is my favorite team and yet I am still here.

Ennui, Self Indulgent Gibberish and A Preview Too

Yeah.

Hope. I have gibbered on embarrassingly about the word for a while now. As a Lions fan, it is the only thing I have to cling to, the only thing that keeps me from getting sucked completely into the vile hellmouth of despair that has taken so many of my fellow fans. It is an absurd thing really, rooted in nothing but fairy hopes and idiot dreams, and at its core it is probably nothing more than a mechanism necessary to keep my head above water even as the shit tide rolls on in.

I have no concrete reason to hope, no real reason to think that anything will ever get better with this shitbag of a franchise. But I do anyway. This is probably because I am a great fool, but what the hell, we are fools for caring about any of this nonsense anyway. I rant and rave and howl at the moon about this shit, making a general ass of myself along the way, but at heart, I am a ridiculous optimist. I say that often, usually as a joke, but it's true. I am. I know that doesn't mesh with most of the foul bullshit I write, but what can I say, these are complicated times and none of us can afford to be simple men.

After the last couple of games, it is becoming harder and harder to find that hope. Sure, it seems like there is still hope for the future. I mean, Matthew Stafford is young and will only get better, St. Calvin is St. Calvin and the reign of Archduke Millen the Foul has come to an end, so yeah, I still have hope for the future. But this season already feels kind of lost, doesn't it?

I know, I know, only a great fool would have expected anything from this team, but my hopes for this season weren't even rooted in some grand fantasy of riding to the playoffs and then slaughtering some powerhouse in the Super Bowl while Matthew Stafford soared to the Hall of Fame on the wings of angels. My biggest hope for this season was that the Lions would go 7-9. That's it. That is unfathomably sad, but there it is. After 0-16, after the last decade of screaming misery, after Always Take The Wind Marty and Do It The Right Way Marinelli and That's A Handsome Wide Receiver You've Got There Millen, 7-9 is pretty much a dream season, all that Lions fans could hope for. It is brutal and it is pretty pathetic, but it is what it is. It's what we get.

And here we are, at 1-6. The last couple of games have destroyed any notion that the Lions might scramble out of the muck of failure and onto the shore of mediocrity - at least for this season - and as usual, we as Lions fans are left watching as our pathetically modest dreams crumble and die in front of us. All we can do is watch with heavy hearts and hope that next season might be different.

It's a hard thing, tempering hope. Once it's there, once you believe that something good might actually happen, it's hard to put it all into perspective, hard to accept that the present might still be ugly and brutal and mean. You can see the light, and all you want to do is reach it, but it's a long way off. Unfortunately, seeing it, knowing it's there, just makes the darkness that much worse, that much more agonizing.

This season is tumbling out of control, like so many seasons before it have done. Oh sure, we can make all the excuses for it that we want, talk about the injuries to Stafford, Kevin Smith and St. Calvin, and about how that hasn't allowed the team to get into a steady rhythm on offense, and all that is true. But the Lions just lost to the Rams, the first team they were favored to beat in more than a year. Before that, they were humiliated by the Packers in a truly putrid game. Right now, they don't look like they can beat anybody. That's a hard thing to accept. It's nearly impossible to convince most fans that the present isn't all that important. Everyone wants to win and everyone wants to win now. Even if it's just for one week. It feels good. And when you're watching some other team celebrate while yours gets stomped on the way it always has, it becomes even harder to believe that one day it will all be different. You can hope all you want. Until it's here, it's all just dumb noise.

Yeah, that's not a very positive take, and so why the fuck do I even care about any of this at all if it's so ugly and terrible? And why would I write a billion words every week about a team that is pretty much dead in the water? Because I'm a fan, that's why. I really don't have much of a choice. I am not some asshole who just decided to get into this shit because everyone else liked it and the team was awesome and it was fun to celebrate and laugh at everybody else. I've been a Lions fan for as long as I can remember. It just is what it is. I can't turn that off. I can't not care. That may be a ridiculous notion and some of you might be reading this and thinking "What a ridiculous asshole," but who gives a shit? It's not like I'm going to say to myself "Hey, you know, those dickheads are right. This is stupid. Self, stop caring." Caring is by its nature a fairly involuntary thing. It's something you can't really help. If you can control it, well, either you have evolved past the rest of humanity, in which case, congratulations, please don't melt me with your eyeball lasers, or you never really cared at all. I mean, not really. It's fine if that's what kind of fan you are. But, just understand that you are essentially interested in a fad. You don't really care, and that kind of sucks. I mean, sure if the team loses, then big deal, right? But if your team wins it all, well, you kind of have to say big deal too, right? I mean, what's the point? I am all about ironic detachment, and ha ha ha everyone is dumb for caring, blah blah blah, but fuck it, that shit can get old after a while.

Okay, okay, fine, this is just sports, and you wouldn't be wrong if you said the whole thing was stupid and pointless. I have said many times, including in this post, that we are all dumb assholes for caring about this shit at all. So I am a dumb asshole. Okay. I can't help it. And writing about it is fun for me, believe it or not. I like to write. I like to write a lot, in case you haven't noticed. I like to make other people laugh. Hell, I like to make myself laugh. I like putting this all into some idiot perspective that maybe only a handful of people really give a fuck about. I love doing this because I know that there are others like me - God help them - and I know that they understand the weird place that I am coming from. Sometimes, it is terrible to be a fan, and really, being a Lions fan, that is really the only side of the coin I've been able to gibber on about. But, when it's good, it's really, really fucking good, and I can't wait until I get to rant on in my own idiot way about that side of it all.

Anyway, I apologize. That is all a bunch of self indulgent horseshit, and I have seriously considered just deleting it all and pretending it never existed. I'm still thinking about it and if it's still there when I make it to the end of this post it will be a minor miracle. But long and whiney as it may be I think there is a nugget of truth in there that for whatever ridiculous reason I feel fairly strongly about. I don't know, maybe I'm yammering at myself more than anyone and just trying to come to terms with the absurdity of all this. Would that surprise you? I mean, I write a lot of weird bullshit, why not this?

Okay, okay, anyway, moving on. This weekend, the Lions play the Seahawks. Obviously, there isn't a lot of optimism here - see the above Morrisseyesque screed above - but we are champions in our hearts and we will get through this. The good news is that the Seahawks are pretty fucking bad. Unfortunately, they are much better than the Rams, and well, we all saw what happened against the Rams.

Seattle has, as usual, been beset by a host of injuries this season. I am fairly confident that there is some sort of foul beast hiding in Puget Sound who slithers out to drag another Seahawk into the murky depths every week. Both starting offensive tackles, Walter Jones and Sean Locklear have been hurt. Jones is out for the season and Locklear probably isn't quite ready to come back yet. Meanwhile, the dude they are paid to protect, Matt Hasselbeck, has been laid up with a broken rib. Hasselbeck will play, but he should be fragile, especially with Jones and Locklear out. Unfortunately, the Lions pass rush probably won't be able to make that big a difference, because as we have all already see all season long, Hasselbeck will probably be able to take the snap and throw within milliseconds on the nonexistent Detroit secondary.

The Seahawks haven't exactly been overwhelming running the ball this season, but all they really need in this one is for Julius Jones to keep the Lions defense honest while Hasselbeck does his thing.

Meanwhile, the Seahawks' defense has also been plagued by the Puget Sound monster. Lofa Tatupu is out for the season and Patrick Kerney is also banged up. Kerney should go for Seattle, which means that he will likely be slapping Matthew Stafford around all day while Jeff Backus and Gosder Cherilus lie dead and bleeding on the ground behind him.

The good news, though, is that Calvin Johnson should play too, meaning that we finally get Stafford, St. Calvin and Kevin Smith all on the field at the same time. Unfortunately, their rhythm will still probably be off and playing in a tough stadium in Seattle probably won't make that any easier. I can see the Lions struggling to move the ball at times, overwhelmed by both the noise and the pressure from the Seattle defense, but I can also see Stafford and St. Calvin making enough plays to keep the Lions' meager hopes alive - at least for a while.

I don't like this game for the Lions. They get some dudes back, but so does Seattle. If this were in Detroit and Stafford and St. Calvin had more time to get into an effective rhythm, I would be far more optimistic. But, neither of those are the case, and so I see a game where the Lions struggle valiantly to hang in there, but get overwhelmed far too often, allowing the Seahawks to escape with a fairly comfortable victory.

FIVE PREDICTIONS

1. Stafford continues to struggle a bit, although not nearly as much as last week. He throws the ball 30 times, completing 17 passes for 210 yards and a touchdown. After the game, Stafford kills the Puget Sound Monster by throwing a beer keg at it. It is later revealed that the Puget Sound Monster is really an escaped seal from the zoo and Stafford is vilified by animal rights groups everywhere. His defense of BUT I WAS DRUNK is rejected and he is banned from the state of Washington for life. This is rescinded after Stafford shoots a series of public service announcements alongside a collection of seals. This backfires on him when behind the scenes video shows him drunkenly riding one of the seals in a swimming pool.

2. Kevin Smith plays, but struggles to run the ball once again. He finishes with 17 carries for 51 yards and no touchdowns. His backup, Maurice Morris, runs for 45 yards on 8 carries and everyone starts to openly wonder whether or not Smith should just sit out for a week or two. Smith appears willing to consider it until he receives a rousing pep talk from Ernie Sims' monkey, who inspires Smith to run for 2000 yards and 20 touchdowns over the last 8 games of the season, thus saving my fantasy team.

3. Calvin Johnson plays - finally - and catches 7 passes for 106 yards and a touchdown. I try to write some more gibberish about Shakespeare and Dr. Manhattan, but St. Calvin senses that it is about to happen and he wrestles me to the ground until the orderlies can sedate me.

4. Matt Hasselbeck wonders how he woke up in the middle of a pee-wee football game, completing 25 of 35 passes for 320 yards and three touchdowns. After the game, he buys a rifle and sits quietly by the Woodland Park Zoo in case Matthew Stafford shows up with a beer keg.

5. Julius Jones has a modest game, rushing for 65 yards on only 15 carries. After the game, I foolishly try to once again assert that the Lions run defense is stronger than people realize and then I spend the rest of my post gibbering on apologetically about the self indulgent bullshit from this post. I then spend the next post apologizing for that idiocy and so on, and so on, and . . .

PREDICTED FINAL SCORE: Seahawks 27, Lions 13