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.