I May Have Gone Insane While Writing This

The season is almost over, and once again we find ourselves trying to climb out from underneath the apocalyptic wreckage of yet another miserable season. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Sure, we knew the record would be bad, but we also thought that by the time the year wrapped up we would be filled with hope for next season. Instead, everyone is hurt or dead and we are all lying naked at the bottom of a vast chasm, weeping and howling at a moon that we can't even see because it's covered by smoke rising up from our burned out dreams. It's a terrible thing, just awful, and it is stunning how bad it has become.

It sucks to have to put our dreams of, well, adequacy on hold for yet another season because the failure demon has risen like a fucking Colossus out of the earth and started dragging player after player back down to hell with him. Our star quarterback, the future of the franchise, has had his knee annihilated and his shoulder ripped out and eaten by the failure demon so far this season, and it has reached a point where most fans are crying out for mercy for poor Matthew like they were spectators at a medieval execution. QUIT TORTURING THE POOR MAN AND JUST CUT HIS HEAD OFF ALREADY.

But The Passion of the Stafford is not the only horrific show in town. No, instead, we've had to watch as our superstar wide receiver and only playmaker has had seemingly every bone and joint and muscle in his body torn apart like that dude in Hellraiser. Poor St. Calvin might actually be up for sainthood when this is all over. After all, the very first saints were martyrs.

But at least we have a strong running game to take the pressure off of . . . oh shit, really? Indeed. Kevin Smith's knee saw what was going on and sat in the garage with the car running rather than put up with the freak show bullshit that is the Detroit Lions. So, yeah, he's gone, maybe for good.

And then there's Brandon Pettigrew, who's on his way into surgery any minute now to repair his torn ACL and there's Louis Delmas who has been banged up this season and . . . AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Sorry. I, uh, well, it's been a long season. Anyway, everyone is hurt, the team sucks right now, and the biggest news all week long has been the coaches threatening to execute everyone on the team for gross incompetence. This wasn't supposed to be the way this season unfolded. And yet, here we are. Again.

Hang on a minute. I'm going to go listen to Morrissey for a while and then jump off of the pier into Lake Michigan. By the way, it's December, so I'll just thrash about for a while before I slowly freeze to death and then drown.

I mean, GOOD LORD. Has it really come to this? Before the season started, I was excited to see the development of our young skill players. They could be our Aikman, Irvin and Smith. Hyperbolic? Certainly, but that was the kind of excitement I allowed myself to believe deep down. Instead, I got to watch our quarterback struggle through the season like he was the first dude off the boat on D-Day, our playmaking wide receiver get drawn and quartered for his faith, and our running back's knee explode and leave him laying like a piece of road kill. I am tempted to just type the word WHY over and over and over again and then rummage for my finest hanging neck tie. By the way, I think that's at least the third different suicide reference I have made in this post. Lions Fever! Catch it!

The 48-3 loss to the Ravens was the Lions worst loss since 1991. Yes, given everything that has happened in the past decade of terrible pain, and given everything that went on last year, last week's game was still the worst game the Lions have had in 18 years.

I'm just going to let that stand on its own for a while. I want you to stop and just think about that for a minute. Just think about what that means.

Okay, if you are still here after thinking that one over, congratulations, you have an iron will and/or are a masochist. Everyone else is probably running naked and afraid through the streets right about now, tearing at their flesh and scaring the holy hell out of old people and small animals.

Oh Lord, why? How has it come to this? I feel like I am just going around in circles now, trapped on an endless circuit of misery that always begins and ends the same way, with me asking that awful question. Maybe there is no answer, and maybe this is just the way of things and maybe our perpetual misery somehow balances the universe and oh my God, the gibberish I am spewing is just absurd now. I have been broken, beaten and whipped by this horror show. I suppose the only thing I can do is try to force myself to keep looking forward.

Alright, that's what I'll do. Okay. Here we go. So, what's next? The Cardinals are coming to town? You mean the team that went to the Super Bowl last season, has a Hall of Fame Quarterback and three different receivers who went over 1,000 yards last season? Insert random suicide reference number 11,368 here.

I mean, come on. Things are already bad enough. Now I have to watch my team's league worst pass defense get absolutely shredded by the dude who is Mike Martz's own personal Viagra. This is horrible. I don't care what happened on Monday against the 49ers, Kurt Warner is going to beat our defense down like they are a gang of Satanists trying to steal his family Bible. Good God. This is going to be brutal and ugly and mean, and . . . I need a moment here.

Okay, I'm back. I will try to rationally get through the rest of this, but I wouldn't get my hopes up. I suppose I could look at the bright side, which is that Larry Fitzgerald is questionable and might not play following his knee injury against the 49ers, but one Cardinals receiver out, even one as good as Fitzgerald, doesn't exactly tip the scales in our favor, especially when we have added 10 different defensive backs to the roster since September. At this point, the Lions are basically pulling in dudes off the street. It is now like that stupid show Pros vs. Joes or whatever the hell that thing on Spike TV was called that featured pro athletes whipping the shit out of delusional fans.

Thankfully the Cardinals are a one dimensional team, and . . . oh wait, you mean they're not anymore? Well, that's just super. Indeed. The Cardinals have become a team capable of mixing in a power run game with their prolific aerial attack, meaning that even if by some gigantic miracle the Lions stop the Cardinals passing game(maybe St. Calvin will be able to teleport around the field and grow wings and play all four defensive backs, thus fulfilling the miracle requirement for sainthood. If this happens, we need to petition the Vatican.), the Cardinals should still be able to run the ball down the middle of the field, especially on a team like the Lions who appear to have had their spirits broken and then had those broken spirits stolen by the failure demon and dragged down to hell.

So, yeah, the Lions defense is going to be massacred here. They should just dress up Larry Foote like General Custer at this point and let nature take its course. But things aren't all bad. I mean, the Lions have a bona fide Pro Bowl quarterback in Daunte Culpepper, who . . . (is there a way to type the sound of a life support machine flat lining?)

Yes, Daunte the Terrible is back at quarterback with Matthew Stafford being kept in an oxygen tank or plastic bubble or confined to a monastery where he is protected by martial artist monks for the rest of the season. And, well, Daunte is a shitty quarterback. End of analysis.

Meanwhile, St. Calvin is still banged up and although he might make a go of it against the Cardinals, at this point they might as well just strap a cross to his back while he runs down the field. I guess they could just feed the ball to Maurice Morris all day, but really, what's the point? He'll just be beaten and then eaten by Darnell Dockett anyway. I guess Aaron Brown could make something happen, but now I am just randomly throwing shit out there. The sad reality is that the offense will be lucky to even crack double digits. Seeing as how they are going against an offense that could probably score 50 if they felt like it, this is kind of a problem.

Look, the rest of the season is just going to feel like one extended execution. It will be horrible and utterly without merit or reason. It will just be play after play of watching our guys strung up and screaming for mercy while their opponents whip them with chains made out of poisonous snakes and hatred. It will be a terrible thing to watch and we will all be forever scarred as fans by the experience.

FIVE PREDICTIONS

1. Culpepper throws for 26 yards on 5 of 38 passing. He fumbles on the first play of the game, shits his pants and then somehow manages to throw an interception even while sitting on the bench. Drew Stanton is still deemed by the coaches to be worse than this.

2. Calvin Johnson tries to play, but ends up getting torn in half by Adrian Wilson on a crossing route. The top half of his body crawls to the sidelines while his legs kick about uselessly on the field. No one will want to admit it, but the sight will be kind of funny.

3. Maurice Morris will have his legs eaten before the game by an escaped lion from the zoo. He will be depressed until he is reminded that this means that he gets to sit out the rest of the season. He and the lion will have a touching reunion on Oprah where Morris will publicly forgive the lion. The lion will respond by eating the audience.

4. Kurt Warner will throw for 1,010 yards and 18 touchdowns. After the game he will lead a public exorcism of Ford Field but will flee when he realizes that he is actually in hell.

5. Sadness.

PREDICTED FINAL SCORE: CARDINALS 117, LIONS 3