Total Victory

Let me start off with a quick confession before we get to the Ballad of St. Calvin and the Holy Ghost, Matthew Stafford.  Last week, I missed the game because of, uh, let’s just call them reasons and leave it at that, okay?  Anyway, I did record the game and intended on watching it right away, but every time I do that, it’s impossible for me not to spoil it for myself.  I mean, the lure of finding out who won the damn game in 1.2 seconds is too much to pass up.  And so that’s how I came to see that the Lions lost in brutal fashion to the Bengals.  I immediately decided that there was no way I was watching that bullshit, but being a masochist, I decided I would watch the Sam Martin shankapalooza, if only out of some sort of morbid curiosity.  So, I watched it, it was the most Lions way to lose a game imaginable, and then deleted the whole goddamn thing.  So that’s why I didn’t write anything last week.

Anyway, that is the backdrop to what went on this week.  It’s easy to see how the Lions could fold mentally and emotionally after something like that.  After all, we are dealing with a band of idiots who have more often than not proven themselves to be as fragile as the most temperamental of divas.  This could get ugly in a hurry.  Friend of the blog UpHere noted the same thing to me in a twitter message before the game.  This was important because it could either make or break this team. 

The game itself was wild and stupid and weird and filled with laughing gas and tear gas and abdominal gas and every other kind of gas you can imagine, but the main thing to take away from this is that there were more than half a dozen moments in this game where this team could have broken, and probably would have been broken in the past.  Shit, with less than a minute left in the game, the announcers were talking about it like it was already over, bemoaning the Lions killer turnovers and talking about how the ridiculous stats of the offense were all for naught, and blah blah blah, we know how this shit goes.  And yet, when the game actually ended, it wasn’t the Lions melting down, but Dez Bryant throwing a tantrum on the sideline while Jason Witten had to fight the urge to physically assault him and Matthew Stafford was mobbed on the other side of the field like Tom Cruise at the end of Top Gun.

The storyline optics there are so blazingly obvious that it feels almost unnecessary to have to actually talk about them.  You saw the game, that shit was stark.  This is the sort of thing that can make Matthew Stafford indisputably The Man.  I know that sounds like something I’ve said before, especially since the Lions have done this a dozen times since he showed up, but this one just felt different.  I think it was because the moment was such a make or break thing, the emotions and brain goo so susceptible to whatever the hell was going to happen, that what actually did happen just felt even more enormous than it would have anyway.  This wasn’t just a come from behind win.  This was a come from behind win, and a display of Brass Balls Big Dick Swingin’ by the quarterback, by The Man, when everyone on the team was looking for something to believe in, for a reason to strap a rocket to their back and blast off to the moon rather than point that rocket straight at their faces and blow themselves to hell.

This was Matthew Stafford leading an army of wavering soldiers into a battle, having everything go wrong and then at the last second, saying fuck it, swaggering into the Kill Zone, and then doing the Big Balls dance from Major League II before putting a bullet between the eyes of the enemy commander and winning the day.  These dudes will follow him anywhere now.  That’s what that moment means.

But before that, you also had St. Calvin sonning the fuck out of Dez Bryant.  Sure, Bryant caught a couple of touchdowns, but St. Calvin had 329 yards receiving, which, uh… this is why you don’t publicly challenge your betters, son.  It was yet another instance of one of our dudes rising to the moment instead of being overwhelmed by it, of becoming a Destroyer of Worlds because that’s what was called for.  And again, in the end, Calvin set the team up to win, and he and Stafford slapped each other on the back, hugged and laughed it up on the sideline, like two fighter pilots recounting a hyper-adrenalized successful mission while Dez Bryant howled with infantile rage, his teammates incapable of concealing their utter disgust.

It’s a perfect picture, one that should be framed on the walls of our hearts for a long, long time.  This was a moment in which the Lions triumphed against all the Failure Demons and the worst parts of their nature while their opponent crumbled.  It was a moment which negated everything else that had come earlier in the game, when all those turnovers and blown opportunities seemed to signal in all too sickeningly familiar neon lights that this team was going to fail the test yet again.  Instead, the outcome of the game, that moment when Stafford literally flew over both his line and the Cowboys standing across from them, turned all of those failed tests into tribulations that made the moment all the sweeter, all the more significant, and, ultimately, a vindication of this team’s mental and emotional health.

The turnovers were nearly fatal, and the Cowboys big plays in the second half still point to a team that is inherently limited.  These sorts of things happen to this team, and will continue to happen, because they are a flawed team coached by flawed men, and nothing is going to change that at this point.  It just won’t.  But you can let that beat you again and again, and ultimately break you, or you can try to live with it and eventually overcome it, to be the best version of yourself that you can be, warts and all, and that’s what I think we saw against the Cowboys. 

But let’s not let one simple and undeniable truth get lost in all this talk of moments and inherent flaws, and the grandiose psychobabble and hyperbolic gibberish I’m letting loose here: the Lions outgained the Cowboys 623-268.  That’s fucking absurd.  They blew them right off the fucking field.  If they don’t turn the ball over, they beat the shit out of the Cowboys.  Even with the turnovers, the Cowboys were lucky the Lions didn’t run them out of the building.  The Lions were just better, and not just better, but significantly better.  The Cowboys, by the way, are probably the best team in the NFC East.  Okay, okay, the NFC East is a horrific dumpster fire of a division this year, but still.  There’s a chance that if the Lions make the playoffs this year their opponents will be these very same Cowboys.  The point is that the Lions are in this.  They’re really, truly in this.  All they have to do is to get the mental shit lined up, and, well… now you can kinda see why this game feels like a big goddamn deal.

This team will break our hearts still.  I think we all know that.  It is just a part of our identity.  But I think now, there is an underlying sense that even when things go all FUBAR, that it’s okay, because Matthew Stafford has returned from the Outback, and he’s returned as a Spirit Warrior, and that he’s got this, man.  He’s got this.  That sort of confidence, that sense that there is a sort of mental and emotional safety net, is contagious.  Not just for us fans, but more importantly, for the rest of the team.  They can just go out and play ball because Stafford’s got this.  And even when it’s not enough – and sometimes it won’t be – that’s okay, because next week, it will be.  That can be a very, very powerful thing.

I just can’t get over that final scene – and yes, I realize it is sort of ridiculous to talk about this almost like it was a movie, but that’s how epic and cinematic it felt, didn’t it? – of Stafford getting mobbed, jaw squared to the world, fire in his eyes, victory in his heart, while the Cowboys bickered and fought on the sideline.  Not only did the Lions survive their own trial by fire, they utterly broke the will of their opponents.  If this were war, this would be Total Victory. 

This was the Boy Prince, the young Lion who was once knocked off his horse against those heathens from Cleveland only to rally his men to victory with one arm hanging, becoming the King, the Lion in the prime of his life standing confidently on the field of battle, calling his shot, and then turning and walking back to his adoring soldiers while the enemy commander crumpled to the ground, shot between the eyes.  Matthew Stafford didn’t just execute a gameplan, he put the whole goddamn war on his back, and he triumphed.  And everyone watched him do it.

This could mean everything, or it could mean nothing.  The only Truth we know is that life is just a series of moments, moments that define us, moments that exist within themselves, beautiful and alone, and in these moments, regardless of what’s happened in the past or what may happen in the future, Total Victory is possible.  And Matthew Stafford and the Lions just had one of those moments, and no matter what happened yesterday or what will happen tomorrow, that moment will live forever, and it will always be perfect.  Total Victory.