Dominic Raiola Is A Dumb Asshole

Dominic Raiola is an asshole. That is not exactly a revelation to anyone who’s been paying attention, but it still needs to be said, especially after the fiasco earlier today against the Bears, which, well… just look at the above.

I mean… come on. This, of course, is just the latest in a long line of assholishness (assholery?) from Raiola. Here’s a little primer put together by my old pal Andy Isaac over at Uproxx in case you need a refresher. I’ll wait while you take a stroll through bad memory lane.

That was written in the wake of Raiola’s ridiculous attempt to take out the knees of Patriots defenders during a fucking kneel-down play (he failed, because . . . well, of course he did, which pretty much sums Raiola up, both as a player and a human being) and Isaac tweeted that out today with a note that it was time to update the post.

That’s the sad reality of following Raiola’s long and pathetic career. You’re constantly having to update that mental picture of him to account for whatever dumb goon bullshit he just pulled. It’s fucking ridiculous.

But the worst part about Raiola isn’t that he’s an asshole. He’s a dumb asshole. Just ludicrously stupid. He isn’t like one of those sly, wily veterans from the ‘70s who would twist a dude’s dick off at the bottom of a pile. No, he just does this shit openly, for everyone to see, and then he gibbers like a moron to try to rationalize it. He’s a fucking fool.

Fools come and go all the time in the NFL. It is basically the National Fools League. Lions fans get this perhaps better than anyone. Charles Rogers, Titus Young . . . look, I could go on forever here and we’d all be reduced to a pile of tears and ash by the time I was done, so let’s just not do that, okay? The point is, is that these fools usually blow up and then get kicked out of the league and sent to jail or the nuthouse or to get their brains studied after they strip naked on the highway and start waving a gun around. They don’t last more than a decade, and they certainly don’t last with one team.

But Dominic Raiola has, and really, that about sums up the many, many issues the Lions have had as a franchise during that same time period. He’s been with the team for 13 years, and most of those years have been terrible. Joe Buck finally did something worthwhile when he pointed out during the broadcast that during Raiola’s 13 years with the Lions, 10 of those years have seen the team lose 10 or more games. Holy shit! I mean, there’s losing and then there’s whatever the fuck that is. Raiola is literally one of the biggest losers in NFL history.

But we also have to deal with the fact that he’s figuratively one of the biggest losers in NFL history. That is a combination that is too odious to bear. This is not the story of some asshole who everyone forgives because he leads the team to glory on the football field. No, it is the story of a dumb fuckup asshole who loses all the time and incredibly still not only keeps his job but maintains his place as the wise old elder of the franchise. This is so messed up that when people wonder why I burned out on the Lions, I should just point at it and scream THIS! THIS! FOR FUCK’S SAKE THIS!

It’s not really a secret to anyone who’s followed me for a while that I have kind of dialed back my fandom the last couple of years, and I think this is one of the biggest reasons why. I still watch the Lions and I root for them to win because I can’t not. They are my team, for better for worse, through sickness and in health until death do us part. But let’s face it, there’s been a whole lot of sickness and if that sickness had a face, it would be Dominic Raiola’s.

His soul is made of burning garbage, wasted tears and a whole sewer’s worth of shit. He looks and acts like a dude who smells like stale Funyons, cheap beer, old smoke, sweat and regret. He challenges his own fans to fights and he makes it embarrassing to be a Lions fan. He is Lions Disease made flesh.

Most of the time, assholes are forgiven by their own fans, who rationalize their behavior and develop a persecution complex that allows them to imagine that their poor picked on boy is just the target of unfair harassment. It’s what fans do. But the incredible thing about Raiola is that Lions fans hate his fucking guts probably more than opposing fans do. He’s a goddamn loser, a hideous ghoul plaguing our hearts and souls for more than a decade now and he just won’t go the fuck away. He’s a dumb asshole who deserves every bit of vitriol he gets and more. He is what makes being a Lions fan Not Fun. He makes the whole team feel so goddamn unlikable and hard to root for. He doesn’t just need to be run out of town, he needs to be strapped to the back of a flatbed truck and paraded through the streets while fans pelt him with trash and then a priest needs to come in and do an exorcism. Fuck Dominic Raiola, I will see him in hell.

Sorry, I’m getting a little carried away, but . . . you know what? I’m not sorry. Fuck that. A lot of people will probably write a lot of things about Dominic Raiola this week, but every damn one of them will try to take the responsible tone of a Serious Journalist and try to sanitize all of this nonsense, and in doing so they will miss the point. Because the point isn’t that Dominic Raiola is a jerk who does irresponsible things for dudes like Joe Buck to tut-tut. The point is that he is a hideously dumb asshole and a colossal fuck-up. This isn’t a smug, moral issue. This is a “Hey, fuck this guy,” issue and that deserves to be said out loud. Or in print. Or in fake print on the internet. You know what I mean.

It’s not like this a new thing that we’re all figuring out. We’ve known this for years, and frankly, I’m just sick of having to put up with it. Fuck you, Dominic Raiola, you are impossible to root for and you have infected my team with your stench for long enough. Get thee gone, foul beast!

Getting carried away again. But that is what Dominic Raiola inspires. He doesn’t inspire Hope or Confidence or any of the shit you would expect from a veteran of his stature. He inspires wild gibberish and biblical ranting. That’s your team leader? Come on.

It’s embarrassing as hell watching him clown his way around the field, in the locker room and, yes, in wars with his own fans. Can you imagine being his teammate, knowing what an asshole he is, and knowing that he’s wrong all the damn time? How can you fight next to someone like that? He’s firing up the other team – notice how the Bears sparked right after his buffoonery – while his own teammates probably struggle to back his dumb ass up. You can talk about it all you want, about loyalty and all that jazz, but it’s tough to really summon up that righteous fury you need to back up a dude like Raiola. He is Wrong and everybody knows it and that calls into question your whole damn thing, which is not the state of mind you want your dudes to have, you know?

This is getting weird and existential, and I’m speculating on the mindsets of overgrown millionaire man-children, which is probably a hideous mistake, but it’s just human nature. These dudes have to hate playing with a dumb asshole like Raiola. They have to. And this has been going on for 13 fucking years!

By the way, do you know who followed Raiola at Nebraska? Richie Incognito. That’s right, for almost a decade, the Nebraska offensive line was anchored by Dominic Raiola and then Richie Incognito. Good Lord. That’s not really relevant to anything, I just wanted to point it out because, well, goddamn! Actually, you know what? It is kind of relevant, because I think it helps to explain Raiola a little bit.

He was a star at Nebraska, the same school that produced Incognito, stairwell menace Lawrence Phillips, alleged rapist and all around degenerate Christian Peter, and, yes, Ndamokong Suh. It is basically the crucible within which assholes are born. It is an asshole factory, and so it shouldn’t really be a surprise that Raiola is the way he is. Besides football, the only thing to do in Nebraska is drink, menace the townsfolk like fucking Frankenstein and sodomize each other with corn. Corn Sodomy was probably Raiola’s major.

Look, this whole thing has been kind of rambly and about as ranty as it gets, but don’t let all of my ridiculousness take away from the main point here, which is that Dominic Raiola is not just an asshole, but a dumb asshole, which is a lethal combination that will kill your fandom dead. Or at least leave it a twisted, mangled perverted version of what it once was. He is no goddamn fun to root for. It’s fucking exhausting. He is everything you pray you don’t get stuck with as a fan, and he is certainly not someone you ever expect to be married to for more than a decade. He is the past of the Detroit Lions in all its tragic despair, and it is infuriating to watch as he drags that past into the present like a mangy dog dragging his shitty ass all over the carpet.

It sucks because I can’t just pretend like he doesn’t exist. I can’t just surgically remove him from my mind’s vision of the Lions. He’s in there, and he’s not going away. And so all I’m left with is an alternative in which I cheer for the Lions in spite of him, which diminishes my fandom, and let’s face it, this is a fandom that wears on you anyway. It isn’t easy being a Lions fan. We don’t need Dominic Raiola around to make it even harder. I just want him to go away, but with my luck, he’s probably got another decade left in him, and sometime in 2024, when he and Jared Allen are jerking each other off on the field in an asshole singularity, a black hole will be produced which will finally suck the remnants of my sanity and fandom inside and all that will be left in the ensuing Void will be a voice cackling incessantly at me and then Raiola’s face will appear like the hologram head of the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz and I will know that God is dead. Fuck you, Dominic Raiola, you killed God. You probably stomped him to death and then taunted Jesus.

Until then, go Lions, I guess. Except for Dominic Raiola, because he is, and always will be, a dumb asshole.