Out of Time

After a preview which saw my hands ripped cruelly away from Hope as I was pulled with every word back into the Abyss, it’s time. The season is here, The Fear becomes rooted in something Real, something Tangible, instead of in the horrors of the Past . . . or it doesn’t, and we’re all surprised and delighted in ways we’ve never been before, in ways our fathers have never been, our grandfathers, aunts, uncles, the old lady next door . . . look, we’re still 0-0 and in that record all things are possible. They’re just not probable.

Was it wrong of me to give into utter Panic so soon? Maybe, but the thing is, is that Lions fans have a sort of fucked up sixth sense for these kinds of things. We have seen things go bad in every single possible way that they can go bad. We have seen all the variants, and so it’s easy to spot when we see it happening again.

This past week or two has seen Bob Quinn, Matt Patricia and the boys telling Lions fans to “have patience” and to “trust the plan,” which . . . we’ve seen this one before. Unearned arrogance is a killer, a sort of swaggering con addicted to the smell of its own ass even while various dick-shaped objects get shoved up there. Unearned arrogance is The Enemy. It always has been, and that’s what I’m seeing from Quinn and Patricia.

They are so taken with the idea that they are secret geniuses, that they are responsible for The Patriots Way, that they never stopped to consider that they were just hangers-on. They were not responsible for the Patriots success. Tom Brady was. If Tom Brady had never come into their lives – no, let me correct that – if they had never come into Tom Brady’s life, they would be nobodies. Patricia would be a second-rate position coach at some shithole college and Quinn would be selling insurance. They should get down on their knees every day and pray to a statue of Brady, and then they should understand that they have not earned any of this “Trust me, I know what I’m doing” bullshit swagger and smarten the fuck up.

The sad thing, I suppose, is that there’s only so much you can do with that. Maybe they do turn out to be secret geniuses. I doubt it, but hey maybe. But if they’re not . . . then we’re fucked. Because it means that they’re just a couple of arrogant dolts who will crash this fucker into the rocks – again – instead of paying attention to the lighthouse telling them to change fucking course.

Right now, we’re the lighthouse. The only problem is that we’ve been conditioned to think that every ship that passes by will crash into the rocks and so our light never shuts off. This is a mess. It means neither us nor the shitheads in charge can really be trusted, and what do you do with that? Where do you go?

Suppose that Quinn and Patricia see Jesus and realize that they don’t know shit, that they are what they are: lucky to be here. What then? You’re still left with just a couple of ordinary dudes who aren’t up to the challenge. This is bat country, brotha.

This is all almost hilariously grim, which is absurd given that, you know, we’ve yet to play a game, but my sixth sense is screaming at me right now. The reality, the sad, almost too horrible to contemplate, reality, is that it almost doesn’t even matter if these guys really are secret geniuses. Because in order for that to even be true, to even be given a chance to be true, it means that we have to give them our unconditional Trust, and that is a hell of a thing to ask of Lions fans. An impossible thing.

It is not a new idea to compare Lions fans to battered wives. We have spent years getting the shit kicked out of us by a succession of mean drunks. We have PTSD from this shit. Right now, Quinn and Patricia are sitting on the couch pulling from a bottle of Wild Turkey and snapping a belt in their hands. They say they won’t hit us, they haven’t hit us yet, but fuck, man. Just . . . fuck. Asking us to Trust, and then having the fucking gall to be so goddamn rough about it all shows an almost extraordinary lack of understanding for who we are and where we’ve been.

Then again, I suppose it’s not their job to coddle the fans. It’s their job to win football games. But our situation is unique, and if you don’t at least respect the former, it makes the latter a hell of a lot more difficult. It’s pretty hard to win football games when your own fans despise you and are lighting fires under your feet.

But the crazy thing is that Quinn and Patricia don’t even seem that concerned with winning football games. At least not right now. They seem content to just preach patience and build for some future that isn’t real, some hazy ideal that only they can see. It’s the mark of a charlatan, of conmen, and my god, you’d have to be Christ himself to have patience here.

It gets even crazier when you consider that Matthew Stafford is already 30, is signed to a huge long-term deal, and has a window of opportunity that is shrinking with each game. I mean what the fuck is the plan here? I have said many times now that it seems to be trying to capture recent vintage Patriots teams, which is insane enough on its own, but if they’re basically willing to run out the clock on the Stafford era and start anew, then what the fuck could the plan possibly be? How long are we supposed to wait here? They already have a top five/top ten quarterback. What the fuck is the plan?

I am entering panic mode. That much is obvious, and I suppose I should remind myself that the Lions are still 0-0, that anything can happen even if that anything is something we’ve never gotten to experience in 60 years and . . . shit, at some point even the secret games we play with ourselves to keep going, the hidden mind tricks that we torture until they coalesce into something resembling Hope just aren’t enough. The weight is too much, and baby, we’re out of time. Patience is impossible. You either understand that, or you fail. It’s that simple. You either understand the Lions, or you get run the fuck over by the monstrous runaway train of it all. You respect it, or you die of Lions Disease. We’re out of time.

I suppose I should actually talk about the Jets, and if you’re still reading in between huffs on the ol’ ether rag, I commend you for your warrior spirit. We are not like the others, and we press on.

The Lions should be able to beat the Jets. Let me rephrase that: the Lions have to beat the Jets. Not just for this season, but because if they don’t, the dam’s gonna break and shit’s gonna get toxic. Already. After one goddamn game. That is almost absurdly extraordinary, but we ain’t in Kansas anymore for all the reasons I just spent 1,000 or so words gibbering about. This is the world of the Detroit Lions and you have to understand these things if you want to live in it.

The Lions have to beat the Jets because the Jets are a 5-11 team with a rookie quarterback, a whole bunch of injuries – especially at wide receiver – and nothing that should really scare anyone. If you can’t beat a team like that on your home field, on Monday fucking Night, with everyone watching, you ain’t winning shit all year and Plans and Trust and Hope just become cruel buzzwords uttered by charlatans.

Sam Darnold is a rookie, and more than that, he’s a rookie who no one expects to be very good this season. He was drafted in the first round by the Jets pretty much because someone decided at some point that he should be. He never really did enough to earn that, and in his final year at USC he was inconsistent, turnover prone, and had the look of a dude who would be easily overwhelmed at the next level. This is not a dude who anyone should be afraid of, and the Lions should be able to stop him.

Of course, “should” is a dangerous word and given the general sorry-ass state of the Lions defense, this isn’t so much the irresistible force vs. the immovable object, but the resistible force vs. the movable object. It is not really a collision, but two sides running away from each other and hiding under their mothers’ skirts. Or their fathers’ skirts. It’s 2018, I can’t make assumptions like that.

The Lions hope is basically that Darnold self-destructs on his own. They’re certainly not going to do much to make it happen. Darius Slay might have something to say about it, but even the best cover corners get exposed when the defensive line can’t get to the quarterback, and let’s face it, the Lions defensive line, all six(!) of them (R.I.P. Anthony Zettel) isn’t getting to anybody this season.

Still, there is a very good chance that Darnold blows it himself. He’s basically Mark Sanchez 2.0, and that makes it even more hilarious that the Jets of all teams took the bait again. But even if he’s better than I think he is, his receiving corps is decimated by injuries and suspension talk and basically the whole damn group has some question about whether they’ll play or not. This is not a good situation for a rookie quarterback on Monday Night.

The Jets really don’t have anyone who should scare you on offense even if everyone is healthy. Everyone is sort of a C+ starter. Bilal Powell and Isiah Crowell at running back are basically the definition of C+ players. The receivers we’ve talked about, and the offensive line is average on a good day. This is not a good offense. It might not even be a competent offense. If the Lions defense gets ripped up by these dudes – and they very well might given they couldn’t stop anyone in the preseason – then we’re in for a Very Bad Time this season.

Defensively, the Jets have some promising players like Darron Lee and Jamal Adams and a dude who might be called legit good up front in Leonard Williams, but none of them have quite taken that next step towards being stars yet. They might be dangerous, but the thing is, is that the Lions offense should be good enough to face down almost any defense this season. I’ll be interested to see if the Lions can run the ball on these dudes. If they can, the Lions might have a fighting chance this season. If they can’t, then it’s probably all on Stafford again this season.

The thing is, is that Stafford is probably good enough to almost handle that by himself. He’s gonna win some games on his own (well, with the help of his excellent receivers, but still, you get the point.) But it’s that almost that is Stafford’s tragedy, right? I already spent a whole preview post talking about this so I won’t get into it at length again, but you understand what I’m talking about. You’ve seen it, you’ve lived it.

If this game comes down to Stafford having to put it all on his shoulders, the Lions will still have a shot. That is comforting, I suppose. It is also fool’s gold, because we all know what we have with Stafford, and almost isn’t enough. It will mean the Lions go 7-9 instead of 3-13 and really, who cares? We’re out of time.

Listen, the Jets have 16 different dudes with some sort of question mark hanging over their ability to play on Monday. That is ridiculous. That is almost a third of the entire team. They have a rookie quarterback, no real stars that can take over a game by themselves, and a bunch of C+ players at various important positions. The Lions have to beat this team. It is that simple. I think they will, and 1-0 should buy a little bit of goodwill, but I’m not sure that it will tell much of anything. Of course, if the Lions lose, well . . . we’re out of time.


Lions 28 Jets 17