Outrunning the Devil

I just watched the Lions beat the Packers in a game in which the Packers were the Lions, and lol what can you even say? Above it all loomed the specter of the devil Rodgers, but even the devil gets dragged down by his own Failure Demons sometimes, I guess, and in this one that Failure Demon was a graying old kicker and shit, these things happen. I understand. Believe me.

It’s hard to make sense of it, though, when you’re on the other side of it for a change. It feels like a bit of a gift, not exactly earned but given, but shit, I’ll take it. At the very least, you can say that the Lions didn’t do anything to fuck it up, that they didn’t fight Failure Demons with Failure Demons of their own, and that in itself is a kind of progress. They executed when they needed to, didn’t make any big mistakes, and that might be the biggest reason for anyone to feel excited about this team. That is kind of sad, maybe, but it makes a specific sort of sense for the Lions.

For so long now, the issue hasn’t really been one of talent, or even of scheme or whatever the fuck, it’s simply been the sheer Lions of it all, the propensity to blow off your own dick with that pistol shoved in your waistband that has killed us over and over and over again through the years. Above all else, that is what it has meant to be a Detroit Lion. Matt Patricia’s stated goal has been to change the culture here, and that starts with eliminating the psychic rot of all of that horseshit, the dumb penalties, the errant stomps, the . . . well, everything you just watched the Packers do.

I’m excited because when the Lions have won this season, all two games of it, it’s been in that weird, unfamiliar way in which they’ve seemed like the grown-up team, the one not fucking itself over at every opportunity, and you have to be able to fix that before anything else can matter. I mean, we’ve watched Barry Sanders and Calvin Johnson both be broken by it. Nothing matters if you can’t get over the weird, dysfunctional shit.

And that is what it seems like the Lions are determined to do, at the expense of everything else maybe, which is frustrating in the short term, but maybe it will build an actual foundation for the long term, which is something we haven’t had since, well, ever.

My entire life, it feels like the Lions have been trying to run in quick sand, on an ever shifting and sucking foundation which has eventually buried them no matter how hard they try to escape. It’s insane and has led to all of us being insane.

It felt weird – and good – to see another team, especially the Packers of all teams, who have benefited more than any other team from the Lions Lionsing it up over the years, sinking into the spiritual quicksand while the Lions calmly just waited them out. The Lions didn’t really even do anything, they just calmed the fuck down and let the Packers sink, and it’s a revelation that that’s all it really takes.

Of course, you can’t count on the field goal kicker losing his shit every week, or every bounce and call going your way, which makes this still feel like a week-to-week, game-to-game thing rather than a seasonal breakthrough. I mentioned that in the preview, that I just wanted to see “progress” whatever that meant, that I just wanted to win this game for its own reasons, more than for any fanciful notions of playoff runs or anything like that. Shit, maybe that isn’t out of the question, but for now, every game is its own story, its own dumb battle against the self, and today, the Lions won.

Aaron Rodgers is the devil. I think that’s been well-established, and that makes this even more meaningful. It felt a bit like we were being chased both metaphorically and literally by the devil in this game, and that eventually, he would get his shit together and catch us, but not today, Satan. Instead, the Lions managed to reach the end of the day clear-eyed and sober, with no regrets or failures, no reasons for self-loathing and endless recriminations, and sometimes, I guess, you can still outrun the devil, if only for a day.

The entire second half felt like the chase was on. I mentioned after the Patriots game that it felt like the game could have gone another half, or another full game, and the Lions would still have won. This wasn’t that. The Packers hideously outgained the Lions, Aaron Rodgers was riding a hellhound in pursuit, and eventually he would have caught us because that’s what the devil does, and in the end he always gets his man. But the day is done, and we’re safe for the night, and that’s its own special sort of victory.

“Learning how to win” is a dump phrase that dumb people like to use because it doesn’t really mean anything other than a post facto explanation most of the time, or an excuse when you’re not winning, but I’m gonna use it anyway because I’m a dumb person and this is a dumb game. This is how you learn how to win. You learn how to win simply by doing it, and you do it in multiple ways. You learn how to win by dominating the Patriots, and then you learn how to win by holding on against the Packers, and you learn how to win by not fucking yourself over in the process, and you learn how to win by paying attention to the details, and you learn how to win sometimes by simply being a fucking grownup while the other team wallows in its own shit.

It’s important, I think, that this seems to be Matt Patricia’s overriding goal, getting this team to learn how to win, and as nebulous as that phrase is, it does mean something in the ways I just described. The catch is that in order to learn how to win, you actually have to win, which sounds like some nonsense gibberish, but what I mean by that is that all of that nonsense is just that: nonsense, just stupid, coach-speak that’s all too easy to tune out, by players, by fans, if the coach saying it doesn’t have any credibility, and you can’t get that credibility until you actually start to, you know, win. But then you do win, you beat the Patriots and you beat the Packers, and you do it in a way that validates everything that Matt Patricia has been saying to you, and suddenly you start to listen, you start to believe in all that nonsense, and that is how it becomes real, that is how it builds and builds and that is how a team becomes “a winner.” It is a confidence game, like everything else, an illusion, but we make illusions real by believing them. Or we make them just illusions by not believing them. Human beings are ridiculous idiots.

But they’re idiots that are easy to manipulate, and winning is the ultimate manipulator. With every game like this, Matt Patricia gains more credibility, and it is a credibility that actually means something because it is a credibility that will make dudes buy the illusion. He’s not teaching them “how to win” or doing anything other than convincing them not to be witless fuckups so much, and the next thing you know, a dude like him holds emotional and spiritual power. That is how the world works. It isn’t some magic genius factory in which dudes plot and scheme their way to power and glory and wealth. They just are able to convince people to buy their illusion, and sometimes they can nudge people in that direction, sometimes it’s just a happy accident, and sometimes they use people’s own egos, their own desire not to be fuckups, and use that to maneuver them until they buy the con and listen to whatever the fuck you want to tell them.

This is all gibberish, and pretty cynical, and I don’t really mean it to be. This is a particular skill, poorly understood by most, and gets at the heart of coaching. Most of the time, it isn’t about scheme or genius or any of that salesman bullshit. It is simply about getting people to believe the bullshit coming out of your mouth and allow themselves to be led. That’s it. That’s the job, and maybe Matt Patricia is actually good at that even if I’m not sure he’s good at the rest. The rest might be irrelevant if he has the first part.

It is really weird that in this really weird season the Lions two victories are over the Patriots and the Packers. You couldn’t pick two more unlikely teams. But that adds to everything I just talked about. Those two wins give Patricia credibility in a way that no other two wins could have. The players will listen to him now and that’s it, that’s really all it takes.

Does this mean the Lions are about to start rolling? No. There are still too many talent holes, and yes, you still need talent. You just need that talent to listen to you. It doesn’t matter if a bunch of bums believe in you and it doesn’t matter if you have a bunch of stars if they won’t listen. You need both. I’m encouraged that the Lions have someone the players will actually listen to for the first time in my godforsaken fan life, which in itself is an absurdity given how this shit looked at the beginning of the season. I still need to see Bob Quinn and Patricia get their shit together from a talent evaluation standpoint, though, and wouldn’t it just be so fucking Lions if they managed somehow to fix the culture but fucked up the talent part for a change?

That is a dark thought, and I don’t want to leave you with that, not when the Lions just beat the Packers two weeks after beating the Patriots. This is a good day, a devil-free day, and we should enjoy it. Aaron Rodgers isn’t gonna enjoy it. Mason Crosby sure as shit isn’t gonna enjoy it. Hell, that poor fucker might hang himself. My dumbass Yooper Packer fan relatives aren’t gonna enjoy it. Red Foreman isn’t gonna enjoy it. But we will. That is a hell of a change, and today, that is all that matters.