What Could Be

I’m not really sure what to say about this game. Either the Lions win and it will be trumpeted as a sign of progress, dudes and lady dudes falling all over themselves to insist that the time is Now and glory unto Ford, etc., or they will lose and much garment rending will be had, dudes and lady dudes will reenact the falling man from 9/11 (it’s the newest dance craze!) and Matt Patricia will be ridden oinking through the riotous streets. These are the perpetual manic depressive swings of a Lions fan, and that will be that.

The thing is, though, is that I’ve kind of come around to approaching this whole thing on a macro scale, not really concerned with what happens this season – it would be nice if the Lions won, obviously – but more concerned with the idea that things are headed in the right direction, “right” in this case meaning something, a feeling really, unfamiliar to us at any time over the last 60 years. I don’t want signs that the Lions will be competitive or be able to sneak into the playoffs every three years or whatever, I want signs that they won’t be a gang of soul fuckups and spiritual losers. I want signs that they will eventually be a Real Live Boy, not the stillborn fetus tossed in the dumpster that we’re so used to mourning.

This sort of feeling is tough to explain to outsiders. In a sense it feels like a retreat, a step back from expectation. It is a concession that the Lions are Not Good. But you can either take that and throw a fit and vomit all over sports talk radio and demand mass executions, or you can take that step back and try to see a bigger picture, and honestly, it feels refreshing when you allow yourself to think like that. It takes some of the hatred out of it, the endless sense of betrayal that lies at the heart of being a Lions fan. It is very dark business, and the only way to survive it is to take that step back sometimes and try to see What Could Be instead of what Is.

The last time I really let myself do that was in the early days of the Jim Schwartz era, which was as much a reaction to 0-16 as it was anything having to do with him. I mean, where else do you go after 0-16? You really don’t have a choice but to invest in Hope, in the long game of What Could Be because What Is in the wake of 0-16 was, well, 0-16.

There came a point late in the 2010 season when you could see it. You could see What Could Be, and it was tantalizing. In the end, it was heartbreaking, of course, because that is what it means to be a Lions fan, but that heartbreak was only made possible by the tantalization of What Could Be, of the hazy idea that everything would be okay because Ndamukong Suh was a monster and Matthew Stafford was still in his infancy, and you could see it, you could feel it, you knew that while maybe it wasn’t Happening, it was About To Happen, and there is perhaps no headier feeling in sports, no perfect glow of Faith and Excitement than that moment because all your dreams are alive, untainted by reality. About To Happen is that perfect moment just before orgasm.

And late in that 2010 season, you could feel it turning from About To Happen to Happening as the Lions won 4 straight to close out the season. 2011 started with 5 straight wins and my god it was Happening, and then of course the Lions went 5-6 the rest of the way and never recovered and that 9-0 stretch between 2010 and 2011 just felt like a bittersweet mirage, False Hope, and that has gone on to taint the last 7 years or so the same way 0-16 tainted everything. False Hope is dangerous, because when it’s taken away and you realize that it’s Not Happening, you become bitter and miserable and start calling up sports talk radio shows and farting into the phone before drowning yourself in the toilet.

But while it was happening, we didn’t know that it was False Hope. We just thought it was the real thing, that we were living in that moment between About To Happen and Happening and in that moment is perfect bliss, the eternal serenity of the orgasm. I’m reminded of that for two reasons: that is what I’m looking for as this season continues, not the Happening itself, but the About To Happen, the sense that soon – well, soonish anyway – everything will be different, that it will be good, and that we will be happy. It is probably a fool’s hope, and in a sense it is more dangerous than wanting instant gratification because I don’t just want a halfway decent team right now, I want it All, and I know that All is a process. That is a weird dichotomy. That retreat from the Now seems inherently pessimistic, and yet it is actually the act of an almost insane optimist, a sort of willing soul masochism devoted to the possibility of the Magic of the All, in an almost desperate Hope.

But second, and more relevant to this week’s game, is that one of the first wins in that 9-0 stretch happened against the Dolphins in Miami, which is exactly where the Lions are playing this week. It was somehow even better that Matthew Stafford was out for that game – he was out for that entire 4-0 finish to the season – because the Lions were winning with Shaun Hill of all people, and that just made it seem all the more Real, that if they could do that with Shaun Hill, just wait until what they could do with a healthy Stafford. The 5-0 start the next season seemed to confirm all of that, which just made what happened after feel all the more cruel, but still, again, we were lost in the rapture of About To Happen.

Ndamukong Suh was sacking dudes in that game in Miami, Shaun Hill was doing his best, and Jim Schwartz seemed to be creating something different, a culture of almost obscene Swagger, that just felt so seductively good after the humiliating cuckish misery of 0-16 and the years that preceded it. Of course, that obscene swagger ended up being exactly what ruined the Schwartz era and Ndamukong Suh specifically for us, because that is how things go for us.

Again, though, that just makes me think of what’s going on right now. Matt Patricia seems determined to do something radically different than Schwartz. Instead of obscene swagger, he seems like he wants to build a culture of cold, merciless professionalism, of icy businessmen calmly assassinating their rivals before moving on to the next victim like 53 Anton Chigurhs. It is vastly different, but it is in that difference that the Hope truly lies. That is why I am at the very least intrigued and willing to take a step back and devote myself to looking for About To Happen. I’ve seen enough signs of it this season to think it is at least possible, and to be honest, that’s really all I need to give my heart away again. I’m a goddamn idiot, but at least I’m not a coward.

So . . . yeah, I want to believe in this game against the Dolphins as sort of a funhouse mirror version of that 2010 game against the Dolphins. Like that game, I want this one to feel like progress, more evidence that we are about to be seduced by the About To Happen, even if the way we get there is completely different than the way we got there in 2010. There will be no rampaging Suhs in this game, but that’s kind of the point.

The good thing is that I think we could see it. The Dolphins are 4-2, but they’ve been outscored on the season, and their actual expected record based on that total score is somewhere closer to 2-4. Their quarterback, Ryan Tannehill, is out again, and even though Brock Osweiler beat the fucking Bears last week, that’s the Bears and they have their own dysfunctional cross to bear. I’m not taking whatever happens against them as any sort of sign for the future.

Basically, the Dolphins are a completely mediocre team, and that’s exactly the sort of team you want to see your dudes show something against. Of course, this has been a weird season, one in which it seems like the Lions are destined to beat all the teams that they’ve never been able to beat while getting humiliated by the mediocrities of the world, so who knows, man? That in itself is a weird departure from the norm for us. I don’t remember the Lions ever beating teams like the Patriots and the Packers like this, especially within a couple of weeks of each other. At least not recently. The last time I remember something like that happening is actually in the mid-90s when they beat the 49ers and the Cowboys in prime time. Perhaps not coincidentally, that’s the last time being a Lions fan felt fun in any way.

That’s what beating teams like the Patriots is. It’s fun. And it’s fun because it buys your team so much instant credibility, it buys them space in which to get to that place you want them to get without feeling like the walls are constantly closing in. I mean, if they can beat the Patriots, and beat the shit out of them, then isn’t anything possible?

That is the magic of the About To Happen, and while I don’t feel like we’re there yet, I can at least imagine its possibility, which is sort of the same feeling, just on a smaller, more fragile scale. Beating the Dolphins will feel like another satisfying data point. Losing to the Dolphins will feel like a setback, but thanks to those wins over the Patriots and the Packers, and more specifically, the Patriots win, it won’t feel devastating. It will just remove us a bit from About To Happen, which sucks, but hey, these things are a process, and the lesson we should all learn from that 9-0 mirage of 2010/2011, is that instant gratification is often a hideous lie. I’d rather let this team develop slowly, the right way, bit by bit, piece by piece, moment by moment, than set my hair on fire and run screaming naked through the world like those Suh teams.

Sure, that can feel more fun in the moment, but fuck the moment, I want Forever. I want something Lasting. I want it All.

The Lions can beat the Dolphins. The Lions might beat the Dolphins. And for now, that’s good enough for me. That possibility at least keeps me interested, at least keeps me moving forward. There’s nothing worse than looking at the schedule and sneering because you know your team is going to lose. I felt that way earlier in the season, which makes me all the more ridiculous right now. I recognize this. But I don’t care. I am ridiculous. And I find myself willing to invest in . . . in something. I don’t know exactly what it is yet, but that’s part of the fun of it. That’s what makes it exciting again for me. That’s what makes it Hope.

Predicted Final Score: Lions 24 Dolphins 17