It Was A Good Day

I’ve been burned so many times before as a Lions fan that it’s hard for me to allow myself to truly let go and let the rhythm get me, but there was a moment early in the first half when I clapped my hands together so hard that I worried I broke one of them.  From then on, I was swallowed up in the sea of exuberant fan idiocy, and found myself incoherent and goofy, tongue lolling out of my head like a mental patient, waving like a simpleton at anyone who happened by.  As that notable wordsmith and gentleman raconteur Ice Cube once said before becoming a mini-van spokesman, it was a good day.  Indeed.

The Lions didn’t just beat the Bears, they kicked the shit out of them.  And they kicked the shit out of them in a way that the Bears usually do to them.  You know what I’m talking about.  The quarterback throws an interception, somebody fumbles, a safety pretends he’s riding a horsey and pretty soon it’s an every man for himself free for all, with dudes hiding underneath dead bodies and fans throwing themselves from the rafters.  We’ve all seen it, but for a change, we got to see it and taste it from the side of the blood-drunk victors, and goddamn, that’s some delicious blood.

There are people who will grumble and fret like church ladies because the Lions let the Bears score a couple of cheap touchdowns at the end of the game, but fuck all that.  That’s just paranoid fear-mongering, the sort of concern trolling which has become an art form for most Lions fans, myself included.  We are like fucking Michelangelos of braying fear.  This was a straight up ass kicking, and just because the Bears played out the zombie string like professional football players and Jay Cutler didn’t gnaw on the brains of his offensive linemen, it doesn’t take away from what the Lions did.  They won that game.  Emphatically.  Everything once the score reached 37-16 was basically just noise, the sort of thing that happens when teams, a league and a television network have to fulfill their contractual obligations.  If this were Pee-Wee football, they would have gone to a running clock.

The truly scary thing is that Matthew Stafford really didn’t play all that well – he wasn’t terrible, but he wasn’t as sharp as we all know he can be – and the Lions kinda sorta sucked on third down, which was immensely frustrating because most of them were of the easily makeable third and a few variety.  They also turned the ball over themselves three times.  This meant that they left a ton of points on the field.  They still scored 40 points.  They should have scored 50.  Easily.  When that is your only quibble, you’re ensconced safely in a penthouse located on the corner of Candy Street and Blowjob Avenue. 

This was the team we all saw at the beginning of 2011, the team that terrorized everybody, murdered quarterbacks like Mexican drug gangs disposing of used up mules (the people kind, not the poor, innocent animal kind) and seemed like a gang of pirates bent on pillage and dark acts that would horrify the townspeople but make our boys deliriously rich with doubloons and drunk on honey wine and conquest.  In fact, the last time we really saw this team – a team that could run over and around you and kick the shit out of your offensive line and your quarterback – was in the Lions Monday Night Football game against the Bears in 2011.  Sure, they whipped up on the Broncos later that year, but that Monday Night game was the last time it felt like the Lions made a real statement, when they seemed like a team without fear, and a team that could face down a rival and pistol whip them into humility.  While I was watching this game, it struck me that you could almost take an eraser to everything that has happened since, and just say okay, let’s just pick it up where we left off.

Of course, you can’t do that, and like I said, I have been burned so many times by this team and this franchise that I have no body hair left and I am made of nothing but ash and regret.  But, still, the sentiment was there, and that means something.  This is a team of assholes and reprobates, but when they can channel that into sheer physical strength, like prison bull dogs, I don’t really care.  I don’t care if they are assholes as long as they don’t let it fuck with their game.  When they can take it, and harness it just enough to enhance their game, to intimidate and bully an opponent, well…  as we’ve all seen, that’s a tough trick to pull off, but when they can, goddamn, these dudes are nasty badasses. 

Of course, I am mostly talking about Ndamukong Suh and Nick Fairley, who abused the Bears offensive line.  Just abused them.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the Bears linemen have to ask Suh and Fairley permission to stand up when they pee.  Suh can probably sell Jay Cutler to Arab slavers if he wants because he owns him.  This is what has been so frustrating about the Lions over the last year and a half or so of wandering the wilderness.  We know this is what these dudes can do if they just harness their natural brutishness.

It was so dominating that they demolished the Bears interior offensive line even though the Bears were holding like desperate men hanging on to the grim tatters of their shredded dreams on every goddamn play.  Suh and Fairly just ran right through them.  It was insane.

The crowd was insane too, marauding and vicious, throwing things onto the field like hooligans, and while the tsk tskers will surely decry this villainy, fuck it, I love this stuff.  But again, it has to be earned, and it’s all part of riding that fine line between intimidating Bad Boyish assholery and the embarrassing hubris of the punk who lives in a land of self-denial.  Just win, baby.

That will always be the struggle for this team and this fanbase, I think, but for today, it felt earned and perfect, and I salute them all with the finest meats, the best beer and the wildest women. 

This was the game I wanted to see, the game I needed to see to make me believe – maybe not in the promise of the future or in the dreams of my heart – but in the potential of the Now.  The Lions are 3-1 right now and they should probably be 4-0.  They have absolutely kicked the shit out of 2 of their 3 divisional opponents already – albeit at home – and who knows?  Who knows what they can do if they get on a roll and feed off of their own momentum?  I think that’s the thing we all need to realize about this team.  They are an emotional team.  They are not cerebral chess players who can turn deftly following adversity and change their tactics.  They are team of emotional brutes, and that means that they are highly susceptible to those intangible things that the Football Outsider types hate to acknowledge as a factor so much.  If they start to lose, then things unravel quickly.  I think that probably speaks to sketchy coaching, but that’s a topic for another day.  But when they win, they can become berserkers.  They become like video game characters that get some sort of bonus that makes them impenetrable to any and all attacks while they just careen through the slaughter, glowing and attacking at ludicrous speed.  It’s just the nature of this beast of a team, and we’ve seen that too.  Remember that 9-0 stretch at the end of 2010/the beginning of 2011?

If this actually were a video game, Suh, Fairley and Reggie Bush would have been literally on fire while the announcers hollered outrageous made-up words as the players turned ten feet tall and threw the goalpost like a pitchfork into a quivering Jay Cutler.  If they allow that momentum to carry them, then who knows what they can do?  That’s enough for me, for now. 

Speaking of Reggie Bush, I’ve been gibbering since week one about how important he is to the offense, and how his presence on the field changes everything from the spacing to the defensive game plan, and, well… allow me to gesture dramatically like a lawyer dropping his hottest piece of evidence on a jury.  Bush was ridiculous in all the best ways, rushing for over 100 yards by halftime – when was the last time *that* happened in a Lions game?  For us, I mean. – and looking a lot like the dude who once conquered Los Angeles like the half-human/half-god spawn of some unholy tryst between Zeus and a gazelle.

There was so much right with this game, so much unqualified beauty.  There are no “Yeah, buts…” here.  There are no lingering doubts.  This was a team that wandered in the desert and somehow came out the other side alive, psychically damaged sure, but still more than capable of slaughtering whatever poor saps they found camping on the shore, coming down from those desert hills like demon warriors from hell.  I am getting carried away here, as is my wont, but in some ways, the last year and a half or so of “Oh God, why is this happening?  No… why?  WHYYYYYYYYY???” made this game even more impressive because it showed that there’s something there, something intact that couldn’t quite be broken, and if that gives this team a quiet confidence to lie just beneath the emotional, beastly surface, then they could be truly dangerous indeed.

I’m just happy right now, happy in a way that I haven’t been as a Lions fan in a while.  Am I going to start gibbering about Super Bowls and Promised Lands?  No, because like I said, I’ve been burned way too many times.  But like the Lions themselves, maybe this will give me some quiet confidence, something I’ve never really had as a Lions fan, and maybe I can smile and stop worrying about the future and what it all means (okay, I won’t because, well, come on…) and accept that today is enough, because today was - and is - a good day.

The Bad Boys Cometh

By now, everyone’s heard about the Lions being referred to as the “Evil” in the Good vs. Evil article put up on the NFL’s own website last week, right? I won’t link to it both because I am lazy and because, well, fuck them. Basically, the article’s premise is that the Broncos, led by the Tebow Child represent all that is good about the NFL, America and the general human condition while the Lions are headbanging to old Slayer albums with Satan down in hell because Ndamukong Suh and the boys are all awful people who sacrifice goats and steal virgins from castles and bark at the moon on their off-days. At least that seems to be the general consensus. And you know what? Cool. Bring it the fuck on.

The Lions have been cast as bad guys, by the sensationalistic media, by the lying devil tongue of Roddy White, even by the NFL. If that’s the storyline those assholes wants to weave, then fine by me. You see, I grew up loving a certain basketball team that everyone called the Bad Boys. I worshipped a Michigan basketball team that dangled its collective nutsack on the foreheads and chins of bewildered white bread opponents. I read Ken Stabler’s autobiography – which I have talked about so many times here that I feel like the motherfucker should start paying me to be his new publicist – over and over and over again, and every time I developed more and more love for those old Raiders teams of the ‘70s. I was fascinated by them. They made their own rules and in the process scared the shit out of the entire league. They intimidated everyone and they won all the damn time. How could I not love that?

Therefore, my formative years were spent worshipping teams that everyone else hated. They were spent sitting in the stands at the Palace of Auburn Hills, watching the Pistons beat the shit out of Michael Jordan while some crazy asshole ran around the court with a fucking pirate flag and the crowd went wild. Shit, for a 10 year old boy, that was like heaven. If Isiah Thomas would have jumped a dirtbike over a T-Rex while Metallica played For Whom the Bell Tolls, I probably would have chained myself to the seat and refused to leave. I watched in slack-jawed glee as Jalen Rose tried to fight the entirety of Duke University and everything it culturally represents. I was raised on rebels and thugs, on Bad Boys and modern day Robin Hoods. This was the soul of Detroit. This was the soul of a people, my people. Fuck you, Prince John. Fuck you, Sheriff of Nottingham. Fuck you, Coach K.

I’m getting carried away, but goddammit, I need everyone to feel this, to understand just where it is that I am coming from when I say that not only should the Lions be okay with this whole Good vs. Evil thing, they should embrace it. Screw it, Al Davis is dead. He’s not gonna complain. Give Roary a fucking pirate flag and have him run around Ford Field. Shit, he already mugged Jamaal Charles and ruined his season. Have Ndamukong Suh and the boys run out onto the field looking like extras from Mad Max or from Tupac’s California Love video. You want us to be the bad guys? Well say hello to the fucking bad guys.

After the Lions win over the Broncos last week, I heard some bullshit complaining, some finger wagging hysterical OH GOD THINK OF THE CHILDREN nonsense from the Maud Flanders wing of the fanbase, saying that they were sad and disgusted because the Lions reminded them of those old Raiders teams. All I could think was yeah, you’re goddamn right, and then I laughed and cackled with manic glee. That’s exactly what I want my team to look like. That’s the attitude I want them to have.

And really, that’s what this is all about. Attitude. Swagger. Whatever you want to call it, that’s what this is about. It’s not about playing dirty or even talking a steady stream of trash. It’s about a state of mind. I’ll give you an example of what I’m talking about. Against the Broncos, after sacking Tim Tebow, Stephen Tulloch mocked the shit out of him, right in front of his own teammates, his own fans, in his own stadium and nobody did shit about it. Everyone just took a picture and then laughed at Tebow. That’s attitude. But what’s even more, uh, attitudinal, is that this would never happen if you reversed the circumstances. If someone sacked Matthew Stafford and then egregiously mocked him in front of the whole world, one of the Lions would have punched that motherfucker right in the face. Tebow’s Broncos teammates just hung their heads low and slinked off the field. That’s the difference right there. That’s why attitude is important. The Lions will mock you and they’ll fucking fight you because they’ve got that attitude, that swagger, that passion that separates the good teams from the hopeless shitbags like the Broncos. Are the Lions more talented? Yeah. But they didn’t beat the Broncos just because they were more talented. They beat the Broncos because they fucking beat them down, because they wanted to mug them, because they had to, because that’s what attitude is – it’s snarling at anyone who fucks with you, it’s you against the world, it’s smashing some poor fool just because he gets in your way. It’s raw, naked primal hunger.

Of course, the downside to getting a reputation like this is that everyone hates you. But so what? If everyone hates you, it just means that you’re doing something right, you know? It makes me happy to see people spitting with venom when they talk about the Lions now. It sure beats the hell out of having to be patted on the head like some poor stray mongrel that everybody feels bad for. I’m sick of being a mongrel. I want to be a pitbull from hell, a demon beast with swords for teeth and chainsaws for claws. Pat us on the head now and we’ll eat that fucking hand.

So, really, that’s not much of a downside for me. I love that Us Against the World kind of mentality, that backed into the corner no choice but to rip your throat out and then gnaw on your bones mentality. I want my dudes to be bloodsoaked beasts, terrible wraiths from hell, riding Pale Horses bringing death with them as they ride out of the haze and all the villagers scream and run, panicked, looking for a hole to hide in like the cowards that they are.

The true downside to getting this sort of reputation is that the shitheaded refs start to pick on you. They start to use your reputation against you and then Sheriff Goodell starts fining and suspending dudes and pretty soon that Lizard Pereira is on TV talking about how Ndamukong Suh should be exiled to hell for giving Jay Cutler a piledriver or, you know, just pushing him to the ground. But that’s the price you pay, you know?

The truth is – and this is something that a lot of people don’t seem to realize – is that your greatest strength is also often your biggest vulnerability. I know, I know, that sounds like some cheap dimestore fortune cookie wisdom, but I think that it’s true. At least it is in this case. The Lions swagger, their attitude, their Bad Boy aggressiveness is what sets them apart from other teams. It’s what makes them special. Like I said, they didn’t beat the shit out of Tebow and the Broncos just because they were more talented. No, they fucking mauled Tebow and the Broncos because of that swagger, that attitude, because of everything that makes them Detroit’s newest Bad Boys. But that’s also why they give up big plays from time to time, because they have a single minded Terminator like goal: Kill the Quarterback. It’s why they get called for all manner of bullshit penalties, from The Great Willie Young taking a hatchet to Jay Cutler’s skull to Ndamukong Suh getting called for palming the skull of some helpless offensive lineman.

But the Lions are smart too. They aren’t just waving their dicks in everyone’s faces and then whining when people try to slice them off. Ndamukong Suh just met with Sheriff Goodell in what was basically a preemptive move. It was as much about letting everyone know that he’s being unfairly targeted as it was about coddling the Sheriff. It was about letting everyone see that he was taking steps to make sure that everyone was on the same page. The media seems to want to frame it as Suh asking for help, trying to find ways to clean up his game, but that’s all bullshit. This was done so that Suh could basically let the Sheriff and his posse know that this was what he was all about and they better get on board because if they fuck with him after this then everyone will know that, hey, Suh tried to talk with them, tried to reason with them, to get them to understand that he’s not a dirty player, he’s just a bad motherfucker and the NFL is sadly no place for a bad motherfucker these days.

It’s true. The NFL is a soft league. I will not call the NFL’s officials and players and coaches and assorted Pereiras (Pereirii?) pussies because that is an insult to pussies which are wonderful and which have made this world a better place to live in. These soft idiots have instead tried to ruin the game that I love. They don’t provide me with any pleasure or happiness at all. But weird semantic digressions aside, the point is that in today’s soft environment, a true bad motherfucker like Suh has to be proactive. He has to take the fight to the man, put that shifty Sheriff of Nottingham on his heels. Don’t give that asshole room to maneuver against you. Ndamukong Suh did to Roger Goodell just what he does to opposing quarterbacks. He closed the distance between them in a terrifying heartbeat and left the rat bastard no room to move. Just take your sack Sheriff Goodell and beg for mercy.

Of course, I recognize that there is a portion of the fanbase who are preconditioned to root for someone like the Tebow Child instead of a Pirate Warrior King like Ndamukong Suh, and there’s not a whole lot I can say to them here. If you disapprove of the way that the Lions carry themselves – if you don’t like Chris Houston dancing like Deion or Calvin Johnson walking the last five yards to the endzone or Tony Scheffler’s awe-inspiring touchdown dances (Seriously, in the celebration against the Broncos he managed to mock both Tebow and the Broncos stupid Mile High Salute at the same time. It was amazing.) or Stephen Tulloch mocking Tebow while Tebow writhed in pain on the turf – well . . . shit, I don’t know what to tell you. That’s your team right there. That’s what will make them great and if you want to settle for less than that simply to appease some bullshit childish sense of morality, then you are just in the way and if you would be so kind as to just shut up and let the rest of us have our fun, I’d be forever grateful.

You see, the thing is, is this is football. This is sport. If you are upset because you’re worried that your children aren’t getting good role models, then you need to do a couple of things: first, drown the child in the bathtub because clearly he or she is a waterbrained idiot if they are incapable of separating what happens on the football field from what happens in real life and need to take their cues from a fucking football player (also, perhaps you should be asking yourself why your child needs to look beyond his own home for worthwhile role models. I’m just saying.) and second, if you do have faith that one day your child will be able to function like an actual adult, someone who will be able to appreciate the nuances that permeate every aspect of day to day life, sit down and talk to them and explain that it’s okay to have fun in certain aspects of life, like on the football field, but that maybe they should chill and be a little more respectful in school. Sit down with them and explain to them the differences. Explain to them that life is filled with different circumstances and that each circumstance requires its own set of rules, its own behavioral standards. Explain this to them. Teach them. In short, be a parent instead of lazily foisting that responsibility off on a bunch of young millionaire football players. If this is too hard for you, then feel free to drown yourself in that same bathtub because you’re a fucking terrible parent and you’re just making the world a shittier place for everyone else.

Whoa. Not sure where that came from, but I feel like it needed to be said. The heart of all of that wild real talk is this: football is a game. It is not real. It has no consequences beyond its own inherent consequences. If Stephen Tulloch mocks Tim Tebow a tiny island in the Pacific isn’t going to be struck by a Tsunami. If Tony Scheffler does an obscene touchdown dance the stock market isn’t going to plunge 1,000 points in a single day. If The Great Willie Young eats Jay Cutler’s soul . . . okay, fine, bad example. The point is this: there is absolutely no reason to emulate the sort of meek humility of Tim Tebow on the football field. After all, let’s not forget, Jesus died. I want my players to be the Romans, spearing everyone to death and crucifying Tebow. I don’t want them to be the ones hanging from the cross. Before you get all offended, just remember that I am talking about what happens on the football field. Football is fake, man. It’s a fucking game and if you’re not playing the game to win, then get the fuck out of here. After the game, if you want the Lions to be good little Christian Soldiers then hey, that’s great. But, shit, on the field, I don’t want them to be Daniel. I want them to be, well, the Lions.

And, in the end, that’s what this is really all about. Football, and sport in general, is a fantasy, a place of simulated warfare, a place where the human spirit is allowed – shit, encouraged – to be savage and barbaric and primal. It is ritualized savagery, the embracing of the dark heart of the human condition, of everything that we suppress within ourselves on a day to day basis. Root for Ndamukong Suh ripping his coworkers head off because you can’t. Root for the Lions to be, deep down, what you wish you could be.

This is threatening to carom into the world of the Philosophical and the Abstract and while that shit is kind of my wheelhouse, I don’t want it to take away from the fundamental truth, which is that the Detroit Lions are at their best when they are the Bad Boys. Deep down, everybody knows it. Shit, Jim Schwartz knows it. Yeah, he bitched and was all HEY COME ON NOW THIS IS BULLSHIT when that article came out but that’s because that’s what he’s supposed to do. If he didn’t then the fine line between passionate ass-kickery and anarchic barbarism would be obliterated. The Lions are doing a savage dance, but a dance which is surprisingly delicate, two-stepping on a tightrope, reaching one hand into chaos while keeping a foot tethered to civilization. They are tapping into the primal, into the savage, into the chaotic, a place of frightening power and they are using it to get that razor fine edge over other teams. Understand that. Above all, understand that. See it for what it is and encourage it. The Lions haven’t stepped over any lines. Jim Schwartz gets this. Hell, he’s the one leading the charge, fighting with other coaches, dropping countless F Bombs during games. He’s the one setting the tone for his players and he knows what he’s doing. Trust in that and have no fear, the motherfucking Bad Boys are here. Maybe that was a bit corny, but I don’t give a shit. I am out of my head and corniness is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is this: it’s us against the world and frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.