NFC North Preview, Non-Lions Edition

The NFC North is obviously a division that stirs deep feelings, mostly ones of disgust and horror, but I’ll try to be as fair as a I can, especially because I’ll only be talking about three of the teams here. That’s because I’m going to use this as a springboard towards my multi-part Lions preview beginning on Friday. That will likely be its own special brand of fear and loathing, but today it is fear and loathing of another sort as I plunge into the sick, fucked up world of the Lions divisional rivals.

It’s actually kind of an easy division to call this year, maybe the easiest in the entire NFL save for the AFC East. But even the AFC East has its own intrigue this season as Tom Brady and Bill Belichick battle the clock, each other and common decency for one more season. The NFC North, on the other hand, should go the way everyone expects it to go. “Should,” though is a dangerous word, a heartbreaking word, the mother of all disappointment and despair. So, with that said, let’s get these fucking teams out of the way.

Minnesota Vikings

Why They’ll Win: The Vikings have arguably the best defensive line in all of football, led by Everson Griffen and Linval Joseph, and have a Pro Bowl laden back seven behind that, and that’s just the defense. On offense, the Vikings have a Pro Bowl receiver in Adam Thielen, a Pro Bowl tight end in Kyle Rudolph, they get Dalvin Cook for a full season at running back, and oh yeah, they add Kirk Cousins at quarterback. They went 13-3 last season and should be even better this season. What the fuck, man, I’m already depressed.

Why They Won’t: The Vikings always blow it. Always. It’s in their nature. And that’s because they don’t really know who they are – or at least they don’t accept it. They should be wild-eyed Vikings, a band of degenerate marauders hated and feared by the rest of the league and strip-club bouncers around the country. Instead, they have always been the team of “Minnesota Nice”. They’re not Vikings, they’re good, sober Midwest Methodists. They rise early to tend to the fields, only fuck in the missionary position with the lights off, and secretly hate their wives.

This was most obvious during the 1970s, the team’s glory years, when Bud Grant led them like a grim, sober, passionless preacher. That clean living meant that they were good enough to get to the edge of the Promised Land, but they could never enter because to truly enjoy Paradise you have to fire in your soul. You have to have True Belief and Love for who you are, for what you are. You must have Joy. Obligation isn’t enough. It’s never enough, and anyone who tries to build their life – or their team – around Obligation will only see it fall apart when it really matters. Men will fight and die for Belief, for Love, for that Fire. They’ll break and run if Obligation is the only thing holding them. Vikings rape and plunder the nice, sober people.

The only Viking who’s ever had that Viking spirit was Randy Moss, and they didn’t know what to do with him. They were always vaguely ashamed of him, never truly accepted his ways, and they killed his spirit. Don’t talk to me about that fake ass Jared Allen, either. He wasn’t a Viking. He was just an asshole cop.

All of this brings me in a roundabout way to Kirk Cousins. I hate Kirk Cousins. I loathe that fucker. Why? Tribal reasons, of course. But there is also this: he comes from a town only about a half hour away from me. It is the most self-righteous white-ass conservative town you could imagine. I’m not talking Klansman shit, I’m talking that sober upper middle-class Christian living culture, a bunch of Dutch moralists who look down on the rest of the world, living their lives out of Obligation. This is the sort of place that Betsy DeVos comes from, that the fucker who started Blackwater comes from. These people are evil and fucked up.

This is where Kirk Cousins comes from. This city is so insular, so addicted to the smell of its own ass, that it drove my own beloved sister away. This is true. She used to work there, an important member of the city government. But she wasn’t one of them, and they made her life miserable because of it. She almost had a goddamn nervous breakdown and said fuck it and quit even though she didn’t have another job lined up. My sister is the best person I know, the hardest working person, the most goddamn decent person, and they almost ruined her. Fuck that place. Fuck Holland, Michigan.

This. Is. Where. Kirk. Cousins. Comes. From. 

And in that sense, he is the perfect quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings. He fits that moralist self-righteous, missionary position lovin’ team and place to a tee. But that sort of passionless corruption of “decency” always unravels when it matters most, and so does Kirk Cousins. There’s a reason the Redskins basically pushed him out the door. He wanted a contract extension, but they kicked him out of town instead. They then went and gave that contract extension to a dude five years older than Cousins. They did not like this asshole.

That is a pretty big red flag right there. It is hard to see a dude like that winning it all, of being capable of rallying his team when they need it most. The Vikings have always been dudes just doing a job, not dudes fighting a Holy War, which is what you need to truly win at, well, at anything. It has to consume you, it has to become you.

So, yeah, the Vikings will probably win this goddamn division. And then they’ll fuck it all up like they always do.

Green Bay Packers

Why They’ll Win: Because they’re the Packers and they have Aaron Rodgers. Really, like the Patriots, like the Seahawks, that’s what it will come down to. Like those teams, the Packers have whittled away their actual team because they know that Aaron Rodgers can go out and win this shit all by himself. If the Packers win, that will be why. Aaron Rodgers. That motherfucker.

Why They Won’t: Look, I just talked about this with the Seahawks. There comes a point where that whittling strategy, that cutting corners shit, goes too far and you find yourself throwing for 500 yards in the Super Bowl and still losing. The Packers, like the Patriots, like the Seahawks, have passed that point. That was shown last season when Rodgers got hurt and pretty soon the Packers were getting whipped on at home by the Lions. We all know that never happens. Lord how we know.

Rodgers by himself gives the Packers possibility. He could drag them to the Super Bowl and win the fucker because he is a goddamn vampire and even when you think he is dead, he pops back up and starts gnawing at your neck.

But even vampires are easy to kill when you get one trapped with no place to hide. Or so I imagine, anyway. I haven’t personally killed any vampires. I thought I did once, but it just turned out to be a meth addict with fucked up teeth. I mean, vampires are supposed to burst into flames when you kill them, like in the movies or like Al Davis, but this dude’s corpse just laid there, looking dumb. I had to burn it myself. That’s a bunch of bullshit.

Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, Aaron Rodgers is a vampire, but even vampires blah blah blah. The point is that he doesn’t have anyone helping him here. This should – SHOULD – be comforting, but somehow we all know that he’ll manage to fuck the Lions when it matters most because that is the world we live in and we’re just dumb bags of blood sitting out in the open waiting for him to suck us dry like he always does. This goddamn sonofabitch. It’s not fair! Cheese is full of fat and Milwaukee beer tastes like piss. Fuck this goddamn state and fuck Aaron Rodgers, I will see him in hell, because we all know that’s where I’ll be going.

Chicago Bears

Why They’ll Win: Uhhhh, well . . . I mean . . . I guess . . . hmmmm. Okay, maybe Mitch Trubisky makes a leap and becomes a franchise guy. That’s about all I’ve got here. There’s also this, I suppose: the Bears have a weird habit of having a good season out of nowhere before heading back to the shit pile the next season. In the last 25 years they’ve had back-to-back winning seasons only once, but they’ve also won double digit games four times after a non-winning season. This is a weird franchise, and weird shit happens. So . . . you never know. That’s all I’m saying here because, really, that’s all I – and the Bears – got.

Why They Won’t: Well, there’s that whole back-to-back winning seasons only once in 25 years. That is a lot of Failure Demons to have to try to fight off, especially for a second-year quarterback who didn’t exactly look like a goddamn Ghostbuster his rookie year, not even a nerd like Egon.

Look, I’ll be honest with you. The Bears were the first team I was ever conditioned to hate. That’s because they were on top when I came of age as a fan. I hated Mike Ditka, hated the entire menacing aura of his Bears teams back then. They were The Enemy, and so they always will be to me. This also means that it makes it hard for me to ever truly size them up. I want them to be bad every season, I need them to be bad. Sorry, L.B. You’re my boy, but your team can get fucked.

But really, there’s just not much to fear here. Jordan Howard is a good running back. That’s about that. That’s all they’ve got. Trubisky didn’t look like he was ready, and he’s in really a pissy kind of environment here, right? I mean, when was the last time the Bears truly had The Man at quarterback? Fucking never. That’s when. Their entire history is one built on failed quarterback dreams. Whenever they’ve won it’s because the defense has dominated, and the Bears defense looks like dogshit this year. It’s just too hard to see Trubisky doing anything.

Worse, they know it. Their fans know it. My boy L.B., an Armchair Linebacker vet himself, tried to fire up his own blog again, and with it his fire for his team. He already said fuck it again. That’s because the Bears ruined him before the season even started. That is dark. Dark and terrible. But that is who the Chicago Bears have become. They are not the Ditka Bears anymore and haven’t been for a long time. Christ, they’re not even the Lovie Smith Bears and how fucking sad is that shit? That’s embarrassing.

This is a team going nowhere in a division filled with killer quarterbacks. There will be no easy wins for the Bears, probably no wins period, in the division. I say that knowing full well Matthew Stafford will throw, like, six interceptions in Soldier Field because that is the horrible world that I live in. Even when they Bears are utter shit, it’s hard for me to truly enjoy it because my team is the fucking Detroit Lions, and they are the kings of utter shit. And like a fine jazz improv artist, I guess that brings me, finally, to the Lions . . .

(to be continued)

Final Non-Lions Judgment:

Vikings 11-5

Packers 10-6

Bears 5-11

The Lions Are In First Place

The Lions are in first place.

…

…

…

No, really, they are.  You can even look that shit up.  They are in first place and oh my god this is really happening, you guys, and… okay, hold it together.  Breathe.  Get rational, Neil.  Get…

Fuck all that.  The Lions are in first place!  And while I’m sure at some point the night terrors will set in again, and I will start whispering weird things to The Fear in the dark, where there is no light and only he can see into the wounded places of my soul, for now, I am dancing with the lights on and Hope is clapping in the corner while Victory plays the hell out of the jug.

But the reason why we’re all having a pig roast of the soul right now is because the Lions went into Chicago and beat the Bears in a game which spawned a thousand heart attacks, and almost caused me to jam a wire coat hanger into the electrical socket in my living room to prevent cardiac arrest.  I may have been halfway through dialing the phone to order a hit on Nick Fairley while simultaneously penning a letter of outrage to Herr Goodell for the persecution of the most noble one, The Great Willie Young, but then Big Nick stuck his giant head through the screen and said “Yo, put that fuckin’ phone down.  Now.”  And I did as he swallowed up the Earth and the Moon and the Sun and left us all staring into a New Void, one containing nothing but worlds of our own potential making.

In retrospect, that final obliteration of the Bears ill-fated two point conversion attempt was a fitting way for this to end.  It was a frustrating game by any metric.  The Lions had chance after chance to put the game away in the second half, largely due to the fact that Jay Cutler was reduced to hobbling down the field with the aid of a walker, croaking about how he slipped and fell in the shower and begging somebody, anybody, to check his medic alert bracelet.  But they couldn’t capitalize, as Matthew Stafford played maybe his worst game of the year, and the screen game suddenly disintegrated.  This would worry me, but I think it’s just a momentary blip, as these guys – Stafford and Reggie Bush – are too good and too experienced (yes, we’ve reached that point with Maverick Stafford now) for that to continue for too long. 

This meant that the game felt like a succession of missed opportunities, which felt sickeningly fitting giving that “opportunity” was the overarching theme of the game as a whole.  The Lions needed to win this, and oh lord, wouldn’t it have been fitting for them to lose the game 100 times over?  But those are sick thoughts, and let us not speak too much of them.  In the end, St. Calvin dashed around a mere mortal, plucked the ball out of the air and then it was time for Chicago to plea to false gods and bathe in the frightened sweat of the irrevocably damned. 

Of course, they were almost bailed out by a combo of Nick Fairley morphing into his evil twin at the worst possible time (well, even more evil anyway) and a ref enacting his family’s revenge for an ancient grudge feud with The Great Willie Young dating back to 1852, but then Fairley commenced with his planet swallowing and that was that.  Nick Fairley, Eater of Worlds, had arrived, and all the Bears could do was hang their heads low and know that they had just met a supernatural force.  Josh McCown went and sat down on the bench, to ponder what if, while Jay Cutler received mouth to mouth in the locker room and shat himself.

Meanwhile, Fairley did a fat man high step down the field that shook the earth, and caused frightened birds to flee from their nests in the Sears Tower and animals at the zoo to roar in panic.  The bones of the T-Rex at the History Museum shuddered and Chicagoland put aside all their cares and worries, put down the guns and prayed to the East, to the new Mecca of Fairley, and… okay, yes, I am getting carried away here and somebody probably just put a fatwa on me, but it’s worth it, friends.  It’s worth it because the Lions are in first place.  They are.  It says so in the standings, which state that the Lions are in first place, which means that they have a better record than anybody else in the division, which means they are in first place.  They are.  In first place.  In first…

Okay.  Right.  Anyway, there was a beautiful synchronicity to that game (and oh lord, you know we’re in trouble when I start gibbering about synchronicity again…)  It was one of those things that unfolded in seemingly terrible and obscene ways, but when it was all over, it was impossible to imagine it playing out any other way than it did.  It just felt right.  The Lions were plagued by all their usual demons, but instead of letting that define them, they said “shut the fuck up, demons” and then Nick Fairley ate them.  And wasn’t there something just so perfectly beautiful and synchronous about the Bears having their go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter wiped off the board because Alshon Jeffery didn’t complete the process of the catch?  I mean, this is where that heinous monster was born and then unleashed on the world by the Lizard Man Pereira.  Today, that monster turned around and ate the people who cowardly hid under its wings that fateful day, and then Nick Fairley ate it.

Look, there will probably be a lot of time to quaver in fear and wear sandwich boards around town proclaiming the end is nigh, and I’m sure at some point soon I will compare Nick Fairley to Lenny Small and his locker will be searched for the corpses of dead bunny rabbits, but for now, I just want to bask in the perfect beauty of this day.  For today, Jay Cutler is being airlifted to the Mayo clinic while Aaron Rodgers’ spends his time with his arm in a sling, sadly browsing local shops for a mustache comb, pondering the meaninglessness of a wasted year, and the Lions are celebrating into the night and Nick Fairley is high-stepping down Lake Michigan Avenue like Godzilla while the locals flee and the National Guard offers their unconditional surrender because the Lions are in first place.  The Lions are in first place.

Hunting the Right Way

Hey look, a dead Viking, or at least a nerd pretending to be a dead Viking.  Whatever.

There is no reason why the Lions can’t beat the Vikings on Sunday.  Well aside from the fact that the Metrodome has become a despicable place for the Lions, full of the dull-eyed stupidity that runs rampant in that hinterland of the soul known as Minnesota, bovine beasts lowing while the stadium pipes in false noise to match their false hearts and Jared Allen dances around like a fake methhead, abusing poor Jeff Backus who just sits there and takes it and oh the horror, the horror . . .

Right.  There’s that.  But honestly, these are two teams heading in opposite directions right now and in a league in which momentum is everything that could – and I think should – make all the difference in the world.  The Lions have won two in a row and they looked better last week then they did the week before when they looked better than the week before that and, well . . . you get the point.  Meanwhile, the Vikings have lost two in a row, first to the perpetually mediocre Buccaneers and then to the Seahawks, a week after the Lions beat them, so . . . yeah.  A month ago the Vikings were a good team, headed up and the Lions were a shitty team, mired in the sort of demon swampland that we’ve called home for the better part of the last sixty years.  But now the Vikings aren’t any good, they’re headed for the oblivion that’s become increasingly familiar for them the last few years and the Lions are looking like the team we all thought they could and should be.  The NFL, like many things in life, is capricious and strange and these things just happen.

I don’t want to spend this whole post shitting all over the Vikings though – well, actually I do want to do that but I don’t feel like I should, because here’s the thing – it doesn’t do us any good as a people to constantly denigrate our foes, to pretend that they are all shit while we’re the kings of turd town.  We do that way too much and frankly it’s kind of annoying.  Look, the NFC North is the best division in football.  It just is.  The Bears are a really good team – don’t argue with me because you’ll only reveal yourself to be a slave to your own prejudices – the Vikings aren’t nearly as shitty as we all thought they would be and the Packers are still the Packers, even if they’ve struggled a bit this season.  It’s one thing to hate your enemy and to wish a pox on his house and pray to the old gods and the new for his destruction and the shame of his family.  That is the natural way of things and it is good.  But it is quite another thing to disrespect his abilities because then you just look like a fool and you end up getting your throat slit because you refuse to acknowledge Truth and the gods, both the old and the new, have no time for that shit.

I’m just saying, it does us no good to pretend that everyone else is awful and that we should never, ever lose because then when we do beat them, so what?  There is no honor in abusing a cripple.  And if we lose, we descend into either apocalyptic death spirals or we start making absurd excuses and slandering the fans of teams that are actually good.  Frankly, it’s kind of embarrassing and I wish it would just stop.

I say all this because I want you all to understand that there is a very real chance that the Lions could lose to the Vikings.  It would be absolutely insane and hubristic to the point of nauseating dementia to try to insist otherwise.  Yes, the Viking appear to be falling apart and their 5-4 record doesn’t exactly paint them as a powerhouse but shit, the Lions are 4-4 and have already lost to the Vikings once at home so . . . yeah.

Look, I know that contradicts everything I wrote only a few paragraphs ago but that’s only because I want everyone to understand that we need to live in reality, and not in some wizard’s fantasy because that way is the path to madness.  I think the Lions can and should win but the idea that they will definitely win is just dumb, okay? 

Like I said, the Metrodome has been a hell house for the Lions and the Vikings defensive line has spent the better part of the Schwartz era hideously abusing the Lions offensive line in a way that would make the most degenerate Catholic priest blush.  This will not be easy.

To make matters worse, the Lions aren’t exactly the picture of pristine health.  Louis Delmas was apparently the inspiration for Samuel L. Jackson’s character in Unbreakable, St. Calvin is dealing with fucking nerve damage, and the defensive backfield continues to be a revolving door of madness and despair.  This is not a perfect team marching in lockstep with blessed destiny.  It is a team trying to fight its way through a jungle of poisoned vines and broken limbs and goddammit, we need to understand that and start paying that its proper respect.  Again, pretending isn’t gonna help anyone.

Every time I think about this game I picture Jared Allen flying by Jeff Backus, who’s flat on his ass, while Matthew Stafford turtles and some Nordic looking motherfucker blows a horn and fat ladies cling to their husbands who all look like Dauber from Coach and scream and it’s terrible and disgusting and then I have to lie down for a while.  But fuck that and fuck the Vikings.  Really, that’s what it comes down to.  Fuck the Vikings.  Fuck ‘em.  This is a game the Lions need to win because the Vikings are our enemy and they’re in our way and sometimes it is as simple as that.

Again, it doesn’t mean that we should piss all over their name and pretend they are the joke of all jokes, for that is the way of the fool.  We should respect them, fear them even, because the wise warrior understands that fear is good, fear is healthy, and fear properly channeled turns into victory and the death of your enemy.  There are many different types of fear.  I am not talking about fear of oneself or its master The Fear, both of which are paralyzing monolithic monstrosities that enslave us with chains made of our own pathetic nightmares and insecurities.  I am talking about the wary sort of fear that the good hunter carries with him, the fear of the beast.  The Fear is a hunter and when we run from it we become little more than mindless beasts.  But the good hunter harnesses fear and uses it to remain ever vigilant, ever wary, even as he stalks, and then when he finally corners his prey he can do so knowing that he triumphed because he faced reality with bravery and an open heart.  The hunter who just staggers noisily through the forest, like a besotted fool, drunk on his own bravado and stupid hubris will alert his prey and then his prey will turn on him, corner him and eat his heart.  We must hunt the Vikings with wary intent, careful, patient, measuring them, stalking them, until they are at the edge of a cliff and then we destroy them.  That is the way of the wise hunter, and that is the way to glory.

I have descended into utter gibberish again but that is what happens when you sit down to write with no plan.  Okay, give me a second and I will get back on track. 

Alright . . . so yeah, the Lions can beat the Vikings and we should understand this and cherish this, but we should also understand that the Lions might lose this game.  We must find balance in our own hearts and our own souls so we can stop crashing through the forest like drunken idiots, celebrating like fools whenever we manage to skewer a starving squirrel and collapsing in a heap of shameful tears every time our prey eludes us.  We must look to the example set by our own blessed football team, the balance with which they destroyed the hapless Jaguars last week.  That is the pathway to righteous enlightenment and we must embrace it and become acolytes of its Truth.

Clearly, I have become trapped in some sort of strange gibberish labyrinth and any moment now I expect to be set on by a Minotaur, and I have probably confused you all with my dueling sensibilities, in one paragraph defaming the Vikings and promising a noble and glorious victory and then in the next gibbering about respect and fear and hunting squirrels or some such shit and warning against overconfidence and I would apologize but that would make me look weak, weak like Jared Allen’s sense of dignity, and I won’t have that.  No sir.  So, instead, I will embrace the notion of simplicity and I will say, in unambiguous terms for a change, that I think that the Lions will beat the Vikings.  Because, really all it comes down to is that the Lions have to win this game.  They just do.  And if they are any kind of team at all, a team worthy of our love and a team worthy of their and our playoff dreams, then goddammit, they will win this game.  So I’ll say it again . . .

Lions win.