AFC East Preview

The AFC East will always be Tom Brady’s kingdom until he decides to retire to a life of singing Huey Lewis hits while he sanitizes the kitchen after that rat he forced into that lady’s vagina ate through her entrails and just made a huge fucking mess and he’ll be damned if Gisele catches him, not because she would be angry but because he didn’t share with her.

And that is where the king of the NFL stands today, another year older, another psychotic training regimen and diet to keep him from decomposing like a ghoul. I am roughly the same age as Tom Brady, a year or two younger maybe, and I understand the ravages of time. I get it. I feel it, and I know he does too, but while I escape from my own disintegration in a haze of drugs and possibly illegal hormones that keep my testosterone where I want it to be, Tom Brady is in an entirely different universe of anti-aging techniques or wizard spells or whatever the fuck obscenely rich and powerful people do to slow the inevitability of decay. He could probably keep this up for several more years, only leaving on his own terms when he finally finds whatever the fuck kind of satisfaction a competition freak can find.

But that is the rub for Tom Brady. Dudes like him never find satisfaction. They are always chasing down more titles, more glories, more proof that they are superhuman demigods who can fucking beat time and death and the inevitability of a universe’s collapse, a pathological will that takes control of the meat puppet and forces it to win win win until it finally all just breaks apart in a horrid cacophony of injuries and a stubborn refusal to acknowledge that you cannot play quarterback until you are 90 years old. Michael Jordan had to quit, more than once, because of this sickness. It was either that or face the possibility that one day he would no longer be capable of being the best, physically or mentally.

But Brady lives in a different world than Jordan did. Brady lives in the 21^st century, in the fucking future, where every tiny little thing can be micromanaged and controlled and perverted to your needs. He can hire an entire team of dieticians and kill them all and then process their bodies, their marrow, into a tonic that no peasant could ever hope to taste. He can get gorilla cum flown in daily from Africa to lube his aged joints. He could purchase a child from some shithole and nourish himself on its brains, getting only the good stuff because he knows how to do that because he hired the top cannibals to aid him in his quest for more more more.

Brady will do this until one day something crazy happens and he becomes broken. And when it does, the entirety of the Patriots universe will collapse in on itself, Bill Belichick won’t be able to do a goddamn thing about it and Robert Kraft will end up dumping the team so he can move to Florida and hit up the rub and tugs every goddamn day. At some point they will simply all be too goddamn old for all this bullshit, and that is the only thing that is going to stop them. When that happens is anyone’s guess. I wouldn’t count on it happening this season. The Patriots and Brady are fresh off of conquering the world yet again. They have taken their slaves, raped the women and some of the children too. They are all conquering and you know that they will be there in the end and there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it.

So, until that day comes, when even Tom Brady can no longer cheat the universe, the Patriots are the pick to win the AFC East. Nothing else really matters. The defense will ebb and flow, the running game will be featured more to allow Tom to protect himself from the horrors of age, but in the end it will all come down to that man, Tom Brady, winning until the universe finally kills him.

It helps that the rest of the division is largely a tire fire. The Jets might make a move since they picked up Le’Veon Bell, but in the end, the Jets are always going to be the Jets. I am not sold on Sam Darnold, the latest USC dream machine, echoing Todd Marinovich and Matt Leinart, old butt fumble himself Mark Sanchez, who lest we forget was also supposed to be the savior for the New York Jets. 

That’s how fucked up this team is. Their grand plan is a copy of a plan that already hilariously failed. That is not something that engenders a whole lot of hope and optimism from a fanbase who, uh, aren’t exactly calm and patient people. Darnold will wither in New York because that’s what happens in New York. It eats its own and then wonders why it can’t get a fucking quarterback to save the day. It’s been a long time since Joe Namath called his shot, but even Namath only lasted for that one year and flamed out. And that’s Joe fucking Namath. That is the most charismatic dude, a drunken swagger that fucks anything that moves and knows that he can get away with it. That dude broke in New York, so who the fuck else could handle it?

It’s always the same story with the Jets. They are a team perpetually on fire, and whether that fire just burns in a shitheap that goes nowhere or explodes spectacularly in an out of control run that inevitably still ends with the entire franchise being burned alive, they will be right back where they started, playing with matches and throwing young dumb cum machines into a madhouse of unreal expectations and absurd self importance. Fire burns it all down in the end, and it cracks the foundations and this is the world of the New York Jets in any given year.

The Jets might make a little wild card push, but that’s about it, and they’ll have the Bills nipping at their heals, hoping that finally they get this goddamn thing right.

But they probably won’t. They are all in on Josh Allen, which I don’t think will work out. He is the sort of athlete that can allow you to get exotic with your playbook, but as a passer, he just isn’t good enough and I doubt he ever will be. The Bills will be better this year, just running the fuck out of the ball with Allen and LeSean McCoy and Frank Gore, who is a million years old but still gets after it better than most of the younger dudes.

But that is a pretty brittle house to trust to last through the winter. McCoy is getting older too and didn’t have a good season last year, and what happens when your two backs both break down, which will happen to Gore eventually because the universe is cruel and indifferent, and Josh Allen is left to save the day with a passing game that is almost an afterthought? The Bills will then revert to their base form and lie dying and twitching like a poisoned rat.

Defensively, the Bills will probably be pretty tough, and the hot new kid on the block, Ed Oliver, has the potential to be a dominant sort of dude. But he is also a dude who tried to throw down with his college coach last year because he felt disrespected or some shit. I think it had something to do with a jacket, which is ridiculous, but these are ridiculous times and these are ridiculous people. Whatever the deal is with Oliver, it’s obvious that this could go hilariously wrong. Then again, if those crazy energies are properly harnessed, the Bills might have something here.

But it won’t be enough, because it’s Buffalo, and its people are doomed to a life of slow decay, sitting fat and miserable under an avalanche of snow, trying to revive a heartbeat of a city that had a heart attack 100 years ago, when that part of America, that belt of Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Detroit was a goddamn furnace, making things and making hard ass people until one day people in China started making things cheaper and goddamn that aorta just fucking exploded and left everyone feeble and in need of a transplant that will never come. That sort of energy blankets the Bills. It is haunting and terrible, but that is just the way it goes in this fucked up world.

So, the Jets and Bills are both spiritually fucked and couldn’t topple the Patriots even if Brady suddenly combusted in a hell fire, demons clawing at him, dragging him down down down to pay the fucking bill. And that just leaves the Miami Dolphins, a team rooted in its own decay and misery, a swampland of the soul that they just can’t get out of no matter how hard they try.

For some reason, the Dolphins just can never get their shit together, and whatever vestigial glories remain from the 70’s when Don Shula and Bob Griese were turning out championships aren’t helping at all. In fact, they’re probably hurting the Dolphins, what with Shula and Griese and whoever is still alive infamously toasting themselves whenever the last undefeated team goes down. That sort of slavery to the past can only ruin the team in the present.

And this year, the Dolphins almost seem content to just say fuck it and run this thing into the ground once and for all and then maybe build something new from the wreckage. They’ve dumped a lot of salary and haven’t bothered to replace any of it, and they traded for Josh Rosen, who was kicked out of Arizona after only one year because a shiny Kyler Murray turned up. That’s not exactly a sign that Rosen is a real deal type.

I like Rosen. I think he’s got a weird sort of energy that is probably off-putting for some people, and if he could bend a team to his will, they could really have something. But he probably can’t, and that’s just gonna lead to a lot of hate in the locker room and then who knows what the fuck will happen because Miami is all out of options. They have tried everything and nothing has worked. Maybe they will get lucky with Rosen, but I doubt it.

And so that leaves the AFC East looking the same as it does every other goddamn year, with Tom Brady and the Patriots owning it so completely that the other three teams should just sublet their places and get the fuck out of there.

It’s possible the Jets or Bills sneak a wild card out, but they won’t go far. Meanwhile, we all know that in the end it will all come down to Tom Brady, who has conquered the NFL so thoroughly that there can be no possibility of an heir. He has killed them all, eaten them like Saturn devouring Cronos, and the only real intrigue is whether he does a Jordan and gets out before Time comes for him. Everybody hates him and the Patriots, but he doesn’t give a fuck. None of that matters. All that matters to Tom Brady is that he gets a chance to win one more time, no matter how small or petty the game is. He has to win it. It is the only thing about him that is real. It is the entirety of his being. And he will keep on winning until he is broken down and then he will pathologically crawl towards death and start gnawing its toes, gnawing and gnawing and gnawing until he gorges himself and chokes on it or until death separates his head from his body and buries his dismembered corpse in various places around the kingdom, each hexed and looked after by a witch so that no necromancy can bring him back.

Projected Standings:

1. New England Patriots 12-4

2. New York Jets 9-7

3. Buffalo Bills 9-7

4. Miami Dolphins 3-13

The Great Willie Young vs. The Sea Snitches

The following is an excerpt from a cracked journal originally belonging to someone known only as “Francois.” Most of it was written in a sort of French/Haitian Creole, and has only recently been translated after being discovered in a mysterious boat found floating unmanned in the Caribbean. No one knows how long this Ghost Ship sailed the sea, but its condition indicated that it must have been out there for some time.

He comes to the village sometimes, appearing as if by magic from the sea, always from the shadows of a deep fog, like some god from another dimension, bearing gifts of great fish and toys for the children. The children call him Papa Guillaume, others call him Great, but I simply call him Willie. He is my friend.

I have known him since I was a child, and my father says that he knew him since he too was a child. This seems impossible, but we have learned not to ask questions. It is simply enough to reflect in his light.

One day Willie came to the village. His man was with him, Heinie, and as usual Heinie brought beers for all the men, and even some of the young boys who were allowed to taste after the men were deep in their cups. It was during one of these late nights – I remember because a young boy vomited and some of the men laughed, but Heinie got upset at the boy for “wasting good shit” – that Willie took me aside and told me that he needed my help.

“How could I possibly help you, Willie?” I asked.

“My friend,” he said, resting a hand on my shoulder and in that hand I felt an almost impossible love, a force and a warmth that radiated through my very being and made me understand, if only for a moment, the immense power and glory of the universe, the serenity of its eternity which makes all else meaningless, a trivium obliterated by its magnificence and bliss. “It is within you that the destiny of the future lies.”

I did not know what he meant, and it has taken me years to even begin to understand, but I believe that I do now. But that is something to be explained later.

I awoke early the next morning. Heinie was still “sleeping”, and I helped Willie carry him to their boat, a hardy – yet not ostentatious – fishing vessel. I had said goodbye to my young wife. I told her I would return soon, but we both had tears in our eyes for we did not truly know or understand what the future held. I would have gladly sailed forever with Willie, and if that was what he asked of me, then I knew I must sacrifice even love. He did not ask this of me, of course, for Willie is not a cruel man and understands that the beating of our hearts is the only thing that matters even in the eternity of the timeless universe. It is the timelessness of the universe, its essence, its everything. It is love. Willie is love, and he would not deny it to another.

We set off that fateful morning, and it took some nerve to ask after several hours where we were going.

“We goin’ to Miami, baby,” was all Willie said, a smile on his face. We spent the rest of that morning fishing. Heinie eventually stirred and spent at least fifteen minutes pissing off the back of the boat. I wondered at it all, but just before noon, the fog around us cleared, the sun shone brilliant in the sky and a second boat appeared.

“Cubanos,” Heinie grunted as he pulled yet another beer from a place I could never figure.

I squinted into the distance, and was shocked to see a bearded man with a cigar hanging from his mouth. It was Castro himself!

“Dumb motherfucker,” Willie said under his breath, but his smile never wavered as he signaled the second boat closer.

“Do you have them?” Castro called out.

Willie just nodded and then unwrapped several large packages. Swordfish. Giant ones. I had never seen fish so magnificent. Willie just looked at them for a moment, sorrow in his eyes, before handing them across to Castro’s men.

Castro inspected them, and I swore I could see . . . lust in his eyes. He smiled. “Very good,” he said, and snapped his fingers. Moments later, his men were delivering several crates to Willie and Heinie. The men nodded at each other, and Castro and his boat soon receded into the distance.

When he was gone, Willie sighed as Heinie opened the crates. I was stunned to see bags of cocaine and automatic weapons. What was going on here?

“Listen,” Willie said, “my friend, I do not pretend that this is not complicated, but rest assured that these guns and these drugs have a purpose even if small-minded folks do not and cannot understand. The world is very strange, and has become very evil. We must defeat it by confronting it on its own terms, by providing those who have nothing with the tools to survive in that world. Their enemies, the rich, the powerful, have all the weapons. No more, I say. These rich monsters threaten them and control them with this . . .” He gestured towards the cocaine, which Heinie was in the midst of “sampling.” But if we take that power from them and give to the people without taking money from them, without taking their dignity, then the so-called “powerful” will have no real power.”

I almost wanted to weep. It made sense. Willie always made sense, and I thought of my own village, of the poor men and women forever subjugated by the rich, by the powerful, how they bowed their heads to men with guns and gave what little money they had to them simply so they could have that which the powerful themselves had forced on them. A man may be poor, but if he lives simply, without want, without the need for the so-called “luxuries” which enslave him, he can have a free heart. I understood what Willie was doing. Giving power back to the people, giving them medicine and a “luxury” without taking from them in return. It was an extraordinary act, one which could potentially break the vicious cycle which keeps men enslaved.

We set out for Miami that afternoon. Heinie continued to “sample” the cocaine until Willie made him stop. By then Heinie was grinding his teeth and ranting about both Castro and “those Miami Vice motherfuckers lookin’ like a couple of bitch-made [horrible slur redacted]”

I was confused. “Isn’t Castro on our side?” I asked Willie.

Willie shook his head with disgust. “All that motherfucker cares about is fuckin’ them swordfish. His people are poor and broken too, forced to fish all day for him just so he can get his dick wet. But one problem at a time, my friend. One problem at a time.”

As night began to fall, Willie ordered Heinie to cut the engines. A fog seemed to descend upon us again, and Willie motioned for us all to be silent. Through the fog, I could see the lights of patrolling ships.

“Coast Guard,” Willie whispered. “Or Miami police. Same thing,” he said with a shrug. “They all pigs.”

“Fuckin’ pigs,” Heinie said, his hoarse voice raw with emotion, his eyes still wide from the coke. He put another beer to his lips.

As the lights from the patrol ships faded, Willie shook his head. “They out in force now, fuckin’ pigs. They even got some white boy with ‘em, last I heard. Called Marino. Supposed to be their new hope, some cracker ass motherfucker from up North. Soulless shit, man.”

Heinie shook his head and chugged the rest of his beer at the very mention of the name. “That motherfucker,” he said. “He reminds me of him, Willie. He reminds me!”

“I know, Heinie,” Willie said. “He ain’t that motherfucker Brees, but he close enough.”

Brees?

Willie turned to me. “Brees is a motherfucker in New Orleans. Or at least he will be,” he said with a shrug. “Time is complicated, brother. Don’t worry about it.” And so I didn’t.

A short time later, a school of dolphins appeared alongside the ship. For a moment, I marveled at them, but this was broken when Heinie started flinging empty bottles at them. Before I could even ask what he was doing, Willie had pulled an AK from one of the boxes and fired at the dolphins. I was shocked to see several of them floating dead after.

Willie turned to me, face lined with agony. “I don’t like it,” he said. “But these are sea snitches!”

“Fuckin’ sea snitches!” Heinie said.

Willie shook his head sadly. “They been humanized,” he said, “all so that they’ll do what their human masters want and snitch on ships comin’ in and out of port. I don’t like it. I hate it! These were once proud creatures, noble and beautiful. I used to swim with them!” His voice cracked with the agony of the memory. “My own mama was part dolphin!”

“His own mama!” Heinie shouted.

“Settle down, Heinie,” Willie said as we passed the floating dolphin corpses. “We gotta keep quiet.”

“Are all dolphins sea snitches?” I asked, afraid of the answer.

Willie shook his head. “Nah, man. Just these soulless sea snitchin’ Miami Dolphins.”

And so we passed them in mournful silence, reflecting on the cruelty of man and a world willing to taint such beautiful creatures for its own selfish ends.

We arrived in Miami that night. The port was crawling with more pigs, but they were easy to see. The dumb motherfuckers were dressed in colorful pastels and white blazers. We were able to ease past them and dock. We quickly unloaded the crates of guns and cocaine into a waiting truck driven by a “runner” Willie simply called “Johnson.”

“Don’t you worry, Mr. Young,” Johnson said, a smile on his face. “I know how to run past these fools without any problems.”

We all laughed, and Johnson soon disappeared into the night, ready to deliver guns and drugs to the people who needed them. It was then that Willie took me aside and told me he needed something important from me.

“My friend,” he said, “this is a lot to ask. But I need you to stay behind for me, here in Miami, to help oversee our operations. I’ve already left word with your young wife and she’ll be here in the morning, along with your closest friends and relatives.” He smiled at me. “I should wait for her to tell you this, but I want you to have a happy first night here in America. My friend, she’s pregnant! And it’s a boy!”

I wanted to ask so many questions, but I found myself overwhelmed. I just nodded as both Willie and Heinie clapped me on the shoulder and offered congratulations.

I was saddened when Willie said that he had to leave, but Heinie offered to stay behind for the night and “get shitfaced” with me. “Maybe we even find them Miami Vice motherfuckers and kill both some pigs and some sea snitch dolphins tonight!”

All I could do was smile and nod my head. I was having a boy. I wondered what to name him. Willie was obvious, but I did not dare be so audacious. I looked at Heinie. As crazy as he was, he was a good man. “Heinie?” I asked.

“Yeah, baby?”

“What’s your real name?”

“My real name?”

“Your birth name,” I said. “You know, your Christian name?”

Heinie laughed. “I ain’t no Christian, son. Well, I’m down with Jesus, but not them kiddy diddlers who use his name. Motherfuckers! They just as bad as the pigs and the sea snitches!”

“Heinie?”

“Huh? Oh yeah, right man, my name. It’s Ricky,” he said with a smile.

Ricky. I nodded. It was a good name. Ricky Francois. I thought of my grandfather then. I had spent my entire childhood at his knee. He taught me what it meant to be a man. His name was Jean. Ricky-Jean Francois. Yes, it was a good name. And for some reason, I knew that if I raised him right here in Miami, taught him the proper values, taught him to understand that the pigs and sea snitches were the enemy, that one day he too would fight for what’s right. Ricky-Jean Francois. My son. And Godson of my friend, The Great Willie Young, who I know one day I will join again on the endless sea as we sail into the horizon of eternity, an eternity of love.

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