Outrunning the Devil

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Fear

Oh God, the Packers. There is no team that fills Lions fans with a combination of fear and loathing like the Packers. That’s right, I said it. Fear. The Fear. It’s not shameful to admit this the same way it’s not shameful for an abuse victim to tell people that they’ve been abused. We have to say these things, if only to ourselves, before we can start to heal.

Brett Favre and his mushroom dick to Sterling Sharpe, Barry Sanders rushing for negative yards in the frozen hellscape of Lambeau, the Hail Mary, the 16 in 0-16, fucking Matt Flynn stealing glory away from us in Green Bay which in retrospect was the beginning on the end for Jim Schwartz, Ndamukong Suh stomping Aaron Rodgers on Thanksgiving which was the beginning of the end for Suh, Aaron Rodgers being Aaron fucking Rodgers so many goddamn times that devil . . . no other team has personified The Fear, brought it to life like Freddy Krueger, a manifestation of our pathos and darkest dreams, like the fucking Packers. Feel free to tell me your own memories in the comments. Let it out, my dudes and lady dudes.

It doesn’t even really matter that the Packers don’t even seem to be that good this season. Yeah, Rodgers hopped out of hell on one leg to torment the Bears, but the only reason anyone even remembers that is because the Bears were whipping that ass in the first place. They tied the Vikings, lost to the Redskins, and beat the Bills, but so what? They look mediocre, and yet we all know that in the end, they’ll still be standing, Aaron Rodgers broken yet slaying like a cyborg and none of this will have mattered.

It doesn’t matter that Aaron Rodgers has lost most of his supporting cast. The Packers just reach down into hell for him and pull out another randomly generated Madden dude who inexplicably turns into a Pro Bowl receiver. This year it’s a dude named Geronimo Allison. A dude named fucking Geronimo. Christ. Now we even have Apache ghost warriors on our asses.

I’m not even sure that I hate the Packers anymore. I mean, I do, but it’s all buried beneath The Fear. They’ve cowed me into groveling respect. This is sick. It’s gross. Not as gross as their vomit colored alternate unis, but still pretty damn gross.

I thought we were through with all this when Dr. Bert Fever retired to make Wranglers commercials in hell. I thought we were done and wouldn’t have to hear about how he was having a good ol’ time out there and he’s just havin’ fun, Troy! But that seems like an eon ago, lifetimes on lifetimes buried by Rodgers, who has somehow been even worse and how long, Lord? How long?

I mean, what comes after Rodgers? He’s already some dead-eyed soulless ghoul, feeding on the souls of the damned, and when he’s not doing that he’s omnipresent in All-State ads and it’s all just too much. Does the literal devil show up after Rodgers leaves? I mean, come on.

I can’t handle the Packers in a rational way. The Fear is just too great. The Lions could be leading 56-10 in the 4^th quarter and I’d be convinced that Rodgers would molt like a fucking snake and reemerge as Cthulhu or some shit and just start eating everyone in the stadium. The Lions could knock him out, Ndamukong Suh could rush the field and stomp his nuts into a jelly and I’d be convinced that he’d just escape his mortal shell and possess whoever the fucking backup is like he did with Matt Flynn that one time and then you’re Denzel Washington killing himself only to watch with your dying breath as Rodgers possesses a fucking cat in order to survive and yes I’m making semi-obscure movie references now because I don’t know what else to do.

The Lions are 1-3 and they’ll probably be 1-4 after this game because of the whole Aaron Rodgers of it all, but that feels like it doesn’t even matter right now. The Lions aren’t winning shit this year and so each game feels like its own individual war, its own Test of the Will, and this is especially true when it’s a Packers game.

The one thing the Lions have going for them is that it’s at Ford Field and not Lambeau, but let’s face it, half of our horrible memories of this goddamn team have taken place here. Favre to Sharpe, The Stomp, The Hail Mary . . . all at home. Besides, playing them at home in early October just means that we have to play them at Lambeau in fucking December because this is how it is every year and there is no rest for the weary and the damned.

Honestly, I just want the Lions to look reasonably good before the spiritual buttfucking occurs. I want to see Kerryon Johnson run it up their asses (two sodomy references in two sentences because that’s how I roll, baby, please don’t psychoanalyze me), I want to see Frank Ragnow push people around, I want to see Good Stafford instead of Walkabout Stafford, I want to see whoever the fuck is playing defense to show that they at least understand the concepts they’re supposed to be executing, and I want Da’Shawn Hand to give me at least a glimmer of hope for the defensive line’s future. I want to see all of that and then I can at least bury my head in a bucket of ether when Rodgers puffs up like the devil escaping a genie bottle sometime in the 4^th quarter.

When the season feels lost, you start to recalibrate your expectations and you start to live for moments, for flashes, for the simple yet all too elusive idea that your team might someday be something different than the same sad sack losers you’re used to dealing with. There is a depressing sense of inevitability about it all, and when all else seems lost, you start to look for reasons that it might be different this time. I am all too familiar with this game as a Lions fan, and as much as I don’t like to play it, what else can I do? Demanding excellence and success this season would be insane, the act of an extreme masochist. To be fair, that’s basically the definition of being a Lions fan, but come on, there are limits even for us.

At some point, you have to set aside winning and losing and just try to survive somewhere in the details, man. That’s where I’m at, and that’s what I was trying to get at in the gibberish of my Cowboys game recap. I can’t sit here and reasonably expect the Lions to whip on the Packers, both because of what’s already gone on this season and because of, well, the whole Packers of it all. And so I try to survive on details, on moments, on reasons to believe in some far off future that I can barely even imagine right now. This is almost unbearably sad, especially because it is so unbearably familiar, but so it goes, friendos. So it goes.

I think the Lions at least have a shot at winning this game, and that’s an improvement over the beginning of the season, and for now that’s enough to keep me going. If the Lions do win, I’ll be happy, but it’s a weird sort of happiness. It’s a happiness that will be about beating the Packers, about beating Aaron Rodgers, and it’s a happiness that will be about potential futures, but it’s a happiness that will exist in a vacuum because I know this team isn’t good enough right now. I know the defense is hopelessly flawed, and I know the Lions aren’t winning shit this season. It’s a sort of melancholy happiness, but that is the oxymoronic life of a Lions fan.

You make secret deals with your own heart, make secret deals with the Failure Demons, with the Devil, and you try to ignore that while he’s dealing with you, he’s also making deals with Aaron Rodgers, who stares at you with those dead serial killer eyes, and you try not to shudder and the devil laughs at you because you’re a Lions fan and you’re already damned and you’re just too stupid to know it and then Aaron Rodgers drags you to a deeper level of hell and straps you in a chair and sits down with you and makes you watch his All-State commercials for eternity and then Brett Favre shows up and starts talking about Wrangler to you and then takes out his tiny penis and you forget why you even wanted to make deals with the devil in the first place and it’s then that you remember that heaven is closed to you and this is the only thing left for you to do and then you try to scream but nothing comes out and they’re laughing at you, Rodgers and Favre, and their commercials are burned into your brain and then you wake up sweating in your bed and you try to forget it but oops, now it’s game time and there they are again on your TV screen, those soulless serial killer eyes staring at you in HD and you’re mad, you’re utterly insane and you’re a Lions fan.

Prediction: Packers 24 Lions 23

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