Total Victory

Let me start off with a quick confession before we get to the Ballad of St. Calvin and the Holy Ghost, Matthew Stafford.  Last week, I missed the game because of, uh, let’s just call them reasons and leave it at that, okay?  Anyway, I did record the game and intended on watching it right away, but every time I do that, it’s impossible for me not to spoil it for myself.  I mean, the lure of finding out who won the damn game in 1.2 seconds is too much to pass up.  And so that’s how I came to see that the Lions lost in brutal fashion to the Bengals.  I immediately decided that there was no way I was watching that bullshit, but being a masochist, I decided I would watch the Sam Martin shankapalooza, if only out of some sort of morbid curiosity.  So, I watched it, it was the most Lions way to lose a game imaginable, and then deleted the whole goddamn thing.  So that’s why I didn’t write anything last week.

Anyway, that is the backdrop to what went on this week.  It’s easy to see how the Lions could fold mentally and emotionally after something like that.  After all, we are dealing with a band of idiots who have more often than not proven themselves to be as fragile as the most temperamental of divas.  This could get ugly in a hurry.  Friend of the blog UpHere noted the same thing to me in a twitter message before the game.  This was important because it could either make or break this team. 

The game itself was wild and stupid and weird and filled with laughing gas and tear gas and abdominal gas and every other kind of gas you can imagine, but the main thing to take away from this is that there were more than half a dozen moments in this game where this team could have broken, and probably would have been broken in the past.  Shit, with less than a minute left in the game, the announcers were talking about it like it was already over, bemoaning the Lions killer turnovers and talking about how the ridiculous stats of the offense were all for naught, and blah blah blah, we know how this shit goes.  And yet, when the game actually ended, it wasn’t the Lions melting down, but Dez Bryant throwing a tantrum on the sideline while Jason Witten had to fight the urge to physically assault him and Matthew Stafford was mobbed on the other side of the field like Tom Cruise at the end of Top Gun.

The storyline optics there are so blazingly obvious that it feels almost unnecessary to have to actually talk about them.  You saw the game, that shit was stark.  This is the sort of thing that can make Matthew Stafford indisputably The Man.  I know that sounds like something I’ve said before, especially since the Lions have done this a dozen times since he showed up, but this one just felt different.  I think it was because the moment was such a make or break thing, the emotions and brain goo so susceptible to whatever the hell was going to happen, that what actually did happen just felt even more enormous than it would have anyway.  This wasn’t just a come from behind win.  This was a come from behind win, and a display of Brass Balls Big Dick Swingin’ by the quarterback, by The Man, when everyone on the team was looking for something to believe in, for a reason to strap a rocket to their back and blast off to the moon rather than point that rocket straight at their faces and blow themselves to hell.

This was Matthew Stafford leading an army of wavering soldiers into a battle, having everything go wrong and then at the last second, saying fuck it, swaggering into the Kill Zone, and then doing the Big Balls dance from Major League II before putting a bullet between the eyes of the enemy commander and winning the day.  These dudes will follow him anywhere now.  That’s what that moment means.

But before that, you also had St. Calvin sonning the fuck out of Dez Bryant.  Sure, Bryant caught a couple of touchdowns, but St. Calvin had 329 yards receiving, which, uh… this is why you don’t publicly challenge your betters, son.  It was yet another instance of one of our dudes rising to the moment instead of being overwhelmed by it, of becoming a Destroyer of Worlds because that’s what was called for.  And again, in the end, Calvin set the team up to win, and he and Stafford slapped each other on the back, hugged and laughed it up on the sideline, like two fighter pilots recounting a hyper-adrenalized successful mission while Dez Bryant howled with infantile rage, his teammates incapable of concealing their utter disgust.

It’s a perfect picture, one that should be framed on the walls of our hearts for a long, long time.  This was a moment in which the Lions triumphed against all the Failure Demons and the worst parts of their nature while their opponent crumbled.  It was a moment which negated everything else that had come earlier in the game, when all those turnovers and blown opportunities seemed to signal in all too sickeningly familiar neon lights that this team was going to fail the test yet again.  Instead, the outcome of the game, that moment when Stafford literally flew over both his line and the Cowboys standing across from them, turned all of those failed tests into tribulations that made the moment all the sweeter, all the more significant, and, ultimately, a vindication of this team’s mental and emotional health.

The turnovers were nearly fatal, and the Cowboys big plays in the second half still point to a team that is inherently limited.  These sorts of things happen to this team, and will continue to happen, because they are a flawed team coached by flawed men, and nothing is going to change that at this point.  It just won’t.  But you can let that beat you again and again, and ultimately break you, or you can try to live with it and eventually overcome it, to be the best version of yourself that you can be, warts and all, and that’s what I think we saw against the Cowboys. 

But let’s not let one simple and undeniable truth get lost in all this talk of moments and inherent flaws, and the grandiose psychobabble and hyperbolic gibberish I’m letting loose here: the Lions outgained the Cowboys 623-268.  That’s fucking absurd.  They blew them right off the fucking field.  If they don’t turn the ball over, they beat the shit out of the Cowboys.  Even with the turnovers, the Cowboys were lucky the Lions didn’t run them out of the building.  The Lions were just better, and not just better, but significantly better.  The Cowboys, by the way, are probably the best team in the NFC East.  Okay, okay, the NFC East is a horrific dumpster fire of a division this year, but still.  There’s a chance that if the Lions make the playoffs this year their opponents will be these very same Cowboys.  The point is that the Lions are in this.  They’re really, truly in this.  All they have to do is to get the mental shit lined up, and, well… now you can kinda see why this game feels like a big goddamn deal.

This team will break our hearts still.  I think we all know that.  It is just a part of our identity.  But I think now, there is an underlying sense that even when things go all FUBAR, that it’s okay, because Matthew Stafford has returned from the Outback, and he’s returned as a Spirit Warrior, and that he’s got this, man.  He’s got this.  That sort of confidence, that sense that there is a sort of mental and emotional safety net, is contagious.  Not just for us fans, but more importantly, for the rest of the team.  They can just go out and play ball because Stafford’s got this.  And even when it’s not enough – and sometimes it won’t be – that’s okay, because next week, it will be.  That can be a very, very powerful thing.

I just can’t get over that final scene – and yes, I realize it is sort of ridiculous to talk about this almost like it was a movie, but that’s how epic and cinematic it felt, didn’t it? – of Stafford getting mobbed, jaw squared to the world, fire in his eyes, victory in his heart, while the Cowboys bickered and fought on the sideline.  Not only did the Lions survive their own trial by fire, they utterly broke the will of their opponents.  If this were war, this would be Total Victory. 

This was the Boy Prince, the young Lion who was once knocked off his horse against those heathens from Cleveland only to rally his men to victory with one arm hanging, becoming the King, the Lion in the prime of his life standing confidently on the field of battle, calling his shot, and then turning and walking back to his adoring soldiers while the enemy commander crumpled to the ground, shot between the eyes.  Matthew Stafford didn’t just execute a gameplan, he put the whole goddamn war on his back, and he triumphed.  And everyone watched him do it.

This could mean everything, or it could mean nothing.  The only Truth we know is that life is just a series of moments, moments that define us, moments that exist within themselves, beautiful and alone, and in these moments, regardless of what’s happened in the past or what may happen in the future, Total Victory is possible.  And Matthew Stafford and the Lions just had one of those moments, and no matter what happened yesterday or what will happen tomorrow, that moment will live forever, and it will always be perfect.  Total Victory.

That's What You Get For Falling in Love

Lions fans, after the game

Shortly after the Lions lost in the 11,689^thperformance of The Passion of the Roary, I did the idiotic thing and headed to Twitter where of course everyone was freaking out and beating each other about the heads with spiked bats laced with the tears of the fallen.  While I was there, I noticed this tweet from Jim Schwartz earlier in the day:

@jschwartzlions: Some Bon Jovi on the way to Ford Field: " In and Out of Love", "Bad Medicine".

Indeed.

Hey, that’s what you get for falling in love.

It’s hard to know what else to say in the wake of that fiasco, which somehow made the previous fiascos this year look like orderly and happy parades through the streets, with children laughing and waving from high atop floats rather than the screaming firetrucks down a burning main street with half-naked firemen hanging off the back wailing and telling everyone to run for their lives that they have felt like.  No, somehow this one managed to be even worse, which is a hell of a trick to pull off and yet here we are.  I guess in this scenario the firetruck also blew up right in front of a school and all those laughing and waving children are on fire and hey look, now they’re dead.

Right now, all anyone wants to do is parse through the rubble, the broken bodies, the ashes of the dead and look for clues and evidence and argue and argue and argue and ARGLE BARGLE ARGLE BARGLE!  The camps have armed themselves and are going to war and now I find myself galloping away back into the woods where I once roamed in solitude, alone with my own insanity, leaving behind the cookfires and both the happy people with their grand dreams and the sad people with their hairshirts and prayers to the drowned god, where I will live in a shack and shoot anyone who trespasses on my land.

The Lions are 4-8 and they have gotten to that point in ways both awful and hilarious.  In other words they are not just 4-8 but a true Lions 4-8.  Our good pal @Geekized tweeted me after the game and asked me what the hell happened and I told her the only thing I could: at the end of the game the Lions went Full Lion.  She understood exactly what that meant and I’m sure all you do too.  The Lions went Full Lion.  What else can you say?

Look, it doesn’t really matter why the Lions are 4-8.  They just are.  There is no one who deserves to be saved from the rabid scorn of Lions fans right now.  But everybody has their reasons.  Everybody thinks everyone else is an idiot or a charlatan and the tribe has been torn asunder, with one side saying we should string up Jim Schwartz and the boys and let the crows eat their entrails and the sun bake whatever’s left-over of their clearly shrunken brains while the other has taken up arms to defend poor King James and his court, patting him on the back and saying Buck Up There, Lil’ Camper and telling the others that they should be ashamed for speaking against their Lord and Savior and this is why I have retreated to the woods, to this safe-haven known as Armchair Linebacker, where I can sit in my shack and shave my head and beat myself with a club in peace.

I am done arguing and I am done because what the fuck is there to argue about?  The Lions are 4-8.  Nothing else really matters.  I sort of just want to take Calvin Johnson and The Great Willie Young fishing for a weekend where we can sit in peace and quiet in a tiny boat while a giant bulldozer plows over Ford Field and everybody inside and the zombie hordes stalk the streets eating each other’s brains.  And then we can come back and make a better world together.

I’m going to say something really awful here but when the Colts were driving at the end and were down to their final handful of plays, a sick, masochistic part of me actually wanted them to score, I think.  That is a horrible thing to admit but I think my disdain for this team has gone that far.  A part of me – not a big part but it’s there – takes a perverse sort of satisfaction in watching them suffer, because then at least they will have no excuses.  At least then they will have to take to their quiet places, where they are alone with their own hearts and souls and admit to themselves that goddammit, they need to change.  The horrible truth though is that they won’t do this and instead they will find some crack to squeeze through, some shell-game of the mind that they will play that will make it all okay, that will make it not their fault but the result of some ineffable THAT’S JUST THE WAY IT GOES SOMETIMES madness.

And while yes, that is just the way it goes sometimes, sometimes should not equal fifty years and to just blithely accept that crosses the line from wise serenity to depraved madness.  It’s exactly the sort of willful denial I was talking about in my last piece, when I went nuclear on everybody and felt like I needed a cigarette or perhaps a nice fine shot of China White after I was done writing it.  But I don’t want to do that again.

Look, I feel horrible and ashamed that even a tiny part of me felt like that, that even a single molecule of my body wished for bad things to happen, but I suppose it’s no different than a beat up woman, aged beyond her years, sitting in a run-down apartment complex secretly hoping that her man gets knifed on the way to the horsetrack by a gang of lowly muggers.  This is what it has come to.  I don’t have the strength to leave him myself and so I hope Fate will somehow figure my shit out for me.

It’s vaguely cowardly and definitely tragic and yet it is all too real.  All too real.  I was all set to show up here after the game and sing psalms about the glory of St. Calvin.  I even had a title picked out and everything: “Divine Intervention”.  Yes, I planned to spend roughly eight billion words fellating St. Calvin but then everyone else went and fucked it all up and, well, here we are, sitting in a run-down apartment complex wondering whether or not we should blame ourselves because our man got knifed by some street thugs who stole his wallet.

The truly tragic part of all this though is that after getting knifed and robbed, that son of a bitch is just going to stagger home and beat our ass and in the end we’ll be lying in the bathtub again, bleeding, eyes swollen shut wondering if that support beam can hold the weight of a body.  And meanwhile that son of a bitch is just sitting in the living room, drinking his own pain away, having sloppily stitched himself up, and he’s shouting at us and telling us it’s our own damn fault, that we should’ve done this or done that and that if we only loved him better, loved him harder, that he wouldn’t have to do things like this to us.

But we’ll crawl out of that bathtub and start cooking him his two dollar steak on the hot plate because that is just what we do, and we’ll snuggle up next to him tonight on the pull-out couch with the cigarette burns in it and we’ll feel glad and thankful that at least we have someone and don’t have to wither away all alone like that old biddy who lives next door and smells like cat piss.  This is what being a fan of the Detroit Lions means and I have no room to judge anyone because I’m frantically flipping that steak, trying to tell if it’s done or not through these swollen eyes and hoping that he’ll give me a kiss on the cheek and a slap on the ass when I’m done just like everybody else.

This has been a dark and fucked up post but this has been a dark and fucked up season.  Don’t blame me, I am but a humble chronicler of the times, just a poor fool living in a shack in the woods, trying to drown out the horrible noises made by the warring tribes with the click-clacking of a keyboard and the screaming of my own shattered soul.  The Lions lost today and they lost in a way that was horrible and yet somehow perfect, and I have become death, the destroyer of worlds and one day, a thousand years from now, some poor fool will find these words in a cave and his people will know the faces of both True Evil and True Pain.  And somewhere, my soul will still roam the cosmos, desperately awaiting that moment when the Lions, my Lions, fulfill that soul’s long-suffering hopes.  This is the sort of thing that religions are founded upon, epic tragedies and wandering souls, and today’s game is but a chapter, a sliver in time, a single stanza in that great dirge, and one day in that far off future people will kill each other over those words found in a cave, shields brandished with Lions logos and old priests will carry wooden crucifixes with a bearded idiot name Neil hanging from them and I can only hope that Pope Willie Young will find a way to end the madness before it consumes us all.  But don’t cry for me, friends, for I am already dead.  Go Lions.

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.