You Just Take It

“The Lions should be able to beat the Jets. Let me rephrase that: the Lions have to beat the Jets. Not just for this season, but because if they don’t, the dam’s gonna break and shit’s gonna get toxic. Already. After one goddamn game. That is almost absurdly extraordinary, but we ain’t in Kansas anymore for all the reasons I just spent 1,000 or so words gibbering about. This is the world of the Detroit Lions and you have to understand these things if you want to live in it.

The Lions have to beat the Jets because the Jets are a 5-11 team with a rookie quarterback, a whole bunch of injuries – especially at wide receiver – and nothing that should really scare anyone. If you can’t beat a team like that on your home field, on Monday fucking Night, with everyone watching, you ain’t winning shit all year and Plans and Trust and Hope just become cruel buzzwords uttered by charlatans.”

Read it and weep. No, I mean it. Read it and then literally weep. Because that is the world we find ourselves living in. I wrote that on Friday. It’s Tuesday, and I can’t believe we’re here already.

The Lions didn’t just lose to the Jets, though. They were fucking humiliated in ways that make analysis pointless. The Jets could have won 100-17. The Jets led at the half 17-10 and it felt like a miracle that the Lions weren’t losing by a lot more. I said on twitter “imagine what would happen if the Jets were a real team.” By the end of the third quarter it was 48-17. Yeah.

In that third quarter, the Jets scored just about every way you can. They scored on offense, passing the ball and rushing the ball. They scored on defense, returning a pick six after Matthew Stafford’s 169^th interception of the game. They scored on special teams with a punt return. This would be incredible – and incredibly humiliating – if it all happened in the same game. It happened in the same fucking quarter.

This was a complete and utter meltdown by the entire team. The defense was predictably shit. We all knew that going in, I think. But nobody expected Stafford to look like he’d never played a game before. He was the one who looked like a rookie quarterback, completely incapable of reading simple zone coverages. Shit, I think Darron Lee just picked him off again even as I write this.

Stafford’s disgrace highlighted just how much the Lions need to lean on him, and just how insane the whole “plan” that I’ve talked about over and over again truly is. I barely even know what else to say at this point because, fuck, what can you say?

The Jets started a rookie quarterback who immediately threw maybe the worst pass I’ve ever seen to gift the Lions 7 points. Later, the Jets secondary was hit by injuries. In between, the Jets kept blowing opportunities, and the whole thing felt absurd, like the Jets were trying to lay down and throw the fucking game, making it easier and easier for the Lions to win, only they never counted on the sheer Lions of it all. Just . . . just fucking absurd.

I don’t know what to say. What can you say? What can you say when you’re living this absurd nightmare, when ONE FUCKING GAME INTO THE SEASON – NO, INTO THE MATT PATRICIA “ERA” – you already have had enough? When you already know that it’s over?

That is the insane world Lions fans find themselves living in. That game was so awful, the humiliation and failure so comprehensive, that it’s impossible to see a team coming back from it. More than that, how does Matt Patricia come back from this?

It wasn’t just that the team looked awful, it was that they all looked like they were prisoners being marched through the jungles of Southeast Asia. They looked miserable, like a team that hated their coach, like a team that had already completely given up. And at the head of this Bataan Death March of the Soul was the Golden Boy, Matthew Stafford.

It makes sense, I guess, the way that Patricia and Quinn have carried on the last few weeks, cutting starters, sitting others, openly gibbering about patience and plans. This is a team at war with itself, with a coach determined to mold them in his image no matter the cost. But he hasn’t earned that yet. He has no credibility with which to work, to point to and say “this is why you listen” when he’s going all Bear Bryant Junction Boys on the fellas. He’s just some fat asshole who rode Tom Brady’s coattails, and that’s what the players see. They see his backwards baseball cap and his fucking pencil and it all just seem so precious, a dumb affectation easily sneered at.

I came to the conclusion just before the season started that these fuckers were charlatans. Still, I did not expect to be proven right this fucking fast. I suppose, if you’re desperately clawing for some dumb reason to still be optimistic, it can be found in the previous paragraph, insane as that seems. It almost feels like Patricia is intentionally destroying this team in a wild and ridiculous attempt to change the culture by first razing it to the fucking ground, by running everyone out and then starting again. Wait, how is that a reason to be optimistic? I don’t fucking know, I’m just gibbering here.

If you squint really, really hard though, you can at least identify that as an idea, a plan, no matter how grotesque it is. Maybe he’s not utterly incompetent, just a horrible egomaniac, which in itself is its own incompetency so, uh, nevermind I guess. The point is that maybe he’s a General Patton type who’s trying to iron will his way through the last 60 years, which is a special sort of dumb, but what the hell, Donnie, at least it’s an ethos.

The worst thing about said plan, though, is that Patricia clearly has the full backing of Bob Quinn. This isn’t Patricia’s plan, this is Quinn’s plan, this is their plan to instill The Patriot Waaaaay, which sounds an awful lot like when 100 year old geezers start gibbering about Michigan Men.

This means that Patricia isn’t going anywhere because Bob Quinn isn’t going anywhere. And Bob Quinn isn’t going anywhere because Martha Ford is Martha Ford and oh lord, how long?

So . . . yeah. This is going to suck. And the only prospect for light lies in the insane idea that at some point in some far off future Patricia and Quinn will completely change the culture of the Detroit Fucking Lions by turning them into some Never Never Land version of the Patriots despite the fact that the Patriots are only the Patriots because they have the greatest player in NFL history at quarterback. lol what the fuck, man. What the fuck??? What a scam.

I can’t handle this. One game! One fucking game! That was all it took this time. Even for the Lions, this is something awful. The fans already hate Matt Patricia. The second half of the game, on national TV in prime time, was basically fan misery porn, with the camera hunting out Lions fans looking utterly defeated, some booing with hatred in their hearts, the rest looking like they wished their seat came with a complimentary shotgun to put in their mouths. One game! If this is how everyone feels after one game, how in the fuck do Quinn and Patricia expect to make it out of this alive?

I have barely even talked about Stafford here, but seriously, what’s the point? It’s all broken. I don’t think he’ll play like that again – my god, how could he? – but it doesn’t matter because we’ve seen enough. We know what this team is and everything else is just noise. Stafford could throw for 5,000 yards again – he’ll need to – and it still won’t mean a goddamn thing because we know. We know what this team is now, at its very heart and at its core, we know. We have seen it, and for that, I guess we can feel thankful in a weird way. Thanks for not torturing us and for just putting a quick bullet in our heads and in our hearts.

On the other hand, these fuckers won’t let our corpses rest. They aren’t going anywhere. They’re just gonna keep reanimating us and reminding us how awful they are before shooting us in the head again. Paradise is closed to us, the restful stillness of death is hidden from our souls. Oh God.

It’s as simple as this: you either let yourself die over and over and over again, or you just walk away now and say fuck it. You cease to be a Lions fan. I tried that once. It didn’t work. I knew what I was signing up for when I decided to do this madness again, and so I here I am. I’m not going away. This is because I am a stubborn idiot. We are all stubborn idiots. That’s why we’re Lions fans.

So what do we do? What can we do? That is the naked horror of this whole fucked up thing. You just sit here and you take it, and you take it and then you take it some more.

In 2008, I sat down and I wrote my first post for Armchair Linebacker. The Lions went 0-16 that season. And I took it. We all took it. Now, here we are in 2018, ten years later, and what’s changed? This team looks as hopeless, as broken, as that team. In 2008, Rod Marinelli gibbered about pad level and we all sneered. In 2018, Matt Patricia gibbers about plans and trust and we all wretch. Fuck it.

Maybe there is something about years ending in 8, I don’t know. In 1957, the Lions won the NFL Championship. They then traded Bobby Layne and in 1958, they went 4-7-1. In 1968, they went 4-8-2, in 1978, 7-9, which was a prelude to them collapsing for good to 2-14 the next season which was when the Lions finally bottomed out and irrevocably became The Lions and all that means. In 1988, they went 4-12. In 1998, they went 5-11 and broke Barry Sanders and made him quit forever like Chief Joseph. 2008 saw 0-16. 2018 . . . well, we already know.

The point is that this is who we are. This is who we have been for 60 fucking years. And still, we take it.

Amazingly, though, this somehow feels even worse, doesn’t it? We have always been able to delude ourselves that every year will be different, a new opportunity for something good, something better. That’s gone this time. At some point in that horrific game last night, the boos turned to utter silence, the painful sound of a collective shattered will.

And in the middle of it all sit Matt Patricia and Bob Quinn. Remember, Quinn was the dude who fired Jim Caldwell because 9-7 wasn’t good enough, who said that we needed someone who could take us to the next level. This makes all their nattering about plans and patience a bunch of horrible bullshit, lies to cover their own incompetence, lies to buy them another day, another week, another year of their grifting. These are conmen, charlatans, who are woefully in over their heads. I don’t know how anyone could arrive at any other conclusion. And again, we know this after only one game!

Anyone telling you not to overreact here, that it’s only one game, that it didn’t necessarily mean anything, is lying to you because they are lying to themselves, bless them. I get it. At some point, things get so ugly, you invent new realities to believe in. But that’s all they are, inventions. You buy the con even though deep down you know it’s a con because deep down you’re also desperate to believe in something, and so you’ll believe anything.

But it’s still a con. Come on. You know this. The Lions were so bad last night, so utterly wretched and incompetent in literally every way, that there is simply no way you can reasonably believe the con this time. I mean . . . right?

It’s not just the incompetence, though. It’s the spiritual rot that’s already there. Anyone could see it. Everyone did see it. There was an ugly menace that hung over everything, a team broken before it even took its first snap. Kenny Golladay looked like the only dude who even wanted to be there last night. Everyone else looked like they had already quit. And through it all, Matt Patricia just stood there, that dumb fucking pencil behind his dumb fucking ear, looking like he smelled like piss and failure, and he did nothing. He could do nothing. He was utterly exposed. Tom Brady wasn’t walking through that door to save his ass this time. The emperor doesn’t just not have any clothes this time around, he doesn’t even have any fucking skin. Horrible, horrible.

This is already broken. Already finished. That is a wild thought, but here we are. What do we do now? I wish I could tell you. You just take it. And you take it some more, you take it some more, you take it some more . . .

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