Depressing Thoughts

CONGRATULATIONS, YOU FINALLY DID IT

I mentioned this in the plaintive cry for help that was my post following the game, but it bears repeating: I turned off the TV in the third quarter and didn't come back to the game. I do not regret this decision, and I am actually thankful that my intuition apparently conspired with my ass to save my sanity and quite possibly my life. I am eternally grateful.

I have a feeling that I wasn't alone in this decision. Hell, my man Ty even fell asleep. We are fans who have been through the worst of the worst. We survived 0-16. I watched every one of those infernal games. I'm not entirely sure why this particular game was the straw that murdered that poor camel, but it happened. It finally happened. In a season that was supposed to be all about hope and moving forward, we were more turned off than we were in the season of unnumbered tears. That can't be said enough. Somehow, watching my team lose every game a year ago was more compelling, more worth watching than whatever the hell that abomination was against Baltimore. Well done.

AND THE REASON?

Hello, Daunte Culpepper. Does anyone think this turd is still capable of being an effective starting quarterback in the NFL? I mean, come on dude. Now is the time to step away and go back to playing Mr. Mom full time. No one wants to see you fuck around the football field anymore. Take your tiny hands and what's left of your dignity and spend the rest of the season desperately trying to woo Doc Brown so he'll let you borrow the DeLorean so you can go back to 2004 and warn your past self to protect your knee and stay off the sex boat. Also, perhaps you can go further back than that and convince the 8 year old version of yourself that the football is possessed by the devil. Really drive the point home. Wear horns and a devil's tail. I don't know. Just find a way to never wear a Lions uniform and we'll be good.

It is a testament to how awful Culpepper has become that his mere presence can make a game feel so utterly worthless. He is not only a lousy quarterback at this point in his career, but a symbol of the failure of the past, a living, breathing reminder of everything that we as Lions fans have had to go through to get to this point. He is the past decade of miserable pain and failure wrapped up in one oversized ball of suck. No one wants to even watch the games when he's playing. It's too painful, too terrible, like being dropped back onto a battlefield where you saw all your closest friends get their intestines ripped out and their hearts eaten. Even though the battle is over, you can still hear the screams, hear the mad cacophony of war all around you and feel the panic, the terrible agony of it all, and it makes you shiver and shake like a junky before you vomit and pass out. The past is too terrible to relive and every time Daunte Culpepper trots onto the field, there we are. Again. And it never gets better, never gets easier. Instead, somehow, it gets harder. We have eaten a lot of shit as Lions fans, and we are tough, almost impossibly so, but there is only so much that even we can take. And I think that, incredibly, Daunte Culpepper's 260 pound symbol of doom is the thing that tips the scales and makes it all just too intolerable, too terrible to even watch.

It is so bad that at this point, I would sigh a happy, relieved sigh and smile dreamily if Ol' Plucky, Drew Stanton, came trotting onto the field, and if you have been reading my little corner of this blog for a while now, well, first of all I apologize, both to you and your therapist, and second of all, you are well aware of the irrational disdain I have for Ol' Plucky. So, the simple fact that I would eagerly welcome Stanton with open arms rather than watch Culpepper shit the bed again says a lot here.

SAD. SO SAD.

Last week, I posted what felt like a eulogy for Jason Hanson, and in it I said that it sucked that we couldn't feel confident any more when he jogged onto the field to put one through the uprights. But deep down, I hoped that I was wrong, and that Hanson would continue to be a kicking Terminator for years to come.

But when he came onto the field early in the game against the Ravens to kick a field goal, I knew that I was right. And I knew it because for the first time in his career, I didn't feel confident that he would make the kick. It wasn't that tough of a kick either. That's how fast these things happen. Last season was maybe Hanson's best of his career. And now, this season, that confidence that I always felt when he would come into the game is already gone, swept away in the tide of shit water that has carried away every other thing that I have ever had to be proud of as a Lions fan. Sure enough, Hanson missed the kick, and when he did, I was dismayed to realize that I wasn't surprised at all. For the first time in Hanson's career, I wasn't surprised that he missed a field goal, and that was somehow even worse than the lack of confidence I felt earlier.

This sucks. A part of me - a large part - wanted Hanson to finish things on his own terms, at the top of his game. I wanted him to be able to be the one Lion who went out right, the one Lion who made it all the way through without being dragged down into the whirlpool of ugly death that has grabbed everyone else who has put on that uniform. He was our one chance at a happy ending, and now that feels like it is all gone.

You are probably laughing right now because it is only the kicker, and who gives a shit about the kicker? But the thing is, is that this is the sort of thing that matters to Lions fans, the sort of thing that we must grab a hold of so we don't get carried off into the abyss of failure and misery that takes everything else in the Lions universe. It is a small thing, stupid and kind of pointless, but it's all we have, and it sucks to not be able to hold onto it any more.

AND NOW FOR THE PUNCHLINE

It's not enough that we had to lose. Noooooooo. That would be far too easy. Instead, it was apparently important that we regain our faith in Kevin Smith only to see him be destroyed. Before the season began, I made some ridiculous predictions about Smith. I expected him to vault into the upper echelon of NFL running backs. I did this because I am a hopeful idiot. Of course, Smith proceeded to struggle throughout the entire season, enough that I reached the point where in my mind - and at times on this blog - I was beginning to write him off as the answer to our chronic failure at running back. But then a funny thing happened. Smith ran the ball well against the Bengals and their tough run defense and then he looked pretty damn awesome in the first half against Baltimore and their top ranked run defense. Suddenly, hope was back. We could believe again.

Yeah, about that.

I didn't see the play. Like I said, I was off racing giraffes and huffing paint thinner or whatever the hell I gibbered on about in my last post, but apparently Smith's knee decided it'd had enough and committed suicide right there on the field. Hey, why not? I mean, I suppose it's funny to let a poor fool scramble back to his knees before kicking him down again. If you're a sociopath, anyway.

And just like that, our hope that Kevin Smith was indeed the answer was wiped away. Goodbye hope, goodbye ACL, it was fun. Sort of. Okay, not really, but what the hell, a Smith in the hand is better than two in the bush or . . . I don't even think that makes sense and I apologize. Even though Smith had struggled for large chunks of this season, he was still an important piece of the puzzle, and he provided an answer - even if it was a feeble one - to one of a billion questions. There is so much to do here, so much that needs to be fixed, that we really can't afford to have to start adding things to the list. Unfortunately, it looks like that's where we are right now when it comes to the running game. Smith is gone for the year and there's a good chance he's fucked for next season too. A torn ACL is a killer for a running back, especially for a running back without great top end speed. A torn ACL screws your lateral agility, the ability to bounce and cut and all those good things that are crucial to every running back, and an absolute necessity for those running backs who, like Smith, don't have that top gear. I wouldn't be surprised if we just saw the end of Kevin Smith as a feature back in the NFL.

Okay, Jesus, this post has been depressing as hell. Even for the Lions. I mean, I don't even know what else to say, and so I won't say anything at all. I will just wish you all a good day, Vaya con dios and all that jazz, and I will go sit in the corner for a while and weep silently.

Good Lord

A quick confession: I turned the game off with the Ravens up 27-3 in the third quarter. I don't apologize for this. After all, I am an important man and I have better things to do with my time, like huffing paint thinner and racing giraffes in the park. And before any of you get all up in arms, no I don't ride the giraffes or make them compete cruelly against one another. Instead, I do exactly what I said. I race them, one on one, me against them, as a test of my primal athleticism. Afterwards, we discuss poetry and ancient philosophy. I don't always win, but really, it's the attempt that's important, just getting out there and doing it, you know, and . . .

This is what the Lions have driven me to. I have been responsible for some baffling gibberish over the past couple of seasons, but that is a whole new level of stupid and strange, and, well, I would rather write about racing giraffes than the Lions. It has come to that. It's far more interesting and fulfilling at this point. But, since turning away from the stark reality of the rancid terrible truth that is the apocalyptic game that just went down between the Lions and the Ravens does no one any good, I will brave this shit storm and try, somehow, to talk about what just went down.

Okay. Hi. We've been through a lot over the past couple of seasons. Hell, we've been through a lot over the past decade. But, in the course of writing inane gibberish for this blog, this was the first time that I said fuck it and turned off a game so early. Sure, there have been times when I wandered away late in the fourth quarter, with the game out of reach, but it was always still on in the background, and even if I was just doing a crossword puzzle(why yes, I am a little old lady) or peeling carrots(not a masturbation euphemism . . . or is it?) or doodling obscene sketches involving Batman and Alfred(everyone expects it to be Robin, but the real lusty heart of the Batman saga is between Batman and Alfred. And, no, I don't give a fuck about comics, this was just a joke so please nerds, do not get all fidgety about this.) or drinking turpentine and wrestling she-wolves, I was always at least semi-aware of what was happening.

But not this time. No. I'm not sure what did it, but I just decided to let it all go and accept that the Lions were going to lose and lose terribly and I had no desire to see any of it. I figured that the Ravens would shut it down, that the Lions might get a garbage score or two and the game would end up looking a little closer than it was, and I was okay with that. I have seen that story played out far too many times to get worked up about it one way or the other. So, I went about my life for a couple of hours, and then decided to check back on the score. I saw the numbers 48-3 and then just laughed, because really, what the hell else are you supposed to do at that point?

I then decided to delve deeper into the box score, because I am a masochist and a great fool, and discovered that the Ravens rolled up over 500 yards of total offense and that Daunte Culpepper was, well, Daunte Culpepper. I thought back to the announcers talking about how the Lions defense had stepped up a bit over the last few weeks and about how Culpepper knew that he was still capable of being a starting quarterback in the NFL and then I laughed again. I then doused myself in gasoline, lit a match and ran naked and screaming through the streets until a kindly old man beat me half to death with a pillow case full of old batteries in order to put out the fire. I thanked him, went inside, put some Neosporin on, and then read a couple of game recaps, saw that Kevin Smith apparently torched his knee in the fourth quarter and then I went back outside, punched that old man in the face for not allowing me sweet relief and then laid in the snow and cried for a while.

There are days when it feels like there is a point to all this nonsense - well, as much as a point that mere sports can have anyway - and then there are days like today, when it all just seems like an absurd joke, one that ends with a gigantic fart of an explanation point that clears the room and sends old people to the emergency room with watery eyes and lungs full of brown death. Okay, that was kind of disturbing, but so is losing 48-3. I would like to think that my brain somehow knew the horrors that lay ahead and forced me to abandon ship before it was swallowed up and eaten by The Kraken, and for that, I thank it. These are treacherous times, and sometimes you need to take the shameful road of cowardice in order to preserve what's left of your sanity. This is nothing to be celebrated, but then, neither is what happened against the Ravens today. Everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves. Kevin Smith's knee knew it, and it committed suicide rather than live through the horrible conclusion to this epic turd. These are dark days, terrible and obscene, and although we may live to see better days, days like this will haunt the living forever, and perhaps this is the way it should be.

If A Lousy Football Team Is Beaten In The Woods and Nobody Sees or Hears It, Did It Really Happen?

Maybe this poor bastard has the right idea.

I've hit the point where I just want the season to be over with and for next season to get here already. Really, this is kind of how I have felt all season long. I knew that the Lions would still be terrible, but at least I would get to see the progress. I took some solace in that, and I suppose I have been grasping onto that, week after week, game after game, telling myself and you that the games were worthwhile, that even though the Lions would probably lose, at least it would mean that we were one step closer to finally being better. On some level, this has probably been a massive defense mechanism, one that has allowed me to keep going on with this nonsense. You have to trick yourself into this kind of shit sometimes when your team is this bad. It's okay though, Lions fans are experts at this sort of thing. On another level, I really, really believe that each game has been important, that with every one, Matthew Stafford and Calvin Johnson and DeAndre Levy and Jim Schwartz and Ernie Sims' monkey have been able to learn and grow and get ready to actually be a competent football team.

It has been terribly frustrating though to watch them stumble and fall, one by one, never healthy, never able to go out there and have the chance to really put it all together. There have been flashes - isolated plays here and there, the Cleveland game - but thanks to all the injuries, specifically to Stafford and St. Calvin, these guys haven't gotten a real chance to get together on the same page for very long. It has stunted the development of both Stafford and the team as a whole, and has made this entire season seem like somewhat of a lost one. Not entirely, but kind of, if that makes any sense at all. It probably doesn't, but fuck it, since when has sense been my specialty?

Anyway, lost season or not, each week has at least been interesting, if only because we have gotten a chance to see how this team is growing, no matter how slowly or fitfully. Unfortunately, this week, there will be even less growth than usual, and even less of a reason to be interested at all in what happens. The Lions are terrible, their final record will be terrible, and even if they somehow manage to eke out a win against the Ravens on Sunday, it will just be an isolated blip that is essentially meaningless. And why is that? Because Matthew Stafford's dickhead of a shoulder refuses to behave himself, meaning that, yes, it's time once again for Daunte Culpepper to step forward and drive us all to tears and razor blades.

Of course, the reason we know now, rather than Sunday, that Culpepper will get the start is because Jim Schwartz made sure that the decision was made and known by all sooner rather than later despite the fact that he would have liked to have waited until Sunday to make the official call. And why is this? Because Daunte Culpepper carried on like a damn fool on Thanksgiving.

Yes, you all remember that fine scene, one that will surely be remembered fondly as one of the more glorious moments in our proud franchises' history, a moment that saw Daunte Culpepper stomp around the sidelines, hollering at Martin Mayhew because Matthew Stafford got the start that he apparently felt he so richly deserved based on the sterling body of work he had done up until that point in a Lions uniform.

Rather than go through that again, the Lions have apparently decided to forego whatever tactical advantage they could have gained by waiting until the last moment to decide. This allows the Ravens to come up with a game plan specifically tailored to stop Culpepper. And since all you have to do to stop Culpepper is blitz the hell out of him, well . . . I think we can all see where this is heading. So, thank you, Daunte. Your inspiring professionalism has been an inspiration and a blessing in this wonderful joyous season.

Indeed. If the Ravens have anyone with even a half functioning brainstem, they will immediately flash back to the end of the Steelers game, where Culpepper was sacked three times in a row on the final drive, thus destroying any chance the Lions had to win the game, and to the entire Packers game, where Culpepper was harassed and beaten into the turf in a woeful performance. And then their eyes will get really, really big, and they will send blitzers in all day long like a swarm of rabid methed up werewolves. It, uh, it won't be pretty.

One tiny reason for hope is that Ed Reed is unlikely to start for the Ravens, and since his replacement, Tom Zbikowski, is most famous for being a boxing David Eckstein grit merchant at Notre Dame and not for being a, you know, good football player, there is a chance that the Lions and Culpepper will be able to take advantage of this. Unfortunately, the Ravens are probably getting Terrell Suggs back from injury and so it will be difficult for Culpepper to take advantage of Zbikowski since he will likely be getting crushed by the Ravens pass rush all day long.

I guess that leaves most of our hope for victory - absurdly slim as it may be - in the hands of Kevin Smith and the Lions running game. Smith was actually pretty decent against the Bengals, running for 75 yards and averaging over 4 yards per carry against one of the better rush defenses in the league. Unfortunately, he has looked kinda shitty for most of this season, and this week he gets to play against a team that only gives up 3.5 yards per carry, the best in the NFL. Well, so much for that.

With the offense unlikely to generate anything worth getting excited about - or hell, even marginally hopeful about - I suppose it falls on the Lions defense to take control of the game. Excuse me while I chug from this gas can and then swallow this flaming sword.

Yeah. The Lions defense has been terrible this season. Even against the Browns, who at one point this season were dubbed by some the worst offensive team in NFL history, the Lions defense was beaten, left for dead, and then pissed on and eaten by wild wolves. It was a sorry performance, one that completely exposed the depth of the Lions utter incompetence defending the pass. Up until that point, the Browns passing game was a national joke. Had Matthew Stafford not decided to channel the Terminator, everyone would have been comparing Brady Quinn after the game to Joe Montana. It was awful, it really was.

Of course, last week, against the Bengals, the Lions managed to keep Carson Palmer mostly in check, and even forced a couple of interceptions and a fumble following a cornerback blitz. It was probably the pass defense's best performance of the season. Then again, that is kind of like being the world's tallest midget, or, I suppose, the world's happiest Lions fan. Besides, Cincinnati's relatively quiet performance through the air is likely more a function of how conservatively they chose to play rather than anything the Lions really did to stop them.

On the other hand, the Lions did do a good job of disguising their coverage and baiting Carson Palmer into making some bad throws. Perhaps this is a sign of progress, or perhaps this was just a weird anomaly more emblematic of Palmer and the Bengals struggles than anything else. I don't know. The good news is that the Ravens quarterback, Joe Flacco, has been struggling the last several weeks. He was pretty fucking bad against the Packers on Monday night, and if the Lions can bait him - a second year quarterback - as well as they did a veteran like Palmer, maybe, just maybe, they can make something happen.

This is unlikely to happen, though. I mean, the Bengals game right now is just an outlier that really can't be used to definitively say that the Lions can shut down Baltimore's - or anyone else's - passing attack. In general, the Lions have been terrible against the pass and if there is a cure for what ails a young and struggling quarterback, it is looking across the field at the collection of stiffs in Honolulu Blue who make up the Lions secondary.

Even if the Lions somehow manage to stop Flacco cold - and really, if they have any hope at all in this game, they will need to do this - they will still have Ray Rice to deal with. Rice has emerged as a big time playmaker for the Ravens, giving them an actual offensive weapon to go along with their perennially tough defense. The Lions have actually been relatively competent against the run this year - well, relative to the pass defense anyway, but that invites all the tallest midget jokes, etc. and so we won't devolve into that nonsense again, although I suppose I just did. Never mind. Anyway, the Lions have shown an ability to keep an opposing running back in check - an actual, tangible sign of progress this season - and if they can somehow stuff Rice and somehow force Flacco into making a few bad throws, maybe, just maybe, they can give the Lions offense a chance to get into the game.

Of course, then we are brought back around to Daunte Culpepper and his track record of excellence in the last five years, and, well . . . Jesus, I just can't do it. It would take a miracle for the Lions to completely stop the Ravens offense. The defense just isn't good enough, and really, they have to stop them cold. They can't even contain them like they did against the Bengals, because just like against the Bengals, they will end up losing 23-13 or 17-7 instead of 35-13 or 27-7. Right now, the offense is too sloppy and too inconsistent to be able to provide the defense with any margin for error. Take away Stafford and add in Culpepper, and suddenly that margin for error is not even a margin any more. The margin has shrunk and begun creeping up the other side, to the point where not only can the Lions defense not make any mistakes, but they must also make things happen. Basically, the Lions are fucked. Neither the offense nor the defense are any good.

Okay, so there it is. The Lions are screwed, the Ravens will almost definitely win this game, and huzzah for December football. There is a month of football left to be played, and after that we can start talking ourselves into being hopeful for 2010. But for now, all we can do is . . . is . . . you know what? I've got nothing. Fuck it.

FIVE PREDICTIONS EVEN THOUGH I NEVER FOLLOW UP ON THESE ANYMORE

1. Culpepper will struggle against the Ravens pass rush, and will end up throwing for only 150 yards or so and three interceptions. He'll throw one touchdown, a jump ball that Calvin Johnson somehow comes down with and then he will do that stupid dance of his and I will try to swallow my remote in order to choke away all the pain.

2. Kevin Smith will be bottled up. He'll see a lot of work thanks to Culpepper's struggles, but he'll only gain 65 yards on 25 carries.

3. Calvin Johnson will catch 5 passes for 110 yards and the aforementioned touchdown. His hamstrings will then explode as he runs to the sideline and he will be partially eaten by a cheetah, leaving him doubtful for next week. He will only survive due to Zach Follett breaking free of his choke chain and mauling the cheetah. The two will engage in a thrilling duel at midfield but the Cheetah will tire and Follett will skin the poor beast alive and wear his pelt for the remainder of the season. Why there will be a cheetah just hanging out on the sidelines in Baltimore is a mystery, but remember, there are chimps driving cars down in Florida, so who knows? It is a strange world.

4. Flacco will get back on track, completing 25 of 37 passes for 275 yards and three touchdowns. He will also throw one interception.

5. Rice rushes for 80 yards on 15 carries and adds another 80 yards on 6 catches. He scores two touchdowns, and then after the game he returns to his day job, playing one of the munchkins in the Baltimore Community Center's revival of the Wizard of Oz. After all, he can't play forever, and a man must think of his future. Hopefully he doesn't hang himself like that one poor son of a bitch munchkin apparently did on the original Wizard of Oz set. I know you have no idea what I am even talking about anymore, but that's okay, neither do I. We are in this together.

PREDICTED FINAL SCORE: Ravens 31, Lions 10

Not Yet. Please?

For the last couple of seasons I have been waiting for Jason Hanson to break down and for his leg to turn into dust, but he just never seems to deteriorate. Season after season, he trots onto the field like some sort of kicking Terminator, rarely missing, always reliable. It feels like he's been the kicker for 118 years and I half expect to see Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod show up with a katana and attack Hanson week after week. There can be only one after all.

Okay, that is two kinda nerdy movie references in one paragraph. Whatever, Terminator, Highlander, who cares, the point, dudes and lady dudes, is that Jason Hanson is old. And somehow, someway, he has managed to ward off the ravages of time and keep kicking well into his golden years. You would think that a man who won the Medal of Freedom after Antietam would be content to live out the rest of his days in peace and harmony. But, no, not Jason. That son of a bitch apparently can't get enough of the horrors of war, because he comes back, season after season, and keeps robotically kicking even as his fellow soldiers fall dead and bloody behind him. Maybe the reason why he is able to keep going year after year is because he is a vampire, and he feeds off the corpses of all those poor Lions who are destroyed in the hell mouth of Detroit football. Such a monster.

Alright, Jesus, every time I try to steer this into a coherent direction, I end up veering into the land of the strange and the absurd. Terminators, Highlanders, Vampires, Civil War Vets, does it ever stop? I am almost positive that I will make a reference to the Holy Grail and everlasting life before this is over, and I apologize in advance, but I suppose I am just trying to put off talking about the terrible and depressing reality that spurred this post in the first place, which is that Jason Hanson might finally be getting . . . old?

Sure, sure, he's old in terms of age. We knew that already - witness all of the above supergibberish - but for the first time he actually looks old. So far this season, Hanson hasn't been quite as consistent as he's been in the past, missing some field goals that he would normally make underwater in his sleep wrapped in chains. Why he would be underwater, asleep wrapped in chains is a mystery, but these are strange and terrible times, and these things happen. Maybe he crossed Ernie Sims' monkey in a poker game and I have said it before, you don't want to cross that mean little son of a bitch.

Okay, okay, I will get back to the main point. It's just that, well, this is hard. Jason Hanson has been the one constant, the one good thing, that we've had as Lions fans for a long, long time. He's the only one of our heroes who has never failed us, who has never flamed out or had a tragic end. So it's been hard to see him struggle a little bit and even harder to contemplate what comes after him. We have learned to tolerate and even accept mediocrity everywhere else, and it is horrible to think that we may have to do it here too. Sure, it's only the kicker, but desperate men must take desperate heroes, and there are no men more desperate than Lions fans. He's all we've had for a long, long time and our adoration of him is a testament to both the sad putrescence of Lions football and to the ability of Lions fans to always find something - anything - to hold onto while the rest of our football world goes to hell.

Sadly, against the Bengals, we got another sign that the Immortal Hanson might be a mere human being after all. For the first time that I can remember, Hanson actually left a kick short. Sure, it was on a 55 yard field goal attempt and it still managed to reach the crossbar, but this has never, ever been an issue with Hanson. This is a dude who has almost unlimited range, a dude who has kicked more 50+ yard field goals than anyone in NFL history. When he does miss, it's always wide, never short. It was kind of a sad moment and it just reminded me that the end will be near sooner rather than later for my man Hanson.

We've been through a lot as Lions fans. We've seen a lot of failure, and felt a lot of pain. We've had very little to hold onto and be genuinely proud of. Jason Hanson is one of those rare things. He's never really gotten a chance to be a money kicker, because really, the Lions have never really been in too many clutch situations, but I think that Jason Hanson is the best kicker of my lifetime. There have been others who have put up higher point totals - think Morten Andersen or Gary Anderson - and there have been others who have delved deeper into the public consciousness thanks to big, unforgettable moments - think Adam Vinatieri - but in my mind, Jason Hanson has been better than all of them. In many ways, he's my favorite Detroit Lion. Sure, I rave about the potential of Matthew Stafford, marvel at the gifts of Calvin Johnson and gibber like a fool about Ernie Sims and his monkey, but Jason Hanson is the only character in the absurd story of the Detroit Lions in my lifetime who hasn't seemed like he was part of the circus. He's the professional, the one dude we never had to worry about. Even Barry Sanders was sucked into the idiot machine that is the Detroit Lions. Even he was tainted by the failure, broken and beaten by it. Jason Hanson wasn't - he isn't - and every time he runs onto the field, it's a unique experience, because it's the only time that we as Lions fans are allowed to feel like, for once, we've got the dude in charge.

Okay, I didn't mean for this to turn into a eulogy for Hanson. It is kind of macabre. I mean, the dude is still out there, still playing, and still very, very good at what he does. I just fear that the days of him being Terminator Hanson might be at an end, and now when he runs out onto the field, that overwhelming sense of confidence and inner peace that he provides will no longer be there.

This post was originally going to be broken up into sections, like I usually do this time every week, where I would discuss several random thoughts from the previous game or things that were going on in the Lions universe. But it just sort of grew from there, and now I just want to let it stand as its own post about Jason Hanson. He's been the man here for a long, long time, and you may say he's only the kicker, but he's our kicker, and when he's gone, I'm honestly going to miss him. Unless of course he gets his hand on the Holy Grail and obtains everlasting life. In which case, well, play forever, noble prince, you'll always be my kicker.

2-10 Is Terrible, But What The Hell, We Have Seen Worse

Rebuilding is hard and it is slow and it is ugly and the road behind it is littered with the dead and the dying. Perhaps that is too bleak, but 2-10 does not engender a whole hell of a lot of positive feelings. It just doesn't, and it would be disingenuous to pretend otherwise. It sucks watching your team lose game after game, and it would be utterly inhuman to just stand passively back from that and say that it doesn't bother you.

Of course, there are signs that things are on the upswing. That Matthew Stafford pass to Calvin Johnson for a touchdown made angel's weep and the choirs of heaven sing. It was astoundingly beautiful and it was better than anything else that has happened over the past decade of terrible torment. That is both an awesome thing and an unfathomably sad thing. One play was better than a decade of failure. The promise that one play held is enough to make me sigh and then smile when I think about the future. But it's also enough to make me glance back at the wreckage of the past and wonder why we couldn't have that, well, ever.

But the past is the past and we are all about rebuilding and moving forward now. In a lot of ways, watching the Lions this season is like watching a toddler careening through the house. Sometimes the kid walks in a straight line and smiles and says something shockingly profound and you can see that one day he will be a real live functioning human being. And then sometimes the kid falls down and shits his pants and starts to sob and nothing you can do can calm him down and the future just seems so far away.

There were other signs that this team is capable of walking and talking. The defense was shockingly decent against the Bengals. They only allowed one offensive touchdown, and although Cedric Benson topped the 100 yard mark he needed 36 carries to get there and ended the day averaging only 3.1 yards per carry. Meanwhile, they held Carson Palmer to 220 yards passing and only 1 touchdown against 2 interceptions. I know that doesn't seem like it's that great, but for the Lions defense, playing a first place team on the road, it was damn near heroic.

It was incredibly frustrating to see the Lions control the game, build a fragile lead and visibly start to gain confidence only to see it all obliterated on a fluke interception off of a deflected screen pass that was returned for a touchdown. It was utterly deflating, like watching a toddler take one step and then another and yet another until they were walking and smiling and excited only to then watch them face plant and bust their nose and cry and cry and cry. It was awful, just terrible and I didn't know whether to feel bad for my dudes or to scream and wonder about why it has to be so absurdly cruel to be a fan sometimes.

Still, even with that the Lions never quite went away. They fought, they clawed, even though they were undertalented and overmatched. Matthew Stafford played and chucked the ball and was hit and driven into the turf again and again and again and each time he got up until finally he couldn't get up anymore. His shoulder is fried, his body is betraying him but he wants to win so bad. You can see it on his face. It is agonizing to see the end, to see happy days on the horizon only to trip and fall or have your body tell you to fuck off every time you try to take a step or two towards it.

This game was both painful to watch and gave me hope for the future. I know I have ranted on and on and on and on about hope this season. It is the overriding theme that always manages to creep it's way into the schizophrenic funhouse of absurdity that is my corner of this blog. It doesn't exactly mesh all the time with the werewolves and the drain cleaner and the tears of blood, etc., but what the hell, that is pretty much this season in a nutshell. Hope and pain, pain and hope.

There is only a month left in this season and by my estimation the Lions could win one more game the rest of the way. It is ugly, it is brutal and in the end the cold stark reality is that this is still a terrible team with a long, long way to go. I don't care. I have been down the road with this team and seen the belly of the beast. I know it's awful, I know there is nothing but acid tipped flaming arrows waiting there for me and for all of us who keep on caring despite ourselves. Still, there is always the chance that one day we will snatch those horrible arrows out of the air and stab our enemies in the neck with them. I have never really believed that before. It's all just seemed too improbable, too absurd, and so achingly far away.

So, why, at 2-10, do I somehow feel different? Why, this time, do I actually believe? I don't know. I really don't. Maybe it's because for the first time I see that the people responsible for all this absurd hellfire actually understand what is going on and seem determined to get out of it before it consumes them. They seem to have a plan and I suppose all I can do is take a deep breath and follow them, because really, what else am I going to do? Then again, maybe 0-16 just wrecked me, broke me in ways that I can't even understand and this is the only way I know how to cope with it all. I have to hope because the alternative is just too horrible, too ridiculous.

This whole season and everything I have written about it is bipolar and vaguely ridiculous. One sentence it's stabbing our enemies in the neck with flaming arrows or some other weird bullshit, the next it's werewolves chugging Drano and spitting blood at terrified strangers. In a sense, I can't wait for it to be over. I just want there to be some idea of what's real, what we can point to and say that's what's right and that's why we're going to be okay, instead of whatever this season is. I'm hopeful, but it all feels like a giant leap of faith sometimes, a leap that frankly I have no business taking. And yet, I've jumped, and I keep jumping, week after week, and every time I fall and bash my head open and I cry as I watch my brains seep out and my blood stain the rocks underneath me. It's horrible, but somehow I keep getting back up and crawling back to the top of the cliff so I can jump again. Maybe that's why this whole thing will be okay and maybe that's what I really know, that everyone involved with this debacle of a franchise, from the front office to the coaches to the players to the fans wants it to change so bad that we are willing to die a million horrible deaths every week just so that we can get the chance to try again the next week.

I don't know. This whole post has veered into the theater of the ridiculous, but these are ridiculous times, I am a ridiculous man and I am a fan of a ridiculous team in a ridiculous season. But to hell with all that, the Lions are 2-10 and next week they will probably be 2-11 and then they will probably be 2-12, and at the end of the season they might be 2-14. I am probably an idiot and a fool for believing in anything beyond that - at least that terrible record is real, it's tangible - but I'm okay with that. It will all be okay. I think. I hope.

Yes! It's The Bengals. Wait . . . You Mean The Bengals Are Good This Season? Awww . . .

Richard the First, aka Richard the Lionheart. Get it, because there is a Lion in the name? Okay, fine, to hell with you too. There? How do you like it? Wait, who am I talking to? What's going on?

Coming into the season, the game against the Bengals this week was one that every Lions fan pointed at and said "We should win that one." Actually, "pointed at" might not be the proper phrase there. Actually, it was more like "clung to" or "dug in with claws" or "kidnapped and locked in the basement" or "for the love of God we might be bad, but at least we probably won't be as shitty as the Bengals" or "if we don't win that one I'm going to jump on a bicycle and pedal furiously off the pier into Lake Michigan in December. When they find my frozen body, have them send it to Ford Field with a note saying 'I hope you're happy'." So, yeah, everyone was kinda looking forward to this one. And then the Bengals started winning, and then won some more and kept on winning until we find ourselves at this sad little moment where everyone is looking at this game as just one more that the Lions will surely lose.

This isn't a surprise. Even though things are a little better and we seem to finally be moving forward a bit, there are still very few teams that I would feel confident playing. Hell, improvement for us means 2-9. That is how apocalyptic our sad little world had become last season. Digging out of it is a slow and painful process and even though we are almost 3/4 of the way through this season, I would only feel confident playing the Browns, the Buccaneers, the Rams(yeah, yeah, I know), and maybe the Chiefs and the Raiders. I think the Redskins would win if that game was played again today and really, I wouldn't even be that confident going into games against those other teams. Hell, we already lost to the Rams, we barely beat the Browns and who the fuck knows what would happen against those other turds. The simple and undeniable truth is that we are firmly entrenched within that terrible group. It is ugly and it is awful, but better as things are, they are still bad enough that our improvement is still akin to other teams' utter misery and degradation.

There is little point in expecting - or really even hoping for - victory against any team not lost in that terrible maelstrom of failure. And, this season, at 8-3, the Bengals certainly aren't in that group. Of course, that doesn't mean that the retarded optimist buried within me won't be cheering like a simple jackass, hoping against hope that the Lions will miraculously pull their asses out of the fire, but let's face facts here: the Lions are going to lose again, and that's that.

The Bengals are terrific at two things this season: running the ball and stopping the run. The Lions haven't been able to run the ball much all season but they have seemed at least semi-functional against the run. The latter is probably more a function of teams realizing that they can throw for a million yards for a million years on the Lions than it is of the Lions run defense actually being okay, but what the hell, we must cling to any shred of hope we can find, no matter how delusional. After all, the reality is that the numbers aren't at all good - they're still pretty damn bad actually. The Lions are 19th in the league against the run, which is below average, but fuck it, below average is world's better than whatever soul destroying horrors we witnessed a year ago.

Still, the Bengals like to run the ball, and are pretty damn good at it. They have jumped on the back of Cedric Benson and let him carry them to the seventh best rushing attack in the NFL. Even after Benson went down with an injury, the Bengals didn't miss a beat, as the corpse of Larry Johnson and some dude named Bernard Scott both ran for over 100 yards in his absence. In fact, last week against the Browns, both players nearly ran for 100 yards. Johnson had 107 and Scott had 87 and both ran for almost 5 yards every time they touched the ball. This week, Benson will be back, and well, that is not a good sign. The Bengals have a stable of running backs who can all run the ball effectively, meaning that if they decide to play it safe and keep it on the ground then the Lions will probably find themselves run over.

Yeah, the thing about that is that the Bengals probably won't play it all that safe, and really, why should they? After all, the Lions pass defense remains apocalyptic, like the secondary is stuck in some weird time flux where it's still 2008 and a nation waits with greedy and cruel eyes to see if the Lions can go 0-16. Seriously, these dudes are just ass ugly, and I'm pretty sure that the dude who played Corky back in the day could wander onto the field and throw for 300 yards and a couple of touchdowns against them. He would be celebrating, acting the fool, carried out on the shoulders of his teammates while Philip Buchanan, Will James and the gang would be lying in the middle of the field in a pool of their own piss and tears, trying desperately not to shit themselves too. It would be an awful scene, just terrible and while it may be a heartwarming scene for everyone else to see Corky enjoy his day in the sun, for Lions fans it would be terrible and utterly without joy. That is what it has come to here, weird envy of retarded dudes based on absurd scenarios that never happened and never will happen. Damn that Corky, I will see him in hell.

Okay, clearly this thing has fried my brain, but to hell with all that, there is still football nerdery to be explored and explore it we shall. Carson Palmer hasn't thrown for 300 yards in almost two years - a testament to both the collapse suffered by the Bengals last season and the efficiency of their run game in this redemptive season - and he hasn't had a massively explosive season or anything this year, with 2300 yards and 15 touchdowns so far, but hell, just re-read the previous ridiculous paragraph. Palmer will be able to throw all over the Lions all day long and then after the bodies of the dead and dying are dragged out of the Lions secondary by a team of Priests he'll be able to throw some more. The Lions are dead last in the NFL against the pass, giving up over 280 yards a game and opposing QB's have a collective rating of 111.8 and have completed 70.5 percent of their passes. That is just abominable. Palmer has shown in the past that he is capable of lighting the scoreboard up, and when you combine all of these terrible elements into a stew, well, it is one that should make you vomit. Repeatedly.

So, the Lions probably won't be able to stop Cincinnati's offense. I guess that means they will have to score a lot on their own if they're going to have a chance. Unfortunately, Matthew Stafford and Calvin Johnson are still both banged up and while they will both play, neither will be as effective as they would normally be. That means that Kevin Smith will need to come through. Yeah, the problem with that is - as I briefly mentioned earlier - the Bengals are really good at stopping the run. In fact, their entire defense is pretty damn good and has improved as the season has gone on. It's hard to envision a banged up Stafford taking over the game and managing to keep pace with the Bengals offense. I mean, let's not get carried away here. For as much as we are all extolling Stafford's many virtues, he is still a rookie and he has still thrown 18 interceptions. To expect him to carry the Lions to victory against one of the top defenses in the NFL is ludicrous.

The Bengals are third in the league against the run, meaning that Smith - who has been banged up in his own right and hasn't exactly impressed this season - likely won't be able to do a whole lot. Add in the fact that the Bengals should be able to score plenty of points of their own and you have a recipe for a game in which, unfortunately, the ball has to be in Stafford's hands a lot. He'll have to throw and throw some more and when his whole body is sore and he's already thrown three interceptions, he'll have to keep on throwing. The only glimmer of hope here is that the Bengals are kind of middle of the road against the pass - they're only 16th in the league - but this is probably a function of teams not being able to run at all on them more than anything else. A closer look at the numbers show that the Bengals are thrown on the 8th most of any team in the NFL, meaning that you would expect them to be more like 24th or so than 16th against the pass. The fact that they are still better than 8 other teams who have had the ball thrown on them less than the Bengals kind of shows that Cincinnati might actually be pretty good defending the pass. That is kind of confusing, I suppose, but you know, I'm not usually the dude who breaks down the stats like this but I am feeling extra nerdish so please forgive me both for the nerdery and any confusion that results. To put things into even sharper focus, the Bengals are actually 9th in the NFL when it comes to opponent's completion percentage, meaning that teams like to throw the ball against the Bengals but aren't terribly successful when they do. The upshot of all this statistical gibberish? The Bengals defense is good - damn good - and there's probably little the Lions can do to move the ball consistently and effectively.

Okay, so statistical digressions aside, the Lions do have a secret weapon in Calvin Johnson. Ah, St. Calvin. He's the one dude who can make everything else irrelevant if he decides to play like the beast he is. Unfortunately, he's also a little banged up and has Leon Hall, one of the better cornerbacks in the league, covering him this week. Still, Johnson has an athletic advantage over, well, over anybody. If he can get things going with Stafford then maybe, just maybe, he can make things interesting. Still, I wouldn't get my hopes up.

Okay, so I have pretty much annihilated the Lions in this post and talked up the Bengals like they are having my child, but that would just be weird and I will go no further with that little bit of disturbing imagery. I guess the reason to watch this week would be to see the little glimpses of the future that we have managed to see in virtually every game this season - the impossible throws by Stafford, St. Calvin loping away from the defense, DeAndre Levy or Jordan Dizon or Louis Delmas smacking someone in the mouth - and because this is our team, and even when they are bad, they are still ours and fuck those other dudes in the other uniform. We may lose - we probably will lose - but we have been through worse, and there will be better days ahead. This is threatening to devolve into schizophrenic gibberish again, and so, yeah . . . on with the predictions.

FIVE PREDICTIONS

1. Matthew Stafford will start and will be forced to throw the ball a lot. He'll end up airing it out 50 times, completing 27 of them for 310 yards, two touchdowns . . . and three interceptions. After the game, Daunte Culpepper will throw a fit in the locker room. It will later be determined that this is due to diaper rash.

2. The Lions will try to run the ball with Kevin Smith early on, but a combination of his being largely ineffective against the Bengals run defense and the Bengals offense forcing the Lions offense to have to throw to keep pace will render Smith largely irrelevant. He'll end up with around 15 carries for 40 yards or so.

3. Calvin Johnson will struggle a little bit thanks to his nagging injuries. He'll still catch 6 passes for 90 or so yards and a touchdown, but he won't be quite the difference maker that the Lions need to stay in the game.

4. Carson Palmer will throw for 300 yards and 3 touchdowns and Cedric Benson will run for 100 yards and a touchdown. After the game, Gunther Cunningham will throw his hands up in disgust and then, in a fit of anger, will challenge Ernie Sims' monkey to a duel. Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail, but you don't wanna fuck with that monkey. He'll cut you.

5. And because I have nowhere else to put this, I would just like to mention that I was channel surfing the other night and saw some Monster Hunter bullshit thing on the History Channel where they were looking for Chimpanzees who were rumored to be living in the Florida Everglades. It was all vaguely ridiculous, with people interviewed about sightings and such like they were after fucking Bigfoot, but my favorite part was the matter of fact newspaper story they discussed where cops pulled over a Chimp who was driving a car. It was treated with complete seriousness, like yeah, why the fuck not? It was hilarious and I knew I had to mention it here somewhere. Rather than look for a way to turn it into some stupid joke, I wanted to discuss it in full even if it has nothing to do with the Lions. I didn't stay tuned to watch the rest of it, so I don't know if they found any Chimps in the wild or anything - I mean, there were fucking cartographers trying to prove that the environments of Florida and Mali were comparable enough for it to be possible - but I'd like to believe that it's true and I'd also like to believe that a gang of super-intelligent Chimps are hanging out on the side of the Florida highway, carjacking lonely motorists. My prediction - in order to keep this in line with the fact that this is supposed to be a prediction and is technically supposed to be about the Lions - is that soon we will see breaking news of a high speed chase in Florida involving a coked up Chimp at the wheel of a stolen car and that it will only end when he crashes into a tree and is then eaten by a lion. Why there would be a lion on the loose is beyond me, and why it would somehow find itself at the scene is even more unfathomable, but fuck it, this is my prediction. It is a strange world, and perhaps only I find this humorous and amazing, but to hell with it, sometimes I am a strange man and these are the things that please me.

PREDICTED FINAL SCORE: Oh, uh, shit, BENGALS 31, LIONS 10

NUMBER OF TIMES I THINK ABOUT CHIMPS TO MAKE ME FORGET THAT THE LIONS ARE LOSING: 12

Random Nonsense

Fellas, please, let love open the door to your hearts.

FEEL THE HATE FLOW THROUGH YOU. YEEEEEEESSSSSSSS.

Everyone has players that they love to hate. Hell, hating on Brett Favre has practically become a national pastime. Growing up, I was a fan of the Bad Boys Pistons who everyone in the world hated except for their own fans. Bill Laimbeer might be one of the top 5 hated basketball players of all time. And then there is Isiah Lord Thomas III who was blackballed from the first Dream Team because everyone hated him so much. And let's not forget Rick Mahorn and Dennis Rodman, and . . . okay, you get the point.

The thing is, is that there has never been a Lions player - not in my lifetime anyway - who has received that kind of disdain from the general public. Part of this is because in order to be hated you have to actually be, you know, relevant. That's hard to do when your team is going 6-10 every year. On the rare occasion where a Lion has been good enough to break through into the public consciousness - think Barry Sanders - everyone just sort of pities the poor fool for being involved with this Hindenburg of a franchise. People are already doing it with Calvin Johnson.

So, I'm actually kind of happy that we seem to have a player who I think everyone is destined to hate. And that man's name is Matthew Stafford. Think about it. The dude has all the ingredients of a hateable player: he's cocky as hell, he's talented, he's tough and he's got the media singing his praises for that toughness. No one likes to watch the quarterback for the other team throw a touchdown, then run down the field with his tongue hanging out, a cocky grin on his face while the announcers blather on about his toughness and about how he once killed a Nazi by throwing a football straight through the fiend even though he had two separated shoulders and was temporarily blind.

Stafford is 21 years old, he still throws way too many interceptions, is maddeningly inconsistent, and is the quarterback for a team that is 2-9. Still, despite all that, following the game against the Browns, he can't be on camera without some fool in the booth gushing over his toughness and throwing out 168 clichés per minute. Hell, I was watching some college football over the weekend, and during the Georgia/Georgia Tech game, they showed Stafford standing on the sideline, and one of the announcers, who for the sake of my own sanity shall remain nameless, began falling all over himself about what a tough guy Stafford was. It was ridiculous. As soon as the Lions start winning(yeah, shut up), everyone is going to hate this dude. Haaaaaaaaaate him. And I love it.

THAT'LL DO, DAUNTE. THAT'LL DO.

One of the more ridiculous images from Thanksgiving was Daunte Culpepper stomping around like a pissed off third grader when he was told that he wasn't going to be starting. Yeah, Daunte, you're not the starter and you should be happy that someone is willing to keep your 300 pound corpse propped up on the sideline for another year. You haven't been relevant except for as a punch line to a bad joke in the last five years and every time you are on the field the whole experience just feels miserable and utterly without hope. But thanks for being ready, I guess.

All that may be a little harsh, but fuck it, I am sick of the past and nothing screams the past more than Daunte Culpepper with his retarded little dance. The best thing to happen to this franchise this season is Matthew Stafford cementing himself as the starter in everyone's mind. It wasn't that long ago that there was a sizeable portion of the fanbase hollering for Culpepper to start over Stafford. I am happy that those days seem to be done, but every time they show Culpepper on the sideline, I get a terrible chill that runs up my spine, the same sort of chill that I get just before I have to wrestle a methed up werewolf or bare knuckle box an escaped vampire ape. Okay, okay, those things have never happened . . . OR HAVE THEY???

Anyway, just stand there and hold your clipboard Daunte, and maybe you can get through the rest of the season without your knee falling off and maybe you can con some other desperate team into giving you their starting job next year, and then you can have a whole new fan base hate you. Okay, I'm sorry, I don't really hate Daunte, it's just that I hate what he represents, which is the past, which is failure, which is explosions and piles of bones and bleach drinking parties and the screams of the dying and rivers of blood and tears of acid and 0-16 and oh God I'm hyperventilating someone get me a paper bag I don't want to think about this anymore and . . . breeeeeeaaaaaathe.

OKAY WHO HAS THE VOODOO DOLL?

The Lions just put Brandon Pettigrew on injured reserve after his knee told him to fuck off and that it wasn't thankful for jack shit on Thanksgiving. Poor guy. Poor us. Pettigrew seemed like he was starting to really put it together at tight end and he and Stafford had developed an excellent rapport. Oh well, at least we'll always have the Cleveland game, Brandon.

The ridiculous thing about this is that about a quarter of the team is on injured reserve now, and besides those dudes, it seems like just about everyone else on the Lions has been hurt at some point this season. By my count, at least 14 starters have had injury issues this season, ranging from blown out knees to fucking root canals. It's kind of hard to win when your sideline looks like the tent following a Civil War battle. I bet the Fords never thought they would be shelling out cash for a bone saw. Right about now, I imagine the medical staff is running out of morphine or ether and is making dudes bite down on a rag or a stick to keep from screaming out in pain. It's fucking ridiculous. In a couple of months we'll see Pettigrew come out on crutches with a huge bandage around his knee and the bottom half of his leg missing. Does Stan Kwan have a brother running around in the training staff or something?

WELL . . . OKAY

Speaking of ol' Kwan, I suppose I should cut him slack. After all, the kick coverage units were noticeably better against Green Bay. They got to the return men quickly, they tackled well and they even managed to force the turnover which led to the Lions early touchdown, which was the catalyst in the Lions upset victory against the . . . wait, what? They kept playing after that? Well, shit, never mind.

In any event, I was actually encouraged by the play of the gunners on special teams. Perhaps they have finally tightened things up there, or maybe this is all Zach Follett transforming himself into 11 dudes using whatever heathen magic they cook up over there in Berkeley. I don't know. Who really cares? I'm just happy they finally don't look like a bunch of retarded ground sloths every time they run down to tackle the kick returner.

Of course, the kick return game is still a huge joke, but what the hell, we'll take what we can get, I suppose. The worst possible thing to come out of this new found semi-competence, however, would be for Stan Kwan to somehow leverage it into sticking around for another year. That would be horrible. Hopefully, everything works out, the coverage units continue to play better, and Jim Schwartz orders a team of highly trained brutes from Singapore to string Kwan up by his hands from a shower head in the locker room and cane the shit out of him. Harsh? Of course, but these are terrible times and these things happen.