Matthew Stafford: Some Real Talk

I haven’t written the obvious piece about Matthew Stafford yet simply because it’s been too damn confusing. I have edged around it throughout the season, which isn’t usually my style since I like to take these things head on and then wrestle them to the ground and bludgeon them like the psychotic freak that I am, but rather than doing that, like I said I have edged around it, dancing and sniping and then pulling away, which is vaguely shameful but the thing is, is that I simply haven’t been able to get my head around the issue. Like I said, it’s too confusing. And it’s too confusing because, well, what the hell even is the issue?

From week one, I’ve felt like something hasn’t been right when it comes to Stafford and I’ve said so, over and over again, in very placid “Hey, I think he’ll be alright” ways but that’s because the dude’s stats, particularly his TD to INT ratio, have been so gaudy that complaining felt like a madman’s path, a fool’s attempt to mine his own wounded soul for something resembling justification for The Fear. But there are the good stats, the ones that everybody points to when they shout me down and tell me to shut the fuck up and get with the Rejoicin’ For the Lord and then there are stats like young Matthew’s third down conversion completion percentage, which, well, I hate to tell you this but it’s dead last in the entire league. Dead last. And suddenly my own unease starts to make a little more sense.

If you can’t convert on third down, your offense simply isn’t going to be able to sustain drives. It’s going to fall apart and then Neil is whipping the remote around the room and carrying on like he’s about to sacrifice small animals all because Matthew Stafford threw an inaccurate pass on third down. Of course, it’s not all Matthew’s fault. Far from it. The simple reality is that the offensive line has been, well, a bit of a butt this year. That’s a purely technical term, so let me translate that for you – the offensive line, especially in the last several games, has been straight ass.

The time for soothing words and gentle pats on the back has come and gone, dudes and lady dudes and now all there is time for is motherfucking real talk. I’m sick of couching my words in gentle ifs and buts, as if I was afraid that if I said what was actually on my mind then my own fragile sense of hope would be shattered. Fuck that. I’ve been holding back. I’ll admit it. I think it’s been out of some need for self-preservation, but really there is no excuse, especially here, which is essentially Real Talk: The Website. The offense hasn’t been good this season. There are no qualifiers there. There are no “But they’ve scored points” or anything like that. Half the damn games this season they have looked utterly inept for much of the game, and I’m not the sort of fan who likes to gibber on about things being unacceptable as if I have an actual say in the matter, but, well, this shit has been unacceptable. There is simply too much physical talent on the offensive side on the ball, too many weapons, for them to not be able to consistently move the ball. Yes, they’ve scored points, but far, far too many of those points have come when the team has already been down and needed St. Calvin to put on a fucking cape and fly to the moon or have been scored by the aggressive and opportunistic defense.

Back to the offensive line for a second. One of the biggest reasons why the offense has failed to move the ball with consistency is because the line just isn’t giving Stafford enough time. This in turn has made Stafford evolve from cocky young franchise quarterback with brass balls into quivering mess who’s afraid Julius Peppers or Jared Allen is going to eat his soul again. Naturally, this will cause some problems.

But it isn’t just the offense line that’s to blame. Nate Burleson has been MIA for much of the season and the running game, aside from Jahvid Best’s Monday night heroics, have largely trod the same butt-filled wastelands as the offensive line. But the one man who has blown the offensive game-plan straight to hell this season is Matthew Stafford.

Yeah, I said it and I expect that I’m going to be yelled at by some people or called a reactionary idiot by others but frankly, my dear, I don’t give a fuck. Like I said, I’ve been unhappy with Stafford’s play pretty much all season long. He just hasn’t looked comfortable and while, yes, that is in part a function of the offensive line’s assery, that still doesn’t explain Stafford’s general inaccuracy. I mean, the dude hasn’t been able to throw a decent screen pass for fuck’s sake. That’s a problem. In an offense that relies on quick screens and accurate short throws to consistently move the ball, that’s a huge fucking problem.

Stafford’s Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Eli Manning act (thanks to UpHere for that gem) has been pretty apparent all season long and I’ve struggled all season long to find a way to discuss it without sounding like the dude who calls into the local sports radio show to whine and mewl like a fool and argue with some radio dude named Mad Dog who barks every time he sends it to a commercial. I despise that kind of dumb, reactionary shit, but goddammit, it’s not reactionary when I’ve felt this way for two and half months now, you know?

Even still, Stafford’s season has been so schizophrenic, so wildly bipolar even within the bounds of the same game, that I haven’t figured out how to talk about it. I still don’t know. One minute he’s throwing the ball behind Nate Burleson on a screen pass and shuffling off the field, head down like he just caught a hobo buttfucking his grandma, and the next he’s launching a bazooka towards Calvin Johnson while the fans go nuts.

The sheer, wild joy which was so evident early on this season precluded me from giving full voice to my concerns because if I actually sat there and bitched in the wake of all of those amazing moments from those first several games I would have felt like a fucking asshole. Nobody likes a killjoy. But still, hovering just beneath my own wild, dumb carefree excitement and glee was a simple question which, no matter how hard I tried to ignore it, just would not go away and that question was this: “What’s up with Stafford?”

And that’s the question I’m still trying to figure out the answer to even as I write this. I don’t fucking know. That’s the simplest and most honest response I can give. I don’t know what’s wrong with him. I don’t want to panic and overreact and freak the fuck out just because the dude has a bad game now and then. I just don’t. But I have heard troubling whispers that the dude is prone to sulking in the face of adversity. I have heard stories that everyone at Georgia hated his guts and these give me pause. Still, I have been more than willing to chalk that up to everything from jealousy to the misunderstood hubris of a young superstar athlete, partly because I needed to do that for my own sense of hope, but also because from everything I’ve seen and heard in Lions land, Stafford is a natural leader, well-liked by his teammates and coaches and I remember him staggering onto the field against the Browns his rookie season even though one of the demons from Hellraiser had just eaten his shoulder just so he could throw the winning touchdown pass. Hell, I like Stafford. It’s been easy to see why his teammates like him. But it’s hard to reconcile that Stafford with the sulky, beaten down looking Stafford of this season. It just doesn’t make any fucking sense. I mean, the guy was generally upbeat and ready to kick the world’s ass when his team was 2-14 or when he had no arms or legs left. So why does he look like he spends every day sitting in his room listen to Cure albums and cutting himself this season?

Again, I don’t know. I don’t fucking know. Look, I have spent the last few days fighting the flu demon. I have felt like a hobo shit on my head and pissed in my mouth. I have been achy and my eyeballs feel like somebody peeled them with fire and malice. I am tired and I just want to feel better. And while this has been awful, the one upside is I feel like it has allowed me to understand what is going on in Matthew Stafford’s head the past couple of months. I feel like he has looked – miserable. I can understand his inability to perform consistently because even talking on the phone makes my head hurt. Making dinner feels like I’m being tortured. I’m not saying that Stafford is sick, but goddammit, he’s been acting like a man who’s sick, who’s tired, who’s beaten. I don’t understand why he’s acting like it but I get why it’s making him so damn inconsistent.

Matthew Stafford’s problems aren’t physical. Yeah, yeah, he supposedly has a broken finger and he fucked up his ankle a few weeks back but these consistency issues have been a problem all season long. Yeah, there have been oases, like the Broncos game, but there was no pressure on him there, either literally or figuratively. The Broncos were a shitty team and he beat them up because it would have been shameful if he didn’t. But even in that game there were too many times when I just felt like Stafford looked, well . . . off. Everyone looked at the final numbers and breathed a sigh of relief, but you’ve gotta remember, one of his touchdown passes was that absurd one to Titus Young in which Titus was literally just standing in the endzone with nary a Bronco in sight, like he was fucking invisible and had teleported there from the future or something. Yeah, Stafford hit him for the TD but Dan Orlovsky could have hit him for the TD in that situation. (Yes, I just crossed myself to ward off the vicious multitude of failure demons attached to that name.) Another TD was to St. Calvin on a big shot down the sideline that saw St. Calvin torch the shit out of the dude covering him. It was a good throw but it wasn’t like it was some impossible throw that only Stafford could make.

Take those away (And yes, I know it’s not fair to do that but we need to do these things if we’re going to be able to honestly figure out just what in the hell is going on here.) and what we were left with was a quarterback who still looked too skittish, a quarterback who lacked any real consistency and a quarterback who, frankly, has been driving me fucking nuts this season. Every incomplete pass, every failed drive, was followed by him unsnapping his chin strap, head down, and then walking off the field like he needed to talk to his therapist. It’s gotten so bad that that particular image, that beaten and defeated Stafford trudge of doom and despair, has been burned into my mind. I’ve seen it too many goddamn times and I’ve seen it too many goddamn times because there is something wrong with Stafford’s brain right now. He’s a mess.

I would have talked about all this after the Broncos game, but again, it just would have made me feel like an asshole, and honestly, the Lions fanbase didn’t want to hear that shit. Hell, a lot of them still don’t because their sense of hope is so fragile, but goddammit, I’m not just going to sit here and cheerlead for the sake of cheerleading. And I’m certainly not going to sit here and let others call me a bad fan or a bandwagon fan simply because I have the temerity to point out the things I have seen with my own eyes and felt with my own soul. Besides, if you have the fucking gall to call me a bandwagon fan after the last few years you’re out of your fucking mind. If anybody’s earned the right to say “Look, sorry if nobody likes it but this is how I see it,” I think it’s me. I’ve paid my dues as both a fan and a dude who has written a billion words about the Lions. I have poured so much of myself as a fan and a writer into this thing that if you sneer and shake your head at me simply because I dare to shake the fragility of your own hope then you should be fucking ashamed of yourself. I’m getting a little carried away here, but I’m pissed off. I’ll admit it. This isn’t about being a good fan or a bad fan or any of that horseshit. It’s just about being a fan and having the fucking guts to face harsh truths when they need to be faced and to overcome those same harsh truths and to not let them defeat you. Hiding from them doesn’t help. Pretending that everything’s perfect is just going to fucking break you when you inevitably realize that it isn’t. I’ve started to sermonize and I have been dragged away from the point of this post, and I apologize, but goddammit, if anyone wants to question the nature of my fandom, tell them to read everything I’ve written here for the last three and a half years. Forgive my arrogance here, but I think I’ve earned the right to say my piece in whatever weird community Lions fans have established on the interwebs. And when I speak, I deserve to have those words respected and not dismissed as the reactionary gibbering of a bad sports radio fan.

Ahem. Sorry for that epic bit of Carelordery, but I felt that needed to be said. Now, I’ll get back to the point. I promise.

I have hammered Stafford hard here, but I don’t want people to think this means I’ve given up on him. I haven’t. That would be fucking absurd. After all, he’s only 23 years old, the Lions are 6-3 and the dude’s already thrown 20 touchdowns this season. But that’s what’s made this issue so maddening to talk about, you know? There is so much hope, there is so much that is right, that it’s hard to also discuss what’s wrong without feeling like a total dickhead. The future is still bright for Stafford. It is. And anyone who says that it isn’t is being a ridiculous reactionary twit. But the problem is this: we have seen what Stafford can do. We have seen it in his throws, in the way he runs down the field after throwing a touchdown pass, in the fire in his cocky fighter pilot eyes. We have seen him drop a pass in with perfect touch and precision. We have seen him fire laser beams down the field into the chests of his receivers. We have seen it. We have seen just how damn good he can be. And so when that’s not there – and it’s been missing in chunks of every single game this season – it’s fucking maddening.

I know that sounds a lot like I’m saying that I want Stafford to be perfect which would be completely unreasonable. I recognize that he’s going to make mistakes, that he’s going to misfire on a few throws here and there, but those should be the exception rather than the rule. And the problem, the biggest problem, and the one which I suppose is the whole point of this entire post is that right now, they’re not the exception. They’ve become what I expect. Two months ago, whenever Stafford threw a pass, I expected it to be a completion. Now, he throws it and I hold my breath. That’s not good. But, really, that’s all that matters. Take everything else away – all the stats, all the fan vs. fan sniping and bullshit gibberish – and that’s what matters. I think he’ll get it back. I think that he’ll make me exhale and regain some of that lost confidence but I need to see it again. And soon. Because the longer this goes on, the longer I hold my breath, and the longer I hold my breath the more poisoned my insides get and frankly, my fan insides just can’t handle that shit. Not after what it’s already been through as a fan. I don’t want to see any more big time comebacks. I don’t want to see any more late game heroics. Okay, fine, I lied, I totally do. But more than that, right now I just want to see first downs. I just want to see consistent, crushing drives, and I just want to believe in the Holy Shoulder of our savior, Matthew Stafford. I just want to feel . . . safe. And right now, I don’t. And that’s it.

The Price of Ether Just Went Up in Detroit

Thanks to the dullards at Fox, I had to sit and wait with nervous anticipation while the Saints and Falcons finished up their overtime hijinks. By the time they cut to the Lions game against the Bears half the first quarter was gone, the Lions had already fumbled twice and the score was 7-0 Bears. I tell you this not just so that you’ll get as accurate as possible an understanding of my own game experience but so that you can understand that there was not one point while I was watching that game in which I felt any sort of happiness. I mean, even in the worst games there is always at least those few opening moments when anything and everything is possible and in which Hope rides a magic rainbow to the heavens and all that happy horseshit, but this game was so singularly terrible that I was not even allowed that momentary glimmer of anything resembling happiness. No, instead I was thrown right into the midst of a firestorm of Bennie Hill absurdity. Seriously. I’m pretty sure that at one point I saw Julius Peppers rubbing Gunther Cunningham’s head and then a bunch of bikini girls ran around in super-fast motion and then Matthew Stafford was beaten over the head by an old lady with a cane. Then again, that might be the ether talking. Who knows?

No, but really, this was one of those ridiculous games that felt like it existed in a singular moment of time concocted in hell in which every single terrible thing that has ever happened to us as Lions fans existed simultaneously. It was so bad that I was half-surprised that Jim Schwartz didn’t win the toss and take the wind after being possessed by the ghost of that fool Marty Mornhinwheg. (I don’t know if I spelled that right. I could look it up. Then again, fuck you.) I’m not sure when that random coin toss would have taken place but the officiating was so shitty that it wouldn’t have surprised me if they had stopped the game midway through the third quarter just so they could flip a coin. I mean, why not?

There is so much to complain about, so much to bitch about, that there’s almost no point in doing it. The whole game sucked, the whole team sucked and I feel like I have been debased because I watched it and them. There. The end.

I guess if there was one thing we need to talk about, one horrific and disturbing crime against humanity that can’t be ignored it’s the play of young Matthew Stafford. Oh, Matty, where did we go wrong? One day you were a T-Rex flying a fighter jet, hanging out of the cockpit with a bazooka in one arm and a blonde with enormous cans in the other and the next day you were melting down like Private Pyle, slinking to the sideline like someone shit in your mouth, staring slackjawed, dazed and stupid, while I did what I thought would never happen and spent the end of the game gibbering on Twitter about Scott Mitchell, much to the horror of, well, everyone.

I don’t like it either, but it’s true. Matthew Stafford looked like Scott Mitchell out there. A few weeks ago I compared him to Joey Harrington. Needless to say, things aren’t going to well in Whoville right now, and as much as I don’t want to be the fucking Grinch, it would be cowardly to ignore this tawdry and terrible shit. Matthew Stafford is a mess right now. Just an absolute fucking mess. I don’t know what is going on and I suspect neither does he. Right now he looks worse than he did even as a rookie. At least then he seemed confident. Now, he just looks like the shellshocked survivor of some terrible atrocity. Shit, I’m afraid to read Slaughterhouse Five because I’m convinced that Stafford will show up as a character at some point. Yes, things have taken a turn for the wildly ugly when I am comparing Lions games to the bombing of Dresden, but . . . well, this is what went down today. I didn’t do it, so don’t blame me, I’m just a messenger. Besides, things are gonna get a whole lot more offensive here later on. Just wait and see.

I do have a confession to make: after Stafford’s second pick-six in the third quarter, I turned the TV off and did some other shit. (I won’t tell you the details, but I’m now deathly afraid of horses and barbed wire and I had to burn a good pair of pants.) I wasn’t even mad. I was more . . . astounded, like I couldn’t believe the depth to which this shit parade had sunk. I mean, say what you will about Matthew Stafford – and I’ve been grumbling a lot this season about him from almost the first game, which, given his stats prior to what went down earlier, seemed kind of outrageous and ridiculous but I feel like my point was made in a terrible, terrible way today – but at least he hadn’t been throwing interceptions this season. He was struggling to make plays on a down to down basis but at least he wasn’t giving the ball to the other team. So for him to throw not only back to back interceptions but back to back pick sixes on absolutely horrible throws that would have gotten him chewed out by a Pop Warner coach felt almost impressive in a way. It was like I had already accepted that I was going to get cornholed by a failure demon but then it was like “Oh shit, you want to put your hell-dick where? Well, okay, but I’ve never done this before . . .” I’m just saying, it was such a ridiculous meltdown that even through my pain and despair there was a part of me that was able to appreciate the sheer ridiculousness of the scale of it. I suppose that’s what the ancients would call “total defeat.”

But I naturally began to feel guilty for not watching and my brain began to do that weird thing where it started to imagine ridiculous comeback scenarios and so I trudged back to my television, wearing a fresh pair of pants and turned it on just as a Chicago Bear was racing down the field following an interception and then a gang war broke out on the field. Well, okay then. Message received.

I then spent the rest of the game only halfheartedly following the action and openly discussing the joys of death on Twitter. I’m not proud of it. I mean, I tend to pride myself on my ability to hang tough even when things go to Ludicrous Speed on the old Shitometer but goddammit, I just couldn’t do it this time. And why should I? I have suffered enough as a Lions fan and I had seen enough to know that this game was just one big blast zone and that nothing good would come from it. Shit, the players probably won’t even watch the game tape. Just burn the fucking thing and store the ashes in that warehouse where they stuck the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark. So I decided to cleanse myself of the rest of the experience. Call it cowardice, call it an exercise in self-preservation, call it whatever the hell you want, but I have no regrets.

Thankfully, though, a reader named Ben was at the game and sent me this first-hand account of the experience. I know this will be hard to read, but it’s important that we never forget so that we can begin to heal as a people and then move on. Anyway, here it is (and yes, this is probably the most offensive thing I have ever done here at Armchair Linebacker and this would get me fired from any other gig, but fuck it, I’m the goddamn boss here and besides, I plead temporary insanity brought on by terrible grief.):

“I'd heard rumors that the Lions were going to Soldier Field. But I didn't know what Soldier Field meant. I didn't know what "extermination camp" meant. People told me, but I couldn't imagine or understand it. We were rounded up and packed into cattle cars like sardines. We could not move our arms or legs. We traveled for two days -- day and night. The heat was unbearable. Then one morning at dawn, we looked through the cracks in the cattle car. I saw the name Soldier Field or Oswiecim in Polish. I was paralyzed. I got numb. I didn't feel anything. When daylight came, they slid the car door open. All we heard was, "Raus, raus, get out of here, get out of here!" I had to crawl over people who had died from the heat and from lack of food and water.

When they opened the doors to the cattle car, we jumped off as quickly as we could because we were under orders. Men with the skulls on their hats and collars stood in front of us stretched out at intervals about every ten feet. The officer in charge stood with his German shepherd. The officer had one foot propped up on a little stool. We lined up and filed by him. Right there the selection took place. As each person passed by him, he pointed left or right. The thumb left and right was your destiny. The people sent to the left went to the gas chambers, and we went to the right.

They told us we were going to be given some new clothing, but before that, we were sent into the showers. Luckily, when we turned the faucets we saw water instead of gas. We started washing ourselves. We got out and stood there. We were deloused because we had lice. One guard stood there putting some kind of a chemical on our heads. Another put it under our arms. A third one shaved our heads.

Then we were given some prisoner's uniforms, very similar to the uniforms a prison chain gang used to wear here. We got wooden shoes. We didn't get the sizes we normally wore. We had to make do with what we got. Then we were lined up again in single file and tattooed on the forearm. My number was B-3348.

We were marched to the field. Above the entrance was an arch with an inscription which said in German, Work Makes Men Free, pretending that this was a work camp. There were two rows of barracks with a wide street between them. In front of us was a crematorium and gas chambers. We smelled the flesh of human bodies burning. We couldn't mistake that smell for anything else.”

And there you have it.

They Still Burn

The Great Willie Young in the process of completing the capture of Jay Cutler's soul.

It’s Bears week, which is always a time of near psychotic levels of vitriol, wild ranting and raving and a fanatical belief that everything wearing blue and orange should be shot on site and then delivered unto the care of a million wild demons who will then proceed to tear those vile heathen souls apart for all eternity. This is true even when the Lions suck because, hey, fuck that Bears. Fuck the Bears. That has always been a motto that has served me well through the years and I feel comfortable just blurting it out, whether it be here, whether it be at a crowded bar or whether it simply be in conversations with my own soul. Fuck the Bears. It can’t be said enough.

Obviously, we have plenty of natural reasons to hate the Bears. They are a divisional rival and when I was young and forming my football thoughts, opinions and prejudices, they just so happened to be the best team in what was then called the NFC Central. Therefore, I hate them, for they art mine great enemy and they maketh me descend into Biblical phrasing for I hateth them with Biblical zeal. They are the Goliath that my heart and soul hath desired to slay from the beginning and when it comes to fandom, all things are as they were in the beginning. They will always be that team to me, the team that pushed around my boys when I was young, the team that stood in the way of everything that I needed and that I wanted as a young fan. And yet, there is more.

Indeed. Recently, the Bears have landed squarely on every Lions fan’s shit list thanks to the inconceivable bullshittery of that Process of the Catch, uh, bullshit and even though that wasn’t the fault of the Bears or their players they were there when it happened, their fans cheered as our hearts were broken and, well, fuck them. I discussed a lot of this prior to the Lions Monday Night mugging of the Bears and that game did indeed go quite a ways towards assuaging the burning hate fires in my soul, but hey, when I look at the Bears sideline, I still see Rod Marinelli staggering like he just shit his pants, head bowed, muttering about pad level and I still see Mike Martz with a look on his face that hovers inexplicably between smug self-satisfaction and terrified confusion and the hate fires still burn. Oh Lord, they still burn.

So, like I said at the start, even if the Lions sucked – or hell, even if the Bears sucked – this would still be a week in which I ranted and raved like a lunatic on speed, and there would be at least a 48% chance that someone would have to fish me naked out of a swamped ditch after I wandered off in a red haze and tried to attack an actual bear during the game. But here’s the thing: the Lions don’t suck and much to my eternal dismay, the Bears don’t really suck right now either. I mean, there are actual consequences to this game. It fucking matters. Beyond everything else I just gibbered on about, it matters. And that just takes things to a whole new level of madness and animalistic snarling.

Ty wrote a nice piece either earlier this week or sometime last week (I can’t remember. I blame the ether.) about how important this game is in terms of the divisional and wild card standings, which feels like a weird thing to say about the Lions since the last time we could reasonably discuss such things Chester A. Arthur was the President and women weren’t allowed to vote or read. (Man, 2007 was such a simpler time . . .), and I won’t spend a lot of time rehashing his arguments so just go read his piece if you haven’t already and then get your ass back here so I can hoot in your general direction some more, okay?

Okay, welcome back. While you were gone, I managed to cut up a melon but then the melon shot juice in my eye and now I’m writing this one eyed, half blind, tears running down my face and the worst part is, is that a hawk flew in and stole the melon so now I don’t have anything to eat and I can’t shoot down the hawk because I only have one functional eye and therefore my depth perception is all fucked. Okay, fine, while you were gone I listened to Patience by Guns N’ Roses and did the Axl dance in front of the bathroom mirror while howling the lyrics. Oooooooh, I need you . . .

Ahem. Sorry. I’m feeling . . . weird. I’ll try to keep it together long enough to finish this. Where were we before I lost my fucking mind? Oh right, Ty’s piece. Anyway . . . yeah. This is an important game, and while I generally don’t like to say “Oh, well the Bears will definitely win this game and that one and definitely lose that one and the Lions will win these three and definitely fuck up this one,” because let’s face it, these damn things never play out exactly how you expect them to, it is reasonable to conclude that the Lions will be in for a dogfight from hell if they can’t beat the Bears this week.

Unfortunately, the game isn’t at Ford Field, where the Bears were previously met by a gang of rabid werewolves and wild vampire apes who had just finished gnawing on the adrenal gland of a dragon and where Jay Cutler was beaten like Hunter S. Thompson at a Hell’s Angels rally. No. Instead, the game is at Soldier Field, which I’m sure has Bears fans confident and probably has various experts predicting the imminent demise of the Lions. After all, let’s face it, Soldier Field was the sight of our own terrible horror show last season, the place where St. Calvin was martyred and where Matthew Stafford’s Holy Shoulder was eaten by that ravenous pig Julius Peppers. And let’s not forget that at one point the Lions had lost roughly one million straight games on the road dating back to the Pontius Pilate administration, so . . . yeah. But here’s the thing: since finally snapping that terrible, terrible streak, the Lions have won six straight games on the road. They’re 4-0 away from home this season and, well, fuck you Pontius Pilate, this is 2011 and things, well, they’ve done changed.

In fact, I’ll go even further than that and say that I actually feel more comfortable with the Lions playing on the road than I do with them playing at home right now. I know that sounds ridiculous but hear me out before you call me a witless fuckhead, okay? The reason is this: I don’t want the Lions playing in front of the Lions fans right now. That may sound blasphemous but I don’t give a shit. Lions fans are still so fragile, still so hysterically incapable of putting things into their proper perspective that the moment things don’t go the way they want they all throw a fit and start booing and then the players get all tense and uptight and who needs that shit, man? Who needs it?

I think there’s more pressure on the Lions right now when they play at home then there is on the road. At home there is just this weird . . . tension. And while the fans have shown that they are certainly capable of rising to the occasion when things are going well, they have all fallen into hysterics and begun weeping and bawling and tearing at their hair whenever things go bad. When the Lions really need them, when they need a little lift, instead they get met with a mixture of silence and some fat drunk screaming at Matthew Stafford to go back to Georgia. Hey, yo, fuck that.

Meanwhile, when they’re on the road, all the Lions have to do is play. At home, I think the weight of history, our terrible, terrible history, gets in the way. It just sits there, hovering over everything, waiting to crush everyone’s spirit the first chance it gets. On the road no one cares about history. At home, the Lions are tasked with being the saviors of a whole fanbase, shit a whole fucking city. As ridiculous and insane as that is, it’s there because people put it there. That’s a lot of unnecessary pressure, you know? On the road, they are just young outlaws, cocky bad boys striding into town with only their guns and their attitudes to keep them alive. There’s a certain sort of wild freedom in that. It comes with the knowledge that death is just a word and that the other dude, with his wife and his kids and the mayor all watching, has a hell of a lot more left to lose. The Lions are a more confident team on the road because they don’t have to deal with all of our dumb bullshit. It’s sad but it’s true.

That’s why I’m not really all that worried that the game is on the road this week. Out on the field, the Bears offensive line is still a giant festering butt. Home or on the road, you can’t change that. It is what it is, and the Lions defensive line is still a buzzsaw of angry pit bulls with knives for hands and hatred for hearts. On the field, where the rest of the world is meaningless and forgettable, that naked disparity is all that matters and as far as I can tell that disparity hasn’t changed since the Lions last beat the shit out of the Bears.

Yeah, yeah, Jay Cutler hasn’t been eating as many sacks but that’s because he’s been tapdancing on a razor’s edge ever since that Lions game. It’s not like he’s standing in the pocket and calmly delivering strikes. No, he’s still getting chased around and bludgeoned, frantically flipping the ball to anyone wearing a Bears uniform. Everyone wants to focus on how he created plays against the Eagles last week, and he did, but he was still getting smacked in the mouth and here’s the thing, eventually you’re gonna slip off of that razor’s edge and then you’re going to fall into a pit filled with cobras and death and then the world will hate you again because you look like Johnny Bananas (a reference only two people will probably get since I imagine the cross section between people who read my stuff and people who watch shitty MTV reality shows is astonishingly small, but what the hell, I have varied interests and I am a complex man. Don’t judge me. Instead try to figure out what you’re doing wrong in your own life that you can’t appreciate the full spectrum of the human story, from the sublime to the absurd, from the excellent to the terrible. I have friends in high places and I have friends in low, ugly places. I am everywhere and I am nowhere. I am everything and I am nothing. Again, I blame the ether.)

On the field, the realities are still what they were the last time these two teams played. People would be wise to remember that. That doesn’t mean that the Lions don’t have their own issues. I’m still not entirely comfortable with the way that the offense has been playing, but they’ve had an extra week to regroup and hey, how much bitching can I really do given the last time the team played ended with the Passion of the Tebow and Calvin Johnson strutting into the endzone like Ric Flair or Jesus? Yeah, yeah, Jahvid Best is still out and that takes away a big play weapon but at this point, given what Scott Linehan is apparently determined to do, the Lions really just need a running back who can pick up 3 or 4 yards a crack, which is kinda sorta what Maurice Morris was made for, you know? Right now I’ll take that over Jahvid Best dancing around looking for a big play and picking up -1 yard, desperately hoping that he’ll actually bust one off one of those times.

Of course, since it is us and even when things are going well we’re doomed to be the whipping boy of some sadistic football god who inexplicably hates us, Jason Hanson showed up for practice this week with a bunch of stitches in his knee, the result either of a freak ATV accident or from battling the scythe wielding minions of Father Time, or maybe it was just horseplay with his kids like he said and one of them stabbed him in the knee or something. Shit, I don’t know how he’s raising those kids so it would be wrong of me to speculate. Or maybe he was in the midst of a bad acid trip and ended up trying to saw off his own leg with a hunting knife until he was stopped by his crying wife who found him naked and gibbering about cutting out the demons, slumped over in the forest behind their house. That shit happens, you know.

Ahem. But anyway, the last I heard, he was kicking during practice and it looks like he’ll be a go this week so . . . hey, exhale everyone. Wait . . . what, our fucking punter has some bullshit injury now too? I don’t know. Fuck it. Just breathe, Neil. Just breathe. Instead of frantically looking up Nick Harris’ home phone number and then screaming into the phone that he needs to come back, I’m just going to chill out and trust in the universe to do the right thing. Besides, hey, fuck punting. Let’s just go for it on every fourth down and if we fail have Jim Schwartz run out onto the field and beat the refs about the head with his own shoes until they agree to give us the ball back. Yes. That sounds like a plan.

Well, clearly, the weirdness has begun to take hold and I am incapable of fighting it any longer and so, I’ll just stop here. The last thing I will say is this: for once there is more than just pride at stake here. There is something real, something tangible worth fighting these heathen Bears for. This is what we wanted, what we have asked for all of our lives as fans, to have these games actually mean something beyond our own desperate desires for fleeting happiness and petty revenge. And so, hey, let’s not fuck this up, you know? Let’s just win because it matters and because, hey, above everything else, fuck the Bears.

Lions win.

Predicted Final Score: Lions 24, Bears 17