Well Now, This Is Just Sad

I'm not entirely sure what's going on here, but it seems oddly appropriate. I think they are fixing that dude's skull fracture, but I'm not sure why his tongue is hanging out like that. Maybe his skull fracture made him retarded. I don't know, I'm not an expert on skull fractures. I am familiar with all things retarded, but then again, you all knew that already. The point to all this gibberish? Must there always be a point?

As usual, the one thing that we can take away from these ridiculous predictions is that I am an idiot and should just stop making them. But, being the idiot that I am, I will continue to press on through this wilderness of stupid pain and wild inaccuracy. Why not? We are all fools and charlatans in these dark and troubled times and my idiot voice might as well be added to the swirling chaos of noise and nonsense. Anyway, let's see how dumb things can get.

PREDICTION NUMBER ONE

WHAT I SAID: Kevin Smith will be the focal point of the offense, rushing 30 times for 155 yards and two touchdowns. After the game, he makes up for his previous shunning of Ernie Sims' monkey by donating his salary for the game towards the building of a habitat for run away and at risk monkeys. He is hailed as a model philanthropist and is honored by Congress.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: Smith was the focal point of the offense, at least until he was apparently hurt. He shuffled in and out of the game in the aftermath of said injury. Was he at all effective? Well, let's see. Smith ran the ball 16 times for only 45 yards and he didn't score. That's a grand average of 2.8 yards per carry. Against the Rams. Yeah. It's safe to say I bombed the shit out of this one and it's starting to look like Smith is following right along with me, bombing out in his second season in the league. I mean, that shit is terrible. Okay, maybe he was running a little hurt and maybe the offensive line is made up of simpering goons, but again, it was against the Rams. I mean, come on.

What makes this failure even more glaring are the numbers put up by Maurice Morris after Smith was hurt. Morris ran the ball 14 times for 63 yards, or for 4.5 yards per carry. Last time I checked, Morris was running behind the same shitty line, so . . . yeah. That's kind of damning there, isn't it? Smith has struggled all season long, and I have tried my best to excuse it as the result of nagging injury or sheer incompetence by the offensive line. I am a Kevin Smith fan. I talked him up before the season. I even drafted him for my fantasy team in two different nerd leagues, taking him higher than he probably should have gone in both. So, I'm not exactly looking for him to fail here, you know? But as every week goes by, there is a creeping dread regarding Smith. I touched on it last week, and I explained that I was starting to get worried. Well, now I'm really worried. Smith has been continually ineffective - the Minnesota game weirdly aside - and I'm not sure if it's because he's hurt or because he's just playing like shit. It's probably a combination of both. Still, I was willing to blame everyone else, from the line to Hitler to Bigfoot for Smith's struggles. This is hard to do when the backup running back comes into the game and significantly outperforms the starter. I don't know exactly what's going on here, but, man, this doesn't look good.

Unfortunately, because Smith struggled so mightily, the monkey advocates rejected his donation towards the building of an animal habitat, citing his money as unclean and tainted by the stink of failure. I even heard a rumor that an army of howler monkeys freaked out on Smith and showered him in shit. A terrible thing, if true. I doubt it is, but we live in strange and terrible times, so who knows?

PREDICTION NUMBER TWO

WHAT I SAID: Matthew Stafford will go 15-23 for 206 yards and two touchdowns. After the game, he will have an emotional reunion with his kneecap, which the cameras lovingly capture until things become a little too, uh, heated and uncomfortable and FOX has to cut away in order to avoid fines from the FCC.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: Stafford went 14-33 for 168 yards with 0 touchdowns and 1 interception. He did run one touchdown in on his own. Clearly, this wasn't a good game by Stafford, and clearly, I was horrifically wrong yet again. What makes these numbers even uglier, and what makes me want to pick out which of my neckties would make the best noose, is that they came against the Rams. So far this season, the Rams have been destroyed by every quarterback they have faced. It is eerily similar to the death and destruction rained down upon the Lions during the Season of Unnumbered Tears. I mean, Bobby Layne would have a field day against those turds and he's been dead for over 20 yards. Sure, Layne's corpse could probably be roused to action with the promise of a nice Scotch, and who knows what kind of zombie superpowers he would have, so maybe that isn't the best example, but you get my point. Virtually anybody could torch those worthless turds from St. Louis. And yet, Matthew Stafford didn't.

To be fair to Stafford, his receivers did drop a ridiculous number of passes. They were awful, just terrible, and it just made Calvin Johnson's absence that much larger. The play calling also left a little to be desired, which I mentioned yesterday. So, if the Lions actually took more shots down field, his receivers actually caught all of the passes that they could have and if Calvin Johnson would have played, I think Stafford would have had a nice day. Let's not forget that it was his first game back after his kneecap abandoned him in Chicago and that he was probably out of rhythm with his receivers. Plus, he's a rookie. Add it all up, and you just had too many things to overcome. Still, you would think that he could still shred the nonexistent St. Louis secondary. You would like to think that, but this is the Detroit Lions we are talking about, and their foundation is built on failed wishes and shattered dreams.

Sadly, because of the loss, Stafford's estranged kneecap snubbed him after that game and was later seen palling around with Marc Bulger in the Rams' locker room. Such a deceitful son of a bitch. Can't he see what he's doing to poor Matthew? A terrible thing.

PREDICTION NUMBER THREE

WHAT I SAID: Steven Jackson rushes 25 times for 96 yards and a touchdown. After the game, Sammie Lee Hill and Grady Jackson get into a brawl when they can't decide which one of them gets to feast on Jackson's detached leg.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: Jackson ran the ball 22 times for 149 yards and a touchdown. This was the worst performance of the year for the Detroit run defense. Jackson is having a great season despite the general putrescence of the Rams, and against the Lions it was clear why. He ran like a damn maniac, breaking tackles and humbling dudes all over the place. It was an epic performance and the Lions were run the fuck right over. The final numbers weren't all that huge - they were big enough, but not ridiculous or anything - but they don't tell the story, which is that Jackson managed to gash the Lions in a way that no other running back has this year, with the exception of Mike Bell during the first game of the year. He willed the Rams to a victory in a way that our dudes never can. It was impressive. It was depressing.

Fortunately, Sammie Lee Hill and Grady Jackson did not get into a brawl after the game. Unfortunately, that is because they were both whipped and beaten by Steven Jackson, who taunted them with his succulent leg meat all day long only to laugh at them and run away after the game, leaving them in tears, starving and desperate. There was a weird rumor about the two of them and Ernie Sims' monkey that ends with Grady Jackson chasing the little guy around the locker room with a fork, but it is too strange to be true and I will not dignify that sort of odd bullshit by discussing it. After all, I am a serious man, and I only discuss serious things here at Armchair Linebacker.

PREDICTION NUMBER FOUR

WHAT I SAID: Marc Bulger throws the ball 25 times, completing 15 passes for 187 yards. He is sacked three times and throws two interceptions to go with one touchdown. After the game, he is found weeping and alone, naked in the shower, staring at a group photo of him, Torry Holt, Orlando Pace, Isaac Bruce, and Marshall Faulk with Mike Martz

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: Bulger attempted 35 passes, completing 17 of them for 176 yards. He failed to throw a touchdown and threw one interception. He was never sacked. Okay, so this one was sort of close to what I predicted. Bulger and the Rams struggled to pass the ball. That is not that big of a surprise. I mean, they would be stymied by a gang of pygmies with Down's Syndrome(oddly, they are quite stout against the run though). Still, it's kind of nice that, at least in this one area, the Lions did their job.

Is this a sign of progress for the pass defense? I don't know. I mean, yeah, they did an okay job, but it's the Rams. I'm more inclined to think that the failure by the Rams to consistently move the ball through the air is more a function of their own general incompetence than anything the Lions were doing to stop them. There were still too many instances where the Rams' cavalcade of non-stars ran frustratingly free in the secondary, catching wide open passes that the Lions could do little about.

Because the Rams won, I'm sure the above gibberish about Bulger being found naked and alone, weeping while looking at an old team photo never happened. But, this is only because they won. I am sure that photo exists somewhere, and I am sure that it is always within arm's reach for Bulger these days. So sad.

PREDICTION NUMBER FIVE

WHAT I SAID: Calvin Johnson once again doesn't play, and after the game it is revealed that he is sitting out on purpose. When asked why, he claims that he is teaching humanity a lesson. They need to learn to solve their own problems instead of relying upon him and his otherworldly powers. One reporter scoffs at the idea that St. Calvin is superhuman, and so Calvin turns him into a small chicken, which is then devoured by Grady Jackson, still hungry after being forced to split Steven Jackson's leg with Sammie Lee Hill. St. Calvin then goes back in time and writes a play based on the incident which is credited to Shakespeare, a comedy titled A Fowl Feast. It is renowned for its groundbreaking use of the fart joke.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: Johnson didn't play, so fuck everyone, I got one of these infernal things right. YEAH! Of course, it is hard to celebrate when the one thing I got right is the one thing that I wish would have been terribly wrong. You will also notice this is the one prediction that I didn't bother predicting any stats for. I'm not sure why this is. Perhaps it is the ennui born of constantly being wrong about these sorts of things, or perhaps I didn't really care what trivial numbers Bryant Johnson and Dennis Northcutt put up in St. Calvin's place. In either case, it doesn't speak well of my overall mindset right now. Losing will do that to a man.

I am saddened to announce that St. Calvin's lesson was unheeded by mankind and the rest of the Lions, who failed to solve their own problems while he stood on the sidelines. A terrible thing, but one that was sadly predictable. There have been no reports thus far of St. Calvin turning anyone into a chicken, but these things can take time to get out. We must be patient before rushing to say that this was wrong. I did, however, find the time to read A Fowl Feast. It was delightful. I wasn't sure about the inclusion of the gag about the explosive diarrhea, but who am I to question the Great Bard?

FINAL SCORE PREDICTION

WHAT I SAID: Lions 31, Rams 17

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: Rams 17, Lions 10. Well, at least I got one of the numbers right.

Random Gibberish

Who thought a statue of a lion receiving a colonoscopy was a good idea? I mean, really, come on.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE OFFENSE?

Everyone knows that the defense is still a wretched wasteland, burned and pillaged by every army that storms through on their way to glory, but earlier this season, the offense looked like it was capable of hanging in there against other teams. I mean, for a while anyway. Last season, the defense sucked, and everyone bitched about it, but the Lions wouldn't have gone 0-16 without the offense taking a giant shit every Sunday. This season, the defense still sucks, but the offense has at least been capable of getting off some shots of their own. Sure, those shots are coming from an old six shooter against a dude with a howitzer, but fuck it, at least they've been firing back this season.

That's all changed in the last couple of games. The offense has once again reverted to the same bunch of fuckups that conspired with the awful defense to make 0-16 possible last season. Our six shooter is empty and now all we have is a slingshot that keeps breaking and a couple of throwing stars and that shit might work in the garage against a cardboard cutout but it doesn't play too well when you've got a nine hundred pound gorilla with hatred in his eyes and a machine gun that shoots acid tipped bullets standing across from you. You're gonna die, and die ugly and brutally.

But how has it fallen to this? There was so much promise and now I am starting to have flashbacks to Dan Orlovsky's Magical Mystery Tour of the Metrodome and that shit is too terrible to have to relive.

It's pretty simple really. I mean, when your best players can't stay healthy, you're going to struggle. I know, a gigantic revelation, right? This becomes especially true when those players are your rookie quarterback, your lone big play receiver and your starting running back. It's hard to maintain a rhythm on offense when no one actually plays together. It becomes impossible when no one even practices together. It is a recipe for absolute disaster when one of those players is a rookie who has barely played or practiced with the one receiver whose mind he must almost be able to read on every play. Everything and everyone is disjointed right now. You can't force this shit, no matter how much you might want to - or hell, in our case, need to. You just have to give it time, let these dudes get onto the field together and allow them to develop a rapport. It's the only way it's going to get any better.

Of course, there are other problems. It wouldn't be the Lions if there weren't. The offensive line is still pretty fucking bad. Not exactly a surprise when you consider they did virtually nothing to make it better in the offseason. There was some hope that another year of playing together as a unit would produce some consistency, but the only thing that has been produced is consistent mediocrity. Really, every player on the line is fatally flawed. Dominic Raiola is too small, Stephen Peterman isn't athletic enough, Gosder Cherilus appears to be kind of dumb(Not Lennie Small or anything, but man, that's not a high bar to jump.), Jeff Backus is, well . . . Jeff Backus is Jeff Backus. The name is synonymous enough with inadequacy that it serves well enough on its own as an indictment of his ability. Meanwhile the left guard position is manned by somebody new almost every game. At this point, I'm pretty sure the team is just going to start stealing grizzly bears from the zoo and sticking them at the position. They are strong but they have a reputation for being uncoachable. The last thing this team needs is a rebellious grizzly hanging around, fucking everything up.

And then there is the playcalling. No one agrees more than me that it was really, really smart to install an extensive screen and short passing package to the playbook. With a rookie quarterback and an offensive line who should all just wear white flags pinned to their uniforms, it was obvious that the offense needed some safety valves. Unfortunately, it seems like that's just about all there is to the offense right now. I mean, last time I checked, it was still within the rules to throw the ball downfield. I know, I know, the forward pass is risky business and Coach Lombardi has his reservations, but it is the 1950's for fuck's sake. I even heard that they are talking about sending a man to the moon one day. I know, craziness!

Okay, sure, a lot of this has to do with Calvin Johnson being out and the team not wanting to put Matthew Stafford in a position to have to thread the needle in order to win the game, but at some point you do need to make plays. Otherwise, drives will eventually bog down and you will see a whole lot of games like the one we saw against the Rams - a lot of 20-30 yard drives that stall out and end in a punt. Field position battles might be okay when you've got the defense to keep your team in it. They're kind of suicidal when you have the defense from the local Community College out there disguised in your uniforms.

OH, STAN.

For the 11,000,006th straight game, the Lions special teams gave up a huge play that ended up playing a big factor in the team's overall demise. Usually, it's a combination of poor kick coverage and a non-existent return game, but not this week. Oh, no. This week, Stan Kwan apparently took the criticism that has been mounting over the past few weeks to heart. He was no ordinary failure. No, he would show everyone that no one fucks up like Stan Kwan. No one! The Rams scored the first of their two touchdowns - in a game decided by a single touchdown - on a fake field goal that made the Lions look utterly stupid. After the game, the Rams revealed that they had noticed a tendency by the Lions to make a big push on one side of the line when attempting to block a kick, leaving the other side wide open. Sure enough, the Rams exploited this vast hole and turned a 50+ yard field goal attempt into a touchdown. Well done, Stan. Well done.

HELLO - LO - LO - LO - LO - LO(THAT IS A SORRY ATTEMPT TO ILLUSTRATE AN ECHO. WHAT? LEAVE ME ALONE.)

Just before the game started, I remember watching the announcers do their usual spiel, going over their keys to the game and all that shit, and I remember looking behind them and noticing that the stands were virtually empty. It looked like one of those shots done a couple of hours before the game is scheduled to start, when the production crew is there by themselves, with maybe a few die hard fans already there too. And then I realized that the game was set to start within five minutes and I wasn't sure whether to laugh or to cry. Good Lord. What a debacle. It looked like someone just spliced in footage of the crowd from Major League. Sure, I became excited for a second that we had signed Cerrano and Willie Mays Hayes, but that shit was just sad.

After the game, I was over on ESPN's website and they had a poll asking if you would attend the Lions-Rams game if you were given free tickets, free airfare and a free hotel room. It was humiliating. Thankfully, most people still said yes, but there was a decent minority that said fuck that shit. When people turn down what is essentially a free mini-vacation because your team is so ass ugly, well . . . yeah, things aren't going too great. On the other hand, was this poll really necessary? I mean, haven't Lions fans suffered enough? This shit is out of hand. By season's end, they will probably be importing prisoners to fill out the stands. Oh well, at least the crowd will be rowdy.

OH SHIIIIIIIT

This is what I said after Zack Follett straight up murdered a fool on a kick return. I have been waiting for this ever since we drafted him and I know it made my boy over in Berkeley happy. It was fucking brutal as hell too. I think he may have shortened the dude's life span.

COME BACK, I BEG YOU.

I have written a lot of weird bullshit lately about Calvin Johnson. This is because he hasn't actually played for almost three full games and yet he is really the only dude on this team that I am ever excited to write about. The result is a bunch of gibberish about Shakespeare, Dr. Manhattan and Doc Brown. For my sanity and that of all those foolish enough to pay attention to the words that I write, the dude needs to start playing again soon. Of course, this would require his scandalous knee to get better, but I have faith in the healing abilities of The Man of Steel. There will be time for defiling Lois Lane later, noble warrior. Now is the time to get back on the field and show everyone why I devolve into an idiot(well, more so than usual)whenever I talk about you. The world needs to see your grandeur so that it can heal itself. The wicked will perish in the blinding light of your magnificence and the sick shall be healed in the warm wondrous glow of your aura. We will all hold hands and sing into the night and the universe will know love and joy and . . . and . . . I think I need to change my pants. I'll leave it up to you to imagine why. Let the answer teach you something about yourself.

On that disturbing note, well, yeah . . .

Still the King

Your ass, it's over there.

Apparently, the Lions felt threatened by the Rams. I mean, after all, those charlatans were only a couple of losses away from dethroning the Lions as the kings of football putridity. NOT ON THE LIONS WATCH. No, the Lions, ever prideful, managed to dig deep one more time and keep those heathens from crossing that mystical line that separates the bad from the legendarily bad. By God, that is Lions territory and no despicable Ram is going to be allowed in there. No sir. We are the once, future, present and all time kings of misery and despair. Foolish children, pretenders to the throne, the Rams should be ashamed of themselves. There is only one king and today the Lions made sure that their throne is secure.

Of course, it couldn't have happened without that famed court jester, Stan Kwan, who once again made everyone laugh and weep and shit their pants when the St. Louis brain trust somehow(I wish there was a way to note truly epic sarcasm in print)outsmarted noble Stan on a fake field goal that led to a touchdown. I mean, GOOD LORD, every game something happens to his unit. I think his dudes have fucked up in every way imaginable this season. It is staggering. I only hope that he was able to escape the clutches of the 12 fans who attended the game today.

It was an absurdly embarrassing game. I mean, even if the Lions had won it would have just been sort of pathetic and vaguely shameful, kind of like tricking a retard out of his money. A terrible thing, just wrong. But somehow, even though they were trying like hell to fool that little idiot, the retard pulled one over on them and the Lions were left walking home pantsless and ashamed, tricked and beaten by the village idiot. And somewhere that poor mongoloid is holding the Lions' wallet and laughing like a goon while we all sit home and weep bitter tears and ponder swan diving off of the roof.

It was an ugly game, brutal right from the start, a game typified by defensive backs intercepting the ball, only to retreat into the end zone and take a safety(somewhere, the ghost of Dan Orlovsky smiled when that happened) and by dropped passes and stupid penalties and Stan Kwan and . . . and I think I just swallowed my tongue. It was stupid and it was utterly without merit and I feel cheapened by having been witness to the whole sordid and ugly affair.

Sure, St. Calvin didn't play and there are dudes who will tell you that mitigates the shame of this sorry event, but there was simply no reason to lose to the Rams. The fucking Rams. They were supposed to be this year's Lions. But that was a foolish hope, dumb and naive. There is only one franchise named the Detroit Lions and don't any of you forget it. We are the king, now and forever.

Ali vs. Frazier . . . If They Fought Right Now, Anyway. Maybe.

Such a noble beast. Well, except for the part where he shits on the ground in front of company. But, we can't all be perfect. Clearly, he is a man of the people and not an elitist.

Finally, we get a chance to fumigate this wretched shithole we have been stuck in ever since the Lions took a big fat dump in the middle of Lambeau Field almost two weeks ago. I am sick of wallowing in the mucky shitwaters of failure. We spent all of last season completely drowning in it, and for the last decade, we have wept and screamed in agony as it has gotten in our mouths, up our nostrils and in our eyes. Everything about us stinks of old shit and it is terrible and it was, uh, well, it wasn't a whole lot of fun to have the Packers come along and push our heads beneath the surface once again. Thankfully, this week, we have the Rams coming to town and lucky for us, they are currently wallowing in this terrible ocean of dirty sadness along with us, only they are even more helpless. So, being the cruel and opportunistic assholes that we are, we must step on their heads in order to rise above the filthy muck, pushing them further and further into this hellish sewer of despair while we get closer and closer to the shore and sweet relief.

Okay, so that was kind of disturbing, but what the hell, we have suffered mightily in the wasteland of Lions fandom and these are the things that happen. We cannot be squeamish and pretend that they are not there, because that would be cowardly and we are gentlemen in our hearts and champions in our souls and we can face these things like the proud warriors we are.

Anyway, this week it is indeed the St. Louis Rams who are coming to town, and in the great failure relay race of life, they have taken the baton from the Lions and have stumbled around, pissing and shitting themselves while spectators laugh and the other competitors mercilessly run them over. They are a horrible team and if there is one thing that I know, it is horrible teams. My own shitbird of a team lost 19 games in a row before finally slapping around the embarrassing Redskins earlier this season. The Rams are closing in on that number, sitting at 17, and even though I feel for their beaten fans' pain, it is my sincere hope that they go into next week with that number bumped up to 18. I am sorry, but these are terrible times and we cannot afford to be merciful to the weak and the stupid.

Okay, fine, the Lions are the weak and the stupid, but at this point we are just kind of like a mildly retarded dude who works as a janitor at a box factory and eats a sack lunch with the crusts cut off, sweetly ignoring all the rest of the assholes who mock him behind his back. Meanwhile, the Rams are a drooling wreck who have to wear a diaper and who break out in tears at random intervals and try to eat the fingers of the nurses who have the grotesque job of feeding them. We are Lenny Small or Forrest Gump, loveable retards who might even appear functional at times. There is no hope for the Rams and they should probably just put those poor bastards down, but everyone is all about being humane these days.

Look, this game will likely be brutal to watch, a collection of dumbassery and pants shitting that would make that fucker Corky weep in embarrassed pain. But the thing about Lenny Small is that he is strong as hell and Forrest Gump is fast as fuck. We will be able to do some things against the Rams, because occasionally we can even blend into polite society. The Rams on the other hand are hopeless. They make our brand of retards look like Nobel winners.

Offensively, there are questions for the Lions, but that is because lately there are always questions. These are not questions of quality, but rather questions of health. If all of our guys are good to go, we should have no problems with these turds. Matthew Stafford is a top level talent who has shown rapid growth early in his career. Calvin Johnson is a time traveling Superman who was possibly the model for Dr. Manhattan. Kevin Smith is a quality starting running back and for the first time all season he should get a chance to maul a lousy defense for a billion yards. Unfortunately, so far this season, each of those sterling dudes has had injury issues. Smith is healthy, but he fucked up his shoulder earlier this season and he hasn't looked all that good for the most part. Stafford's knee cap told him to fuck off and he has been sidelined for the last two games. St. Calvin's knee also decided to take a sabbatical and he missed all of the Green Bay game and most of the Pittsburgh game. Smith will go and it wouldn't surprise me if he was the focus of the offense. And that's because Stafford is still iffy and it's looking more and more like St. Calvin will be stuck on the sidelines once again, probably composing sonnets.

With St. Calvin out, the Lions passing game suddenly starts to look kinda shitty. They should still have plenty of success against the terrible St. Louis pass defense, but I can see Jim Schwartz and Scott Linehan just saying fuck it, and giving the ball to the comparatively healthy Smith over and over and over again. I mean, why not? The St. Louis run defense hasn't been quite as awful as the pass defense, but Smith still should be able to move the ball effectively on the ground. If he can't run on this team, well . . . then things aren't looking so hot for the Lions running game. It's possible that we will get a boost here from Jon Jansen, who it looks like might be starting at left guard from now on. I'm cool with this. Jansen has a ton of starting experience and his big problem was that he was getting smoked by pass rushers at tackle, so why not try him at guard? Maybe it will extend his career a couple of seasons and maybe it will give the Lions a semi-competent starter at the position for a change.

Even if Smith gets the bulk of the work in this game, I can still see Stafford lighting the Rams' shittastic secondary up fairly often. Even without Calvin Johnson to throw to, Stafford should be able to move the ball down the field just like everybody else has against the Rams this season. Bryant Johnson and Dennis Northcutt aren't exactly world beaters, but they are certainly good enough to beat the collection of simps and waterheads who patrol the back end of the Rams' defense. I also wouldn't be surprised to see the Lions try to get Brandon Pettigrew going underneath in this game.

The other side of the ball is another matter entirely. The Lions suck, and it's not because they are injured. Sure, there are some injury issues, especially along the defensive line, but the defense's problems rest almost entirely in the secondary, where a collection of stiffs has made me have epic flashbacks to old ass Brian Kelly getting his mummified corpse beat on every other play last season. Anthony Henry has been so bad that the coaches have dropped him down to the scout team and Phillip Buchanon has been so frustrating that he is currently stuck battling DeMarcus Faggins for a starting job opposite the renowned William James. Things, uh, well, they're not so great here.

Thankfully, the Rams can't pass the ball. Marc Bulger no longer has the remains of the old great Rams offenses to prop him up, and with legends like Donnie Avery, Keenan Burton and Danny Amendola to throw to, Bulger isn't exactly setting the world on fire. Still, it wouldn't surprise me if the Rams can frustratingly move the ball through the air a bit against the Lions, because, really, a retarded baboon could light up the Detroit secondary.

The one good player the Rams still have is Steven Jackson. Jackson has actually had a pretty good season so far despite being stuck in the middle of an apocalypse. He should be able to run the ball against the Lions defense, but I doubt he'll run wild. The Detroit run defense has actually managed to hold it together for the most part this season. They are only 20th in the league against the run, but they have given up a lot of long runs which sort of distort that stat. I know that sounds stupid, but stay with me here. For the most part, the Lions have been able to bottle up opposing ball carriers. No one this season has been able to rip off six or seven yards at a consistent pop, slowly marching the team down the field or anything like that, which is what you usually associate with a bad rush defense. Instead, the Lions have been struck by the idiot stick a few too many times and running backs have exploded for big plays after being stuffed time and time again. It happened with Matt Forte, it happened with Rashard Mendenhall and it even happened with Adrian Peterson. None of those dudes really controlled the game, and their final numbers were inflated by one or two big plays that sandwiched a sea of nothing.

If the defense can keep Jackson from breaking a couple of big plays, the Lions should be able to stuff him at the line fairly regularly. And even if he does manage to bust a couple, it is unlikely that the Rams will be able to consistently move the ball enough on the ground to sustain drives. They will probably find themselves in a lot of 2nd and 8s, and with their shitty passing game, I can see the Lions shutting them down a lot more often than I can see the Rams defense shutting the Lions offense down.

We have to win this game. We just have to. To lose now, to the Rams, would be fucking embarrassing and would have everyone freaking out and throwing flaming bags of shit at their neighbors once again. A terrible thing, just awful, and none of us need to relive that ridiculous bullshit. We are coming off of a disastrous performance against Green Bay and everyone's confidence is kind of shaken. We are still hopeful, but there is a dark fear in our eyes now and we have taken to muttering and shaking our heads. When we beat the Rams, a chunk of that will dissipate and float gently away and we can get back to being excited about the future again. As always, I am hopeful, because I am an optimist and a gentleman. We have suffered much, but so did Indiana Jones, and in the end, he saved the day and banged a bunch of different chicks, even as he became old and senile. The point? There is hope, even for the foolish and the deranged. That is enough for me.

FIVE RIDICULOUS PREDICTIONS

1. Kevin Smith will be the focal point of the offense, rushing 30 times for 155 yards and two touchdowns. After the game, he makes up for his previous shunning of Ernie Sims' monkey by donating his salary for the game towards the building of a habitat for run away and at risk monkeys. He is hailed as a model philanthropist and is honored by Congress.

2. Matthew Stafford will go 15-23 for 206 yards and two touchdowns. After the game, he will have an emotional reunion with his kneecap, which the cameras lovingly capture until things become a little too, uh, heated and uncomfortable and FOX has to cut away in order to avoid fines from the FCC.

3. Steven Jackson rushes 25 times for 96 yards and a touchdown. After the game, Sammie Lee Hill and Grady Jackson get into a brawl when they can't decide which one of them gets to feast on Jackson's detached leg.

4. Marc Bulger throws the ball 25 times, completing 15 passes for 187 yards. He is sacked three times and throws two interceptions to go with one touchdown. After the game, he is found weeping and alone, naked in the shower, staring at a group photo of him, Torry Holt, Orlando Pace, Isaac Bruce, and Marshall Faulk with Mike Martz

5. Calvin Johnson once again doesn't play, and after the game it is revealed that he is sitting out on purpose. When asked why, he claims that he is teaching humanity a lesson. They need to learn to solve their own problems instead of relying upon him and his otherworldly powers. One reporter scoffs at the idea that St. Calvin is superhuman, and so Calvin turns him into a small chicken, which is then devoured by Grady Jackson, still hungry after being forced to split Steven Jackson's leg with Sammie Lee Hill. St. Calvin then goes back in time and writes a play based on the incident which is credited to Shakespeare, a comedy titled A Fowl Feast. It is renowned for its groundbreaking use of the fart joke.

PREDICTED FINAL SCORE: Lions 31, Rams 17. Okay, so I had to go back a day later and add this to my post because I realized that I forgot to predict a final score for the second straight week, and since this is a general preview post, and since the natural climax of a preview post is a concrete prediction of a final score, I figured I would tack it on here. Honestly, even as I was writing all that other dumb bullshit yesterday, I had that final score in my head and I just assumed I would include it, but I didn't, so I guess I am a dumb asshole, but, hell, who isn't these days?

We Are All Idiots, But Who Cares?

Yeah, that's a lion. Also, I can't be sure, but I swear that Lion just blinked at me.

The bye week came at both the best and the worst possible time for the Lions. The team is so absurdly beat up that without the week off it wouldn't have been surprising if the Grim Reaper was spotted hanging out on the sideline or if Kevin Smith or someone was mauled by a wild ape during the game. You might say something like that is unlikely, but I would just say that you are naive. So, yeah, it was nice that everyone got to rest and chill with their families or their whores or their monkeys or whatever, but it kind of sucked to have to wait to see them play again, because it just meant that it was another long week spent with the memory of what went down in Green Bay swimming through the brains of fans, players, coaches, team doctors, team pets, and everyone who witnessed that atrocity. After a game like that, you kind of just want the next one to get here as soon as possible so that you can replace the screaming pain of that awful memory with something a little more tolerable.

In my mind right now, the Lions are fucking terrible. In large part, this is thanks to that hideous performance they put on in Green Bay. They are a bad team anyway, but they look even worse to me right now because the last time I saw them they were being whipped up on like . . . okay, there is no joke I could make here that wouldn't be wildly offensive to someone and so I'll just let your own fucked up imagination run wild. Have a blast. Anyway, it's hard to feel good about your team when the images that float through your head are Daunte Culpepper's wretched old body giving out on him without even being hit or Daunte or Ol' Plucky tossing an interception or getting sacked or flailing around on fire while the Green Bay defense so compassionately stomps the shit out of them in order to put the fire out. Such humanitarians.

Violent mood swings are common in the sports world. You win one week and it's candy and blowjobs for everyone. All your fans freak out and rush to be the first to drive the bandwagon. The next week, you lose and it's drain cleaner and kicks in the balls for everyone. All your fans freak out and murder the person driving the bandwagon and then set fire to it. It's terrible and it's ridiculous but it is just the way it is. Especially in football. Football is unique for a couple of reasons. First of all, there is only one game a week, and so win or lose, that feeling sticks a hell of a lot longer than it does in a sport where you get to play again the next day. Second of all, there are hardly any games at all. So every win or every loss feels like a ten game winning streak or losing streak would to a baseball fan. Everything is magnified, everything means so much more, and that's part of what makes football so fun and awesome and insane and great and crazy and nauseating and every other adjective you can think of. And it's what makes its fans such a collection of gibbering baboons, screaming in some kind of feral heat about every little thing.

It happens to the best and to the worst of us. It makes us laugh and it makes us cry, it makes us smile, and it makes us ball up our fists and throw little shit fits like we are children or retards, or retarded children I suppose. It makes dudes like me start writing weird bullshit about monkeys and Napoleon and time traveling wide receivers. The more you pay attention to this shit, the more it drives you mad. When I was a kid, I would just show up in front of the TV and watch the game on Sunday. And then when it was over, I wouldn't really think that much more about it until the time came for the next game. Now, it just never ends. Now, it's who's hurt and who played well and who played like shit and what roster moves are they making and hey there's a dude on some forum saying something I don't agree with, let's bitch about that and a billion other stupid things that keep us all ramped up and stupid with idiot fire in our hearts until the next game comes along and then it all starts up again and OH LORD it never ends, it never ends. This can be really fun when you are the fan of a team that wins all the time. When you are a fan of the Detroit Lions, it is something unique and strange and entirely fucked up that is almost impossible to explain to someone who isn't going through the same thing. There is a lot of hand wringing and wallowing in stupid misery and it starts to feel like some sort of masochistic death march, obscene and terrible, but there is always the sense - at least in my own strange mind - that there is a point to it all, that at some point, the misery will be paid off and we will know great happiness and long lasting joy. It is a fool's hope and I have written about it many times here. In a way, it is like we are all a bunch of degenerate gamblers who just keep losing and losing and instead of cutting our losses and slinking away to cry into the night, we just do the only thing we know how to do and keep slapping down money until we are all sweaty and deranged, stupid and desperate, hoping against hope that this time we will win big and that we will recoup all of those terrible losses. We're constantly trying to play our way out of the hole and most of us are in so deep that we have no other choice.

I love football, and I love the Detroit Lions. Most of you just laughed but fuck it, it is what it is. I also love to write. It's a frightening combination and it leads to a lot of weird bullshit and madness on my part. Perhaps I am idiot for caring about this thing to begin with, and I am almost certainly an idiot for rambling on about it several times a week for other idiots . . . uh, I mean, gentlemen and lady gentlemen and enthusiasts, to read. I don't care though. This is fun to me. That is warped and it makes no damn sense but sports and sports fandom are by themselves nonsensical things that have no rationale. They are the last bastion of the perpetually hopeful and the dangerously stupid. We are all idiot children, screaming dumb gibberish into an ill wind that just blows back in our faces, but what the hell, by tomorrow I will be writing more weird bullshit about the Lions and I will be cheering for them on Sunday because I am a fan and an idiot and there is simply no way I couldn't.

Anyway, these are the things that happen to a man when you give him an extra week to marinate in the sewer of failure. I am covered with shit and I am babbling like a lunatic. Thankfully the Lions have a game this weekend, and thankfully that will give me something concrete to gibber on about. Hopefully, the week off has done the team some good. Hopefully, they all had adamantium grafted onto their bones and have been pumped full of liquid hate and have been fitted with personalized transmitters that emit a frequency that makes opposing players shit their pants or do the stanky legg or preferably both. I mean, the researchers and engineers at Ford have to be doing something, right?

We aren't even halfway through the season and already it has gotten weird. It will only get stranger and we'll probably see a few games like the one against the Packers, terrible things that leave us drowning in a pool of our vomit or screaming obscenities at random inanimate objects, scaring small animals and ourselves along the way. But there will also be games when all of that dumb bullshit falls by the side of the road and we pump our fists and smile and cheer like retards along with complete strangers about a game where a bunch of asshole millionaires try to beat the shit out of other asshole millionaires and old men scream at guys in striped shirts. It will be wonderful. There is a long way to go. Vaya con dios.

Now What in the Hell is This Gibberish?

I have no idea what in the hell this is all about, but as both a vegetarian and a Lions fan, I am both amused and intrigued. The truth is, is that I am some fucked up combination of these two dudes.

With the bye week here, the sheer inanity of my predictions can linger, aging like a fine wine, ripening until all there is left to do is uncork that son of a bitch and savor the bold rich . . . oh, oh God, I have made a mistake. The correct simile here is a stale fart, not a fine wine. So, let's, uh, drop our drawers and see how bad it really smells.

PREDICTION THE FIRST

WHAT I SAID: Stafford starts and has a nice game, throwing for 260 yards and 2 touchdowns. He also throws an interception which is taken to the house by Charles Woodson.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: Uh . . . well . . . so yeah, okay, this one was in flames right from the start. Stafford's knee cap refused to cooperate and he spent the game on the sideline, wrapped in a parka, while his replacement, the 2004 Fantasy Football MVP, assed his way around the field until his body told him to go fuck himself. That left Drew Stanton, who . . . well, let's not go down this road again. Anyway, Culpepper's final numbers were 6-14 for 48 yards and 0 touchdowns. He also threw a horrible interception to a defensive lineman. Yeah. Meanwhile, Ol' Plucky's final numbers were 5-11 for 57 yards and 0 touchdowns. Ol' Plucky managed to one up Culpepper with 2 interceptions. For the game, Lions QB's were 11-25 for 105 yards, 0 touchdowns and 3 interceptions. Both Culpepper and Stanton had QB ratings of 22. TWENTY FUCKING TWO. Ahem, sorry, I just shit my pants and spazzed out a little. The orderlies have zapped me with a cattle prod and the dude who thinks he's Napoleon just slapped me around a little so everything should be okay for a while.

Well . . . uh . . . what can you say about this shittastic performance that I haven't already said? It was a terrifying and nauseating throwback to the killing fields of last season and everyone involved in this debacle should be ashamed of themselves. For fuck's sake, I even heard a rumor that Ernie Sims' poor monkey tried to hang himself while watching this game. Awful, just awful.

If there is a positive to all this it is that I was wrong about Charles Woodson picking one off and taking it to the house. Well, thank God for small miracles, right? Excuse me while I drink this can of lighter fluid and then suck on a candle.

PREDICTION THE SECOND

WHAT I SAID: Calvin Johnson doesn't play. Bryant Johnson has a decent game, catching 6 passes for 90 yards and a touchdown. After the game, St. Calvin mystifies a horde of reporters by reciting a monologue from Hamlet. There is a rush by many to claim that this is proof that St. Calvin is somehow depressed, a notion which is dispelled when it is revealed that he is actually the man who wrote all of Shakespeare's plays and he is just showing off. There will be much confusion as to how this all happened, until it is revealed that St. Calvin exists outside of the space time continuum and moves at will through the universe and it's various ages. One dumb reporter tries to compare it to Back to the Future, but St. Calvin verbally smacks him down, saying "Do I look like some geeky ass white boy on a skate board to you?" Someone else makes a Doc Brown crack, causing St. Calvin to say "The last time we had some white haired crazy motherfucker running shit here, y'all ran his ass out of town and then we went 0-16." The next day, Mike Martz buys himself a DeLorean. He spends a full day just sitting behind the wheel and weeping.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: Hey, what do you know, I was right. At least about St. Calvin not playing. You'll excuse me if I don't break into raucous celebration. I might sing, I might dance a little bit, I might get drunk, and I might take a baseball bat and smash the shit out of something resembling a piñata, but I can promise you that none of those things are related to one another. Well, the smashing with a baseball bat might be related a little bit to the drinking and to the St. Calvin situation, but other than that, no.

Meanwhile, Bryant Johnson only caught 2 passes for 27 yards, and, well . . . fuck this. GOOD LORD, these shitheads were fucking terrible and as I look at the stats the horrors of that game are just rushing back, and . . . okay, I'll be good. No, you don't have to get the shock collar. I don't wanna take the red pills. Okay, okay fine, just put away the batons, please.

Ahem, anyway, St. Calvin spent the game chilling next to Matthew Stafford while everyone else played like a bunch of retarded tree sloths against the Packers. Okay, I must admit that I have never known a retarded tree sloth, but all of the tree sloths I have known are kind of dim anyway, and they are really uncoordinated, so I will not apologize for making that leap.

Sadly, St. Calvin has yet to come out and admit that he authored Shakespeare's greatest works, but I am confident that this will come to pass sometime in the very near future. Or perhaps it has already happened and St. Calvin, using his powers, went back in time to erase all of our memories. He is just toying with us, laughing at us behind our human backs. Also, I was wrong about Mike Martz buying a DeLorean and then weeping behind the wheel. It was an '87 Ford Tempo and he wasn't weeping, he was just afflicted by allergies. My mistake.

PREDICTION THE THIRD

WHAT I SAID: Kevin Smith runs the ball 25 times for 91 yards and a touchdown. He wears a patch on his uniform in support of Ernie Sims' monkey, who is still hiding from the authorities.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: Smith ran the ball 15 times for 61 yards. He didn't score, but those numbers actually kind of shock me. The Lions were so terrible on Sunday - see all of the above gibberish - that in my head, I pictured Smith's final numbers being much, much uglier. He was thirty yards shy of my prediction, which I thought at the time was fairly optimistic, but his yards per carry was actually slightly higher than what I called for. In the apocalyptic sea of shit that the Lions were collectively drowned in on Sunday, Smith actually managed to keep his head above water enough to put up average, and dare I say it, respectable numbers.

I suppose it is fitting. After all, this was a vintage Lions performance, ripped straight out of 2008. And Smith's game was very much like his 2008 season. It didn't seem all that decent until you look at the numbers. In 2008, Smith somehow managed over 4 yards a carry, same as in this game, and just like in 2008, while everything else went to hell around him, Smith kept churning forward until, at the end, he was one of the few who had something to point to and say "See, I tried. I did my part." The unfortunate thing about all that is while it sounds good, it's a bad sign that I am continuously surprised to see Smith's numbers reflect a better showing than I remember. It's not like I watched him take control of the game - this one, or any one last year - and move the pile forward. He wasn't keeping the Lions in the game or exerting his will like the best running backs do. I would rather think "Wow, this dude is getting the job done," and then be surprised that his numbers aren't all that spectacular than think "Man, we can't run the ball again," only to see that his numbers are actually semi-decent. What I saw and what the numbers tell just don't mesh.

Okay, let's look at this a little differently. Smith's long run for the game was 20 yards. That's not much, but when his total is 61, that's pretty much a third of his yardage right there. I remember that play. It was a good run, and I think it was part of a semi-functional series by the Lions which featured a pair of decent runs by Smith, a couple of slow balls by Ol' Plucky and an end zone interception. Take that run away, and Smith's numbers suddenly look much worse - 14 carries for 41 yards, or slightly less than 3 yards per carry.

The point to all this nerdery? Smith had one decent run amidst a sea of general ineptitude. I still like him, but, really, he has had one good game this season, in the loss to the Vikings where his shoulder up and left, and I am kinda disappointed in what we have gotten from him this year. This is probably due to my wild and irrational expectations coming into this season, wild and irrational expectations that were partly fueled by Smith's surprising final numbers last season. After watching this game, which seemed like an echo of last season both for the Lions and for Smith, I am now vaguely uncomfortable with those expectations. It's possible - even probable - that Smith will end up with surprisingly decent final numbers yet again. Unfortunately, those numbers just don't seem like they are translating all that well to the field. I'm not sure if that really makes sense, but well, there it is.

Sadly, Smith did not wear a patch on his uniform in support of Sims' monkey, and if the rumors that I mentioned earlier about the poor little guy trying to hang himself are true, well then Smith should be ashamed of himself. All the monkey wants and needs are the support of his friends.

PREDICTION THE FOURTH

WHAT I SAID: Aaron Rodgers throws for 350 yards and 4 touchdowns. He is only sacked once, and after the game he prank calls Brett Favre, who just smiles and admires his Wranglers because he is just havin' fun out there.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: Rodgers threw for 358 yards and two touchdowns to go along with an interception. He was sacked 5 times, which makes his final numbers that much more ridiculous and makes the Lions secondary look that much more awful. If Rodgers would have had a decent offensive line in front of him he probably would have gone over 400 yards for the game, and . . . oh Jesus, I just pictured what that would have looked like and . . . and the orderlies are back and this time they have giant needles and even the little dude who thinks he is Napoleon is scared of this shit. He is cowering in a corner, and . . . let's just move on.

PREDICTION THE FIFTH

WHAT I SAID: Ryan Grant is held somewhat in check. He goes for 80 yards on only 17 carries. He scores a touchdown. After the game it is revealed that St. Calvin, using his Godlike powers, has managed to put some sort of bizarre force field into play which causes opposing running games to falter. When asked why he doesn't just keep them from gaining any yards at all, St. Calvin grows exasperated, saying "What the fuck do you want from me? Have you seen the shitheads on our defensive line? There is only so much even I can do." One intrepid reporter keeps digging into the story until it is scandalously revealed that Calvin Johnson was the inspiration for Dr. Manhattan. When it is questioned how this is possible, St. Calvin just laughs and once again breaks out the "Lord, what fools these mortals be."

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: Grant ran for 90 yards on 24 carries. Basically, I was right about this one. A lot of Grant's yardage came in garbage time, when the game was long over and everyone just wanted to get the fuck out of there. Okay, okay, to be honest, that could mean any time after the halfway point of the first quarter. But, really, before late in the fourth quarter, Grant's numbers were pretty dismal. The Lions once again largely shut down an opposing running game, which is mystifying since the Lions defensive line for the game was made up of homeless people, a statue of Vince Lombardi they found before the game and a couple of fat people they dragged out of the crowd and stuck uniforms on. I have no idea how they continue to do this, but they are doing it. Part of it probably has something to do with the recognition that they absolutely cannot stop the pass and so they are devoting as much of their energy as they can to stuffing the run. You might as well do one thing well. Another reason is because other teams recognize that the Lions couldn't break up a pass if they had flamethrowers and throwing stars to use on opposing receivers. This means that teams are willing to forego the run and just pass all day long. There is no real need to establish the run because, fuck, why bother? You can just throw all over these doofuses(doofesi?). They aren't going to stop you. Why bother with five yards here, six yards there, when 20 will do just fine?

Once again, I was disappointed that St. Calvin remained demure about his obvious superpowers, but I am confident that we will all learn the truth in time. That is assuming my earlier concerns about him manipulating us all through the space time continuum aren't true, and man, let's just hope they aren't, because we need a beneficent St. Calvin on our side. If he is seduced by his power or loses touch with the wants and needs of the ordinary man then we are all doomed. DOOMED. Okay, shit, gotta go, the orderlies are back and this time they brought with them the one the other patients call Dr. Pain and that motherfucker looks like he's in a bad mood. NO . . . I'll be good. PUT DOWN THE TAZER . . . I BEG YOU. NAPOLEON . . . HELP!

Random Gibberish

Yeah, dude, I know.

This week is a little slower than normal because the Lions have a bye. The good news is that this will hopefully give St. Calvin, Matthew Stafford and everyone else missing a limb time to heal. The bad news is that we are stuck with the wretched aftertaste of Sunday's debacle in Green Bay for another week. And since we have nothing to do but wallow in the muck, let's just get on with it.

HOW DOES THIS DUDE STILL HAVE A JOB?

When That Fine and Decent Man we used to have as a head coach was stuck in a box and mailed to Chicago, it was obvious that it wasn't just him but his whole abomination of a coaching staff that needed to go. Naturally, that's what happened, and we all breathed a sigh of relief. Most of our coaches were new, and maybe, just maybe we could finally move on from the hellstorm that has been the last decade of Lions football. Sure, there were a couple of holdovers, dudes like Sam Gash and Shawn Jefferson who seem like promising young coaches, former players who have overseen mostly competent units that have somehow stayed afloat in the sea of despair, but there was one holdover whose stranglehold on the job seemed puzzling to say the least.

You see, once upon a time, the Lions special teams units were always very good. They kicked well, they punted well, they always had the best return game in the league and their kick coverage units were at least decent. And then Stan Kwan was named the special teams coach, the returns dried up, the coverage became abysmal and even the punting game started to become a little erratic. The kicking game has survived, largely due to Jason Hanson, who, as well know, is a robot created in a lab by Swiss scientists who were trying to develop the ultimate soccer striker. Unfortunately, Jason just couldn't kick a round ball and so the scientists, frustrated by their failure, decided to pull the plug. They tasked a young scientist with driving him out into the wilderness like the robot kid in that 100 year long movie AI, only the young scientist was moved to tears because robot Jason, who didn't know he was a robot, thought they were going to the county fair and he was so excited. So, the young scientist hustled Jason out of the country, driving all night until he stuck him on a freighter out of Marseilles, which then made it's way to the United States where he was adopted by a sweet couple unable to have a child of their own. A few months later, young robot Jason found that while he couldn't kick a round ball, he was more than capable of smashing the shit out of an oblong ball, and a few years after that, he found himself enrolled at Washington State and the rest is history.

Where the fuck was I? Oh yeah, Stan Kwan. Anyway, ever since Stan Kwan took over as coach, nearly every phase of the special teams has been a disaster. How in the hell did this guy get to keep his job when Jim Schwartz took over? I will not be hackneyed and make a lame joke about incriminating photos, so . . . I dunno, maybe he's a warlock?

Sure enough, so far this season, the Lions have been repeatedly punched in the balls by long returns from the opposition while our own return game has once again stagnated in the horrible marsh of failure. And still, ol' Stan keeps his job. Sounds like a warlock to me. Someone check the locker room for entrails and eyes of newt. Good Lord, what a debacle.

There has been so much misery and so many things that have needed to be fixed in this decade of infinite pain that it was all too easy to overlook the perpetual putrescence(alliteration~)of the special teams. Well, now that many of those other, bigger problems have at least been stabilized, the problems of that shittastic unit stink even worse. It was like they were a pile of dog shit buried in a sea of cow shit. Everyone bitched about the damn cow shit and so they sold all the cows and cleaned up all that shit, only to find that the fucking dogs were still running around stinking up the place.

I'm sorry, that was a weird and terrible analogy, even for me. Anyway, every week that this goes on, the more maddening it becomes that, somehow, Stan Kwan is still our special teams coach. I'm assuming he'll get to the end of the year and then he'll find his shit boxed up as soon as the last game ends, but fuck it, I figured that would be the case last year too, so what the hell do I know? He could be here for a thousand years. Remember, it's possible that this man is a warlock, and if that's the case, the possibilities are both terrible and endless.

CAN WE PUT THIS SHIT TO BED NOW?

Anyone who thinks that Daunte Culpepper is a good quarterback in 2009 is an idiot. The end.

ARE OPPOSING TEAMS HIRING SNIPERS?

After every other play on Sunday, it seemed like another Lions defensive lineman was lying on the turf while the announcers talked about how low they were on numbers at the position. It was terrible to watch and by the end of the game, the Lions were sticking Stephen Peterman in the goal line packages simply because he was appropriately fat. I mean, come on, haven't we suffered enough in this terrible decade? We finally start to climb out from beneath all of the rubble, dust ourselves off, and then everyone's knee caps explode and shoulders get torn out by angry demons and I'm left gibbering about monkeys and time traveling wide receivers.

The injuries so far this season seem staggering. There's not a single position group that has come away unscathed. It seems like everyone has been hurt at some point this season. Even Jason Hanson, who has played for 126 years, went down for a while in the preseason. And he's a robot. For fuck's sake. Maybe this has something to do with Stan Kwan's witchcraft. You mess with dark magic, Stan, and there are bound to be consequences.

By the end of the year, this team might look like a collection of fucked up zombies, staggering through their games, all stiff and bellowing about brains while everyone runs right by them and no one needs to see that. Goddamn. I think they need to hire the scientists who created Jason Hanson and make all of our dudes bionic. It's the only way any of them will survive. That way, we can get cool shit like Ernie Sims shooting lasers from his shoulder or Kevin Smith springing over tacklers like he is Inspector Gadget or some asshole like that. We have suffered for so long, we deserve this. COME ON GIVE IT TO US WEIRD SCIENTISTS WHO CREATED JASON HANSON.

Okay, this whole post has been strange and utterly without merit. I don't apologize for any of it, though. These are strange and terrible times, and these things happen. Vaya con dios.