Random Nonsense

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

FEEL THE HATE FLOW THROUGH YOU. YEEEEEEESSSSSSSS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

OKAY WHO HAS THE VOODOO DOLL?

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

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

WELL . . . OKAY

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

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

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

Strange Hope and Savage Despair

These are strange times.

Watching the Lions lose sucks. Watching the Lions lose on Thanksgiving is fucking terrible. All Lions fans are used to the team losing with stunning regularity, and while it sucks, there is a feeling of inevitability to it too. As much as we don't want them to lose, we usually expect it. But Thanksgiving is another matter entirely. It's the one day that we hype ourselves up and allow ourselves to believe deep down that we will win because it is our day and we will do something ridiculous or memorable or wear throwback uniforms and end up winning. It happens every year, no matter the circumstance. Even if, during the days leading up to the game, we behave like rational adults and understand that the Lions are unlikely to win - like this year - by the time the game rolls around, our heads are swimming with images of Barry Sanders dancing around and Jerry Ball eating whole turkeys and we throw all sense of reason out the window and we blindly believe. So it only makes it that much worse when the game ends and our dudes are stumbling off the field, beaten yet again.

The Lions lost to the Packers and they lost by a lot. There are those that will tell you that the game was much closer than the final score indicated, and in a sense, those people would be right. The game was competitive, at least according to the scoreboard, into the fourth quarter. There are those, however, who will tell you that the game was even less competitive than the final score indicated, and in a sense, those people would also be right. The Packers absolutely dominated the Lions on both sides of the ball for vast stretches of the game. The Lions couldn't move the ball at all offensively, and the Packers passing game moved the ball down the field with ease virtually the entire game.

So, how did the Lions manage to keep the score reasonably close? Well, this was kind of the definition of the bend but don't break game. The Lions continually allowed the Packers to march down the field, but stiffened just enough to keep them from scoring touchdown after touchdown. It was tough to watch and kind of inspiring at the same time. The Lions kept getting the shit knocked out of them, but they wouldn't quit. That's something that should bring at least a half smile to the face of even the most hardened Lions victim(I should probably say fan, but, well, you know . . .). On the other hand, it's no fun to watch your team hang on for the whole game by the tiniest of threads, knowing that it's only a matter of time before that thing slips completely away and they plummet once again to their doom.

It was an odd mixture of feelings, one that sums up both this season as a whole and the schizophrenic Lions fanbase. We are hopeful but we are sick of losing, proud of the way our dudes keep hanging in there, but we can't stand watching them hang on for dear life only to be cruelly kicked in the face and flung off the side of a cliff. The reactions of Lions fans after the game was also interesting. There was some of the LOL SAME OLD LIONS bullshit, which was swiftly met by a horde of people telling them to fuck off. That shit is old and played out, and most Lions fans are just as sick of that as they are the losing. We want to hope, want to believe that better days are ahead, and most of all we want to think that even though we are still losing right now, that it's different. And it is. It just feels different. I know that's ambiguous and kind of ridiculous and doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but it's also very, very true. It's hardy to quantify, and because of that there are people who will tell us all that we are fucking idiots, and yeah, maybe. I don't really care.

Conversely, there are people popping up now who would be entirely too comfortable hanging out with ol' Jim Jones and the Kool-Aid Kids. These are fans who flip out on anybody who dares to say a negative word about the team. This is just fucking dumb. Look, it's okay to hope. It's good to hope. I am with you on that, my dudes and lady dudes. But, it's maddening to have someone refuse to admit that the Lions are still a pretty fucking bad football team. They got whipped up on by the Packers and, hey, that's okay, you know? It wasn't entirely unexpected - Thanksgiving delusions aside - and we'll move on from this. But it still happened, and there's really no point in trying to argue that the Lions could have or should have won the game.

It's all a part of the strange schizophrenia that has sprung up in every area surrounding the Lions. I guarantee you that someone will read this and feel pissed off that I am being too negative. And I guarantee you that someone will read this and feel pissed off that I am being too positive. We are all over the map here, and if you go back and look at all the horseshit I've written over the course of this season - and really, from the moment Jim Schwartz was hired - I think you'll see that I have fallen victim to this weird nonsense as much as everyone else has. We can't help it. It's just a weird season.

Maybe we are all broken, finally shattered by 0-16. Maybe that season was just the culmination of years of too much pain. Maybe we are the weird ones, incapable anymore of handling what is an ordinary shitty Lions season. I don't know. Who really does? All I can say in our defense is that when we see Matthew Stafford playing with a separated shoulder suffered only four days before, or when we see Stafford throwing his fifth touchdown only moments after having his shoulder ground into hamburger, or when we see Stafford throwing for over 400 yards and keep coming back, game after game like the fucking Terminator, that it's all different. It just is. In this fucked up funhouse of a season, where nothing makes sense and everything is distorted, the only thing that truly feels real is Stafford. And for now, for the people who have been paying attention, and for the people who have suffered for so long with turds masquerading as quarterbacks, that's enough.

The numbers don't tell the story with Stafford, just like they don't with this season as a whole. He throws too many interceptions - way too many - and he can be wildly inconsistent, and yet, it's his team. Indisputably. He's 21 years old, and he's the man. There hasn't been a single quarterback in my lifetime who has been that for the Lions. Maybe Scott Mitchell, but even during his one dream season, no one really believed in Mitchell the way that we all seem to do in Stafford.

I kind of hate it when people start blathering on about intangibles, because it's a slippery slope from that to David Eckstein Super White Boy Scrappy-Doo Ol' Plucky Does It The Right Way Let's Throw a Parade For Grit And Wear Wranglers kind of bullshit. So I am trying not to run down that road, but it's hard, man. Right now, Stafford makes me want to do that, makes me want to devolve into a babbling idiot(yeah, okay, shut up), and makes me want to start talking about leadership and toughness and the ridiculous it factor. This is really the first time that a Lions player has made me want to do all that dumb bullshit, and I guess that's enough of an explanation right there for why I think things are different.

The Lions lost again and they will lose for most of the rest of the season. They will have a high draft pick and everyone will laugh and say SAME OLD LIONS SEE WHAT DID I TELL YOU, and, well, ha ha, good one Bob Hope, maybe you can take that one on tour. I, for one, choose to believe in the future, even if that means you all laugh at me and tell me that I am a stupid dickhead. It is important to be realistic, and that will often come with some ugly bullshit, but it's important to have hope too. After all, we are complicated dudes and lady dudes in complicated times, and while simple hope or simple cynicism may be easier, it is also hollow and utterly without merit. The only way to get through this strange wilderness in these strange times is to recognize the bad and embrace the good. We are all weary, we are all beaten and half-mad, but to hell with all that, we are going somewhere. Finally.

Thanksgiving With The Lions

Little did those poor Indians know, but their table cloth was a smallpox blanket. It's okay though, the pilgrims all died of dysentery. Happy Thanksgiving!

It's a short week because of Thanksgiving and that means that I have to skip all the usual midweek bullshit and just dive straight into the preview. The good news is that I am still in a good mood because of Sunday's game against the Browns. The bad news is that Matthew Stafford probably won't play against the Packers and apparently, Calvin Johnson's status is also up in the air.

Thankfully, this game is fairly anonymous, so it's not like anyone will see how bad the Lions are without . . . oh, wait . . . what? Oh. I see. Well, it turns out that everyone will get a chance to see how terrible the Lions are without Stafford and maybe St. Calvin, which is frustrating as all hell because the amount of hackneyed jokes that will be made about the Lions in the next few days increases from a lot to OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD JUST SHUT UP ALREADY.

Yes, it's Thanksgiving and that of course means that the Lions will be playing the early game while everyone is still waiting to eat their Turkeys or Tofurkeys or Turduckens or Turd Chickens or whatever the fuck all that bullshit is. And, like always, everyone will probably groan and bitch and moan and wonder why the Lions get to play on Thanksgiving every year. And, just like last year, I would like to take this opportunity to tell those people to fuck off. Thanksgiving football is our tradition. It's the one thing that we as Lions fans have to feel proud about. It's the only thing that keeps us from being the fucking Cardinals or some shitty franchise like that. Perhaps that is a bad comparison coming off of the Cardinals' Super Bowl appearance, but really, that just slams home the importance of Thanksgiving for us. Even shitty franchises occasionally get to make it all the way to the Super Bowl. But not us. No. This is all we have, one miserable Thursday every year.

So, when you heartless barbarians and heathen savages start railing against the Lions playing on Thanksgiving another year, just remember all that. Afterwards, when you sit down to eat, and you are all blathering on about what you are thankful for, remember to be thankful that you don't have to put up with all this bullshit every year. It's not fun to have your team be a perennial national joke. It sucks. And Thanksgiving just happens to be the day when all these Henny Youngman dickheads blow the dust off of their shitty old joke books and laugh their fat faces off. Jay Leno will do his annual Lions suck joke, the retirees and retards in his audience will laugh and won't you all feel so much better? If the Indians and Pilgrims knew this shit would go down every year they would have just dispensed with the pleasantries and gotten on with the genocide.

Okay, enough bitterness, there is a game to be played. Unfortunately, like I said earlier, that game is likely to be played without Matthew Stafford. That means that Daunte Culpepper will get the start, and, well . . . yeah, by now you all should know how I feel about Culpepper. Somehow, I don't see a 5 touchdown performance on the horizon for him. Culpepper is so synonymous with failure that a part of me would rather see Drew Stanton out there instead. And you all know how I feel about Ol' Plucky.

Obviously, the Lions passing attack will suffer without Stafford. This sucks because the Lions can't really run the football right now either. It's become increasingly apparent that Kevin Smith isn't very good right now. I'm not sure whether it's because he's hurt or because the Lions offensive line is just that terrible or because he's simply not that good. Regardless of the reason, he is struggling and without Matthew Stafford there to keep defenses from keying on the run, Smith is likely to struggle yet again.

It's not all bad news, I suppose. I mean, the Packers are without Aaron Kampman and Al Harris, both out for the year. I think the Kampman loss looks a little worse than it is for the Packers. They switched to a 3-4 this year, and Kampman hasn't been as effective as an outside linebacker than as a defensive end. He's kind of an ill fit for their new defense, and while he has still been able to get to the quarterback on occasion, he is not the every down pass rushing terror that he was at end. Rookie Brad Jones played for Kampman when Kampman missed the game against the Cowboys a couple of weeks ago and he did well. It wouldn't be shocking to me if the Packers defense was actually better with Jones in the lineup. That's not to disparage Kampman in any way, who is a far better player than Jones. It's just that Jones might fit the new scheme better. Of course, it's also possible - hell, incredibly likely - that I am just talking out of my ass here. It wouldn't be the first time, but what the hell, we are all gentlemen and lady gentlemen here and we can overlook such things from time to time.

The Al Harris loss is probably a tad more significant. This will probably only be the case if St. Calvin plays. If he doesn't, then it probably won't matter who the Packers have in the secondary because Daunte Culpepper and the rest of Detroit's shitty receivers will likely die in a firestorm of incompetence anyway.

Defensively, you know the drill by now. Even though the win against the Browns was awesome and magical and infused with the blood of a million fairies and the sperm of a leprechaun and all that goofy shit, the defense was still terrible. They couldn't stop the Browns, and the Browns are considered one of the worst offensive teams of ALL TIME. Yeah. That about sums it up.

Meanwhile, every time that Aaron Rodgers has played the Lions, he has rained down death from above, and with the members of Detroit's defense dropping like they were on the last leg of The Trail of Tears(I normally would have said Bataan Death March here, but it is Thanksgiving and I believe in remembering the trials and tribulations of our Indian brothers), it is exceedingly likely that Rodgers will have another career game.

I do expect the Lions front seven to fairly effectively shut down the Green Bay rushing attack but that means little when Greg Jennings, Donald Driver, Jermichael Finley, James Lofton, Sterling Sharpe, some fat guy with a cheese head on, and Robin Yount are running free down the field while Aaron Bart Favre Starr Rodgers drops passes gently into their hands all day long.

Yeah, it's probably going to be a long game, terrible and ugly, and when it is done, millions of people around the country will turn off the TV, shake their heads and think "same old Lions." That is immensely frustrating given the situation, but what the hell, to everyone else the Lions will always be a joke, an easy punchline fired off by lazy assholes and stupid degenerates, and really, we cannot concern ourselves with such nonsense. It is not easy being a Lions fan, and sometimes Thanksgiving makes it that much harder. But it's also awesome, a point of pride for all Lions fans, and what little we have to be proud of we must grab and squeeze tight. I love watching the Lions on Thanksgiving. That may be because I am a glutton for punishment and quite possibly mildly insane, but to hell with all that, it is a strange world and to survive sometimes you must be a strange man.

FIVE PREDICTIONS

1. Daunte Culpepper starts and throws for 205 yards on 18-37 passing. He throws one touchdown, does his stupid dance and then throws three interceptions. Charles Woodson takes one back for a touchdown and Daunte is donated by the state of Michigan to the people of Minnesota who have him bronzed and then dumped into one of their billions of lakes.

2. Kevin Smith gets plenty of work but is largely ineffective, rushing for 80 yards on 25 carries. Throughout the game, the announcers will talk about how the Lions think he is something special.

3. Calvin Johnson plays but doesn't find a rhythm with Culpepper. He catches just 3 passes for 32 yards and then has flashbacks to his days at Georgia Tech with Reggie Ball, which causes him to break down in tears on the sideline. He may be the model for Superman and Dr. Manhattan, but deep down, he is also just a man, and he has feelings too you jackals.

4. Aaron Rodgers throws for 1,485 yards and 5 touchdowns. He then calls his senator and tries to get legislation passed that would allow him to play the Lions every week. It passes the house but is filibustered in the Senate by Carl Levin, who is always looking out for us.

5. Jay Leno makes a joke about the Lions being a bunch of turkeys and is showered with granny panties and dentures. Still trying to compete with David Letterman, he allows a sex tape of him with his harem of 70 year old Iowa housewives to be leaked. When asked what this has to do with football, I shrug and say fuck if I know.

PREDICTED FINAL SCORE: Packers 31, Lions 17

What Is This Strange Emotion?

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Sportsgasm

Things like that don't happen to the Detroit Lions. They don't get those kinds of breaks. They don't win on last second miracles. They don't have the kind of leadership, the kind of quarterback, to keep clawing away long after they have been beaten and left for dead, their shoulders ripped apart and their hopes shattered. They don't get their Hail Mary's answered and they don't get to celebrate wildly at the ends of games while their fans jump up and down, high five complete strangers and scream idiot gibberish at the television, speaking in some wild tongue born out of both shock and joy. These things do not happen. Not to the Lions, not to us.

They did today. No matter what happened yesterday and no matter what happens tomorrow, they did today.

I might post something else later. I might not. For right now, I just want to smile like a retard.

They'll Win. They Have To . . . Right?

I am a hypercompetitive son of a bitch. It doesn't matter what I'm doing, I want to win. I would probably bean a six year old in a family softball game if I thought it gave my side the best chance to win. It is terrible but it is just the way it is. So you can imagine what being a fan of the Lions is like.

This week, the Lions play the Browns and I am excited because the Browns are fucking terrible. Now, a lot of people would get all high and mighty here and start yammering on about how it doesn't mean anything to beat a terrible team, blah blah blah, but fuck all that dumb noise. I would cheer and celebrate like a jackass if the Lions wailed on a team of legless half-retarded midgets. It wouldn't be pretty and you would find the whole ordeal reprehensible, but these are savage times and we cannot afford to be merciful to the weak and the stupid.

Of course, no one has been weaker or more stupid than the Lions have been for the last decade, so no one really has any reason to complain if we bash those waterbrained skulls in on Sunday. If the Browns are a team of legless half-retarded midgets, then the Lions are a team of armless, legless, fully retarded midgets. There is no honor here, no glory, just a bunch of shameful slap fighting that will end probably being embarrassing for both sides. But to hell with all that, somebody must win and we cannot afford to revel in the world of the prideful, because we are shorn of pride and bereft of dignity. We are in the muck, and we must drown everyone else stuck down here with us. It is horrible, it is vaguely obscene, but who cares? These are the things that we must do to slowly crawl out onto dry land.

We had one opportunity already, against the shittastic Rams, and we completely fucked that up, so this game isn't exactly a gimme. There will be all sorts of jokes about this being the Shitbowl or whatever, but this is what we are left with and we must drown our opponent in the toilet and suffocate him in the shit water or else he will do the same to us. It is ugly and it is wrong and it smells but we must be ruthless and terrible and without mercy.

The Lions have to win this game. There is no point in beating around that particular bush. If they lose, then it's 1-15 and a river of blood and tears. If they win, well . . . it's still pretty bad, but at least we won't be the shittiest team in the league. Progress! Furthermore, the Lions should win this game. I have only had one other opportunity to utter that sentence and the Lions fucked that game up, so who knows? Still, I would like to think that the word favored means something here.

The Browns are an atrocious team, just an abomination of a franchise with the stink of the circus all over them. They are this year's Lions, a franchise on the verge of utter collapse, with a fanbase that has degenerated into a bunch of feral werewolves, howling for blood, and a coach who seems completely overwhelmed by the whole debacle. It's a terrible scene, one that's impossible to escape from. It's a cyclone of failure that just sucks everyone inside and doesn't let them out until they are a thousand miles away from where they started and everyone's homes and cars are destroyed, their cows are mutilated and impaled on fence posts and there are gibbering lunatics crawling through the streets, naked and afraid, bleeding and bleating. The only humane, merciful thing you can do is put your boot on their already fractured skulls and stomp down as hard as you can. It is terrible and it is haunting, but, man, that is just not a place you want to be.

Who knows when that moment will come for the Browns? Some stranger will come along and put the final bullet or boot in their brain and then everyone can start to rebuild. It's probably a ways off still. Right now, they are still stuck somewhere in the middle of that horrible cyclone, and they don't know when they will be violently deposited into the street to be mercy killed. The only thing the Lions can do is to put their head down, dive into the cyclone, slap the Browns around a bit and get the fuck out.

The Lions have been there before. They know. They get it. There are some people in this world who would think that would inspire mercy and understanding. That is all bullshit. If anything, it should inspire righteous anger. Fuck the Browns for being there to remind us all of what went on last year. No one needs to remember that shit so vividly. The Lions should be enraged by having to confront the circus one more time. I hope they have it in them to burn all the tents down and lynch all the clowns. Shoot the ringmaster and pistol whip the elephants. This is not the time for mercy. This is the time to strike back at the fear and the terror that we all remember from last season. And after you're done, steal the clown car and speed the fuck out of there.

Things are so bad in Cleveland right now that Eric Mangini, the genius behind all this madness, has openly appealed for LeBron James to join the team. How fucking ridiculous is that? Why not get Shaquille O'Neal to play left tackle while you're at it? He's 900 pounds. He'll protect the shit out of your quarterback. And hell, you need a quarterback too. Call the Indians, see if they have a pitcher available. At least they'll have a good arm.

Good Lord. The only thing the Browns have going for them offensively is Joshua Cribbs and his neck is all fucked up and he hasn't been able to practice this week. Well, so much for that, I suppose. They are also struggling with injury along the offensive line, as tackle John St. Clair is questionable with a bum shoulder. That wouldn't be a huge issue if it wasn't for the fact that the Browns HAVE NO BACKUP TACKLES. I mean, holy shit, really? How do you get yourself in that position? Shit, maybe they will call Shaq after all.

Of course, they still have the golden arm of Brady Quinn to lean on. Wait, that's not gold, his arm is just covered in piss. My mistake. Quinn is just awful but it's not like they can replace him. They tried that shit already and it led to Derek Anderson being somehow EVEN WORSE. GOOD LORD! What a shit storm. Things are so bad that Eric Steinbach was forced to bust out the I'M NOT WORRIED AFTER ALL WE'RE ALL PROFESSIONALS sound bite, which is code for THIS THING IS FUCKED AND NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING. Remember, Lions fans have extreme experience with these sorts of things. We are professional losers, after all.

Defensively, the Browns aren't quite as hapless, but they could give up 45 points a game and that would still be the case. They've only held opponents to under 20 points twice all season. The first time was against Buffalo, whose offense is the only one on the planet almost as bad as Cleveland's. The second time was against Baltimore just this past Monday night. They only gave up 16 points, but it was enough to make them lose by 16 points. Not good.

Our old friend Shaun Rogers should be able to clog the middle and keep Kevin Smith from running wild - if he gives a fuck anyway. That's not always the case with Rogers as we all know and not so fondly remember. Meanwhile, Matthew Stafford should be able to throw the ball on Cleveland's defense, and Calvin Johnson has a definite advantage over cornerback Eric Wright.

This game will be ugly as fuck and everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves. But someone has to win, and it might as well be the Lions. Then again, the Lions were routed in the preseason by the Browns. Thankfully, as we have come to know and resent, the preseason is absolutely fucking meaningless. The Lions should win. Fuck it, I am saying they will win. If they lose, then MY GOD. It will be howling in the streets and Drano smoothies for everyone.

FIVE PREDICTIONS

1. Matthew Stafford will have a big game, throwing the ball 40 times, completing 28 passes for 300 yards and 3 touchdowns. He won't throw an interception for the second game in a row. After the game, Brady Quinn will charge him in a jealous rage, only to trip over his own feet. He will lay sobbing on the field while his own teammates ignore him.

2. Kevin Smith will have a middling day, rushing for 70 yards on 20 carries. His backups will have a slightly better day in terms of yards per carry and I will once again fret and moan about Smith as the feature back.

3. Calvin Johnson will have a huge game, catching 12 passes for 155 yards and two touchdowns. Bold? Crazy? Maybe both? Who cares? Who are any of you mere mortals to doubt St. Calvin? The dude can travel through time.

4. Brady Quinn will throw for 75 yards even against the terrible Lions secondary and after picking himself up off the field following his sobfest, he will be dumped into Lake Erie, causing the Browns to be fined for improperly disposing of toxic waste.

5. After the game, Eric Mangini will try desperately to convince Jim Brown to come out of retirement. Brown will slap Mangini around and Mangini will be forced to sign Maurice Clarett instead.

PREDICTED FINAL SCORE: Lions 31, Browns 10

Inane Observations and Stupid Gibberish

WAIT . . . HE MISSED IT?

I don't think most Lions fans realize how ridiculously spoiled they are to have someone like Jason Hanson as the kicker. He has been absurdly good throughout his career and even at the age of 168, he managed to have an all-time great season last year when the rest of the world was burning. Seriously, he was 8-8 on field goals longer than 50 yards, an NFL record, and he only missed one field goal all year, and that one was blocked. So, every kick he managed to get off was good. That's remarkable for a man whose primary meal staples are probably apple sauce and Metamucil.

Hanson hasn't been quite as good this year, missing three kicks, and every time he has missed it has produced the same reaction, from the fans to Hanson himself: "What the fuck?" That shit just isn't supposed to happen. The worst part is when they show Jim Schwartz immediately after and he is standing on the sideline with that cliched "Fucking kickers" look that every coach has. Normally, everyone would agree and be all "Yeah, fuck that bum," but this is Jason Hanson, man. Everyone loves Hanson. He is the village elder who has been through all the plagues and all the wars. He has seen things. If anything, he should look at the rest of the team with that disgusted grimace and scream FUCKING LIONS. He is beyond criticism.

IT HELPS TO CATCH THE BALL

Matthew Stafford is a rookie. Matthew Stafford also has a ridiculously strong arm. Matthew Stafford needs his receivers to help him out by catching the ball. His receivers can't catch the ball because they A.) Don't have a decent sense of timing developed with Stafford yet. B.)Can't handle a ball thrown a billion miles per hour. C.)They suck. D.)All of the above.

It is endlessly frustrating to see Matthew Stafford try to get into a rhythm, make the right reads, and then watch time and time again as his receivers fuck everything up. There was one play against the Vikings, when the Lions were driving for a touchdown, when Stafford came under heavy pressure, managed to scramble away and then threw an absolute rocket to a spot where only his receiver could catch the ball. The receiver dropped it. It was a brilliant play and a brilliant pass by Stafford. Sure, the ball was tailing out of bounds and it would have required a decent catch, but that was literally the only place where he could throw it that would give the receiver a chance. It was a perfect throw. Some people don't understand this and think that it was inaccurate, but that was a clear cut example of Stafford making a play that most other dudes can't make. From the presence in the pocket to avoid a sack, to the athleticism needed to scramble out of the pocket, to the absolute strike to a tiny, tiny target while throwing on the run, the play amply demonstrated why Stafford was the number one overall pick.

Unfortunately, the pass was dropped. Stafford is a lot like, wait for it . . . yes, Brett Favre, in that his passes will break fingers and take dudes by surprise. That, along with the timing issue, should resolve itself once Stafford and his receivers get used to one another. And as the talent level aside from St. Calvin increases at the receiver position, you'll see those sorts of passes being completed with regularity.

YOU SHOULD, UH, PROBABLY GO FOR IT THERE

A lot of people probably won't agree with me, but what the hell, these are savage times and we can't always be friends. Anyway, there was a point early in the fourth quarter when the Lions were down 24-10 and had a 4th and 6 near their own 40. They lined up to punt, and yeah, good call, but then a Viking jumped offsides(yeah, it was an actual Viking, he had an axe and everything . . . I . . . I'm sorry, that was awful). That made it 4th and 1. Hmmm. Sure, there was quite a bit of time left, but the Lions were down by two scores in the 4th quarter, the ball was basically at midfield, and they really needed to score to stay in a game that they really didn't have any right to be in. They should have gone for it, but Jim Schwartz elected to punt, the Vikings kicked a field goal and the game was effectively over.

It seems fairly obvious to me that Jim Schwartz is the type of coach who wants to have an ass-kicking defense and an offense that can make enough plays to get the job done. After all, he was weaned under Jeff Fisher, so you can understand that his end-goal is to get the Lions looking like the most successful of those Titans teams. It's not a bad vision to have. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a good, or even mildly decent, defense, and he can't really afford to play it so conservatively. This has bugged me on several occasions this season already. I have not been a fan of how the Lions have managed the clock on drives near the end of the first half a couple of times, and their lack of aggressiveness in general has been a disappointment.

The Lions don't have the talent that other teams do. They just don't, and when that's the case, you need to take advantage of every opportunity that you get to get something done. You need to push for the endzone instead of settling for a field goal at the end of a half, you need to go for it on 4th and 1 a little more than you normally would, you need to take advantage of the little opportunities that you get throughout the game. It's really the only way to subvert the talent deficiency the Lions face every week.

Okay, yeah, I understand that Jim Schwartz is who he is and he's going to coach this team the same way whether they are talentless or talent-rich. In a sense, that is commendable. It shows that he has faith in what he does, and hooray for that. But, remember, it's a slippery slope from that to "But he's a good man," Marinelli. And no one wants that shit again. At some point, a good coach has to recognize what he has and adjust accordingly. Otherwise, you just look stubborn and foolish.

I am mildly disappointed in Schwartz in general. I still think he's a good coach, but there have been a lot of frustrating little things like what I detailed above that have kind of taken the bloom off the rose a little bit. Perhaps this is because my expectations for Schwartz were a little too high - I mean, come on, of course they were. I along with everyone else was basically composing sonnets to the dude before he even coached a game. But, the thing is, is the reason why I was so excited was not because I thought he was a good solid football coach who believed in fundamentals, but because he seemed like the sort of dude who understood the mathematics of football - chess master, Georgetown, blah blah blah - and would be the sort of dude who would understand that it's in your best interests to go for it on 4th and 1 from your own 40 down two scores in the fourth quarter. It's not so much that I am disappointed that Schwartz is too rigid in his philosophy but that this isn't his philosophy to begin with if that makes any sense. This is where I figured his other mentor, Bill Belichick, would have hopefully influenced him. And yeah, yeah, yeah, everyone is all over Belichick's ass for the call against the Colts, but really, the percentages actually say that it was the right call. And the thing is, is that the Lions were already down by two touchdowns. What did they really have to lose by going for it there?

WELL THIS IS AWKWARD

Anyone who has followed my gibberish at all here knows that I am a fan of Ernie Sims. Along with St. Calvin, he is the dude about whom I have written the most ridiculous and weird bullshit. Hell, I think I talk about his monkey more than I do just about any other player. That is why this is so awkward.

You see, Sims tore up his hamstring and is out for most of the rest of the season. This sucks because, well, because it's Ernie Sims and he is my dude. The thing is, is that his replacement, DeAndre Levy, is probably better than he is right now. It pains me to say that, but Sims just hasn't gotten his shit together. He's still an unguided missile that runs himself out of plays and out of position way too often. Meanwhile, Levy has arguably been the Lions best linebacker when he's been on the field. I am so conflicted. I mean, on the one hand, of course I am happy that the Lions finally found a steal in the middle of the draft. On the other hand, this is all coming at the expense of The Lizard King, Cinnabon Sims, and that shit makes me sad.

I mean, I lean on Sims a lot around here. I need his menagerie of wild beasts. I need his monkey. I don't know what I will do if I lose them. Perhaps my posts will get a little less weird, but that would be a sad day. When Ernie comes back, hopefully the team will do the right thing and keep him around. I don't know, move him to the other outside linebacker spot and make Julian Peterson a rush end. Hell, I am desperate here. Make him the fucking punter, I don't care. I NEED ERNIE SIMS AND I NEED HIS MONKEY. If Sims has to go, hire his monkey as a janitor. I don't give a fuck, these are desperate times and this is a loss we cannot afford. I go through a lot of shit as a fan of this team, at least give me this. I may be a robot, but I am an advanced model with feelings and I dream of electric monkeys. Please?