Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Settle Down! Part 2



This whole Ndamukong Suh thing has gotten so out of hand (I originally wrote "Suh out of hand" which made me contemplate killing myself) that I'm pretty sure that when he finally lands at the airport he will be met by a gang of assholes carrying pitchforks and torches. It's been unbelievable to watch fans just relentlessly bitch the dude out on twitter, leading to a hailstorm of stupidity that has pelted and scarred us all. Indeed, this will always linger like a stale fart over the career of Ndamukong Suh.

There are those who blame Suh and his agents, who are being painted as reptilian Nazis with lies for tongues and malice for souls, and yeah, they need to get that son of a bitch in camp. But, man . . . this whole thing has been magnified to such a ridiculous extent thanks to that bastard twitter, which has erased all the lines that used to exist between fans and players. And I'm now just realizing that those lines existed for a reason. People are fucking crazy. They'll say anything. They just don't give a shit. A guy holds out for two days and pretty soon people are sending him messages telling him he is a lying piece of shit. It's amazing. I mean, would you just walk up to the dude on the street and be all HEY FUCK YOU LIAR YOU'RE A PIECE OF SHIT. Probably not. And if you did, I'm guessing you'd probably have to have some good shoes and have to stretch really well beforehand.

Of course, because Suh and his family are not robots but real, live human beings (Yeah, I know . . . shocking!), they have not just stood there like the guards outside of Buckingham Palace and taken the abuse. No, both Suh and his sister have taken to beating off (uh . . .) the marauding twitter hordes, treating Lions fans like the crazed rampaging zombies they've been acting like throughout this whole goddamn fiasco.

I mean, really, can we get at least some sense of rationality in here? I know that we are Lions fans and we have been turned into crazed beasts by the years of unfathomable pain, but come on, we are still gentlemen and lady gentlemen and we don't need to resort to this kind of shit. The issue has gone so far beyond who's wrong and who's right and become a matter of acting like fucking human beings. Are you pissed because Suh isn't signed and in camp? Cool. That's fine. A big part of me agrees with you. But shit, let's just try and keep that in perspective, you know? It's not like the dude is breaking into our homes and eating our first born, and then shitting on our living room carpets. There's no need to be rounding up the posse and loading the guns.

It's distressing as all hell that it has come to this. I mean, Goddamn, people are angry! Sometimes, it's stunning when you realize what a bunch of angry jackoffs human beings really are. We all walk around like some psychotic powder keg, just searching for any sort of perceived slight that can allow us to channel our fury in a storm of righteousness. Most people hide this shit in their day to day lives. But not on the Internet. Oh no. Here, everyone is Dirty fucking Harry. It's unreal. But we all have known that for a long time. Message boards have long been full of dudes constantly screaming UNACCEPTABLE and threatening to castrate anyone with a differing opinion. But now, they can actually directly communicate with the objects of their great scorn and derision, which just leads to a cacophony of dumb rage that just swirls and swirls and swirls, building until you reach a point where the whole thing becomes utterly absurd. I mean, come on, there are scores of dudes viciously fighting with Suh's sister. Has it come to this? Really?

Look, you know things have gotten out of hand when I am the one trying to be the voice of reason and preaching civility. Think about that shit for a moment. Just think about it and then bow your head in shame. Christ.

Be pissed off all you want. Be angry at Suh, be angry at his agents, be angry with the Lions, but shit, try to act like a human being, you know? After all, these are strange and terrible times, full of vile ugliness and tortured pain and we cannot afford to become wretched cannibals, gnawing on one another's bones and whipping each other with chains made of fear and hatred. We will just destroy ourselves to satisfy our base instincts, like dumb animals in heat. We are better than that. For fuck's sake, let's get our shit together before this gets utterly out of hand.

12 comments:

UpHere said...

So far, you've pissed off Michael Jackson fans, cyclists and Christians of all stripes but this could be your most dangerous ploy yet. Ever suggest to an alcoholic that they maybe not order another six Heinekens for the ride home? They pretty much rip your face off. Same concept here - Internet crazy people dont like it when their (carefully incubated by like-minded morons) craziness is mentioned in public. Luckily, only a small percentage of them leave their parents' basement, so you got that going for you.

Also, this is exactly what happens when you don't let kids punch each other in the face during recess.

Neil said...

I will hire Willie Young as a bodyguard. Problem solved.

UpHere said...

They cut him already?

Neil said...

He is Willie Young. He only needs to show up on Sundays to dominate and then he can spend the rest of the time watching over my dumb ass. Never doubt the power of Big Willie.

Also, I will be heartbroken if (sigh . . . when) they do cut him. He is crucial to my plans for this season.

Eric said...

THANK YOU~!! I LITERALLY COULD NOT HAVE SAID IT BETTER MYSELF!!!!!

The Baron said...

And it is finally Morning in Detroit, after Suh's long and treacherous fifteen-minute holdout.

Neil said...

"A lot of lives were lost, a lot of brave men and women made asses out of themselves, and in those fifteen minutes we were all debased just a little bit."

- Inscription on the Ndamukong Suh Holdout Memorial Statue erected outside of Ford Field.

Neil said...

"THANK YOU~!! I LITERALLY COULD NOT HAVE SAID IT BETTER MYSELF!!!!!"

No problem. I felt like it needed to be said. And thank you, Eric, for reading.

witless chum said...

I've never read anything on the Internet I agreed with to a greater extent than this here blog post and its prequel.

Except maybe some of those lolcats things.

JoshSun said...

There were so many things conspiring against Suh in this situation the only way he could have been safe would have been to be in camp on time.

1) He said he was not worried about money, just football.
2) He said he will be in camp on time.
3) His agents came out initially with an obscene contract starting point.
4) People in Michigan are struggling to pay bills and have money left for food.
5) The recession hit Michigan long before it his the rest of the country.
6) he and his agents finally "settled" for 1/3 a million less in guaranteed money per year than Bradford, a QB, received.

Personally, I heard about what Suh's sister was saying and frankly thought her commenting was a terrible idea. Yes, her brother was being called out as greedy and a liar but commenting only opened herself as a target.

Quoting the Bible, on Suh's part, was also a terrible idea. Quote after quote in said book can be found about greed and what happens to those that fall prey to it.

Bottom line, people went way too far. So I agree with your post for the most part. That said, I was and still am upset at the situation. The Lions folded and gave him way too much money. His numbers should have been much closer to McCoys than Bradfords on position value alone.

The final results of the contract only reinforce what had me so upset all along. He promised things he refused to make happen and is clearly more interested in money than football.

Neil said...

I'm just glad that he's in camp now, but I'm afraid that people will never love him quite like they could have and he'll never love the fans quite like he could have. I'm not sure who I blame because of that. Maybe everybody, but then again, maybe nobody. This is really the first time when the walls between a player and the fans have been utterly torn down and the consequences were disastrous. In the future, players, fans, agents, etc. will account for the mushroom cloud effect that twitter and all that has on these sorts of things, making this case unique in the scope of the ugliness in relation to the actual events.

I mean, for God's sake, the dude only held out for, what, five days? And in that time he somehow was subject to more acrimony than Michael Crabtree was last year and he held out until OCTOBER.

Are all the things you said true? Yeah, for the most part. But should they necessarily cause the sort of nuclear standoff intensity that accompanied this whole debacle? I just think that everything needed to be - and still needs to be - kept in perspective.

Remember, it was five days. That's it. I can see being annoyed with the situation, but the vilification of Suh just seems so over the top given that fact.

Neil said...

"I've never read anything on the Internet I agreed with to a greater extent than this here blog post and its prequel.

Except maybe some of those lolcats things."

Maybe I should have accompanied the posts with a picture of a cat saying something like I CAN HAZ 40 MILLION? Perhaps that would have instantly soothed all of the savage feelings.

Also, thanks for reading and for your feedback, mr. chum.