Really, Wrong Is Just Such An Ugly Word

You got your revenge this week, you evil son of a bitch, but I will not sleep until I have torn the beard right off your face and stomped on that stupid hat.

Good God, this week was ugly as hell on the ol’ predictions front. I feel like I am walking along in between trenches during World War I after a battle, surveying the damage. There are dudes hanging from barbed wire, goats with their legs blown off, and even a horse covered in blood running wild, his eyes wide like some deranged cokehead. The air is all smoky and I can hear someone whispering in German and OH LORD, what a fiasco.

Right. After a run of, uh, let’s call it mild competence, I have reverted back to form and once again, I am left with the undeniable truth that I should never, ever predict anything again. I think it’s because I shit talked Nostradamus last week. That motherfucker got his revenge. I don’t want to have to get in a prank war with Nostradamus’ ghost but I will put his hand in a bowl of warm water while he sleeps so that he pisses himself if it comes to that. So if you see me on the street, naked and running from an unseen monster, you’ll know that I’m just fleeing from the wrath of an old psychic ghost with piss all over the front of his pants. Either that, or I’ve been dabbling in PCP. Either way, I’m not proud, but it was something that had to be done.

Okay, Jesus, let’s just get to these infernal predictions.

PREDICTION THE FIRST: Hill will complete 22 of 36 passes for 235 yards. He'll throw 1 touchdown and 1 interception. He'll be effective enough that the crazy gibberish people have been throwing around about his starting even after Stafford comes back will continue. In a way, this is a good thing because it means that Hill has been good. On the other hand, that is fucking retarded. Stafford is the franchise. This isn't an Alex Smith situation.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: Well, Hill’s arm was eaten by rabid mutant termites that had developed a taste for human flesh. It was awful, and no doubt was the work of some ancient Nazi scientist who also happens to be a Giants fan. That son of a bitch. We fought a war so that this shit wouldn’t happen anymore. Remember when Hitler put Red Grange in Auschwitz after he fumbled, which caused Hitler to lose a bunch of money when the Bears didn’t cover the spread? That’s really why Red’s career ended in 1934 and was the initial flashpoint for what developed into World War II five years later. The poor Galloping Ghost was found emaciated, skeletal and at death’s door in 1945, nearly 11 years after he was abducted. A horrible thing, just terrible. But we beat those Nazi fuckers into dust in order to avenge poor Red, and so I don’t see why we have to just sit back while Shaun Hill is victimized in the same way.

But before all that happened, Hill was on his way to a decent game. He had completed 9 of 15 passes for 91 yards and 1 touchdown. They weren’t mind-boggling numbers or anything, but they were quietly efficient, mistake free and likely would have translated into something respectable looking by the end of the game. But he suffered at the hands of a 102 year old Nazi and we were forced to endure a second half of Drew Stanton and his Solid Grit Dancers.

Obviously, this was all part of some sort of complex plot by the Nazis to ensure that the Grit Merchant got his fair shot. After all, Hitler was a man who admired pluck, particularly if that pluck rested inside the heart of a man who was genetically engineered to one day provide the seed for Hitler’s clone. That’s right. What I’m saying here is that Drew Stanton will father the next Hitler. Now, I’m not calling the man a Nazi. That would be irresponsible of me. I’m just saying that a man can’t run from his destiny and sadly for Drew, his parents sold his destiny out to the Nazis in exchange for some priceless paintings taken from a Polish family in 1940. Now, I’m not sure whether the Stantons were struggling financially or whether Papa Stanton just had an affinity for fine art. That’s not for me to say and frankly it would be irresponsible of me to speculate. I am a man of deep integrity, after all. Unlike the Stantons.

But that is all a long way off and the rise of Baby Hitler Stanton is something our grandchildren will have to deal with. For now, we are just stuck with Drew Stanton occasionally pooping his pants on the football field. Frankly, I’m not sure which is worse.

For the game, Stanton’s numbers weren’t horrible – 19-34 for 222 yards, 1 touchdown and 1 interception to go with one costly fumble, but they weren’t great either. His throws were routinely frustratingly inaccurate – the final throw, which was high and bounced off the hands of Brandon Pettigrew, was the ultimate example of this – and a lot of that yardage came on the one big play by Calvin Johnson, where Calvin snagged the ball away from double coverage and loped towards the endzone. It was a dangerous throw and Stanton was lucky it wasn’t picked off. I know I’m being overly harsh here, but damn it, I just do not think the dude is a good quarterback. He has no arm, he thinks he’s better than he is and that is a lethal combination – lethal to the team he plays for.

But he did grit his way to some numbers that are at least barely functional, even if the way they were accumulated was incredibly ugly, and I suppose I should give him some credit. But really, that’s the summation of everything that is Drew Stanton as a quarterback – ugly and barely functional. Sometimes the dude will make a play that will surprise you. Sometimes he’ll manage to break away and grit his way down the field. Hey, that’s cool. But then Ol’ Plucky will throw a ball high, it will be intercepted and that will be the game.

So admire Stanton’s pluck, admire the grit, admire the way he Ecksteins himself into your heart, but just know that at the end of the day, he will kill you, because he has been hardwired by Nazis to do so.

Together, Hill and Stanton combined for 28 completions on 49 passes for 313 yards, 2 touchdowns and 1 costly interception. That is a bit more than what I expected, but the Lions virtually abandoned the run and just threw the hell out of the ball because they had no other choice. It’s just a shame that the dude they had throwing the ball for much of that time can’t actually, you know, throw a ball.

PREDICTION THE SECOND: Best will run for 110 yards on 22 carries and 2 touchdowns when the Giants overplay the pass.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: Ha ha ha ha!

Jesus. Okay, so I have probably never been more wrong about one of these damn things than I was about this one. Best ended up rushing for 16 yards – 16! – on 12 carries. He never scored and never got even close to getting on track.

Perhaps this was also the work of evil Nazis, but I suspect that it was more likely the doing of a kickass Giants defensive line, coupled with linebackers and safeties who know how to do their job. Shocking how that works, isn’t it? Really, what the Giants do is kind of unique, as they aren’t afraid to play three safeties at once. When they do, they take Deon Grant and move him up to the line of scrimmage to act as an extra linebacker. The Lions couldn’t really deal with this and the running game was virtually nonexistent all day long.

It’s a damn miracle that the Lions had a real shot at tying that game up in the final minute with a third string grit merchant and a running back who had averaged only 1.3 yards per carry on the day. But, like I have said all along, much of Best’s value – at least right now – comes just from his presence. You have to focus on him. If you don’t, he’ll kill you with his speed. That means that the rest of the field gets opened up for the Lions passing game which has been pretty effective so far this season even though the team has had to trot out backups and grit merchants. This is due in large part because teams can’t attack the Lions quarterback, whoever he is. They have to account for Best at all times.

This is what a strong run game will do for you. The odd thing is that the Lions don’t have a strong run game – at least not yet – but they do have the threat of a strong run game, which really, works just as well in terms of making the defense vulnerable to the pass. It’s an odd situation. Right now, Best is essentially just a pawn – a pawn that can occasionally morph into a knight and take the king – in Jim Schwartz’s chess match. He’s only averaging just north of three yards per carry, but teams have to treat him as a dude who is capable of averaging five yards per carry. It’s the illusion of a run game that the Lions have used so effectively so far this season more than an actual run game. That will come and when it does, it will make this offense even better. But for now, Best just being there is enough to allow the Lions to move the ball, even if he isn’t the one doing the moving.

PREDICTION THE THIRD: Calvin Johnson will play but he'll be largely ineffective due to his injury. He'll be double teamed into oblivion which should still open the field up for the Lions other receivers. He'll catch 2 passes for 36 yards.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: Oh, St. Calvin, return to the loving bosom of thy humble servants. Yes, it’s true, St. Calvin is back, fighting through an injury that wouldn’t let him raise his arm above his head all week long to catch 5 passes for 146 yards and 1 electric touchdown. I am so happy that I was so, so wrong.

When you take into account Calvin’s injury – and really, the dude couldn’t even put on a tee-shirt without trouble because his shoulder was so fucked up – and the fact that he was playing with a third string quarterback whose chief talents lie in grit farming rather than in throwing the ball, St. Calvin’s numbers look incredible. He really was the ultimate weapon, the Calvin Bomb, who kept us in the game even though we were down to grit and a prayer.

Really, in that game, us having Calvin was like some third world shithole having the bomb. Sure, all their people are eating their own poop and someone was just chased out of their home by a hyena with a machete, but damn it, they can play with the big boys because they can haul that bomb out, slam it on the table and say “What now, motherfuckers? What now?” And the big boys have to listen because they know that those dudes are nuts and they’ve got nothing to lose. Their country already is all bombed out. They don’t give a fuck if you retaliate.

And that’s what Calvin Johnson – St. Calvin – means to us. He is our ultimate trump card, the one thing that we can slam on the table and scare the shit out of the Patriots or the Colts or the Packers. They have a lot of bombs, but we have one, and he is perfect and he will blow the whole world up if we play it just right. On Sunday, that weapon went off and the Giants were left dazed and confused and even though they ended up beating us – after all, aside from the bomb, we just have knives made from the bones of our dead and our own rancid disease to use as weapons while they still have tanks and machine guns and shotguns and bazookas and ninjas with flamethrowers – but for a moment, they were frightened, and we were allowed to believe and that’s all thanks to the weapon that is St. Calvin. (Man, this post has been war-centric as hell. No, I don’t know why. I’m kind of frightened by it. Right now, all I can think of is poor CJ, who mentioned in a comment how offensive it was when people compare football to war. Oops. Uh . . . sorry, CJ.)

PREDICTION THE FOURTH: Eli Manning will complete 28 of 40 passes for 310 yards, 2 touchdowns and 2 interceptions. These interceptions will be critical and will prove to be difference makers.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: Well, Manning completed 20 of 30 passes for 177 yards and 2 touchdowns. He never threw an interception, though, and largely played mistake free football, which ended up being the difference in the game.

But really, 177 yards! That’s a damn near miracle for our secondary, isn’t it? It’s the third straight week that those dudes played better than I expected them to. Against the Packers, they gave up too many big plays but also made some big plays of their own. Against the Rams, they limited the yardage and made big plays. In this game, they limited the yardage but never made a big play of their own.

What we see there is the evolution of a secondary – led by Alphonso Smith, who stifled Hakeem Nicks the week after his pick six against the Rams – and even though they failed to come away with the big play against Manning, they also never let him make the big play and if a couple of dudes wouldn’t have misbehaved and gotten killer penalties, we’d be talking about how the Giants were never able to get on track against the Lions defense. This is due, in large part, to the play of the much maligned secondary.

It is to the point where I am starting to gain legitimate confidence in these dudes’ ability to at least play well enough so that they are not a liability. They aren’t good yet – not really – but they haven’t been terrible either, which is damn near a miracle. Alphonso Smith in particular looks like he could develop into a legitimate NFL starting cornerback, a dude who we can add to the core of our team as we complete this rebuilding process. And we got him for a fourth string tight end. Jesus. That trade could end up being one of the defining moves by Mayhew, Schwartz and company.

And if this group can play like they did against the Rams – and they have shown that they can both make plays against a legit quarterback (Aaron Rodgers) and keep a legitimate quarterback (Eli Manning) from making big plays of his own – they can actually be an asset, something that I never even imagined possible coming into the season. The outline is now there for a functional secondary, and that, as much as anything else, has me feeling good and excited to see what happens the rest of the season.

PREDICTION THE FIFTH: Ahmad Bradshaw will have one big run, but for the most part he'll be shut down. He'll end up with 75 yards on 16 carries with 1 touchdown and after the game he'll be turned into a goat by The Great Willie Young's old friend, Wu Pei.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: Bradshaw ran for 133 yards on 19 carries. He didn’t score, but that was only because the Giants let Brandon Jacobs hammer his way into the end zone instead.

I knew this prediction was probably bad even while I was making it. After all, the Lions were coming at Bradshaw with Ashlee Palmer at middle linebacker and a hope and a prayer behind him so it made sense that the Giants would just run the ball until the Lions fell to their knees and begged for mercy, but sometimes you just have to embrace hope, no matter how irrational and that’s what I did.

The thing is, is that Bradshaw really only did have the one big run – the one that was pretty much the backbreaker late in the fourth – but the Lions didn’t exactly shut him down either, as he had a lot of runs that went from 10-15 yards. It wasn’t a good day for the Lions run defense and I blame that mostly on the play of the linebackers. I mean, Ashlee Palmer. Come on. And then Zack Follett was struck down by Zeus and we were left with Ashlee Palmer and Vinny Ciurciu at two of our three linebacker spots. Fuck that. Of course the Giants were able to run the ball.

Sadly, Bradshaw was never turned into a goat as Wu Pei got stuck in traffic and then got bored and rerouted himself to a Chinese massage parlor where he learned from a “massage therapist” named Li Gong Xi how to “tame the dragon.” He was spotted crawling out of the parlor hours later on his hands and knees, a smile on his face and an IV drip in his arm. He did turn his cab driver into a pig, though, which caused a minor incident involving an offended Hasidic Jew who refused to accept a ride from swine, but that is immaterial to the point here and if I am known for anything, it is staying on point.