NFL 2012 Week 18 NFLuminati Index - the Wild Card

I have decided for the remainder of this season, or at least the next two weeks, to return to the traditional NFLuminati Index posts, as I don’t give a fuck to recap the successes and failures of every team right now. So this week we do the old school eight-team listings of teams who are playing this upcoming weekend, with all sorts of pertinent details and wonderful gibberish, as you should be accustomed to by now…

#1: HOUSTON TEXANS (12-4; 2nd overall, same as last week) – Yes, the Texans still sit in the 2nd position in the overall listing, despite the late season crumble. Here’s the thing: the NFL is good at setting up illusions going into the playoffs, and then those illusions are dispelled come January. Nothing for the Texans has changed since what I wrote a few weeks ago about how they own their home and try to steal the road. This weekend, just like last year, they have a chance to own their home in a playoff game. As shaky as they’ve seemed, that shouldn’t be a problem. The problem is this is not uncharted territory, as it’s exactly what happened last year. Next week, when they go to New England, that’s when they try to stake a claim at being an improved team capable of more than being a upper-mid-level success story for the playoff’s early rounds.
And actually, Matt Schaub and the Texans along with Matt Ryan with the Falcons are going to be going through very similarly scrutinized performances in the coming weeks. Both QBs and teams have shown promise, and delivered big in the regular season Ws column, but have yet to translate that into the post-season. (Don’t forget that Schaub was injured during last season’s playoff time for the Texans.) Neither team, even after a season of success, is really rolling into the playoffs light from the internal emotional pressure of living up to their own hype. That shit gets heavy in the post-season, and don’t think it’s not going to be tap-dancing all throughout Matt Schaub’s brain. The best thing for the Texans is for the Galloping Vegan Arian “Pride” Foster to run roughshod on the Cincinnati Samoans’ defense, to keep the brain tap-dancing to a quiet minimum.

#2: GREEN BAY PACKERS (11-5; 4th overall, same as last week) – Okay, my apologies, everything to this point was written previously yesterday when I don’t know, I was in a bad place where I was actually trying. Fuck trying. I have been thinking about smashmouth football and sabremetrics and shit like that overnight, because stuffing a ball down somebody’s face is very primal and basic and like crushing the spirit of others, and yet can’t be quantified really. How do you sabremetric spirit levels? But the whole concept of the West Coast offense is to slightly replace the running game, which is considered short yardage, with short passes that spread the defense out. But the concept of the running game is it gets defenses leaning in to the line so then you can go deep for the kill shot. West Coast offense is more of a constant spreading side-to-side, and less primal, in my opinion. This is why I have decided I hate the Green Bay Packers, because Aaron Rodgers does that shit more than anybody, throwing to 19 guys, no actual RB on their roster for the past five years. Fuck that. Football is about crushing the spirit of the other guy, and about getting concussions, and about dying an early death but with a memory-speckled brain that kinda remembers how awesome it all was. Football is a shitty midwestern townsfolks’ blowing off steam from the shitty routine and ultimately soul-crushing life of the local factory. Football is rusty machines and kielbasa sausages made by old white women who believe in European voodoo gods. Green Bay is not even a for-real city; it is a throwback to football teams in places like Dayton and Canton and Rockford and shitholes of today like that. If there is one place that should embrace for-real football, it should be Green Bay. Instead it is what it is, which is an abomination against the Football Gods, and a treacherous display against what it means to be American. Not bullshit politicians talking God, Guns, and Freedom America, but the for-real dirt dogs along every shitty street in every shitty city and town that exists America, where we do whatever the fuck we have to do because what the fuck else are we gonna do? Shit man, there is only survival; everything else is gay.

#3: SEATTLE SEAHAWKS (11-5; 6th overall, up one from last week) – I will be very honest as a Redskins fan, I am almost certain this football game is somehow related to the Idle No More movement, and that Beast Mode is not so much Marshawn Lynch on his own but him channeling through the power of the Seahawks tribal logo. Anyone who knows me knows lime green has been a power color for my Rojonekku styles for, well for ever. It seems no coincidence to me that the Seahawks more prominently display lime green and they become a more powerful overwhelming force. So although I really am stoked for my Redskins (and afraid to write separate articles about them here, because what if their success is due to me not writing about them? Have you thought about that?), I also am partially convinced that the psychic karma I’ve mentioned many times over the Redskins name and racialist history is going to be avenged psychically by the Seahawks, perhaps in horrible fashion. Perhaps in QB-crippling fashion. I really hate to say these things but nothing the Redskins have done, especially under George Preston Marshall, as well as Dan Snyder, who has switched racialism into classism and was offering a commemorative silver coin 20 minutes after last week’s Sunday night game, has worked to correct the mistakes made. And you don’t make complete reparations or any shit like that, but you do acknowledge wrongdoing. My previous suggestions that native shaman take over FedEx Field and channel peyote vines was overlooked. That is going to come back to haunt this weekend. And shit man, I’d love nothing more than to try and convince myself the Skins can win it, then win in Atlanta, and somehow make it to the NFC Championship game where fuck it they could get lucky and win that I guess. But there are strong psychic forces at play here. No matter how much men try to change the frequencies of the Earth through cybernetics and wireless robotics and electromagnetic tomfoolery, the Earth has its own fractal geometric rhythm that is chaotic and perfect and beautiful and ultimately always triumphant. Always triumphant. No matter how “civilized” we claim to be, our psychic umbilical cord still goes down into the dirt, into the Earth. Marshawn Lynch is not so much Beast Mode as the channel through which Beast Mode currently flows. The Seahawks have dabbled into some strong organic energy that no amount of trick scheming by coordinators is going to stop. This is some Nikolai Tesla and Wilhelm Reich level shit going on. It pains me to say it, but that’s what it is.

#4: MINNESOTA VIKINGS (10-6; 8th overall, up two from last week) – The Vikings have had a hard upswing in the overall NFLuminati Index the past two weeks, with a road win against the #2 team, and then a home win against the #4 team. Adrian Peterson was only 9 yards short of Emily Dickinson’s single-season record for quatrains. But the main thing is Christian Ponder is not fucking up. At this point of the season, the key is to have a QB that does not fuck up. (See Atlanta Falcons.) The one flaw in Aaron Rodgers over-commercialized armor is he will fuck up. Sure, he’s not The Ol’ Gunslinger just flinging ‘em down the field for whoever. Rodgers is more of a precision fuck-up, where he has large incompletion amounts as opposed to a couple of big INTs. Actually I don’t really know that. I don’t look up statistics for dumb shit my brain thinks, because my brain is attuned to my gut, which has intuition based upon a millions years of existing as well as millions and millions of microflora kicking it inside of us all. This is why too much antibiotics is stupid, literally, because it makes you stupid. But I know that other than the one Super Bowl, Aaron Rodgers hasn’t done shit, other than be in a lot of commercials. Early exit after early exit. He is prone to this shit. He makes mistakes, or else Green Bay would’ve won three Super Bowls under him. He gets slobber-knocked. It is easy to say, “Whichever QB doesn’t fuck up will win,” because that’s the truth. And if All Day Adrian Bug-eyes is dashing fat chunks of yardage, then Ponder will have more space to not fuck up.
Speaking of Adrian Peterson, they are talking of having him return punts. Why? Why would you fuck with what got you here? You are here already. You don’t fuck with shit like that unless you are trying to get to the playoffs. Once you are there, don’t start mixing the chemistry different. Also Purple Jesus is not Adrian Peterson; it is DJ Screw. Stop saying otherwise, or the ghosts of codeine-slurred dead rappers will freestyle about rims just barely audibly at a slow speed in the background of your mind forever. Trust me.

#5: INDIANAPOLIS COLTS (11-5; 10th overall, up two from last week) – Usually in this space I make fun of the Colts, but I know a dude who has connections to Stanford football and thus is a big Andrew Luck fan. And I know that friend reads this column fairly regularly. But I have to ask you, unnamed friend, have you ever done speed in a shitty hotel room with shitty Indiana people in shitty Indiana towns before? Have you ever fallen in love with a beautiful young woman named Kaylee, who you know that’s exactly how you spell her name even though that’s a common white underclass princess name, because she had a homemade necklace with her name spelled out she wore? Did you meet her and her aunt at the karaoke in a run-down bar attached to an even more run-down hotel in Clarksville, and then spend time with them in their room along with her aunt’s man, who Kaylee also referred to as her step-daddy? Did you kind of figure Kaylee’s aunt was actually her mom most likely and not aunt, but you guys all partied, except Kaylee, who just smiled and hung out and occasionally would touch you on your hand and you’d feel everything that was so ugly inside of you turn okay? Did the step-daddy, who went by Lucky, but also was called Andrew by the aunt when she was pissed at him, talk to you constantly through a scruffle face and one half-chipped tooth about all the big plans he’d done in the past, and how each of the seven crudely tattooed horseshoes on his left forearm for each “criminal masterminding I done did”? And let me ask you this, unnamed friend, did Lucky try to steal your sock money while you were taking a shower being you hadn’t had one since the truck stop in Cincinnati a week earlier, and did a hazy altercation ensue, even though for the previous 32 hours it seemed like everything was cool with everybody, although tenuously, except for Kaylee, who was so sweet and pure? Oh man, that walk up to the package store for two more suitcases of Old Style, just you and her in the strange Indiana night around midnight. Did you carry both cases of beer and she joke and laugh that laugh of her’s, only for you guys to get back and Lucky to be raging after he and Kaylee’s aunt fought over something yet again, but the aunt left this time, probably back to the karaoke bar most likely, where that fake biker looking dude she was flirting with last night was probably at again? Did a guy named Andrew also called Lucky push Kaylee back against the door as she tried to calm everything down, and you flip out because shit man, how much abuse can you tolerate from some old ass redneck fucker? Apparently more, because did you get cut along the left shoulder with a busted double deuce Miller Genuine Draft bottle? And what the fuck man, why did Lucky think MGD was a good beer, like he was living the high life (no pun intended) in some shithole hotel room in Clarksville? Did the cops come get you both, and you had an outstanding warrant for failure to appear in Richmond court on something you didn’t even know about, so once the cops saw your broken bottle stab wounds weren’t that bad, you got sent off to the local jail, with nobody you knew to bail you out, nor anybody to care, except maybe Kaylee you wished? And there she was, standing reflected in the blue strobe lights of law enforcement, on the free side of the glass, looking at you with those unblemished eyes – such a pure soul stuck in such a foul hole… how long before it all ate her up and pissed all over that innocence? How did she even get this far with it intact? Was she an angel, if such things exist on this manmade hell of a planet we are forced to exist upon? And fucking Lucky, he was bailed out almost immediately, probably by Kaylee’s aunt, probably with your fucking sock money for traveling, and you just sat there on that concrete bench, glad you had already taken a shower back at the hotel because there seemed to be a lot of Mexican/Salvadoran gangsta wannabes with MS13 tattoos and shit in here, and you didn’t know the structure inside, or even outside in stupid fucking Indiana, so the more you could avoid the dark chaos of the showers, the better. Do you still have that scar on your left arm, in the half curve of part of a beer bottle, thick and puffy like a black fraternity scar, and does it always remind you of Indiana every time you see it, every day of your life? If so, then maybe you’d be a little rough on the Indianapolis Colts too.

#6: BALTIMORE RAVENS (10-6; 11th overall, down three from last week) – Ray Lewis is retiring, and all the sports media is like, “What a great career! What a great testament to the human spirit and pro football and blah blah blah.” You know what? Fuck Ray Lewis. Dude looks like a mongoloid and his dance is stupid. He’s supposed to be so motivational and shit like that. Frankly I’m kind of sick of the reformed gangster motivational Christ-soldier types in pro football. Reform that wack ass slide step in your dance you old caveman looking fucker.

#7: WASHINGTON REDSKINS (10-6; 13th overall, same as last week) – When this Redskins season started, I never anticipated the playoffs even as a possibility. I was high on RG3, sure, but the amount of picks given up for him was concerning, and even more so, the fact he was coming to the Redskins concerned me. Dan Snyder is a huge force of epic shittiness, and it was my fear that yes Robert Griffin III might be the best prospect to come out in a decade, but his goodness, at such a young and vulnerable age, would easily be overwhelmed by the immense darkness of Dan Snyder’s ways, which permeates everything Redskins, so much so that most of the fanbase reeks of cell phone store salesman douchiness at this point. And when they were 3-6, I was emailing my Redskins buddies, and we were wondering if they’d be able to win 5 games total. But RG3 is a far more powerful force than I realized, powered by his God worship (the kid says “prayerfully” instead of “hopefully” for fuck’s sake), as well as his incessant optimism. And shit got turned around. I put this heavily upon RG3’s psychological back, as his spirit was strong enough to at least stymie Dan Snyder’s overbearing spirit, for the time being. We will have an off-season and who knows what happens then, but for now, we are in the playoffs.
Here is the thing though: RG3 is not 100%. That was obvious last week. And yet he’s able to win games, and to motivate the team, including guys like Santana Moss who I’ve never really thought gave too much of a fuck about the idea of team. It’s been truly amazing to watch. But how long can it go? How strong is this guy’s spirit? And being he’s not a caveman spirit warrior like a Marshawn Lynch, but a Christ-fueled Spirit Warrior, how quickly will worldly sentiment turn against him? He’s on a lot of commercials, and likes God; that’s a one-two punch that will get most of our godless society hating on him right away. Shit, if he wasn’t on my team, I’d be dogging the hell out of the kid, mocking him left and right (see Andrew Luck). But that’s not the situation. He’s on my team, and we’re hosting a playoff game for the first time in forever, against the team that’s knocked us out of the playoffs the last two teams we made it in over the course of our meager recent history.
I don’t know man. I’m really stoked they made it this far, but like I said above, I fear First Nation Beast Mode energies may overwhelm the corporate Redskins. But then again maybe this young disciple of Christ, a more approachable and fun-loving and multi-cultural Tim Tebow, Robert Griffin the Third, maybe he is a force stronger than that. Perhaps this is not just native vengeance against the horrible Redskins legacy but also primitive culture doing battle with organized religion and corporate entities who In God We Trust. There’s some crazy shit in the psychic realm going on with this game, and I don’t even know what the fuck it is; I’m just along for the ride at this point.

#8: CINCINNATI BENGALS (10-6; 16th overall, up two from last week) – Perhaps you will note that the Bengals are only 16th overall in the NFLuminati Index. That is after a huge bump over the past two weeks with wins over division rivals Pittsburgh and Baltimore. But this is an NFL illusion, engineered to make things exciting. If there is one team that does not belong (other than the Redskins), it is the Bengals. They may hang tough this weekend, but if you were to ask me, “Raven Mack, I want to bet my entire life’s savings on one game this weekend, to Russian mafia guys in my area, who once murdered a cousin of mine with cheap Uzbeki explosives over something stupid like a $600 debt. Who should I bet on?” I would answer you the Texans, without thinking twice. Of course, if they lose, and you lose, it will not be me who is dead or sold into the white slave trade. But trust me, I’ve been there before (on both counts) so I can relate. Thus my pick is made with that in mind.

Great Expectations or The Return of the Predictions Recap

Roary, stylin'. Also, behind those glassy eyes of a stoner lies a dangerous assassin.

I thought about doing this last week and then I just . . . didn’t. Then I thought about scrapping the whole predictions thing entirely but I have instead decided to do it off and on. Some weeks it will be here and some weeks it won’t, depending on whether or not I have something else substantial to write about. For instance, last week I had the whole clock management thing to rant and rave about but this week there really isn’t anything like that to pound away at so instead you get an egotistical recap of my game predictions. Lucky you! (Wait, come back . . .) This is because I’m trying to keep my writing about the Lions limited to the game preview, the game recap and then one piece in between (with maybe the occasional tale of The Great Willie Young thrown in whenever I feel like it.) Some of you will remember that I wrote something about the Lions every day last season and so you might be a tad bit disappointed that I’m slacking off a bit this year (Or maybe you’re happy not to have more bullshit gibberish to read. Who knows?) but here’s the thing – last season burnt me the fuck out. There’s a reason why I didn’t write much about the Lions during the offseason. Sure, sure, the lockout provided an unseemly cover for my lack of gibberish, but the truth is that I had just spent an entire season writing 80 novels worth of material about the Lions and goddammit, I felt like I’d exhausted both the topic and myself. So . . . yeah, I still plan on writing a lot, but I don’t want to have the same thing happen this year. That may sound like a lot of dumb whining and I don’t blame you for being annoyed right now. I mean, I don’t blame you for not caring about any of this, but fuck it, I felt like an explanation was in order so you at least knew what to expect. I suspect most people just read the previews and recaps and then ignore all this weird shit midweek, but I know some of you read everything and so this is directed more at you dudes and lady dudes. I am eternally grateful that you guys read – and hopefully like – anything that I write and so I felt like I owed you some sort of explanation. But this is all dumb and vaguely shameful and I apologize. Let’s just get on with it, shall we?

PREDICTION THE FIRST: Matthew Stafford will have another big day, throwing for 335 yards and 3 touchdowns. He won’t throw an interception and his numbers will be slightly deflated when the Lions sit on a lead for much of the fourth quarter, causing me to write another bitchy post next week.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: Well, Stafford threw for 294 yards and 4 touchdowns. He did throw an interception and his numbers were slightly deflated, not by the fact that the Lions were sitting on a lead for much of the fourth quarter but for several different reasons. First of all, Stafford spent the beginning of the game frustratingly inaccurate. By the time the game was over, he had completed 23 of 39 passes, good for a 59% completion rate, which is actually kind of mediocre. Had he been able to complete, say, 65% of his passes – which is closer to what will probably end up being a normal game for him – that would be approximately 3 extra completions, which would have netted him anywhere from probably 30-50 yards total, bringing him into the 325-350 yard range for the game. Second, he had a couple of big time throws wiped away thanks to terrible penalties. Third, his numbers were slightly depressed because he spent the last few minutes of the game standing on the sideline with a baseball cap on his head, pretending to be interested in what Drew Stanton had to say while Shaun Hill handed the ball off on the field. Taken as a whole, I feel like I nailed this prediction – if not in exact numbers then at least in spirit. But more importantly, I think this game showed that the potential is always there for Stafford to throw for 300-400 yards whenever he wants. He wasn’t even that sharp in this game and he still kicked everyone’s ass and probably slept with Todd Haley’s wife after the game while Todd sobbed in the corner and pawed at the ghost of his stolen manhood. Now, I’m not saying that definitely happened. That would be irresponsible of me. I’m just saying that would be the most logical conclusion based on the available evidence. I am, after all, a man of science.

PREDICTION THE SECOND: St. Calvin will play and will catch 6 passes for 90 yards and a touchdown.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: St. Calvin caught only 3 passes for 29 yards, but he did catch two touchdowns. Okay, so I was a little bit off with the numbers here, but I was honestly surprised they were that low. In my head, and after watching the game, I figured that they would be similar to what I predicted. That’s because it felt like St. Calvin came up big in this game. Those two touchdown catches were both huge, including one on 4^th down which tore the heart out of the Chiefs. The plays he did make were big and everyone was always aware that he was on the field. His presence was bigger than his numbers, which is part of what makes St. Calvin so great. He doesn’t necessarily need to catch the ball 10 times in order to have a big game. He changes the game just by virtue of being on the field. He allows Nate Burleson to catch the ball 7 times or Titus Young to pick up 89 yards on 5 catches. His presence opens up the field for everyone else and when it’s money time – when it’s time to make a do or die play – Calvin comes up huge. He’s the exclamation point on every drive. He’s the hand of steel reaching into the enemy’s chest and squeezing their heart until it pops. He already has 4 touchdowns this season, has made a couple of ridiculous catches and, just like Stafford, he hasn’t even been at his best yet. Jesus, that is a frightening thought, and yet it’s true. When he and Stafford get completely locked in, I . . . just . . . I . . . I’ll be right back, I need to take a cold shower and then dip my genitals in a bucket of ice.

PREDICTION THE THIRD: Jahvid Best will run the ball 22 times for 96 yards and a touchdown. He’ll also catch 4 passes for 48 yards.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: Best rushed 16 times for 57 yards and a touchdown. He caught 6 passes for 66 yards and another touchdown. Alright, so I missed the mark a bit here, but Best’s numbers were slightly depressed because he spent the last half of the fourth quarter sipping Mai-Tais on the sideline with Matthew Stafford and eyeing Todd Haley’s elderly mother. Add in Keiland Williams’ numbers and you get 25 carries for 82 yards and 2 touchdowns, which . . . eh, not great, but close to what I predicted. The simple fact is that the Lions yards per carry number is not going to be so hot this season. We’re going to see a lot of 1 yard runs and runs for no gain because the line still can’t really impose its will on opposing defenses in the run game. But it doesn’t have to either. The Lions so far have run the ball just well enough for it to give defenses pause, which is all it needs to do. The Lions offensive identity is built around Matthew Stafford and the pass. That’s just the way it is. They’re a pass first team. The run is the changeup. But I’ve been saying this for two years now, so . . . yeah. Jahvid Best will hit some homeruns. He’s too good not to and when he does, those per carry numbers will bump up a bit. This is not a team that is going to bruise its way down the field, picking up 6 yards at a time. That doesn’t mean that the run game isn’t effective. It just means that’s not the team’s identity. Can they run it better than they did against the Chiefs? Yeah, I think so. But anyone expecting them to run it 40 times for 185 yards every game is delusional.

PREDICTION THE FOURTH: Matt Cassel will be found wandering naked and confused after the game, smeared with his own feces outside of Ford Field. He will be taken to a local homeless shelter and then fed to the Coyotes wandering the city streets. The Chiefs will file an official protest with the league but Sheriff Goodell will be too scared to set foot in the streets of Detroit and will be heard muttering nervous gibberish about Robocop. The matter will eventually be forgotten except for by Todd Haley, who will spend the next several months looking for answers. He will be found floating in the Detroit River next May. No one in Kansas City will care.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: Every single word I wrote came true. Okay, okay, some of it can’t be true yet because it takes place in the future, but what if I told you I was in possession of a time machine? Now do you believe me? Sure, I had to do unspeakable things with Doc Brown – dark, terrible things, the man is a degenerate freak – in order to earn a ride in his DeLorean, but it was all worth it just to know the truth. After all, you can’t put a price on something like that. Or at least I keep telling myself that when I go to sit down and end up weeping in pain. Doc Brown, you have ruined me! I still dream of your white mane flowing in my face, suffocating me while my hips burn and my [redacted for gross indecency]. Now, if you’ll all excuse me, I have to go shower again. Yes, that’s shower number two during this post, but cleanliness is next to godliness and I’ve been so, so dirty . . .

PREDICTION THE FIFTH: Jamaal Charles will run for 70 yards on only 14 carries as the Lions establish a big lead and then spend the rest of the game parading around Ford Field with a pike up Matt Cassel’s ass. His howls of pain and screams for mercy will cause Fox to be sued for indecency.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: Well, uh, Jamaal Charles ran the ball only twice for 27 yards before he was beaten to death by Roary, the Lions mascot. Indeed. I don’t even know that I can come up with anything weirder or funnier than that. I will say this: the Chiefs were able to run the ball effectively during the first quarter, enough so that it has caused me to worry a bit about the Lions run defense. But here’s the thing: the Lions defense is built around two preeminent concepts – speed and aggression. The way the Chiefs run the ball is designed to effectively turn those two strengths against the Lions. Jamaal Charles, Dexter McCluster and backs like that rely a lot on cutbacks and misdirection to gain the bulk of their yardage, two things which the Lions are prone to due to their aggressive, attacking style. Ndamukong Suh might barrel three yards into the backfield but that doesn’t help a whole lot if the running back is able to find an open cutback lane. Against teams like the Chiefs, I’d like to see the Lions maintain their aggression while keeping an eye on the backdoor. That is kind of a hard thing to ask though and so I think we might have to learn to live with shit like this happening. It sounds like an easy thing to ask, but doing so would threaten to change the team’s entire mental approach which I’m not ready to start fucking with yet, you know? I don’t want them slowing down just to accommodate some ideal, an ideal which may not even be attainable. Don’t try to do everything all at once. Learn how to dominate first. Then start adding in those little nuances which turn domination into flawless victory.

Also, I feel like I should devote more time to discussing Roary destroying Jamaal Charles. I mean, that shit actually happened. It did. Jamaal Charles ran out of bounds, barreled into Roary and ended up getting hauled off the field as a casualty of war. Sure, sure, the actual injury may have happened while Charles was slowing up in his attempt to avoid Roary, but that just proves that Charles was afraid of Roary. He knew what would happen if that stoned son of a bitch (just look at his eyes . . .) got his hands on him and his knee committed suicide in a vain attempt to avoid his savage destiny. But destiny will catch us all before the end, and for Jamaal Charles, his destiny caught up with him while he lay writhing in agony on the turf of Ford Field, while that iron hearted warrior named Roary rose like a colossal Phoenix above his dying body, mocking Jamaal Charles’ insignificant mortality. And in that moment, Jamaal Charles looked into those hooded eyes of Roary and he saw the truth laid bare. He saw the heart of a god and then he shit his pants. It’s true. You can trust me, I am both a scientist and a holy man. In me all truths are wed and finally, all of you know what I have known all along, which is that Roary is indeed none other than the resurrected spirit of the Great Willie Young’s father, the Cheetah God, born again as a Lion. Don’t deny it. You know it’s true. All the evidence is there.

PREDICTED FINAL SCORE: Lions 31, Chiefs 17 (And it’s only that close because I figure the Lions will ease off and sit on the lead in the 4^th quarter and the Chiefs will get at least one garbage touchdown.)

ACTUAL FINAL SCORE: Lions 48, Chiefs 3. Let me repeat that for you: LIONS 48, CHIEFS 3. Oh, and, uh, I may have been just a tad wrong about that whole Lions easing off and sitting on the lead thing. Just a tad. Although, I will say this: a tiny part of me was actually disappointed that the Lions didn’t go for 55 just because. I know that’s bad form, but fuck it, the fire in my heart overcame me and I became a lustful beast. I can’t help it. That part of me has been starved for so long that it has become wild and ravenous and when it sees a chance to feed it detaches from that which is human inside of me and I become more human than human and I start visualizing Todd Haley naked, covered in blood, being driven through the streets of Detroit like an ancient Roman prisoner, being whipped and pelted with garbage and I start howling for the blood of my enemies and when I wake up from this blood fever I am naked and my body is sizzling in the woods and there is a corpse of a dead rabbit in my hands, half-eaten and I feel ashamed because I am a vegan and then I must spend the rest of the night flogging myself in self-punishment and weeping blood tears, begging forgiveness for my inhumanity, but that is my cross to bear and not yours. I did not ask for this but like Jesus once said, with great power comes great responsibility and I can only hope one day to channel that starved frenzied Lions fan inside of me into a champion of good, much like The Great Willie Young or Roary or the Incredible Hulk or Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon. Don’t cry for me, Argentina. Cry for that poor rabbit. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, much like the Chiefs were on Sunday against my beloved Lions.

NFL Previews Prognoses Collected aka HOW SHIT WILL UNFOLD (perhaps)

I just wanted to recap the season predictions for this NFL broadcast that launches in a few hours, that were used in the prognosis sections of our Armchair Linebacker team previews. I do not feel attached to these, and just as I would not want you to come back and be like, "Man, Raven was full of shit about the Browns!" at the end of the season, I will not expect you to be like, "Wow, this dude is the best guesser about football ever!" when I am completely right. Predicting the upcoming season (or really mock drafts or anything like that) is utterly self-important bullshit, and I realize this. That's why instead of just be like, "Oh, they'll finish 12-4 I bet!" off the top of my head, I drank mushroom tea while camping (if sort of flopping along a riverbank can be considered "camping") near a small sideline freight yard in central Virginia beside the James River that I love to kick it at, and used 96 scraps of driftwood (three per team) to meta-scientifically deduce the season. This does not mean it's any superior or inferior to any other football "expert" at all, because this was done at that one point in time, when the Universe pointed in this particular direction. The Universe has an infinitesimal variety of possibilities, and the one that plays this actual year probably will be different. But it is interesting to see it all together, and you are welcome to stammer and rant and compliment and question all you want. We will see what happens.

Team Overall Division

x-New York Jets 12-4 5-1

y-New England Patriots 12-4 4-2

Miami Dolphins 7-9 3-3

Buffalo Bills 2-14 0-6

x-Baltimore Ravens 12-4 5-1

y-Pittsburgh Steelers 11-5 4-2

Cleveland Browns 4-12 2-4

Cincinnati Bengals 3-13 1-5

x-Indianapolis Colts 11-5 5-1

Houston Texans 9-7 2-4

Tennessee Titans 8-8 3-3

Jacksonville Jaguars 5-11 2-4

x-San Diego Chargers 13-3 6-0

Kansas City Chiefs 8-8 3-3

Denver Broncos 6-10 2-4

Oakland Raiders 4-12 1-5

x-Philadelphia Eagles 11-5 4-2

New York Giants 9-7 4-2

Dallas Cowboys 9-7 4-2

Washington Redskins 5-11 1-5

x-Green Bay Packers 11-5 5-1

Detroit Lions 8-8 4-2

Chicago Bears 7-9 2-4

Minnesota Vikings 7-9 1-5

x-Atlanta Falcons 11-5 5-1

y-New Orleans Saints 10-6 4-2

y-Tampa Bay Buccaneers 10-6 3-3

Carolina Panthers 2-14 0-6

x-Arizona Cardinals 9-7 5-1

San Francisco 49ers 8-8 4-2

St. Louis Rams 7-9 3-3

Seattle Seahawks 5-11 0-6

Wild Card Round

#6 Pittsburgh over #3 Baltimore

#5 New England over #4 Indianapolis

#3 Atlanta over #6 Tampa Bay

#5 New Orleans over #4 Arizona

Divisional Round

#6 Pittsburgh over #1 San Diego

#2 N.Y. Jets over #5 New England

#1 Green Bay over #5 New Orleans

#2 Philadelphia over #3 Atlanta

Conference Championships

#2 N.Y. Jets over #6 Pittsburgh

#1 Green Bay over #2 Philadelphia

Super Bowl

Green Bay Packers over New York Jets

These Are More Fun To Do When The Lions Win

Well, here we are again, old friend. It's been a long season, but we're still here. We're still here.

A little bit of a mixed bag this week, but I got the big one right, which is that the Lions beat the Dolphins. It feels good to put your nuts on the table week after week and not have them be smashed into a pulp by some maniac with a giant sledgehammer who looks like a methed out version of Gallagher, which I guess isn’t that much different than the actual Gallagher now that I think about it. How did I end up talking about Gallagher in only the second sentence of this thing? Jesus, that might be a new record: Quickest Devolution into Weird Gibberish. Also, I’m not sure why “I put my nuts on the table” has become my standard way of saying “Oh yeah, I predicted that.” It’s a disturbing image and I apologize. I mean, I don’t make a habit of teabagging random tables although I did make love to a fine mahogany dining room table on a hot summer’s day once. It was the sort of day when everything is sticky and I could just smell the wood and it smelled so sweet and I knew it was calling to me and so I took a deep breath and I . . . where am I? What’s going on? Oh well, enough gibberish. Let’s just get to the breakdown of this week’s predictions and I promise not to mention the name Drew Stanton. Oh shit . . . too late I guess. Okay, okay, I promise not to talk about tables anymore. I’m pretty sure I can keep that promise. Wait . . . it is the table that was the disturbing part of that story, right? I was just a victim, led on by that sultry villain, and . . . great, now tonight I am going to dream about Gallagher making hot, sweaty love to Drew Stanton on top of a mahogany dining table, their flesh slapping and sticking in the humidity of a late August day while I stand, lonely and confused with my nuts on some lowly plastic coffee table, watching, watching, watching . . .

The most horrible thing I’ve written here at Armchair Linebacker? Maybe. Maybe. But these are strange and terrible times and . . . okay, fine, I’ll just get on with it.

PREDICTION THE FIRST: Hill starts and is a little rusty, but not nearly as rusty as he was against the Bills. He completes 25 of 37 passes for 265 yards, with 2 touchdowns and 1 interception.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: As Scott Stapp would say, Welllllllllllllllll (insert sound of a donkey braying), I was sorta right? Hill completed 14-26 passes for 222 yards with 2 touchdowns and perhaps most importantly, 0 interceptions. He was a little rusty, but he wasn’t as bad as he was in the game against Buffalo and the result was . . . just enough.

Yes, just enough. Hill wasn’t actively good or anything but he wasn’t bad either. Aside from a couple of misplaced balls, he managed to find his receivers much of the day. He was hurt by a couple of drops (Hey, Brian Clark? Yeah, you can collect your things outside of the locker room. They’re in that box right over there. Those guards? They’re just here to make sure you get to your car safely. After all, this is Detroit.), and a couple of idiot plays by his receivers – most notably the one in the 4^th quarter that saw Brandon Pettigrew just quit on a play – and had they made those plays, Hill’s numbers would look downright good.

It is telling that I can come away feeling somewhat disappointed, though, by Hill’s game because if his name was Drew Stanton everyone would probably be raving about how he’s a gamer and about how he Gritted his way to a Lions victory. The expectations for Hill are a bit higher than for Stanton and really, that’s the point. An average, or a slightly subpar day for him, is the equivalent to a revelatory game from Stanton. Hill was not particularly good against the Dolphins and yet his performance was pretty much right in line with what Stanton did against the Buccaneers last week.

Indeed, when it looked like the Lions were going to lose the game against Miami, I was already dreading the cascade of dumb THIS NEVER WOULDA HAPPENED IF THEY STARTED STANTON bullshit gibberish that was going to flow down from every corner of the fanbase. I was already prepared to point out how the difference in the games was not the play of the quarterback but the play of the defense and the running game. In fact, I was all prepared to point out that Hill’s game was actually more impressive than Stanton’s Bucs game because he had to play without the benefit of a functional running game. This meant that he was forced to make plays with his arm and throw the ball when the Dolphins knew that he was going to throw. Given those same conditions, I almost guarantee Stanton would have imploded.

Man, I’m sorry. I am self-aware enough to realize that I am behaving shamefully and that Stanton has become my white whale. It seems like all I do these days is chase him down with a harpoon in my hand, foaming at the mouth, and it is unseemly and vaguely pathetic. It’s just that every time I think I’m done with him, I hear or read some gibberish about how he gives the Lions the best chance to win and about how we need him to stay in Detroit and I become unhinged and I reach for my harpoon and it’s back to the open seas, boys and everyone groans and thinks “Jesus, not again,” but I am wild eyed and unreasonable because this is what Drew Stanton does to me. I cannot help myself. I just want him to go away. Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop!

Okay. Okay. Shaun Hill. Let’s talk more about him. Hill played okay. He wasn’t good, but he wasn’t bad either. The most impressive play I thought he made all day actually came on an incompletion on third down in the 4^th quarter. The Lions were driving, they were in Miami territory, they were ten points down and they absolutely needed to make something happen or the game was as good as over. Hill dropped back to pass on third down and immediately, he was under siege. There were Dolphins everywhere. The play was doomed, he was going to get sacked and oh well, at least we won two in a row, but then Hill spun out of trouble, looked down field, scrambled and then tossed up a floater to an open part of the field. There was no one there. Not a Lion, not a Dolphin, no one. But Hill saw Brandon Pettigrew and when he threw that ball, he did so believing that Pettigrew would keep running and would go out and get it. It was a beautiful play by Hill at the most crucial point in the game. All Pettigrew had to do was keep running. But he didn’t, the ball dropped to the ground and the Lions punted. People will forget this play. They will remember the Lions furious comeback and all they will remember will be the interceptions and the implosion of Chad Henne. But what I’ll remember is that when the Lions desperately needed a play, Shaun Hill made something happen out of nothing. That play was dead, crushed, finished. But he MacGyvered his way out and he saw something that requires vision and foresight and all those things that a quarterback needs to be successful mentally. He saw possibility and if Brandon Pettigrew would have just kept running, the Lions would have converted a crucial third down. Shaun Hill doesn’t have the arm or the physical tools to be a big time NFL quarterback. In this, he and Stanton (Oh, Jesus, here we go again. . .) are very similar. But that one play highlighted the difference between the two. Hill can see possibilities. He gets the mental part of the game. I don’t think Drew Stanton does. He runs around and he leaves trails of grit behind him as he goes, but for all his furious scrambling and Pluck and OH MAN HE’S JUST A PLAYMAKER, there’s nothing really there. It ends up looking like panic, like he’s running around and scrambling and tossing random bags of grit because he doesn’t know what else to do. It doesn’t look like he’s making plays. It looks like he doesn’t see where the play is to be made. That’s a key distinction, and it’s that that is the biggest difference between Hill and Stanton. Hill is in control and when he scrambles, it’s to open up possibilities. When Stanton scrambles, it’s all just a bunch of noise signifying nothing. That’s right, I’m going to quote Shakespeare here. I’ve lost my mind and I can’t stop and even though I said this was about Hill it has once again turned into a vicious harpooning of Stanton and Goddammit, I’m gonna get me that whale!

I say this every week – hell, lately, every day – but this is the last thing I’m going to say about Stanton. I am going to use Shakespeare against him. I think it sums up both Stanton and my own toxic hate boner for him and what he represents. It is a condemnation of us both. Here it is, and damn it all, I mean it this time.

Drew Stanton: a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

PREDICTION THE SECOND: The Lions again manage to run the ball fairly effectively, picking up 150 yards total. Again, no one ball carrier will exceed 15 carries and Maurice Morris will lead the way with 75 yards.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: In the words of that noted sage, Al Bundy . . . uh, no, Peg. The Lions ran for a grand total of 67 yards on 21 carries, reverting back to the parade of rancid shit which was the running game for much of the season before that little three week oasis in the middle of our desert of despair where we actually had a thriving running game. Was that oasis just a mirage? I don’t know. It’s hard to say whether those games were all just fluky or whether the Lions had found a way to run the ball creatively, which caught their opponents off balance but which has now been caught onto by the rest of the league or whether the Dolphins have just a really, really good run defense. Perhaps it’s a combination of all of the above. I think that’s the most likely answer.

You can’t deny that the Lions were able to run the ball there for a few weeks. That can’t be entirely a fluke. One game, yes, maybe, but three is a trend. But it’s not like the Lions were just lining up and running the ball down people’s throats either. The offensive line wasn’t exactly blowing defenses off the ball or anything. Instead, the Lions got creative – really creative – and that caused defenses to become unbalanced enough that there was always just enough of a crack for a ball carrier to run through. Everybody was running the ball in those few weeks – Maurice Morris, Jahvid Best, St. Calvin, Nate Burleson, Stefan Logan – and defenses could never just sit back and key on one guy. Hell, Stanton even ran the option a couple of times. That’s all great and Scott Linehan deserves a pat on the back for making it happen. But the NFL is loaded with athletes capable of making plays all over the field and so all it takes is a little adjustment here, a little adjustment there, and whatever advantages gained by that imbalance can be neutralized much, much easier than they can at the college or high school levels, in which entire offenses are built around the concepts of misdirection and spreading the defense out. And when that imbalance is corrected by a coach who’s on the ball – like Mike Nolan, the Dolphins defensive coordinator – it comes down to execution and brute strength and that’s where the Lions can’t quite get it done.

The Lions want to have a power rushing attack. Right now they lack the offensive linemen to do that. Everyone bitches about the offensive line because of Stafford’s injuries and most people want to lynch Jeff Backus but the reality is that the line has done an admirable job in pass protection this season. The Lions quarterbacks have not had to eat too many sacks and that's helped keep them in games even though those quarterbacks have been backups. They can be successful as long as they’re not asked to win the games on their own and make ridiculous plays in long yardage situations. Because the Lions offensive line has kept them clean, they have been able to play within themselves and make safe throws on 2^nd and 6 or 3^rd and 4 rather than chucking the ball up for grabs on 2^nd and 17 or 3^rd and 22. The line hasn’t gotten nearly the credit they deserve for that this season, Backus especially.

But . . . and you knew there was a but here, the Lions offensive line has utterly failed in the running game this season. One of the biggest reasons why Scott Linehan had to put on his wizard hat is because the line was opening zero holes in the conventional run game. When it comes down to just bearing down and driving the other team off the ball, Dominic Raiola and company have been just awful. I mentioned Raiola specifically because he’s the biggest culprit here. For a dude who likes to bitch everyone out from the fans to his own teammates and pretend like he’s some sort of He-Man warrior, Raiola consistently gets his ass kicked in the running game. He’s a finesse player, and that’s fine if that’s what you’re trying to do offensively, but he’s not big enough or, at least in my opinion, tough enough to take on defensive tackles in the run game. Scouts love him because he’s agile and he barks a lot and he gives off the aura of a dude who’s playing tough and he comes to work every day but he can’t hold up at the point of attack in the run game and really, that makes everything else irrelevant.

The irony is that for all the shit Backus gets, he’s probably the Lions best run blocker. That’s not really saying much given the absolute putrescence of Gosder Cherilus on the other side of the line, Raiola’s inability to hold up in the middle and the staggering mediocrity of Stephen Peterman and Rob Sims, but what the hell, that doesn’t make it any less true. The reality is that the Lions run game will likely continue to struggle – absent the occasional wizardry by Linehan anyway – without an upgrade at several positions along the line. Raiola needs to be replaced. So do Cherilus and Peterman. I think you can live with Backus and Sims but they’re not exactly going to cover the rest of the line’s ass, you know?

The running backs are good enough, I think. All they need is a combination of good health and good blocking and they’ll be fine – better than fine if Jahvid Best manages to get that combination. Best is the explosive runner capable of taking it to the house every time he touches the ball. We saw that against Miami, and while it wasn’t a run, it was a little swing pass that still required him to make a play in the open field. It was a play that didn’t require a lot of blocking and therefore served as an effective glimpse of what Best can do with blocking. By that, I mean that as long as he’s given room to move – either in the open field or via good blocking – he can end up in the end zone on virtually any play. Meanwhile, Maurice Morris has shown throughout his career and again this season that he can be a dependable move the chains kind of running back when given the opportunity. Sure, he only gained 22 yards on 12 carries against Miami (For the record, his 12 carries led the team, while Best’s 24 yards were tops.), but again, I blame that more on the subpar blocking and the Dolphins ability to make the Lions running attack fairly one dimensional. Add in Kevin Smith’s return next year and the Lions have a stable of running backs who have proven that they can be highly effective given adequate help.

PREDICTION THE THIRD: St. Calvin will catch 6 passes for 95 yards and 1 touchdown. Just another day at the office. (Jesus, did I really just type the phrase “Just another day at the office”? The next thing you know, I’ll be gibbering about “Having a case of the Mondays” or some such bullshit. I’m so, so sorry.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: In the words of . . . fuck this, I’m not doing a dumb cutesy quote for each one of these. St. Calvin caught 4 passes for 52 yards and failed to score a touchdown.

There’s not a lot to say here. St. Calvin didn’t really break out at all, but when the Lions needed him, he came through, particularly on the Lions second touchdown drive of the game, when they trailed by seven and needed to make something happen. The Lions leaned on St. Calvin again and again on third down and he came down with the ball every time. Should they have looked for him more throughout the game? Probably, but I didn’t really have a problem with the Lions game plan. For the most part, the receivers Shaun Hill did look for were in position to catch the damn ball and keep the drive moving. Sometimes they did and sometimes they maddeningly dropped the ball. I’d rather the Lions target open receivers – receivers who are made open by the over reaction of the defense to St. Calvin and their subsequent double and triple teaming of him by the way – than ask their backup quarterbacks to try to force the ball into a covered St. Calvin. Again, even when he’s not catching the ball, he’s affecting the game.

Further, St. Calvin’s numbers were depressed by the fact that he sat out the end of the game after being martyred. Had he played, the Lions almost surely would have gone to him, just like they did on that critical drive earlier in the game. But he didn’t and the result is 4 catches for 52 yards. Really, there’s not a whole lot else to say and thank God for that because these things are getting longer and longer every week.

PREDICTION THE FOURTH: Chad Henne will complete 27 of 42 passes for 270 yards with 1 touchdown and 2 interceptions. He’ll be sacked 5 times.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: In the words of Socrates . . . BOOM, MOTHERFUCKER! Henne completed 29 of 44 passes for 278 yards with 1 touchdown and 2 interceptions. Even Nostradamus is high-fiving me because I nailed that shit so epically. Of course, Henne was only sacked twice instead of the 5 times I predicted but we’ll let that slide even if that was kinda the meat of the prediction. Okay? Just give me this, damn it.

Henne was able to find receivers open much of the day because the Lions were playing with the functional equivalent of a narcoleptic goat and a broken toaster in the secondary thanks to the hilarious cavalcade of stupid injuries which have taken all of our defensive backs this season. Hell, at this point, Nathan Vasher is probably like one of those retarded degenerate kids in those Final Destination movies. He sees death everywhere and he’s talking to mystics and creepy Tony Todd looking motherfuckers trying to come up with a way to escape his fate.

So yeah, Chad Henne was able to find open receivers against the Lions. This also managed to allow him to avoid sacks for much of the day because he was able to just drop back and throw, drop back and throw, over and over and over again. I mean, you don’t have to sit in the pocket for too long when Brandon Marshall is 8 yards away from Vasher, you know? I said in the preview that the Dolphins would likely be able to move the ball through the air by going to a lot of short, quick passes which would neutralize the Lions pass rush. This is exactly what they did on their first drive. I also said that the field would then compress and they would lose much of the advantages that were gained by quick throws. This is also what happened for the most part and Henne’s numbers bear this out. I said this would be an example of a team being forced to play a bend but don’t break defense and, well . . . yeah. Eventually, Henne hanged himself with the rope he was given by the Lions defense.

I still thought the Lions defensive line would get to Henne more than they did, but that is where Vasher getting fooled over and over and over again by Marshall came into play. But, late in the game, Vasher tightened up his coverage. This was how he managed to pick Henne off. After getting fooled over and over again by Marshall, Vasher learned his lesson and nearly came up with a pick six in the fourth quarter. Later, he did pick off a pass. This tightening in coverage made all the difference as Henne became rattled and was forced to take an extra second or two every time he dropped back to pass. This didn’t result in any sacks, but it did result in the Lions flushing Henne out of the pocket several times and dragging him down after a one or two yard wounded buffalo scramble. That then caused Henne to get rid of the ball earlier, and try to force some things which led to his meltdown, Vasher’s interception, DeAndre Levy’s pick six, and . . . ballgame.

PREDICTION THE FIFTH: The Dolphins will run for a combined 110 yards, but neither Ronnie Brown nor Ricky Williams will look all that effective. One of them will break one frustrating run which sees busted tackles and poor tackling angles by the Lions secondary. Louis Delmas won’t play.

WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: The Dolphins ran for a combined 154 yards, but honestly, neither Ronnie Brown nor Ricky Williams looked all that effective. Williams looked the best, running for 71 yards on 14 carries, but one of those was a 28 yarder, a frustrating run out of the Wildcat which saw a couple of missed arm tackles and a generally frustrating effort by the Lions linebackers and safeties. Take that run away and Williams would have only run for 43 yards on 13 carries. Brown, meanwhile, ran for only 37 yards on 12 carries. So, aside from that one Wildcat run, the Dolphins two stud running backs ran for 80 yards on 25 carries. So, honestly, I think I kinda got this one right.

I also was right about Delmas not playing. His absence was felt in both the run and the pass defense. He was replaced in the lineup at free safety by C.C. Brown and since C.C.’s nickname is “Can’t Cover”, well . . . yeah. Meanwhile, Brown’s 28 yard scamper, which at that point felt like a dagger since it came late in the game and set the Dolphins up for a critical score, probably wouldn’t have been so bad with Delmas in the lineup. Fortunately, that was really the only one really bad run the Lions gave up – well, other than a 16 yard reverse to Marlon Moore, but shit, those things happen – and I think that’s because the coaches knew that they couldn’t get away with John Wendling in the starting lineup. He was the culprit on several of Tampa Bay’s biggest runs last week. This week, like I said, the Lions went with C.C. Brown at free safety. C.C. might not be able to cover but he generally does pretty well against the run. Amari Spievey played strong safety, much like he has for much of the second half of the season and so that was the one position in the secondary where we got the standard performance. It was probably a tandem that hurt the pass defense a bit, but for the most part it was the right call because it was more effective against the run than a Wendling and either Brown or Spievey tandem would have been.

In looking at this, it’s actually kind of amazing that the Lions didn’t just get run out of the stadium with the collection of retreads they were forced to throw out there in the secondary against the Dolphins. At the end of the game, they were down to Vasher as their number one cornerback, and let’s not forget that for much of the season he was behind Jonathan fucking Wade on the depth chart. Aside from him, the options were Tye Hill, the recently resurrected Eric King, Prince Miller and Ernie Sims’ monkey. I would have loved to seen Monkey Sims finally get his opportunity, but Vasher and Hill held it together just enough to force Chad Henne to self-immolate and the result was a 34-27 Lions win. I’m not sure who’s going to be back there next season but what this recent run has taught me is that Gunther Cunningham and Jim Schwartz could coach the shit out of a rusty can if they needed to. I’m confident that with a healthy Delmas, maybe a key free agent signing and a decent draft pick, the Lions secondary can at least be good enough to give the defensive line time to consume souls and gnaw on the bones of the wicked. And maybe, just maybe, they can actually be pretty damn good. If that happens, then this defense – and this team, with a healthy Matthew Stafford and Jahvid Best – can do anything.

WHAT I PREDICTED FOR THE FINAL SCORE: LIONS 24, DOLPHINS 20

ACTUAL FINAL SCORE: LIONS 34, DOLPHINS 27. CLOSE ENOUGH, DAMN IT.