Satisfaction

"These Lions are just too talented for the Bears."

- Jon Gruden, 10/10/11

Indeed.

More tomorrow.

I Want More

Note to the rest of the NFL: When that cage gets torn down - and it's on its way down - run.

The Lions won 48-3. Honestly, had they been playing a team that wasn’t freefalling into the abyss, they might have lost. Okay, okay, I know that sounds a little ridiculous, but I think that it’s true. I’m not trying to be a total buzzkill here and I will carry on drinking the blood of Matt Cassel and feasting on the witless tears of Todd Haley along with all the rest of you in a moment, but I think that has to be said before we all get carried away. This was a weird game. For long stretches the Lions looked out of sync, both offensively and defensively. I thought they largely played like shit for most of the first half and yet they went into the locker room up 20-3. Well, okay then. The second half was an absolute circus. Kansas City apparently thought the ball was possessed and gave it away to anyone who came near, apparently in the hopes that their souls would not be harvested by the demons within. They were, of course, wrong, since the Lions both took the ball and then took their souls anyway. So much for that plan, Todd Haley. Possessed balls and soul-taking aside, this game was filled with penalties, guys getting their shirts ripped off, Ndamukong Suh and Tony Scheffler dancing, and I’m pretty sure I even saw a clown or two on fire at one point. Hell, Roary mortally wounded Jamaal Charles. It was strange and vaguely stupid and in the end it was all wonderful. Because even though the Lions looked out of sync, in the end they were able to sit back and watch while the Failure Demons spun around and devoured another team full of woeful misfits and that may be the single greatest sign that things have finally changed around here.

Finally – finally – the Lions aren’t on the other end of that shit. Sure, the Lions weren’t sharp but that didn’t matter. They were just the better team. And by that I don’t just mean that they were more skilled – even though, in the end, that became obvious – but because they stayed calm and just kept coming and kept coming and kept coming while the Chiefs eventually self-destructed. You see, sometimes it’s not even about beating the other guy, it’s just about waiting until he beats himself and the Lions are finally in a position, finally good enough, where they can do exactly that. Matthew Stafford was inaccurate for a lot of the game. The Chiefs were able to run the ball in the first quarter. There was a point when the game could have reasonably swung in either direction, but throughout it all, I think there was a sense that the whole thing was just a giant time bomb waiting to go off. For both sides too, not just the Lions. Throughout it all, I had the sense that the Lions could easily blow it open as long as Stafford could hit some of those third down completions and as long as the Lions could just stuff the Chiefs running game once or twice and force them to try to air it out. Done, and . . . done. And once those two things were accomplished, the Lions were on a rocket ride to a planet filled with candy, blowjobs and candy blowjobs. On the other hand, even when the game was close, there always seemed to be the sense that the Chiefs would fall apart, that the Failure Demons would reach up with those terrible claws we’re all too familiar with and drag them down to hell with them and then that would be that. And . . . done. Once both of those scenarios played out – once the natural order of the universe was restored (and how strange is it that the universe seems to have so been radically reordered that I can reasonably make this statement?) – obscene things happened. Todd Haley began making faces on the sideline usually only seen in the darkest wings of mental hospitals, Matt Cassel put a shotgun beneath his chin and pulled the trigger and I’m pretty sure I saw Roary on the sideline gnawing on what was left of Jamaal Charles’ leg.

And, really, that’s the key here. Even though the Lions didn’t play particularly well for long stretches of this game, they demolished the Chiefs precisely because, deep down, they are now a good team whereas the Chiefs most definitely are not. That contrast – and the realization that the Lions are indeed now a legitimately good team – couldn’t have been played out more clearly than it did today. The Lions made mistakes but it didn’t matter and it didn’t matter because they were simply . . . better.

That doesn’t mean that The Fear still wasn’t running wild through my heart while I was watching. A part of me – and I suspect a part of many of you – was afraid that the Lions little mistakes would come back to haunt them and we’d all be weeping and tearing our hair out following the Chiefs 34-31 come from behind victory, but that is a product of old thinking. We have been conditioned for so long to expect the worst that when the Lions aren’t perfect we believe that it will cost them everything. In a strange way, success doesn’t mean perfection. It simply means the ability to overcome your own mistakes, your own flaws. And the Lions did that, overwhelmingly. Ridiculously, and perhaps I should add, shamefully, The Fear actually crept back in the more out of control the game became. Not because I was worried about the outcome of this game – I am not that crippled for fuck’s sake – but because I began to fret and worry that the runaway joke that this game had become would somehow make the Lions soft for next week, that they would look at the score and then get drunk on their own success and spend the week stumbling around in a deluded haze, forgetting the fact that, well, they weren’t all that good. I mean, Matthew Stafford was a tad inaccurate – not terribly, but enough to make you go “Hmmm.” – the defense gave up too much on the ground and there were still a few too many mental mistakes. (Who can forget the twin penalties that killed big plays on that drive that ended up being a field goal for the Lions instead of a touchdown?) That shit needs to get fixed or the Lions could get slapped around a bit by a good team.

But that is all just a sign of how quickly things have changed around here. I am dizzy and confused, incapable of keeping my wits about me. Here I am, gibbering about The Fear, only a couple of hours after the Lions demolished the Chiefs, 48-3. What the fuck is wrong with me? I don’t know. All I can say is that I am completely incapable of managing my own expectations at this point and so I suspect that The Fear is stepping in to take the place of my own conscience. On the other hand, I take it as a sign of how much I believe in this team that I am not 100% satisfied with what I saw on the field today. Goddammit, I don’t just want the Lions to win, I want them to win the right way. I want them to maraud like wild Huns from beginning to end. I don’t want them to have to overcome mistakes. I want them to feast on the living and to terrify the dead. It is a sign of how far they have come that I’m already worried about what happens on the next level. Perhaps that is a tad presumptuous – and almost definitely ridiculous – but they’ve already proven they can buzzsaw through mediocre and shitty teams. I want to see how they do against the elite now. Oh Lord, it never ends. It never ends. I suppose as Lions fans we are continually doomed to fret and to nervously chew our lips. Shameful, just shameful. I apologize. That is unbecoming, especially given that, again, THE LIONS WON 48-3. What the hell am I gibbering about? The Fear? Honestly, man . . .

But that’s where I’m at right now. I’m satisfied but still restless, and I suppose that’s not a bad place to be. I enjoyed this – thoroughly – it’s just that, well, I want more. Lots more. The Chiefs are terrible. Just atrocious. Their souls belong to hell. Well, whatever’s left over that hasn’t been consumed by Ndamukong Suh and the boys anyway. Make no mistake, the Lions own the Chiefs now. They make them sit down when they pee and they won’t let them make eye contact lest they catch an ass whippin’. This was a prison rape style beatdown. It was rough, it was uncomfortable to watch and in the end, Matt Cassel was shitting blood. And yet, just like prison sex, it wasn’t entirely satisfying. (Good Lord, what kind of fucked up road have I stumbled down here?) I mean, not that I know whether prison sex is satisfying. I’m just guessing here. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. (Look, you know damn well I could have kept going with this for a lot longer. Just be glad that I ended things when I did.)

Anyway, the point I was trying to make before I took the Yellow-Bricked road to Oz (don’t even asked what stained that particular road yellow) is that while there is a definite satisfaction in watching the Chiefs be blown into their base elements, I don’t want to judge the Lions via the Chiefs of the world anymore, you know? That is like trying to use a yardstick to measure a skyscraper. Obviously that is hyperbolic as all hell, but you get my point. We didn’t learn that much about the Lions ability to compete with the Packers of the world. All we learned was what we had already suspected, which is that they have surpassed the Chiefs and their ilk. And that’s great, don’t get me wrong – I’m ecstatic – but damn it all, I want more. I want more. Who knew I could be so greedy?

Perhaps that’s what 0-16 wrought. I am not satisfied with being the King of the Turds. We’ve been there. We’ve done that. Prior to 0-16, we spent the ‘90s as the Kings of Shit Mountain. You know where that gets you? A first round playoff loss and an eventual rocket ride right down to hell, where Matt Millen wears a devil’s costume and spends eternity poking you in the ass with his Trident of Failure. I, uh . . . I don’t want to go back there. Forgive me. I want to run as far from that place as possible and build a suit of armor made up of success and victory. I want it all not just because I’m sure it feels great all on its own but because it is the exact opposite of that hell from which we have climbed, kicking, screaming and bleeding. (And there may have even been the occasional ejaculating but what happens in Hell stays in Hell, at least according to those ads by the Hell Chamber of Commerce.)

But never mind all that. It is unbecoming in the wake of the Lions 48-3 mauling of the Chiefs – and goddammit, part of me just wants to type 48-3 a few hundred times, press submit and call it a day – and really, we should be celebrating and so that’s just what I’m going to do. The Lions won and they won big and my heart soars even while my eyes glance above the horizon, towards the promise of a new world. That smile on my face is one of pure joy, even if it isn’t one of pure satisfaction, and I suppose, therein lies the heart of our continued journey that began in hell and right now ends in a place that exists only in our wildest dreams. But at least it exists somewhere, and thanks to wins like this the line between our dreams and reality has miraculously – and improbably – become blurred, and now I can dream of that place even when I’m awake. And I’m wide awake now and I’m dreaming.

Preseason Games Are Meaningless, But . . . Part II

Like a goddamn feeding frenzy

I already wrote the Hey The Preseason Is Meaningless But . . . article following the Lions beatdown of the Bengals so I really, really don’t feel like I should have to write it again but here we are. I’ve kind of realized that the better the Lions do, the more hysterical noise is going to come from certain quarters proclaiming that we are all a bunch of goddamn fools and that we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be tricked by the Failure Demons yet again. This is because people are scared and the more the window that looks out on the great big world of the living opens, wider and wider, the more freaked out they will become by the fear that the window will just slam shut once again leaving them in the darkness. It’s easier for them to just look away and pretend that the light isn’t there than to risk the fear of losing it.

I understand that. I do. That is both my gift and my curse. I understand people. I know where they’re coming from and I know how their diseased minds work. I always have. That gives me a level of insight that I probably take for granted. It aids me greatly but it also drives me fucking nuts, because while I understand that mindset, it just feels so tired and banal and simple. It’s a bunch of reactionary nonsense driven by some animalistic need to protect oneself.

I’ve seen the following argument thrown out countless times already this preseason: “Hey, remember the Lions went 4-0 in the 2008 preseason and then went 0-16, so what happened against the Patriots was meaningless. I was fooled once before. Never again!”

Okay. Let’s break that whole thing down, piece by piece. First of all, drawing meaning from the 2008 preseason by declaring that it was meaningless is intuitively retarded. Anyone doing this is either being intellectually dishonest or is so wrapped up in the hysteria of their own fear and vicious self-loathing as a Lions fan that it’s impossible to take anything they say seriously. If the Lions going 4-0 in the 2008 preseason was meaningless, then it would have been equally meaningless to go 0-4. Once you establish that the record itself is meaningless, that the results, the wins and losses, add up to jack shit, you’re left with the subtext, which is that any meaning that can be taken from the preseason comes from the eyeball test, from actually watching the games, and that’s where this argument falls completely apart.

I mean, come on, does anybody reading this remember anything from that 4-0 preseason of yore? Anything at all? I don’t. All I remember is that the Lions went 4-0 and the only reason I remember that is because that 4-0 record serves as a sort of perverse and fucked up footnote to what followed in that season of unnumbered tears. I certainly don’t remember the Lions looking like a well-oiled machine. I don’t remember the Lions throwing the ball all over the field or smashing the shit out of opposing offenses. In my mind, all four of those games were 19-17 Lions “wins” that were back and forth affairs won by a field goal engineered by the 4^th team late in the game. Even if that’s not how they actually went down, in my head that’s what happened. They were meaningless not because of the result but because nothing happened worth remembering. They were played simply because they had to be played. There was no real excitement, no real “Hey, there’s something happening here . . .” They were just sort of there.

Compare that to this year. I’ll remember the Lions kicking the shit out of the Patriots because no matter what you tell me about the result being meaningless and none of it being real, what was real was the look of dismay and pants shitting “What the fuck is going on here?” written all over Tom Brady’s face. You’re right. The final score of the game didn’t matter. Ndamukong Suh, Corey Williams, Cliff Avril and the boys terrorizing a clearly overwhelmed Tom Brady like escaped vampire apes terrorizing a kitten did matter. So did Matthew Stafford looking like he had been sent from the future by Skynet to destroy John Connor and throw touchdown passes in his spare time. Those throws were all real. They happened. There were no throws like that in 2008. There were no moments when I went “Holy shit, this dude is the truth.” Matthew Stafford has a quarterback rating of 154 through the first three preseason games. He was perfect against the Patriots. That’s not even hyperbole. He was perfect. He was. Both incompletions – all two of them – were perfect throws that couldn’t have been placed any better. One was juggled and then dropped by Nate Burleson, the other was broken up on a great play by Kyle Arrington. That was it.

So it’s completely disingenuous to say that the game itself was meaningless. You’re using the correct argument that the final score was meaningless to justify and spread your own paranoid fears on a technicality, which is either hysterically stupid or willfully craven. I’ll leave it to you to figure out which is more accurate.

And then there’s the second part of that argument, the whole “We were fooled before . . .” thing. Yeah, about that . . . the thing is, is that I wasn’t fooled in 2008. Not even a little bit. Go back and read my shit from back then. That was when I first started writing about the Lions here at Armchair Linebacker and I was brutally savage. I ripped those motherfuckers apart despite that 4-0 preseason. If you were fooled, that’s your own damn problem. Don’t sit there and tell me from your smug little perch that I should be afraid because you were fooled once before. If anything, I believe even more in this year’s team because I wasn’t fooled in 2008. You know what that season and preseason told me? That I know my shit and that I should feel confident in my ability to cut through all the dumb bullshit and see things for how they really are. I didn’t believe in the Lions in 2008 even though everyone was telling me I should and then they went out and laid the most historic of rotten eggs. I do believe in them this season. I’m gonna go ahead and trust that over your hysterical whining about being fooled because, brother, you were the fool back then, not me.

I’ve been kind of harsh here, but what the hell, I am sick of all the dumb noise and I just want to talk football for a change. I don’t want to spend the season putting out dumpster fires in the fanbase. That’s not my deal, you know? I just wanted to write this so everyone would know where I stand and so I wouldn’t have to come back to it throughout the season when the Failure Zombies rise from their graves and start gibbering on about how the team secretly sucks. If I think the Lions suck, I will say that shit. You know that. I won’t get seduced by candy cane wishes and unicorn dreams. I call it like I see it, and the way I see it, the Lions have every chance to be pretty damn good this season. Not perfect, but good and good is damn near a miracle given where we’ve been.

Now, with all that said, are there still concerns? Absolutely. The offensive line doesn’t seem like it can run block for shit, which is a distressing development. Hopefully, the Lions coaches realize this and play to their strengths on offense instead of serving as slaves to some bullshit Lombardiesque This Is How A Man Wins philosophy. Thankfully, from what I’ve seen so far, they realize this and are willing to find ways to creatively move the ball without much risk. The screen game has been terrific so far and if they continue to utilize that along with reverses and fake reverses and all that jazz – which is what allowed the run game to spring to life (well,”life” might be a bit strong but they were definitely reanimated, like little drunk Frankentsteins or something) late last season – they should be able to keep teams off balance enough so that their passing game can thrive. Do you need to be able to run the ball in the NFL? Yes. Definitely. But “run the ball” doesn’t always literally mean “run the ball”. That may sound strange, but what it really means is “move the ball safely and effectively, without much risk and so the defense is forced to play off the pass and closer to the line of scrimmage.” The way the Lions have moved the ball through the screen game and through reverses and fake reverses and all that shit effectively does that. Would it be ideal to just line our guys up and smash forward for 6-7 yards a pop? Hell yes. But this is not an ideal world. It is a flawed and harsh world and you have to do what you can to get ahead. Only great fools don’t understand this. Rod Marinelli didn’t understand that and it killed him. Being a slave to some bullshit philosophy is the quickest way to die in the NFL, and as we all should know, the most painful.

Aside from that, there aren’t a whole lot of other major issues to be concerned with. Sure, some people are bagging on the corners but I’m not that worried. They got burned on one play, a busted coverage by the second teamers that was as ugly as it was obscene. That sucked. It did. But the next time the Patriots tried to exploit the secondary, the Lions picked off Tom Brady. So . . . yeah, I don’t know where all the doom and gloom is coming from there. Is the secondary perfect? Hell no. Is it filled with Darrelle Revis types who can singlehandedly shut down an opposing passing game? Fuck no. But it doesn’t have to be either. The front four showed that it can be so fearsome that all the secondary has to do is hold their shit together. The front four will force turnovers through pressure. We’ve seen that already, multiple times. The corners don’t need to sit on an island for 18 years while the QB calmly surveys the field from his comfortable pocket. They just need to handle their business like professional football players and not drunken circus clowns on fire. And I think they’ve shown that they can do that, which is a far cry from the horror shows of the past.

Like I said, this team isn’t perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than anything any of us have seen in a long time, and for most of us, maybe ever. That’s something to get excited about and you should be ashamed of yourself if some part of you won’t let you do that. I know that some of you are just sitting around and waiting to crow, to stand up and scream “See, I told you so!” if things go badly, but how fucking sad is that? It’s ugly and pathetic and monstrous and so joyless that it makes me wonder why you’re even a fan at all. It’s fine to have reservations. I have my own reservations. Being honest about the situation is a good thing. Waiting like some ugly buzzard to pick at the bones of those willing to poke their heads into the light because they have the courage to actually imagine a world that isn’t perpetually dark isn’t being honest, though. It’s cowardly and parasitic and in the end, the only one you’re really devouring is yourself. If the Lions do fall apart, it’s going to suck. But your “I told you so” bullshit isn’t going to mean a damn thing. At least I’ll die in the light, after fighting on my own two feet while you’ll still be stuck in your own dark and rancid hell, and after you’re done cackling, you’ll just go back to getting reamed in the ass by a Failure Demon with a monstrous dick made of hatred, fire and your own dead heart.

The Lions being 3-0 in the preseason is meaningless. The Lions beating the shit of Tom Brady and the Patriots is meaningful. Recognize this distinction and recognize truth. Don’t let yourself be ruled by bullshit fear. I might be wrong about things. I might have made a fatal miscalculation. The Lions might go out and lay a huge turd. But so what? I don’t think that I am, but so what? None of that matters. None of your bullshit matters. None of my bullshit matters. All of it is just so much bullshit noise. What matters is Ndamukong Suh hunting down Tom Brady while Tom hyperventilates and squeals like a dying pig. That matters. That’s real. And that’s what I choose to believe in.