Nostralameass

If this dude ever saw the Lions play, he would have wept tears of blood. And he predicted the END OF THE WORLD. Think about THAT.

So, I thought I would look at the five predictions I made before the Saints game and see how close I came to hitting the mark or how hilariously wrong I was. This is potentially a stupid idea but hey, fuck it, writing about football is itself a pretty stupid thing, and writing about football the way I write about football is absurdly stupid and so, hey, why not this nonsense?

Prediction #1
What I Said: Drew Brees throws for almost 400 yards and 4 touchdowns

What Actually Happened: Brees threw for 358 yards and 6 touchdowns. It turns out that I didn't give Brees enough credit or perhaps I gave the Lions pass defense too much credit, which is really saying something since I anticipated them getting blown apart like you see in the movies when they show people getting turned into a fine powder in nuclear blasts. I figured it would just be sort of sad, like those scenes where a family is caught flat footed and maybe the dad tries to cover his kids or something to protect them from the blast but they get wasted anyway. Instead, it was like that scene in Terminator 2 where Sarah Connor has that dream about the holocaust and she gets her flesh blown off and then her skeleton just sort of flails about in tortured pain and you get the sense that she feels it all, and it's worse because it just never ends. Oh well, at least Brees threw an interception too.

Prediction #2

What I Said: Matthew Stafford throws for almost 300 yards and a couple of touchdowns . . . and a few interceptions.

What Actually Happened: Stafford threw for 205 yards, no touchdowns and 3 interceptions. Well, hey, I GOT PART OF IT RIGHT, DIDN'T I??? Oh, and he should have had at least one touchdown pass if the refs didn't behave like they had all been raised alongside Lennie Small, eating lead paint chips and snorting asbestos. No, I don't know what that means either, but fuck it, St. Calvin scored that touchdown and if the denial of such an event forces me to descend into wild gibberish, then so be it. I feel like one of the early Christians must have felt when that one dude was denying Jesus every time that rooster crowed. Wait, that is a real story, right? I'm not just making this up, am I? Did I just compare St. Calvin to Jesus? It would appear so. Why isn't Mel Gibson doing something about this?

Prediction #3

What I Said: Calvin Johnson has 150 yards or so receiving and a touchdown or two.

What Actually Happened: Sigh. Officially, St. Calvin caught 3 passes for 90 yards and zero touchdowns, but we already established that was all bullshit in the possibly offensive ridiculousness above. I was mildly disappointed in the Lions inability to get the wonder child the ball more consistently, but it was a game full of disappointments and to linger on any one of them is to invite madness and despair and so we will move on.

Prediction #4

What I Said: Kevin Smith has a decent game, but much of his yardage will come through the air on screen passes. He will only see around 15 carries because the Lions will be forced to throw to keep up.

What Actually Happened: Smith had 15 carries for 20 yards and a touchdown. He caught 7 passes for 52 yards. I was sort of right on this one. Well, at least about the number of carries. Nailed that one. And the majority of his yards did come through the air on screen passes. The decent game part? Well, we'll forget I said that, even if it was the basic thrust of the prediction. Fuck it, just let me have this, alright?

Prediction #5

What I Said: The Saints won't run the ball much either. Pierre Thomas might not play, and they will probably keep the Lions off balance with the occasional draw or screen pass to Reggie Bush who will pile up anywhere from 8-10 catches for 90-100 yards as the Saints exploit linebacker blitzes.

What Actually Happened: Wellllllllllllllllll . . . Mike Bell ran the ball 28 times for 143 yards, so, hey, looks like this one was a big fat bust. Then again, Pierre Thomas didn't play, although that was more of a fact than a prediction so I probably can't claim that as a point in my favor here. Meanwhile, Bush only had 7 carries for 14 yards and caught 5 passes for 55 yards. If it wasn't for Mike Bell I would have been mostly right with this prediction. Okay, so maybe Bush didn't have quite as big a game through the air as I expected, but I should have foreseen that Drew Brees would be able to throw down field all day and that they wouldn't need Bush all that much. Also, Gunther Cunningham hardly blitzed the linebackers at all. Whatever. I will claim that I was half right with this one, even if again, the basic thrust of the prediction was completely wrong. Heh heh, you said thrust, Butthead. Yes, Beavis, I most certainly did.

Predicted Final Score: Saints 38, Lions 24.

Actual Final Score: Saints 45, Lions 27. Close enough, unfortunately. Excuse me while I fiddle with this razor here . . .