Thursday, November 29, 2012

A Culture of Denial is a Culture of Failure





Jim Schwartz addressing the media about Matthew Stafford's "outstanding" mechanics.




It occurred to me earlier that I had yet to even think about the Lions game this weekend against the Colts.  These are the things that happen when your season degenerates into a forced death march through the desert of the damned back to the hell fires that have slow roasted our souls for far too long.  I haven’t really thought much about the game against the Colts because I simply don’t want to.  My brain is in revolt.  When it comes to the Lions, it has gone on strike.  Solidarity, brother.

Earlier today, though, the name Titus Young started being thrown around again and at least a few synapses of my brain decided to cross the picket line and so here we are.  I wish it was a better place, a place where Titus Young didn’t get suspended for acting like a passive-aggressive five year old, but well… yeah.

Just in case you haven’t heard the rumors, here’s how it basically breaks down: against the Packers, Titus decided to throw a petulant little shit-fit because he didn’t think he was getting the ball enough, so, naturally, he did what all rational adults do and intentionally lined up wrong multiple times because, uh, that’ll show ‘em I guess.  Of course, this then led to Jim Schwartz basically exiling Titus from the team for a while (and if this is true then “for a while” probably should have been “permanently”) only to welcome him back to the fold this past week.  And now practice observers report a sullen Titus Young roaming the sidelines of the practice field, picking up trash like he’s been sentenced to community service or some shit.  No word on whether or not he’s been wearing an orange vest.

I don’t really have anything to add to that.  The inanity of it speaks for itself.  It practically screams out LIONS DISEASE in big, flashy neon lights for the whole world to see.  It is the Lions equivalent of the infamous SPARTY NOOOOOOO, which if you don’t know is a reference to Michigan State’s almost supernatural propensity for fucking up at exactly the worst possible moment in the worst possible way.  It is a well-known phenomenon in this here state of mine, and while those on my side of the aisle laugh uproariously and use it as a punch-line, I can understand how my Spartan friends feel about it because goddammit, that’s how shit like this Titus Young news feels to me as a Lions fan.  It is just so quintessentially LIONS, you know?  In that strange and terrible way we are all too familiar with.  ROARY NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  Indeed.

It is with that crawling its way laboriously through the halls of my shattered mind that I sit down to write about this weekend’s game and while parts of me are trying desperately to cling to shreds of whatever leftover enthusiasm is still littering those weird halls (at least the ones that Titus Young hasn’t metaphorically scraped up along with his literal janitorial duties – and by the way, I think I’m going to nickname Titus Young “The Janitor” from now on.) other parts of me – and if I’m being honest, the more dominant parts of me – have simply ceased to care.  At least in a way that doesn’t feel like some false put-on, some forced attempt to throw up shredded pom-poms and lead some sort of perverse spirit rally for the congregation.  This season has sucked, yo.  Actually, it hasn’t just sucked, it has suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucked, and I will not pay fealty to it out of some misplaced sense of loyalty and honor.  Fuck it and fuck this team.

I’ll still watch – why not? – but I’m not going to pretend that I’m into it just to placate some foolish juvenile need to engage in some sort of dumb tribalism.  I have been through too much, I have seen too much, and goddammit, I will not put myself through this just to prove a point.  I have too many scars, too many old wounds that never quite healed.  I walk with a permanent limp, my face is disfigured and I drool when I talk.  I have been beaten upside the head too many goddamn times and people look away when they see me because I make them uncomfortable.  I go to support groups and am surrounded by people who tell me to love myself and that everything will be alright but goddammit, I can’t even feed myself without making a mess and I have to wear a diaper and sometimes the diaper leaks.  Things are not alright and I’m not going to lie to myself.  I am a Lions fan, and that is a truth that is filled with stark, naked horror, a truth that cannot be spruced up or made into an inspirational holiday story for the kids.  My team’s mascot is Titus “the Janitor” Young and nothing I gibber on about is going to change that.

The thing is – the singular macabre piece of tragicomic horror that drives this whole absurd thing – is that I can’t help it.  I can’t look away.  I can’t turn away.  I can’t abandon the idiot’s carnival that is the Detroit Lions because it is a part of me, they are a part of me.  They are the scars, the wounds, the limp, the drool, the shit-filled diaper.  I can’t abandon the Lions because abandoning the Lions would be abandoning myself.  You can’t choose who you love, even if who you love is a crackhead family member who keeps stealing your shit and ruining your life.  It is part of your DNA, encoded into your being and to try to extract it is a fool’s endeavor, like medieval charlatans trying to turn lead into gold.

I’m still here and I will be here until the end of time, just a ragged and broken skeleton, rotting under a hell-sun, wearing Honolulu Blue and setting fire to my eye-sockets and screaming a horrible death wail, a banshee scream that never ends, that just circles through time, frightening those in the past and those in the future, wrapping us all in one big goddamn horror show that is eternal.

Jesus Christ, this is maudlin and bleak, even for me.  But this is where I am as a fan and I’m not going to lie about it.  But what the hell, a new week is a new week and like they say in the support groups, we just have to take it one day at a time, or in this case one game at a time.  The good news – if you can call anything “good news” in this season of the damned – is that this one particular week has the chance to be not a total and complete butt.  And by that, I mean I actually expect the Lions to win.  This is not that farfetched – I mean, let’s be honest here, for all the woe is me stuff above the Lions are not a horrible football team, they’re just a horribly dysfunctional football team which is a fatal flaw I have become completely convinced they will be unable to overcome anytime soon.  This means that they will still win games, just like the Wayne Fontes era Lions won some games.  If that’s good enough for you, then what the hell, have fun.  I just wanted more.  Fuck that, I needed more.  But if Jim Schwartz channeling Wayne Fontes and coddling Matthew Stafford while he Scott Mitchells his way down the field and our one transcendent superstar, St. Calvin, takes the sins of the world upon his shoulders a la Barry Sanders is what works for you, then by all means, enjoy.  It’s just that you and I remember that time very, very differently.

I should have mentioned this earlier when I was discussing the Janitor Young incident but I forgot and hey, these things happen when you sit down to write and have no idea what to say – you just free-write and hope that you make sense somewhere along the way.  But yeah, anyway, that quick mention of Schwartz coddling Stafford reminded me of something I saw a couple of days ago.  It was a headline on MLive that said “Matthew Stafford’s mechanics ‘outstanding’ according to coach Jim Schwartz.”

Yeah.  What in the hell do you even say to something like that?  That level of denial is so deeply ingrained that the only thing you can do is sort of shrug your shoulders and then collapse into a heap of tears, muttering “Oh God” over and over again and then writing maudlin suicide notes like this infernal post.  That, coupled with the Titus Young story, is everything that is wrong, everything that has ever been wrong, with the Detroit Lions.  It is exactly that sort of ridiculous Baghdad Bob bullshit that turns hard times into a culture of losing, into the culture of Lions Disease.  It is a culture born of denial and passive-aggressive dickery.  You can read the failed wailing and idiot epitaphs of a dozen catastrophic Lions head coaches in Jim Schwartz’s words.  You can hear their ghostly whispers dancing around the word “outstanding.”  Jesus, they have poisoned his mind and oh, the horror, the horror . . .

Look, I have kinda gotten carried away here the last few paragraphs.  I meant to segue into a discussion about why I think the Lions will beat the Colts on Sunday – and I think they will – but there are more important things to discuss here.  I am sick and goddamned tired of the willful denial which props up our fanbase.  When things are going well  (I know, I know, this occurs at roughly the same rate as the appearance of Halley’s Comet)  the fear-mongers refuse to embrace it because they don’t want to be hurt again.  They deny reality in order to save themselves.  But when things take a turn for the Millen, people deny that shit too and claim all is well like Kevin Bacon screaming his ass off in the street in Animal House while anarchy reigns because they need to believe in order to protect themselves.  It’s two sides of the same miserable coin and I’m fucking sick of it.  This is not okay and if you say that it is, then right now you’re part of the problem and you’re just helping to perpetuate this miserable cycle of denial.  You are feeding Lions Disease.  You are making it strong.  Congratulations.

It’s time to take a goddamn Big Boy Pill.  It’s time for Jim Schwartz to walk up to Matthew Stafford and say “Yo, your mechanics are kinda fucked up so let’s fix this shit before it gets even worse.”  It’s time for everyone involved to take a look at the situation and admit to themselves that what they’re doing isn’t working.  You can cherry pick stats all you want and tell me that this is the same team that went 10-6 last year but they’re 4-7 and that’s all that matters.  And honestly, even while you’re over there gibbering about them being an 8-3 team that’s just had some bad breaks I can point out that they could just as easily be 1-10 right now so let’s just split the difference which puts them at, well, it puts them at 4-7.  You know who does that whole WELL WE COULD HAVE WON THIS GAME AND THIS GAME AND THAT ONE AND IF THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN THEN WE COULD HAVE TOTALLY WON THAT ONE???  Losers.  That’s who.  Denial worshipping losers. 

I know these are incredibly harsh words and I am basically standing alone yelling at literally everyone else who calls themselves a Lions fan, and hell, I’m even yelling at myself because I’ve done that too, but goddammit guys, at some point you have to stop whining and playing the victim and denying that real, substantive problems exist.  The simple fact is that the Lions didn’t win those games.  They lost them and you’re right, they lost them because they didn’t get the miracles that they got last season.  But what’s so fucked up is that so many people don’t seem to realize is that that’s the problem right there.  If you’re relying on miracles to be the foundation of your team’s winning strategy then you’re not just up shit-creek without a paddle, you’re drowning in that foul son of a bitch.

I don’t want to be writing these words right now.  I want to be praising Glorious Leader Schwartz and writing odes to The Great Willie Young but enough’s enough.  Things are not right, Matthew Stafford’s mechanics are not outstanding, the Lions don’t somehow deserve to be 7-4 or 8-3 or whatever fantasy land scenario y’all have concocted in order to call a temporary truce with the horrors of your own heart, and this is not a good football team, or even anything approaching a good football team.  This has nothing to do with offseason arrests or any red-herring bullshit like that and everything to do with the fact that this football team is fucking failing before our eyes.  No one is out to get them.  No one is unfairly persecuting them.  STOP MAKING EXCUSES.  THE LIONS ARE NOT A GOOD FOOTBALL TEAM AND THEY’RE NOT A GOOD FOOTBALL TEAM BECAUSE THEY WON’T TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR BEING ONE.

Sorry about the all-caps meltdown there but I’m sick of this shit.  I’m sick of the excuses and all the mewling bullshit that accompanies it.  Just stop it already.  Christ. 

Okay Neil, deep breath, we’ll get through this.  You’re right, other Neil.  You’re right.

Anyway . . . sorry, but a man needed to say some things and a man has said them.  I wish I had talked more about the actual game against the Colts this week – I certainly intended to – but Great Truths got in the way and when Great Truths decide to speak, you just have to get out of the way and let them.  The Lions should beat the Colts and, well, honestly that kind of says it all right there.  The Lions should beat the Colts because they are just objectively a better, more talented football team.  And yet the Colts are 7-4 and the Lions are 4-7.  This is not a mistake, or a fluke or any other excusatory bullshit you want to throw out there.  The Lions come into this game with a shittier record because they have earned that shitty record.  If they stop reveling in their own denial and coddling those parts of themselves which tell them that it’s okay to be a 4-7 team because it’s not their fault but everybody else’s then they will beat the Colts.  It’s as simple as that.  If they stand up and take responsibility for themselves, for their record, for who they are and who they want to be as a team then goddammit, there’s no reason they shouldn’t win this game against a rookie quarterback leading a team without a head coach a year after that same talent-deficient team went to zombie town.  If you can’t beat a team like that without making love to excuses then goddammit, just get the hell out of the way and let somebody else take a shot because I have no time for that weak shit anymore.

Lions win and if they don’t, it’s their own goddamn fault.  It’s time to grow up.

15 comments:

Low Fashion Lover said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZO8GG9t7lc

I split in two when the world was new,
I went down to my room,
Beyond living in another world,
I went down to my room,
We learned to feel but it feels too real,
I went down to my room,
I tried to run away,
I went down to my room.

I haven’t quite turned on Schwartz just yet but if there’s one thing I know about stubborn, hot-headed guys it’s that they rarely change without a complete disaster happening in their lives and sadly I think Schwartz’s disaster as a head coach would be getting shit-canned after a team mutiny. After that ass-clown McDaniels got laughed out of Denver and the Chiefs have become the new NFL pit of sympathy and despair it has finally dawned on the league that the Belichick coaching disciple myth was just a lazy talking point for overpaid, narcissistic commentators looking to continue the great football circle jerk. What Belichick does is basically the same as what happened to the leadership in the Soviet Union and why that government ground down to nothing and Ronnie Ray Gun got to dance on their ashes when he didn’t do shit other than fuck with brown people and accelerate the destruction of lower middle class dignity. Basically, what happened in the USSR was that every time a new leader came along he had to consolidate power within the party which meant holding close those dumb enough to remain loyal and eliminating any opposition or those perceived as intelligent enough to later become a threat. Stalin was notorious for this but Khrushchev and Brezhnev basically did the same thing on a less bloody scale. The problem with this is that after a few power changes you’ve basically wiped out any chance of someone knowing what they’re doing running the country and the useful idiots just become idiots. By the end they were left with Gorbachev who, while being hailed in our part of the world, was viewed as a buffoon that spoke ridiculously, a la Bush jr,by Russians. Perhaps he meant the best but his regime accelerated the crumble which saw the country being sold off to the oligarchs and thrust into the hands of the KGB. Anyway back to my point, Belichick is the type of head coach that can spot the useful idiots of the world. The ones that are truly useful are the ones that buy into the cult of personality and believe that it is the man, not the actions, timing or circumstances which make up greatness. We can see a string of disciple coaches that took all the wrong lessons from Belichick, his surliness, devotion to discipline among staff, not giving a fuck about anybody else and every other negative aspect of his personality. They failed to realize what makes him a great coach was just being prepared to make the best decision in any circumstance and expecting others to be as well, it’s not that you have the last word and look like a tough guy in front of the players, media and interns. Sadly it’s dawning on us as Lions fans that Schwartz might be an idiot, and no longer a useful one now that he’s in charge of a staff.

Low Fashion Lover said...

The thingy was being difficult so here's my other bit:

As for the point about Lions’ fans, well, we’ve fucking been here before and you’re letting the twisted spirits get to you. There will always be two camps during a season and the trick is to stand outside with the people that can read the idiotic smoke signals from both and then go hunt for our own food and try not to stray too far into another tribe’s territory without a big ass hunting dog and a predilection for cruelty. To be honest it has been Raven that has made the most sense through this entire year about the Lions through the Meta-rankings. He’s had a nice look at our feces and tear covered tribe from behind the glass and his weekly diagnosis after a good rectal thermometering (now a word) has been measured. Whenever I get too emotional about this team I read the ranking and drink some herbal tea. But goddamn that thought about Singleterry being perfect fucked with me today, I can’t shoot it down entirely but it just doesn’t seem right, THIS IS HOW CULTS ARE STARTED!!!!!! Anyway we’re at the point in the season where none of these games matter so we can finally snap on the rubber gloves and really examine this team in every oozing orifice while our sexy assistant takes notes. Now I’m watching for individual performances. I need to believe Suh’s value is in getting double teamed and allowing for his linemen to get easier penetration, that Stafford is improving on is out of pocket ability (ever get the feeling he’s told to not leave the pocket and just take a sack, yet loses his head and leaves the pocket only to remember and then fall on his ass?), that Pettigrew doesn’t piss me off, and that Broyles is for real so we can flip Young. Anyway, good post, go Lions and it makes me sick that I’ll have to endure Andrew Luck for the next fifteen years, at least Brady was pretty.

Raven Mack said...

Singletary whipping Suh into a loveable terror and scaring Stafford's side arm straight would be his great comeuppance on the Bears organization that never gave him a head coaching job as a black man and then threw Lovie Smith into the gig. He has the right chip on his shoulder. I know it feels wrong but sometimes that's how things go.

Sadly, Schwartz has reminded me of Steve Spurrier in recent weeks, just kind of dumbstruck there, in over his head, but not in a position to admit it because that would admit defeat.

Neil said...

I posted a whole comment deconstructing the way I approach this whole damn thing because I both agree and disagree with the need to stand outside the fire but it felt like I was engaging in some sort of dumb wankery while simultaneously ripping the mask off of what I try to do and I decided that I didn't like either aspect of it and so I trashed it and you get this comment instead.

But anyway, man, your comments are the sort of comments that make this place what it is and I commend your for them. Smart, weird as hell, half-insane yet oddly sensible... it is the Armchair Linebacker way.

In the end, all I'll say is that it is a conscious decision to stand inside the fire and dance with the twisted spirits that live within. Sometimes, it results in explosions like this and, well, it can't be helped.

BUT, you're also right about the two camps thing and I hate getting caught up in the war between the two and I actively try not to - usually anyway - but in this case, the whole denial thing mirrors so perfectly the issues with the team itself that I feel like it couldn't be helped. I enjoy writing about how it feels to BE a Lions fan and don't want to write so much ABOUT Lions fans but it's a hell of a trick to pull off, a fucked up dance on the edge of a knife, and once in a while the two become inextricably linked and I feel like I can't write about how it feels to be a Lions fan without also writing about Lions fans.

Fuck it, I'm not making any goddamn sense and this more closely resembles the post I just deleted and I am tempted to delete this one too but to hell with it.

Neil said...

Goddammit, I hate it when I can't explain shit the way I want to explain them. Fucking hate it.

But your comment about the trick being standing outside and reading the stupid smoke signals is too provocative and has me quasi-obsessed at the moment because it's incredibly true and yet I don't know how to explain that that IS what I do and yet at the same time it is the exact opposite of what I do. I don't fucking know. I suppose I contain multitudes and exist everywhere at once, haunting the camps of the warring tribes, sniffing the dark corners of their hearts and observing them like a fucking wraith hanging out in the shadows and hanging back with those on the outside and saying THESE FUCKIN' GUYS HUH? I suppose I am spooked in a way because your comment cuts right to the heart of my whole deal here at Armchair Linebacker and has made me neurotic and strange in a way that I am trying to work through the only rambling way I know how.

In the end, I suppose that's it - I'm both on the inside and on the outside and in doing so I dance with dangerous spirits but what the hell, I am a spirit warrior and I am not afraid.

T-800 said...

The Terminator: I'm a friend of Titus Young. I was told he was here. Could I see him please?
Parole Officer: No, you can't see him he's coloring in a crossword.
The Terminator: Where is he?
Parole Officer: It may take a while. Want to wait? There's a bench over there.
[points to bench]
The Terminator: [looks around, examining the structural integrity of the room, then looks back at him] I'll be back!

Marc said...

Quite simply....the "everything is fine thru rose colored glasses" rhetoric by Schwartz and Co. has become sickenin'.

I'd thought that with Schwartz bein' the stickler of details he is rumored to be that many of the "little things" which held the team back last season would be vastly improved this season....

Well....haven't seen any of that. I thought the game against The Rams was an anomaly....after The 49r's and Titans, I saw a pattern I began to see somewhat last year....only worse....no passion. No effort. But then....after the half durin' some games...."OK fellas....time to go to work....".

The attitude on this team is ass. Period. These are not winners....these are a bunch of dudes thinkin' that their talent alone will win games for 'em....

Somethin' has got to give....be it a better way or completely new way of thinkin' and doin' things....

I don't know that we're at the point of a new coachin' staff....yet. But an attitude adjustment is def in order....

As far as the malcontent dickheads....the absolutely refuse to get it right personnel....*trade bait while we can....*



Mr. Floaties said...

I have a proposition. We talk so much about an attitude shift being necessary. Maybe we need a radical move to do it. I say go to the Raiders or some other shitty team with an even shittier defensive line. Trade them Suh for some nice draft picks. Maybe throw in Titus Young to bump up the value marginally. Clean house of two of the biggest figureheads to the mountain of shame that is the Rushmore of Lions Disease. Cut out the infection and grab some talent in the draft that actually gives a shit about the team around them.

But then again, chances are that pick'll get fucked up, too. We need to change our mentality soon, or everyone will know we're no better than cubs: baby bears OR the baseball team.

Low Fashion Lover said...

I had a vision. Neil, I’m an ACLB devotee precisely because you stand outside the camps and preach the truth to those that were cast out or entered a self-imposed exile. However, I fear that in your King Lear madness you strayed and tried to find refuge within the walls of a tribe flying the Honolulu blue. You recognized these people as your own but yet something was off. These people dealt in absolutes and definitives. Things were either an eternal nirvana of bliss or they were the absolute worst dregs of football fandom hell and there was no reason to ever enjoy oneself (here I’m referencing those that can’t even enjoy St. Calvin without moaning that he’s being wasted on this fucking team, get a grip and enjoy that we get to see a generational talent every week). But in your madness you were moved to find solace and then sat with these brothers to smoke their newly harvested crop and after a healthy hit off their pipe of doom and their pipe of wishes (supplied by the what-could-have-been tribe) your spirit lifted the madness and you became the one eyed man among the blind. What you saw reminded you of why you had left these camps: the crazed pouring over ancient lore trying to find a buried truth in the punishment obsessed old Lions testament, those that fashioned a crown of their own shit which they proudly displayed as they brought down a fools judgement upon our players and finally the deranged arsonist chopping endless kindling with which to erect a funeral pyre to burn every aspect of this team into so many ashes. You saw this and escaped screaming back into the tundra to re-embrace the fluid spirits and prepare for the coming winds of winter. This post was your good-bye scream to the madness of the Lions camp and my comment was waiting in the tundra to be the slave that whispered in the ear of the returning Caesar ‘remember, you are mortal’. Also stay off message boards and try to skim comment sections; that shit tends to ruin your ability to think clearly about this team and your day.

Neil said...

I'm beginning to think that Low Fashion Lover is actually my spirit guide, as was foretold in the scriptures.

Neil said...

Mr. Floaties,

It wasn't that long ago that I would've told you that you were crazy, but now? Man, I don't know. I'm pretty much open to anything. I feel like we're on a road to hell and the road is narrowing and pretty soon it will give way and there will just be hot molten rock and naked failure demons cackling and whipping us with those old familiar chains and oh lord why???

Ahem. Anyway, yeah, it's possible, likely even, that the only thing that will change the culture around here is a seismic jolt. But as you say, even then, the problems will probably remain and oh Jesus thinking about this is getting too depressing.

Neil said...

Marc,

Yeah, the attitude just makes me angry at this point. I feel contemptuous of this time at this point and that's not a fun place to be.

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