Three Cups Deep: Detroit Lions vs. Minnesota Vikings

Eight wins.

The Lions have won eight games.

For the first time in eleven years, the Lions will not have a losing season.

Since Bobby Ross quit midseason, and former U-of-M head coach Gary Moeller took the reins. Since Charlie Batch was the starting quarterback. Since Desmond Howard was the star returner. Since Jason Hanson . . . okay, bad example.

Lost in the hubbub of a missed facemask call that may or may not have affected the outcome of the game, the mysterious failure of the offense to score more than 20 points when the defense handed them the ball four times, and the infuriating transformation of Joe Webb into Mike Vick, was the Lions shattering a seven-win glass ceiling that stymied each of their last three head coaches.

As I said on the Fireside Chat, this was a bizarre, disorienting game. The offense moved the ball effectively. Matthew Stafford’s stats looked great. The defense got six turnovers and converted two of them directly into 14 points. There are hints of the problem in the 269 rushing yards surrendered and 72 rushing yards gained, but even that doesn’t explain the bizarre inability the Lions had to put the Vikings away.

Throughout the game, folks watching at home hit me up on Twitter and via text to ask me what was wrong with the crowd. The “Lions Nation Army” of Ford Field was more like Bingo Night at the VFW Hall.

In the crowd’s defense, it was a hard game to get into. The lighting-fast run up to 28-7 made it feel like the rout was on. It felt like, just as with the preseason games and Kansas City and Denver, the switch had been flipped and the good-old-fashioned woodshedding everyone had hoped for (and was secretly expecting) was underway.

When that rout didn’t come, it took the crowd out of the game. When the Vikings started creeping back into it, it really made the crowd antsy. When time after time after time, the Lions found a way to fail to put a dagger in the Vikings’ hearts, the crowd grew restless. There were even boos audible on 4th down decisions to punt and/or kick field goals. Boos, mind you, when the Lions were still leading by multiple scores.

It was hard to get into it when the Lions couldn’t put the Vikings out of it. It was hard to get loud when we were trying to figure out what the heck was going on. It was hard to get amped for a defense that’s so convinced Joe Webb can’t possibly beat them throwing that Joe Webb was killing them on the ground.

None of this excuses the crowd, of course. I think we’ve already grown happy and fat on expectations. If we Lions fans want a reputation as a huge home field advantage, if we want to keep earning game balls, if we want to keep other teams practicing with fake noise set at 120 dB, we have to arrive loud and stay loud. We can’t just wait to see if it’ll be worth our effort and then buy in. The team needs our support for four quarters; let’s give it to them. Also, I saw some “fans” heading for the exits during Minnesota’s final drive. As I said on Twitter, I have some words for those folks: NEVER COME BACK.

Ultimately, the Lions got the ‘W’, and in terms of the season that’s all that counts. At 8-5 the Lions are a game up on the Bears, Cowboys, and Giants—all of whom can’t string two wins together to save their lives. With the division win over the Vikings, and the Bears’ common-opponent loss to Denver, the Lions now have the tiebreaker over the Bears, on top of the head-to-head tiebreaker against the Cowboys. With three games to play, the Lions have an effective two-game lead on both the Cowboys and the Bears, and a one-game lead on the Giants.

But of course, one of the Cowboys or Giants will win the NFC East, meaning the Lions and Falcons are essentially in a two-horse race for two spots. If the Lions take care of business in Oakland, they’ll earn their first out-and-out winning season since that fateful 2000 campaign. After that, the Lions could clinch a playoff berth at home against the Chargers, completing their first 10-win season since 1995—not coincidentally, the year Scott Mitchell set all the passing records Matthew Stafford is on track to break. That game falls on December 24th . . . and what a wonderful Christmas present that would be.

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From the Windy City to the Mountaintop

Last night’s moon was full. High, wispy gray clouds glossed over it in a way that often happens in video games but rarely in reality. The air was crisp and clean; I could see my breath. This morning a perfect, razor-thin dusting of snow lays on grass, cars, decks and toys not put away the night before.

Winter is here.

Fittingly, today is November 11th; in the old Julian calendar this day was halfway between the autumnal equinox and winter solstice. In old European tradition, today is celebrated as St. Martin’s Day or Martinmas—the end of harvest and planting, and the beginning of the lean Winter months. As Fat Tuesday is a feast before a spiritual fast, St. Martin’s Day was a time to feast before there was nothing to eat but canned, pickled, and salted winter foods.

This morning I’m reminded of the harsh, cold winter months to come. A reminder that this glorious young 2011 football season, so full of promise and hope, is halfway over. A reminder that the Lions, who we’ve had the pleasure of seeing romp their way to a 6-2 start, have a grim task ahead of them.

Up until this point there’s been no downside; coming off eight wins in 48 tries the Lions could win as many games as they lost satisfy the expectations of many. Now the stakes are higher. The rewards are much greater but the risk is, too. Now the coaches, players, executives and fans are fully invested in this season’s run to the playoffs. If they fall, it will hurt.

In the NFL, you can take nothing for granted. Every year is a blank slate, and while that means a team like the Lions can rise up from nothing and conquer, it also means a rock-solid franchise like the Colts can crumble to dust without warning. As young and as talented as this team is, and as competent and intelligent its leaders, this iteration of the Lions may not ever start 6-2 again. They have begun something great, but they have only begun.

The last time the Lions climbed to this altitude, it was 2007. They started 6-2 and then, halfway to the mountaintop they slipped off the cliff face and fell down, down, down into the abyss of the deepest black crevasse. That they’ve climbed back up to 6-2 again is nothing short of incredible . . . but it’s not enough. This team is good enough to ascend much higher, and if they don’t it will be not only a terrible disappointment, but a wonderful opportunity permanently lost.

Back in the relative warmth of October, the Lions hosted the Bears on Monday Night Football. It was the greatest home-field advantage the Lions have had in my lifetime: a sold-out-beyond-capacity crowd gathered from near and far, hometown music and and video montages, and all the pomp and circumstance of the national prime-time stage. The blue fire of Lions fandom never burned brighter than on that night.

As you know, the crowd fueled and fed the Lions, forcing Chicago into nine false starts and helping push the Lions to a 24-13 victory. Jim Schwartz awarded Lions fans a game ball: permanent, tangible proof that we, the Lions fans, truly helped our team to victory. Being there, lending my support, will forever be one of my most treasured memories and proudest moments.

I suppose we should feel proud, then, that Jay Cutler took pains to note the Lions won’t have that support on Sunday:

"We're going to be outside, not in the dome," Cutler said. "We're going to be on grass. It will be a little bit of a different environment for them as well."

"They don't have that [Ford Field] advantage on their side this time. It's going to be on our side," Cutler said.

Cutler thinks that playing outside will work to their advantage; that the Lions have no teeth outside the supportive comfort of their Ford Field den. He thinks that the elements, cold and cruel, will turn the tables. That Old Man Winter will be at the Bears back when the Lions enter the Windy City, and the cruel, bitter home field advantage he supplies will be as powerful as the mighty heat and warmth of the blue bonfire at full roar.

Well, you know, except for this:

“Sleet and mess forced #Bears to move practice indoors to Walter Payton Center”

via @BradBiggs

Though Matt Forte is being bandied about as an MVP candidate, the truth is that the Bears will go as Jay Cutler and the passing game goes. On that warm October night, Forte rushed 22 times for 116 yards, plus caught four passes for 35 yards, and the Bears could only muster 13 lousy points. Cutler played at an almost superhuman level to avoid a relentless Lions pass rush and couldn’t quite net 250 passing yards, out of 38 attempts.

The Lions and Bears are two talented teams with streaky offenses and stingy defenses. The Lions got plenty of help on Monday Night, but they’re also undefeated on the road. After a decade-long bout of road futility unmatched in 80 years of NFL play, the Lions haven’t lost a road game in three hundred and fifty-five days. If they can get the job done Sunday, that streak will extend to at least December; they’ll have completed a full calendar year without a road loss.

As this December comes, as Winter falls on the land again, the Lions have climbed the easy half of the mountain. Now their test—and ours—begins in earnest. Now is when the Lions need the heat and warmth of the bonfire the most. Let’s keep their blood pumping, their faces flushed, their fingers and toes twitching at the speed of combat. Let’s support our team with everything they’ve got, as they set out from base camp for the glorious mountaintop.

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Three Cups Deep: Lions vs. Falcons

This Sunday, the Lions lost their second straight game. They—especially, the offense—especially Matthew Stafford——looked nothing like the team that started the season 5-0, scoring 30+ points per game in the process. When the Lions gave up on the first half by running Keiland Williams twice in a row, the boo birds came out. You could hear them at points throughout the second half, as the Lions offense again failed to find the extra gear they had against Dallas and Minnesota.

It’s amazing how quickly us fans get accustomed to success. Between December 24th, 2007 and December 18, 2010 the Lions won just five games. The Lions started the 2011 season with five consecutive wins and suddenly we’re booing our our team.

I don’t understand the entitled fan.

I’m hearing a lot about “wanting to see good effort,” as if we’d rather watch a talentless team Rudy their way to a close losses than an extremely young, talented team grow into a dynasty before our eyes. So Matthew Stafford had a bad day at the office; why pouncing on him and ride him like he’s Scott Mitchell?

I’m seeing lots of, “I paid good money for those tickets, I deserve to see better than that” today. Deserve to see better than what, 5-2? The Lions in sole possession of the top wild card spot?

Earth to Entitled Lions Fan: it’s not because they’re not trying, it’s because they’re not executing. Matthew Stafford isn’t seeing the field like he’s been all season. The receivers aren’t bailing him out like they have all season. Somehow the gameplans which have worked to a “T” all season long aren’t putting the players in a position to succeed. Blame the coaches, blame the receivers and yes—blame Stafford. But don’t boo him.

When Stafford and the Lions most needed their fans to support them, the fans were booing them. When the defense most needed to the fans to be loud, they were quiet. When Matthew Stafford—and his confidence—were under attack from all angles, Lions fans didn’t rally to his defense, they joined in the attack. I can almost hear some loser shouting from the stands, “HEY STAFFORD! WHERE’S YOUR CONFIDENCE, YOU LOUSY BUM!!”

One of the interesting things about soccer—primarily, English soccer—is that the diehard fans aren’t called “fans,” they’re called “supporters.” It’s an important distinction. We should be supporting our team through thick and thin—especially when the “thin” is a slight lessening of the gloriously lovely “thick” our team has slathered all over the schedule to date. Double-especially when it was so very, very thin for so very, very long.

What’s the point of keeping the little blue flame burning all offseason if we’re just going to walk away the moment everything isn’t perfect? Why spend the longest, bleakest football winter ever refreshing websites and frequenting forums just to turn around and boo the team you allegedly support? It makes no sense—and worse, it makes all the cheering from prior weeks sound craven and false; the worst sort of bandwagoning.

Lions fans aren’t entitled to see winning football, any more than Lions players or coaches are entitled to their jobs. Everything that’s gone wrong can be put right. Nothing’s broken that can’t be fixed. Everything that helped the Lions go 5-0 can help them go 6-2. If you’re a Detroit Lions fan—a Detroit Lions supporter—then help them climb back up the mountain, don’t kick dust in their eyes.

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Lions Fans: Stepping Out Onto The Ice

This is a hockey pond. It’s part of a park across the street from my old neighborhood—which is also my current neighborhood. Oddly, I’ve never played on this pond. None of my few friends played. I didn’t have my own skates. Even though I liked hockey and watched hockey and wanted to play hockey, I never bothered to. In college, I ended up playing a little drop-in roller hockey—but I never played on ice, never even on this ice, which I passed every day on the bus for a decade.

As a grownup, whenever I’d see a hockey movie, or hear people talking about pond hockey, I’d feel a pang of regret. Once, I took a family trip to Alberta; as we flew over hundreds of family farms I was awed to see each boasting their own private hockey pond. When I read University of Michigan forward Luke Mofatt, who grew up in Arizona, say in regards to the Big Chill, “I didn’t exactly play a lot of pond hockey,” I cringed.

As a fiercely proud Michigan native, I feel like I abdicated my birthright. I feel like I took a pass on an important part of our cultural heritage. I mean, I like hockey, I grew up a half-mile from a purpose-built public hockey pond, and I never once bothered to walk over there and play! Just another thing that normal kids do that I didn’t, I guess.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Lions being a “normal” football team lately. After reading this piece by Neil from Armchair Linebacker, a lot of thoughts that had been swishing around my head set, like concrete.

I've said there's safety in futility, that at the bottom there’s nowhere to go but up.  I’ve said loudly declaring that the Lions are no good serves as disappointment insurance:

They may be looking down and shuffling their feet, hoping nobody sees them. They may be watching from afar, shivering in the bitter chill, but more afraid of getting burned again than freezing to death. Or . . . they may be loud and obnoxious. They may be proclaiming doom. They may be standing in our midst, shouting that we’re wasting our time and our breath. They may loudly predict a blowout loss before each and every game. They may boo and hiss every mistake, and crow with knowing glee after every loss. They may seek to dishearten us, to discourage us, to disperse us. They may seek to extinguish the little blue flame we’ve worked so hard to protect.

What should we say to them? “Welcome.”

Their sarcasm, their derision? It’s their scar tissue. It’s their armor. It protects them from getting burned again. If they loudly proclaim inevitable doom of the Lions, then they can’t lose! Whether the Lions win, or they are proven right, there is no way a boo bird can be labelled a loser, since they never truly cast their lot with the team.

But . . . they’re here. They’re already coming. The hope and promise and preseason performance of this young Lions team has kindled the flame to the point where the naysayers are already coming back. Despite their protests to the contrary, they are Lions fans, too. They want to cheer, they want to be true blue. If they truly didn’t care, they wouldn’t be here at the fire, they’d just move on with their lives.

What I didn’t think about is the flipside of that: it’s the losing that’s made us special, that’s made us different. It’s the losing that branded us as outcasts, that caused us Lions fans to seek each other out. It was the losing, ultimately, that caused me to carve this space out of the Internet and pour my emotions into it.

Now that nearly all of the streaks have been snapped, and we’ll expect the Lions to win more games than they lose, will we lose what makes us special, as fans? Rooting for the Lions won’t be something only “a real diehard” does, it’ll be what everybody around here does. We’ve waited and waited for this time to come, for the Lions to be a real football team again—now that that day is here (or nearly so), what will we do?

For me, what will I do? What is my role in this strange new world, where the Lions are just another NFL contender? If I’m not keeping the flame from being extinguished by the harsh and bitter winds, if the little blue flame roars ‘round the clock whether I tend it or not, does anyone have any need for me?

I think the answer lies in my kids, and on that pond. After a decade of being the losers, of being the rest of the NFL’s social outcasts, of playing by ourselves in our basements instead of joining the fun, it’s time to get over ourselves. Let’s make the winter fun! It’s time to quit moping around about how lonely we are, strap ‘em on, and go play.

Technorati Tags: nfl,detroit lions,hockey

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JIm Schwartz Gets It: A Fan’s Appreciation

One day, during his first training camp, Jim Schwartz addressed the media. That’s typical for training camp, but on this occasional he had something special to say:

"It's hard to be angry at me, so I generally don't get that that. I don't know the best way to put it ... they're guardedly optimistic. I think when you put yourself out there, the way you do when you're a fan, when you expose your soul to rooting for your team and you get hurt time and time again, sometimes you have a tendency to hold back and not put yourself out as much. and not become as, you know, I don’t know a good way to put it, but not become as . . . fanatical a fan. Is that redundant? “Fanatical a fan”? But the one thing is, they keep stepping up. They’re true football fans in this city; they’re excited about it. Everywhere I go, I get positive, positive feelings from the fans here.”

I think when you put yourself out there, the way you do when you're a fan, when you expose your soul to rooting for your team and you get hurt time and time again, sometimes you have a tendency to hold back and not put yourself out as much.

I swooned.

. . . and yet, here, in the sweltering June heat, is Jim Schwartz, head coach of the Lions. With the bone-chilling cold of this past winter an impossibly distant memory, he's talking earnestly about how hard it is for fans to “expose their soul” to a team, only to get hurt again and again. Could there be a better fit? Is there a team that needs a man like him more? Is there a group of fans more desperate for someone to understand the depth of their devotion, and the depth of their suffering? Is there a coach more perfectly suited to stoke the blue flames, and melt the ice around Lions' fans hearts? Has there ever been a coach brilliant and bold enough to rock the Frank Zappa moustache/soul patch combination?

Well, the Zappa look didn’t last long—but the sentiment remains.  Schwartz has shown a comprehensive understanding of the relationship Lions fans have with their team—that is a rare quality.  It’s especially useful with this team, of all teams; we’ve suffered through decades of mediocrity and worse. We’ve been put down, ignored, stomped on, and put through the wringer.  We’ve endured season after season after season of uncompetitive, uninteresting, hopeless, hapless football—often, with no end in sight.  Our team has been a national punchline for years—and publicly branding yourself a Lions fan was a one-way ticket to Loserville.

But Schwartz, he gets it . . . and unlike just about any other coach, Schwartz gives the fans credit for understanding the game:

“My experience with fans is that this excitement wasn’t developed the last four weeks of the season,” said Schwartz.

“We had really excited fans in training camp this year and I think one of the frustrations with the way that we started was that they recognized how close we were and how good we could be.”

Exactly—that was what was so frustrating about the first half of this season; we could see the talent, we could see the progress, we could practically taste victory!  It was right there at our fingertips, filling our nostrils and our ears--yet, time after time, we came away hungry.  The four-game win streak wasn’t a surprise invitation to a dinner party, it was unbinding our hands from our chair so we could finally eat.

. . . maybe it was only at the kids' table. But next season?  I think we’re sitting with the grownups.

Also, I shouldn’t write when I’m this hungry.

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