Last week: 3-2-0
Season: 43-25-1
Two fantastic (in the literary sense of the word, it seems unlikely they’re ‘fantastic’ like they’re good at all) openers tonight.
Opener #1: (Don Pardo voice) It’s Sssaturday Nnight Llliions! Starring Alex Anzalone! Brian Branch! Jahmyr Gibbs! Jared Goff! Aidan Hutchinson! Amon-Ra St. Brown! Musical guest… we rap “Lose Yourself” but we end every single couplet with the words “Mom’s Spaghetti”! And your host… Dan Campbell’s Pituitary Gland!
<Pituitary Gland takes the venerated Studio 8H stage>
“GLAD TO BE HEAR. GONNA BE A GREAT SHOW. THE LAUGHS WILL BE RELENTLESS. THAT’S JUST THE WAY IT’S GONNA BE. WE’RE BUILT THAT WAY. BAND IS THE WEIRD SONG. I’M HOST. STICK AROUND.”
Opener #2: I’m walking down the street and “Stayin’ Alive” is playing as the camera slowly pans up from my rhythmically strutting and impeccably dressed feet. As I sidestep street vendors and old women of nondescript southern European ethnic descent who say stuff like, “Oh Mikey, whennaya gonna get-a married?” but it’s all good and I just kinda glide through. All the while, typing out these picks on a phone. Gotta get these picks in before Detroit Lions Saturday Night Fever! In the immortal words of the Bee Gees’s ‘Night Fever’ from the movie referenced just a sentence ago:
Listen to the ground
There is movement all around
There is something goin’ down
And I can feel it
That movement, unfortunately, has been a Lions regression. It’s all around, it’s going down and I can feel it. Something’s just felt off, gang. A lot of it (~80%) can be rationally explained away by injuries, but the team’s mojo has taken a hit as well. They haven’t been quite as tough or as resilient as they thought they were; as they kiiiinda purported to be. Admittedly, they’re not as “keg-o-nails”-level tough as my cocksure fan attitude warranted. I even warned myself and predicted it happening. Still, couldn’t dodge it. Lions and their fans are frogs and scorpions from the fable, just in like 10,000 different variations on the roles. The coaching confidence/bravado/mania hasn’t been matched by our guys playing well on the field. And in the instances where our boys may have had the juice, the coaches are having some pretty lengthy stretches of head-scratchers. Players and coaches are doing the Lions patented Reverse Ham ‘N’ Egg. It used to be only the 11 on the field did that. Now that we’re generally better as a team, the malady has spread to the larger body. And oh yeah, I’ll belabor an obvious point when it needs to be said: if Goff isn’t at least decent, our chances of winning drastically decrease.
Part of Goff’s little slump is the pocket hasn’t been pristine, Goff’s preferred milieu. So again, some of this poor performance is due to injuries, particularly (in Goff’s sake) that of the O-Lines and on the other side of the ball, the line and the secondary are both really messed up. There’ll be some improvement there tonight, but we’re still missing Alim which hurts so much. If Hutch could turn into his otherworldly self a bit more consistently that might make a huge difference. He’s not commanding as many double teams as a player of his talent should, and when that’s happening the rest of the defense is being schemed to death.
We’re still taking the Lions! I think we can get right against Denver tonight. It’s a brisk but not frigid night. It’s the kind of air that makes you feel present and on cutting edge. I know the game’s indoors, but still. Players gotta drive to Ford Field. Let’s take the Leos minus the 4.
WEEK FIFTEEN RELIABLE BIRD DOGS
Jets (+8.5) @ Dolphins — Gimme those Dolphins again. I don’t care that I get ‘em wrong more than I get ‘em right. I think McD’s weirdness translates well to “stay sharp”-type messaging during this time of year when distractions abound. I like them to TCB hard against the Jets, who won’t be able to score enough to keep up. What’re the Jets gonna score? Maybe 13? C’mon.
Bears (+3) @ Browns — I feel compelled to weigh in on this sneakily critical game as a northern Midwesterner. I like Fields returning to Ohio and the mini-tear the Bears are on. There’s sincerely good mojo over there making me nervous for the future. But the Browns and Flacco make a great story, and they’re not bad. I like the Dawg Pound to hold serve in a great game. I’m looking forward to watching this with a plate of mustard and sausage, gouda and cotswold cheeses and a dunkel for the wash. It’s gonna be a great, presh-free Sunday, which I’ve gotten spoiled by this season.
Chiefs (-8.5) @ Patriots — I know what you’re thinking. The Chiefs are off, that’s a large spread in rainy, weird weather. BilBeli will enjoy sticking it to Reid to reassert his generational superiority. I don’t buy it. I think the Chiefs get right and overtake a clearly inferior Pats squad. How many points can the Pats muster in bad weather? 10? Chiefs can get 20. Shamone!
Cowboys (+1.5) @ Bills — The most enticing game of the weekend. For the Bills it might prove do or die, but they play dicey under any/all circumstances. Difficult to predict. For the Cowboys, they have to keep pace for perhaps sneaky-tough NFC playoff seeding while running a mini-gauntlet in their schedule. And the book on them is large-moment shrinkage. I think there are easier games to bet but I’m here (“here” is another roadie Starbucks, in all likelihood the final one before Christmas, thank goodness. Not that Starbucks isn’t a nice vnue for some type-a-roony, but there’s a whole sub-class of people who like scoffing at people who type on laptops in coffee shops. I have a working theory that coffee-place-typer-haters are the children of people who were really into Gallagher.) for MY READERS. I’m taking the Bills to keep alchemizing desperation into good offense and opportunistic deef.
As the record in the “cold open” preamble states (can you tell I wanted to make this rare Saturday Nighter feel like SNL? If you couldn’t tell that, I’m sorry my writing can be so esoteric, difficult to understand and overly referential. I don’t expect my style to change, but I’m sorry if it’s not meshing with your reading preferences.) you’re not in the worst hands. Certainly not the best hands, but far from the worst! I hope at the very least you had fun reading these picks and getting a feel for the Lions game and some of the finer points of the week around the league. I hope your holiday preparations are going well or are complete. Though to be honest, I don’t like being too well-prepared and done with Christmas stuff ahead of time. Makes me more anxious to be done and just waiting around for the date to come than to have a little rush at the end because of some procrastinaish. Regardless, I hope you all have a joyous time out there. The holidays themselves get a lot of attention, but these days are the real meat and potatoes of this magic time of year! Enjoy how kind strangers are. Share a laugh and a quip. In other words, bear glad tidings. See y’all soon. Auf Wiedersehen!
