Detroit defeats Green Bay, 7-3
The weekend featured two games where teams removed themselves from contention for the top slot by notching their third win of the season. Buffalo was the first; Detroit, the second.
Both teams have suffered close losses throughout the year, the hand of fate putting gentle yet firm pressure on the back of their heads as they struggled to get just above the surface of the water. Buffalo lost 3 overtimes games to superior opponents, Baltimore, Kansas City, and Pittsburgh. It also suffered close losses to Chicago and Miami. Detroit lost close games to Chicago twice, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Green Bay, and the New York Jets in OT.
Those who have followed my meandering thoughts on these losing teams know of my new statistic, RAPELs. The acronym stands for Record After Particularly Excruciating Losses. In its nascent form, I have applied it only to the Bills performances of the last 4 years. There is a reason for this. RAPELs is not perfectly objective like JaMarcus Russell's 326 career incompletions or Ki-Jana Carter's 3.29 yards per attempt in his Cincinnati career. The subjective element is determining what counts as a particularly excruciating loss. Many factors go into the decision. A brief, but not exclusive list:
Closeness of the loss. Obviously a close loss is more excruciating than a blowout. No one's heartstings are plucked and snap because of a 35-3 stomping. Those who would be are too drunk to have feelings beyond mild annoyance towards urinating one's pants.
Coughing up a lead late in the game. If your team is down 17 points and makes the deficit 3 points and you get angry about it, its time for you to drink more, because you obviously are too sober for the occasion. It's like getting angry when you feel up someone, get the sexual harassment lawsuit dismissed, but don't get to go on a date with them. Calm down slugger.
Playoff implications. Especially for teams that are annually terrible. The playoff hopes don't have to be all that realistic or else this requirement would rarely be met by the teams I discuss. A 7-6 team that needs to win out against with two other playoff teams in the way would still count. While you may argue that the unlikeliness of a succssful playoff berth should temper the excruciation, you should also consider that fans of teams analyzed here are desparate for even an appearance on the national stage, like food to the starving, or human contact to the leper.
Extreme circumstances. These are what make a loss particularly excruciating. It is impossible to establish an objective criteria for this as these losses often involve bizarre circumstances. Kick returners taking balls out of the endzone when a touchback was perfectly acceptable. Double tipped passes landing in the hands of a waiting receiver who sprints to the endzone just as baffled as those watching. Failed two point conversions to tie followed by an onside kick followed by a 50 yard field goal. One standard you could use is whether the loss inspires the urge to spray paint penises on the offending player's lawn, as long as you don't have the psychological disease penisprayitis.
Why do I prattle on about this when the Lions won? Because the previous week, Detroit suffered at the hands of their own coaching staff and were brutally mauled by the Chicago Bears. Briefly, the Lions had a lead going into fourth quarter, preparing to exact vengeance upon them for the first week loss that included the catch that was not a catch. Holding a slim 3 point lead with 12 minutes left, Detroit faced a 4th and 1 in Chicago Territory. The decision to go for it was not too egregious, a punt could have pinned Chicago near their own end zone but a first down and 1 is convertible and gives them a chance for a score. No, the distressing decision was to put the ball in the hands of Drew "Who Needs a 60% Completion Percentage?" Stanton (In the unedited version, I had Drew Henson. My cousin in law reminded me that that little fucker never played QB for the Lions. Stop naming your kids Drew.) for longer than a handoff would take. His failure was as surprising as my dog pooping on my neighbor's lawn and me not cleaning it up.
That doesn't put the loss up into the particularly excruciating territory. No, Detroit's defense assured that it would fall into that cubby hole with the rancid milk and soiled underpants. Chicago drove through the Detroit defense like an old Florida man frantically jamming the gas pedal as he careens into an open market full of bystanders. Ndomakung Suh, frustrated that no one could spell his first name correctly the first time, threw Jay "The Frenetic Diabetic" Cutler to the ground after an 8 yard scramble. The refs, part of a vast conspiracy with our secret Masonic masters, called unnecessary roughness. The extra 7 yards destroyed Detroit's psyche and the Bears scored a TD. Afterwards, the Detroit fans watched, numbed by the casual and frequent nature of the atrocities committed in front of them.
RAPELs is designed to follow what happens to team after these types of losses. Is there a hangover effect for these teams so terrorized? Does the team bounce back from such losses like a human head off the concrete after being slammed down?
In this particular case, Detroit did respond with a win against Green Bay. The game was boring but for the conflicting rooting forces that presented themselves. First and foremost, fans divide over whether they want their team to win. Some see the rotting yellow and slime green of the Packers and revolt instinctively. Some only care to get the highest draft pick so they can wait for the draft to boo their team for wasting such a precious resource.
Second, there was the concussion to Aaron Rodgers that splits Lions fans. One group of fans, the highfalutin, moralizing, finger wagging group who say you should never root for an injury, pretending that these athletes are actually human beings who will suffer permanent debilitation from the constant pounding these men take. These people are known as pussies, and to avoid misogyny, I use the Jay-Z defense for using the word. Another group of Lions fans are of those who want the Lions to win. In the stadium, they run to the beer vendors so they have an excuse to not join in the applauding for a player leaving under his own power. Out of the stadium, they watch their 20 inch black and white TV, fist pump clumsily, and spray saliva through their teeth. The last group of Lions fans are those who want to see their team lose. Aaron Rodgers concussion deepen their scowls and misanthropic inklings. They look the most solemn, but really just mourn the last 50 years of Lions football, letting nihilism seep in.
Third, there are the fans that think the defeat of the Packers without Rodgers indicate some sort of positive quality about their team. This group is composed of reckless homers and blithering idiots. Yes, you beat a team that lost its starting QB. You probably think that a boxer smashing a cripple indicates boxing ability. These are the same people who insist, "Every game is against an NFL Team. They are all tough." Many say this even while following a team that is the football equivalent of a turnstyle, so you'd think they understand that teams do vary in quality. They ignore schedule strength, personnel, home and away splits, and basic logic. I would I don't begrudge them their beliefs, but I do. If only those insipid fools let their illusions carry them to a comically tragic injury. Maybe they believe that the mass of an object doesn't effect the amount of force required to move it, so they believe their ability to stop paper airplanes allows them to stop a speeding train. Perhaps they believe that air resistance is not correlated to surface area, so they jump from the roof of their house hoping to float to the ground like a feather. My rambling point is schedule strength matters, and you West Coast NFL fans are rooting for a terrible product and ruining everything for us, and by us I mean those who wish to fully demolish the teams that play in your divisions. I am bitter that I can no longer do write-ups on the 49ers. I have to make due with the Broncos and Kyle "The King of Jowls" Orton.
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