Thursday, May 2, 2024

Lions lose longtime fan after debacle

Jacob Carpenter

After putting two seconds of thought into the Detroit Lions’ 34-21 embarrassment against the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday, I have decided to rescind my fanship from the only NFL team I have ever known.

I have officially chanted “Let’s go, Lions” for the last time. I’ve worried for the last time about whether a home game will be blacked out. I’ve hinged my pro-football hopes on the demon-possessed Jon Kitna for the final time.

I’m not only taking that Honolulu Blue and Silver card out of my back pocket and turning it in — I’m taking a hacksaw to it and shredding in into a million pieces like the Lions front seven against Michael Turner.

If I didn’t have class in two hours as I write this, I would probably drive to Allen Park and drop those pieces at the feet of a Lions employee, just for good measure.

Now this isn’t a gut reaction to Sunday’s deplorable loss. I’ve never been a fair-weather fan when it comes to the Lions.

No, to be a fair-weather fan implies that the weather was once mildly decent. I consider myself a thunderstorm-with-probable-tornadoes-and-hail fan.

Sunday was the last straw: A loss against a team with a career backup running back, a rookie quarterback greener than grass and an offensive line with more holes than the ozone. A loss so disgraceful the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers probably laughed like college students at a Dane Cook concert.

As I watched the game during lunch at a bar, I had to ask the waitress if it was OK to scream at the TV during the game. In the first quarter. When the score was 21-0.

I’ll admit I feel bad abandoning the team that I’ve inexcusably pinned my Super Bowl hopes on since birth. But how can you stay with a team that should give its rookies an orange jumpsuit, inmate number and pickax when their name is called by the commissioner in late April.

Each Sunday afternoon has started to feel like going to the doctor for rabies shots when you’re afraid of needles — it’s going to hurt, and there’s no turning back.

The only difference is one is good for your health. The other one only gives you high blood pressure.

I’m just too wary of the pain.

As I break my ties from the Detroit Lie-Downs, I really do wish them luck in their future endeavors.

I hope Kevin Smith can run out of the purgatory that is Allen Park, Calvin Johnson can morph from minitron into Megatron and Roy Williams can finally learn that signaling a first down when you’re down 30 points ISN’T COOL!

As the great Jerry Maguire once said about a breakup of his own, “I’m not trying to make history here” by parting from my Lions.

But now that the Lions have hit rock bottom (or so I think), it’s finally time that we go our separate ways.

So with that: Adios, Detroit Lions. I wish I had hardly known thee.

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