Granted, the title of this diary refers primarily to the song I'm listening to right now, as heard on the excellent Anima CD from Spheric Universe Experience, but it could just as easily refer to the return of the NATIONAL. FOOTBALL. LEAGUE. (which is all that matters this year as Michigan's season is all but kaput one game in).

That said, I did a game by game prediction thing prior to last year, and in looking back, it seems I was slightly optimistic. Let's see if I make THAT mistake again.....

GAME 1: The OAKLAND RAIDERS. In Oakland. I'm guisseing Marinelli isn't going to repeat the mistake from last pre-season of trying to fly out on the day of the game and expecting the Lions to show up ready to go. Besides, they can't even figure out, three days prior to the first game of the season, who their starting quarterback is going to be.
You'd think the Lions could take care of business under these circumstances. But then again, it might be Josh McCown on a revenge mission lining up against the Lions on Sunday afternoon, and I'm sure we all remember what Joey Harrington wrought on his visit to Ford Field last year.....

Screw it, Lions win. 1-0 to start the year. Enjoy the winning record while it lasts!

Game 2: The Minnesota Vikings. At Ford Field. For some reason, I always chalk up the Lions and Vikings to split during the season, no matter how much reality likes to disagree with me. And so, I'll give the Lions and Vikes one win apiece in their head to head matchups. The only question is, do I dare predict that the Lions can get off to a 2-0 start? (Channeling Gene Wilder from Blazing Saddles.... "Dare! Dare!). Screw it, might as well. Lions win again and go to 2-0!!!!!

And seriously, this might be one of the few seasoning combinations that could make this possible, the fact that the Lions face the Raiders and the Vikings, both with huge questions at quarterback, that could lead to a 2-0 start to the season. The only problem is, that just makes what will follow, the inevitable slide, even more frustrating.

GAMES 3-5 Philadelphia Eagles, Da Bears and Washington Redskins, a pretty tough stretch, and the Lions will do what the Lions do, roll over and play like mice. Fantasy football-wise, I'll be starting Reggie Brown in week 3, Bernard Berrien in week 4 and Clinton Portis come the 5th game of the Lions, and I'm thinking that by the bye week, the FIRE MILLEN crew will have recovered from the initial shock of the 2-0 beginning.

Week 6 brings the bye week, but I'm not sure the respite will do much of anything for the Lions' fortunes, because right afterwards the Lions face what could be another tough stretch.

Game 6 brings the Tampa Bay Buccaneers into Ford Field, and given their early season schedule, they might be hurting almost as bad as the Lions by this point of the season. Add to that the fact of another stop on the Lions revenge tour, in the form of Jeff Garcia, and I'm not sure that the Lions can win this game, given all the turmoil that will have started surrounding the squad by this time. But y'know, even though I'm not an optimist in real life, I am a Lions fan, and every once in a while, you have to go against what you think in order to avoid predicting a 2-14 season. So I'm going to say Detroit bucks my real way of thinking, and say that Detroit takes care of Chucky and his rag tag crew of Buccaneers to even its record at 3-3.

Game 7: Da Bears again, and....the Lions just aren't beating Chicago this year. No matter how much less effective this years Bears defense is than last year's NFC winning crew, it's still too much for the Lions to handle. Not much to say about that. Except, my buddy Ben keeps hammering on how Grossman is a decent deep ball thrower, even as he's a crappy qb overall, so, assuming he's in the lineup and not hurt by week 8, I'll be tossing Berrien back out there for fantasy purposes.

Game 8: This time, a mutual revenge tour, as Tatum Bell and Dre Bly both face familiar unis when Detroit plays the DENVER BRONCOS. If I hadn't used up my optimism quotient in the Tbay game, I might be tempted to call for an upset here, but that Broncos defense is too sturdy, even with a Lions running game finally rounding into form with Kevin Jones' belated resurgence. 3-5 at the halfway point of the season, not too bad, given 3 wins all of lat year, but....not 10 wins like Kitna's fearless, careless rhetoric.

And here's where it gets interesting...games 9-13 are against teams that are tough, but not invincible. An average team would/should/could go 2-3 or 3-2 against the stretch of the ARIZONA CARDINALS (game 9), (10) NEW YORK GIANTS, (11) GREEN BAY PACKERS (Thanksgiving game), (12) MINNESOTA VIKINGS and (13) DALLAS COWBOYS. Furthermore, the circumstances in these games, 3/5 at home, the thanksgiving game, the fact that the Lions have beaten the Cowboys the last two years, et cetera, suggest that the Lions should should should win 2-3 of these games. But....I'm going to predict that the Lions go through this stretch at 1-4, with the win coming at the expense of Brett Favre and the Packers. The Cardinals, like the Lions, are one of those perennially bad teams, and seriously, I don't know why precisely they'd beat the Lions, but there are always inexplicable losses, and I'm going to call one at this point of the season. The Giants, we catch them a couple of weeks too early, before Eli Manning's patented late season slide begins, so that's a loss to go to 3-7 before the Packers respite. The Vikings win in the Metrodome because I let the Lions win game 2, and the Cowboys are going to be fighting for playoff positioning....a reason I gave for predicting a Dallas win in the last game of the season last year, which turned out way off base, but I'll try it again....and won't let Detroit stand in the way. So after a 2-0 start, after the 13th game, the Lions will be standing meekly at 4-9.

And it won't get any better in the next week, when Detroit will fly across the country to get stomped by LaDainian Tomlinson and crew in SAN DIEGO CHARGERS territory. 4-10.

Frankly, the last two games of the year, against the KC Chiefs and Green Bay again, New Year's Eve at the Frozen Tundra are BOTH winnable...but I think this time for real, it will be Brett Favre's last game, and he's not gonna go out losing to the Lions, so I'll give Detroit a split in the final contests, for a final season record of 5-11.

That's slightly less optimistic than last season, when I predicted a 6-10 slog prior to the first game. Here's hoping I'm as far off this year (to the good side!) as I was last year (to the bad), because if that happens, the Lions could possibly get to 0.500. But I wouldn't bet on that happening, no matter how much In Rod We Trust galvanizes this squad.

Bottom line, I'm just not going to be able to predict success for the Lions until it actually happens. I've been chained to this bandwagon without wheels for far too long.

And as always.....FIRE MILLEN!