Detroit Lions vs. Carolina Panthers: What Just Happened?

Hi everyone. Just give me a quick second to collect myself.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, I’m back from the scream chamber. Honestly, after the Lions’ 20-0 loss to the Carolina Panthers, I kinda want to go back in and stay there. The scream chamber is the only place I feel safe. It’s the only place where the Lions can’t hurt me.

As always, I have thoughts on this game. These are those thoughts.

We’re broken

Congrats, Matt and Bob. You guys did it. So many coach and GM pairings have tried throughout the years, and none of them could do. But you guys finally broke Lions fans. You broke them so hard that I’m not sure anyone will ever recover. I mean look what you did. Here look!

That’s just a sampling. I watched this team go 0-16 in 2008, and I still can’t say that I’ve seen fan happiness be this low. At least in 2008 fans had hope for what the future would bring. Patricia and Quinn have systematically broken this team down piece by piece like the Kane did to Robocop in Robocop 2. It’s like they did it on purpose. It’s like they bullied us in the school yard and made fun of our moms.

What more needs to be seen? Seriously, how much longer do you need to wait, Sheila? The only way you can restore any kind of faith is if you let these guys go as early as Sunday night. Don’t wait till after Thanksgiving. Don’t ruin Lions fans’ holidays by making them look at this guy on the sideline. End this nightmare. We’re begging you at this point.

We don’t deserve this. I’m not talking as a journalist right now. I’ve loved this team my entire life. I don’t deserve this. None of us deserve this. We pile into your stadium every time we can, we buy your merchandise and we give our hearts to you. I mean I’ve built an entire career around this team. Why are you doing this to us?

Lessons not learned

I’ll hand it to the Lions coaching staff. They went out there and played all the hits. They did:

1. The Adrian Peterson thing
2. The multiple screens that never work
3. The Stafford read option down 17,
4. The thing where they allow the quarterback that’s never started a game to have a good enough game to feed his family for the next ten years.
5. Allowed Stafford to get sacked a bunch of times.
6. Played man coverage all day until they threw in some failed zone.
7. Gave someone a career high. (D.J. Moore had a career high 10 catches)
8. Lost in embarrassing fashion.
9. Embarrassed their fan base.

What the hell? I can’t grasp it. I try really hard to figure it out. I pace around the house thinking about it all the time. Why does this guy continue to exclusively do the things that don’t work? The easy thing to say is that they’re dumb. I get that, but it can't be that simple. It just can’t be. There couldn’t be a world where a guy gets paid millions of dollars to not understand that what he’s doing isn’t working. Someone please explain it to me. I’m begging you.

Stuff that happened in the game

I know I’m supposed to talk about things that happened in the game. What do you want me to say? What did the Lions do on Sunday? It was as if they weren’t even there. There was no effort on either side of the ball from coaches or players. Matthew Stafford gets a pas because his hand was messed up, and Darrell Bevell went full Jim Caldwell on him and neutered him on the field.

Sometimes I wish Stafford would leave and go save himself from all of this. He’s the best quarterback this franchise has ever had and half the league would chop off the throwing arm of their current quarterback to have him. I want to see the guy succeed, and I wish it would happen here. But that’s just not happening.

Jack Fox is good though. So there’s that.

I know what you want, but it’s not happening this week

I know you want Matt Patricia gone immediately. I do, too. I mentioned it above. Remember that? Well, I was mad there so it doesn’t count.

The reality is that the Lions are playing another game in just a few days. The idea that Matt Patricia would get fired and the Lions have just three days to prepare under a new head coach is just not a reality we’re going to live in. So settle in, Lions fans. We still have another guaranteed week of 1948 style football ahead of us.

Don’t let them beat you down

I know it hurts. You try to act strong and act like this doesn’t matter. Like, “Hey it’s football. Why should this affect my entire week?”

Well, for a lot of people it does. It’s a strange phenomenon, but a lot of people put so much energy into Lions football. It’s a weekly thing you do with your wife or husband or it’s a long-standing thing that you do with your family. It’s important to you. So naturally when the Lions get beat this bad, it hurts.

Just try to put that hurt away this week. I know it will be hard. Especially this coming week where during the pandemic, some of us will be spending Thanksgiving alone for the first time in a long time or ever. It’s going to be hard to experience this team alone and know that you won’t be able to go laugh about it with your brother or your aunts and uncles. You won’t be able to hear your dad laugh at the table about how he’s been through it his whole life. It’s a hard time right now.

I’m sorry to be so somber. I’m sorry to take you on a ride of emotions in an article that’s supposed to make you laugh. I just want to make sure that everyone takes care of their mental health this week. If that means just skipping the Lions and getting on a Zoom with he family members you might not get to see this year, just do that. Or just skip it all together and take a turkey nap. Just take care of yourselves.