My earliest memory of the Detroit Lions is attending the annual Thanksgiving day game in 1980 with the entire Jansma family.  This included my uncle  Nick, Bill, and Jon along with my Aunt Lisa (who was and still is married to Nick) and my Uncle’s two girlfriends along with my mom and dad and Grandpa and Grandma Jansma.  I remember there being fresh snow on the ground as we made our way to the Pontiac Silverdome for the showdown between the Lions and the Bears.  I’m guessing in 1980 there was no such thing as the “Family Zone” but if there was such a thing  the Jansma’s didn’t have the foresight to purchase tickets located in the “Family Zone”  Even more unfortunate is the fact that if there  was a “drunk asshole zone” we were located smack dab in the middle of it.  Some drunk guy ended up spilling beer all over my mom’s coat in the first half and my dad in his one moment of chivalry came to her defense and started an altercation that resulted in everyone being carted off to the security office but me and my Uncle Bill.  Not sure what the reasoning was behind escorting my soft spoken grandmother to the security office, but it wasn’t until late in the game that everyone returned to our section and ultimately witness what was to be the first of a lifetime of disappointing Lion defeats.  To this very day I routinely  scream to the Heavens “WHY GOD! WHY! WHY DID YOU MAKE ME A LIONS FAN?”  Maybe that’s part of the reason I hate Donald Trump so much, he was somehow involved with the creation of the  USFL, an alternative to the NFL that would have allowed me to free myself from the shackles of the Detroit Lions and the never ending ineptitude.  The Michigan Panthers were the local team and I’m sure I could have gotten behind them and cheered them on just as fervently as I have cheered on one of the most moribund franchises in NFL history, the Detroit Lions.  What’s even more depressing is that the Michigan Panthers, who played two years in the USFL, have more championships than the Lion’s have appearances in the Super Bowl (1).  Needless to say, my Lions fandom got off to an auspicious start but it was a minor set back in light of what was in store for me as I stayed loyal to my home state’s sole professional football team.

I feel it necessary to detail the lowlights because there are truly no real highlights to speak of as I recount my almost forty years of cheering on a team that is almost as hapless as the city it hails from.  November 25, 2002 was a date that will live in coaching infamy.  Marty Mornhinweg was the coach of the Detroit Lions on that day when they played the Chicago Bears in Champagne Illinois (Soldier Field in Chicago was being renovated so the Bears were playing in Champagne for the season).  This resulted in about two to three hours more drive team adding insult to injury as the unthinkable actually happened that day.  The Lions and Bears ended up in overtime as I watched on hoping for the best but expecting the worst (that’s what every Lion’s fan does, it’s what we have been conditioned to do).  Sure enough, Mary Mornhinweg elected to give the Bears the ball first so that he could choose the direction he wanted to go due the severity of the wind.  NFL overtime was sudden death during that time period, meaning the first team to score was the winner.  The Bears promptly drove down the field and kicked a game winning field goal, leaving me with an excruciating five hour drive home to ponder how someone who was that clueless could be one of thirty people allowed to coach a team in the NFL, and be paid lucratively to do so.

The Lions organization continued to bumble its way to losing season after losing season until it made history in 2008 with a winless season. That’s right, the Lions are the only team to go winless through a 16 game season.  Since that infamous season the Lions have made progress in building an organization that at times has been somewhere between mediocre and average.  While drafting four receivers with their high first round draft picks in the 2000’s, one of them actually turned into the best receiver in the NFL and the Lions were also able to draft a respectable and talented quarterback to complement him.  This duo teamed with other players with varying degrees of talent gave the Lions the ability to win games and gave Lion’s fans hope for the future.

Fast forward to December 16, 2013.  The Lions were in perfect position to sneak into the playoffs by winning the NFC North.  The primary reason for this opportunity was that Aaron Rodgers had broken his collarbone, leaving the Packers looking like a rudderless ship.  The Lions were being spotlighted on Monday Night Football and my brother and future brother-in-law had picked up tickets so we could be present at the game that would vault them into the playoffs.  We were seated next to a number of Ravens fans and were giving them a hard time the entire game.  The game was touch and go the entire way and it came down to the final play of the game and to no ones surprise the Ravens kicker, Justin Tucker, kicked a 61 yard (nfl record) game winning field goal to effectively kill the lions chances of making the playoffs.  On the way back to the hotel on the people mover I gave a spirited speech about how no one should be a fan of the Lions because they are such a miserable and pathetic franchise.  Part of my argument was that professional athletes are paid handsomely and at the end of the of the day when it is all said and done they are rich and live a life that most of us can only dream of having.  My claim was that “Calvin Johnson doesn’t come and watch you mow your lawn, why should you come and watch him play football, he doesn’t give a shit about you and we shouldn’t give a shit about the lion’s, it’s a relationship that is all take and no give.  Needless to say, most of that speech was alcohol induced and I quickly came to my senses the following season and was once again all in for my Detroit Lions.  What an epic mistake that was.  It was about to get unimaginably worse, even worse than a record breaking field goal to bounce the Lions out of the playoffs.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason the NFL has decided to dole out a number of unfavorable calls to the Lions over the past few years, calls that have actually had an impact on the outcome of various games.  The Calvin Johnson rule was established in a season opener against the Chicago Bears when Megatron caught what he and everyone else thought was a game winning touchdown only to find out he didn’t complete the process resulting in a Lion’s loss.  This call opened the door for the NFL and their bumbling group of middle aged men masquerading as NFL referees to unleash cruel and unusual punishment on Lion’s fans.  It’s one thing to lose games on a regular basis because you are a bad franchise with players such as Charlie Batch, Joey Harrington, Scott Mitchell, Roy Williams, Charles Rogers, and Mike Williams.  It’s an entirely different story when you have done everything in your power to win a game only to have victory snatched from your grasp by officials who are entirely incompetent and would have a difficult time refereeing the celebrity flag football game on Super Bowl weekend.  What makes it even more devastating is that the Lions have been on the wrong end of two calls this very season and I was actually present for both of them.

The first one took place against the Seattle Seahawks.  The Lions were driving and Calvin Johnson was a yard away form scoring the game winning touchdown prior to having the ball poked out of his grasp and into the endzone where a Seattle Seahawk player illegally batted the ball out of the endzone.  The referees ruled the fumble was a touchback and awarded the ball to Seattle at the 20 yard line.  The correct call would have been to give the Lions the ball at the one yard line, allowing them to score what would have likely been the winning touchdown.  I was at the game with my wife and my brother and it was in Seattle.  We were sitting in a row with a group of Lions fans who had flown into town for the specific purpose of watching the Lions on Monday Night Football.  I, on the other hand, was visiting my brother and we decided to go to the game last minute.  I can’t imagine flying across the country just to watch the Lions play football, but those are the types of fans the Lions have, even though they haven’t made it to a super bowl in the entire history of their franchise.  While the loss was troubling, and at the time it happened none of us knew the refs had blown the call, what was more troubling was my response to the loss and my actions during the game.  I was screaming like a mad man at every Seahawks fan around me and there was a woman in front of me who was in her fifties who probably didn’t even know what a first down was.  She had genuine fear in her eyes and probably had to set up an appointment with her therapist the next day to deal with trauma I had unleashed upon her. My wife’s response to the events that had unfolded was “that was fun and exciting!”  My brother was taking the loss just as hard as I was if not harder because he lives in a city primarily comprised of bandwagon Seahawks fans who have no actual knowledge of football and the Lions winning would have been a prime opportunity to shove it in their collective faces.  Cara, my wife began to chastise my brother and I for our behavior.  I told her she better just be quiet or my brother may end up doing something he regrets to her.  Obviously, she wasn’t going to accept our childish behavior and she called us out for being childish and told us to shape up.  Way to go honey.

While the Seattle loss left a very unfavorable taste in my mouth, little did I know it was not the lowest point of what was shaping into a miserable season.  While the proper call on the fumble would not have guaranteed victory, the Lions win percentage was probably north of 95 percent and had they won that game it would have turned their season around.  The Lions fought hard but it was painfully obvious that this loss was going to take a toll on the team and likely put their season in jeopardy.  The Lions ended up getting blown out in two of their three next games and started off the season 1-7.  Season over, right?  Fortunately for the NFL, fans of NFL teams have a never say die attitude and due to the fact that they could still win the rest of their games, finishing 9-7 and possibly sneaking into the playoffs was still in play for the Lions.  After firing their offensive coordinator the Lions managed to pull off three straight wins causing my brother and I to get pickets off seatgeek to the Thursday night game against the Packers.

The game started off well and the Lions ended up grabbing a 20-0 lead over the Packers and their gigantic douchebag of a quarterback, Aaron Rodgers.  Watching at home you are unable to get a true feel as to what a truly whiney bitch he is.  Almost every play he looks to the refs for a flag.  There was one particular play where he was looking for a pass interference call and the Lion’s defensive back wasn’t even close to the wide receiver he was trying to throw the ball to.  Of course being a Lion’s fan I knew that no lead was safe.  Sure enough the Packers battled back and the game was somewhat in question even though the Lions had pinned the Packers back on their own 20 with 30 seconds left.  I’m pretty sure the Lion’s win expectancy at this point was north of 99%.  In all actuality it should have been 100% due to the fact that they were winning 26-24 with no time left on the clock.  Unfortunately, one of the referees, the one who had the worst vantage point, threw a flag on Devin Taylor for a facemask on Aaron Rodgers when his thumb grazed the facemask of the NFL’s holder of the most endorsement deals this side of Peyton Manning.  Apparently, Rodgers took some acting classes at Cal because he managed to pull his head down down at the very exact moment the thumb grazed the facemask, making it appear like an actual facemask.  Once it became apparent that the Packers would receive an un-timed down pretty much every Lions fan at Ford Field knew it was over due to the ineptness of Jim Caldwell.  Sure enough, the Lions rushed three and let Aaron Rodgers get out of the pocket to his right allowing him to throw the ball sixty five yards down the field to a wide open receiver in the end zone.  The Lions also had two guys guarding the sideline and after the game Jim Caldwell actually admitted that he didn’t think the Packers were going to throw a Hail Mary.  Even if you think that, don’t admit it.  What else are they going to do.  The Lions strategy on the last play was poor coaching on so many levels and it epitomizes the trials and tribulations of every Lion’s fan.  The Lions were up on the scoreboard 26-24 with no time left on the clock, but due to the fact that they had hired a coach that no one else wanted the previous season they lost a game that every other team in the league would have won except maybe the Cleveland Browns.

While the loss would have been hard to stomach sitting on my couch at home, it was twice as difficult to take because I was there in person to see it happen and now had a two and a half hour ride home to contemplate what had just happened.  Immediately after the Hail Mary, I flipped off a 12 year old red headed girl who was a Packers fan and seated directly behind me.  I have engaged is some pretty poor behavior as a direct result of improper outcomes at sporting events, but this was an all time low for even me.  Looking back on what I did, I wish someone would have at the very least kicked me in the testicles as hard as they possibly could.  Fortunately, I snapped out of it and was able to calm down my brother who was even more livid than I was.  Primarily due to the fact that I had lived through the Seattle debacle, I was quite calm from that point on and we managed to make it to the car unscathed and without being arrested.  However, I did do some serious soul searching on my way home.  What if the Elf on the Shelf had witnessed my behavior?  I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t even be receiving socks and underwear for Christmas.  I’m flipping the bird to a 12 year old girl because a team I had nothing to do with lost a game to another team I have absolutely nothing to do with.  Does that make any sense?  Had the Lions won that game would it have any direct impact on my life other than making me happy?  No, my wife isn’t going to have sex with me whenever I want because the Lions won.  My kids aren’t suddenly going to listen to me when I tell them to do something because the Lions won.  I’m not going to suddenly start making more money at my job because the Lions won.  On the flip side, there was a Packer fan near us who was  gloating about the win and acting like he was the one who caught the winning touchdown catch.  Is he any less of a loser because the Packers won? no he isn’t.  He is still eating government cheese and in all likelihood has some affiliation to one of the  worst places on earth,  Wisconsin, or at the very least may live in Detroit.

My take away from this entire experience is this:  Watching an NFL game live is a terrible experience.  There were at least six injury time outs and when there is an injury time out there is absolutely nothing to do but wait for CBS to get the game restarted.  Furthermore, there are also timeouts woven into the game seemingly every five minutes and there is nothing to do to pass the time during the commercial breaks.  On top of all this, the NFL has put together officiating crews who are entirely inept and they continually botch calls causing them to have a direct impact on the outcome of games.  If there was someway to boycott the NFL until they were able to get their act together we could make changes to the game and possibly bring about a product that is palatable.  Hold on, what am I thinking?  With gambling and fantasy sports the NFL could recreate the bud bowl or the XFL and people would still tune in for their weekly fix of football.  What gives me hope is the fact that when I was dressing my two year old Parker that very morning of that fateful game between the Packers and Lions was his refusal to wear a Lions long sleeve t-shirt that I had picked out for him.  He actually said “I don’t like them!”  I may not be able to steer an entire fan base away from a life time of pain and disappointment, but at the very least least I can save my children from making the same mistake I made. I hope Parker likes that Aaron Rodgers jersey I just purchased off from Amazon.