Real Fantasy Football

With 46 days to go before The Detroit Lions take the field to get trounced during their pre-season opener, they are already defying imagination. Jon Kitna today announced that the team, who under General Manager Matt Millen has the worst record in the National Football League, will win MORE than 10 games during the 2007 season.

Now, I have been a Lions fan since I started following football again in 2001 and during all that time, the BEST they have managed to accomplish was to win 5 games in one season, which is a hair over 25%. If they won six games, it would probably bring tears to my eyes. If they won seven, I would likely lose bladder control. If they won eight, I would suspect that the team spent the entire summer on a steroid and amphetamine bender at Chuck Rogers’ house. If they won nine, I would have no choice but to believe that the games had been fixed by the mob. If they won ten, I would have to send a thank you card to my dealer in high school and compliment him upon the staying power of the LSD he sold me in 11th grade. If they won MORE than ten, well, I guess we would have to get in touch with Satan and ask him if he needs help getting his furnace fixed.

Personally, I like Jon Kitna. He is one of the toughest quarterbacks on the field, racking up impressive passing yards for a man who takes more hits in an average game than Mohammed Ali took in his entire boxing career. I’m beginning to think however that the abuse he had taken out there has short circuited his synapses and lead to early onset dementia. He has crossed the line from being amusingly overconfident to being hysterically delusional. My first reaction to hearing Jon Kitna’s proclamation was similar to the reaction I had when my four-year-old son came up to me and announced that he was going to grow up to be the president of Japan. I just patted him on the head, told him he had to aim high and follow his dreams and as he waddled away I thought to myself, “Aaaaaaw, how cute!”

Since then my son has also told me that, in addition to heading up the occupation force that will one day conquer the Land of the Rising Sun, he wants to be a pie maker, a boat driver, Spider-Man, one of The Wiggles, a bee killer, a trucker and the king of a world where no one had to wear any clothes. I agree that my son is a bit impulsive and irrational but overall, his psychological health still seems to be in far better shape than that of Jon Kitna’s.

My prediction: The Lions will win 4 games in 2007. That is still a marginal improvement over last year yet remains a bar that is set a good six inches below Danny DeVito’s kneecaps. With expectations that low, it’s hard to disappoint me. In fact, it is actually quite a challenge yet year after year it is a challenge that the Lions not only rise to, but effortlessly obliterate.

At least this year no one on the team has been arrested for driving drunk and naked through a Wendy’s take-out window.