Amazing Loss

I'm amazed. No, not at the fact the Detroit Lions lost to the Chicago Bears. What amazes me is that I remain amazed at the pathetic depths our local NFL franchise can fall to.

When I flipped on the radio in my truck this afternoon, I had no idea what the score was. I had been at a function without access to scoring updates. One person did see the Lions cap atop my noggin and said "Harrington threw another interception". I wrote it off as just another anti-Harrington comment. Even if the thing went back for a touchdown, how bad could the Lions really be down? It still had to be very early in the contest. It was only around 1:30 p.m.

I headed for home around 3:00 p.m. Once my radio was on, I could immediately tell the Lions were on the short end of the stick. Dan Miller and Jim Brandstatter made it clear by their tone alone that the Lions were down. Nothing unusual about that, right? What I didn't know was by how much. I drove on waiting for the score.

When Miller revealed the Lions were losing 31-6, he endangered everyone on the road near me. I was totally amazed at the clobbering the Bears were inflicting upon Detroit. Now, I can't say a Bears win surprises me. Losing to a team everyone in town thinks they should beat is oh-so-typical. What caught me off-guard was the point spread. 31-6? 31-6?

Something else caught me off-guard, too. I was amazed at being amazed at a twenty-five point deficit. I was stupefied over the degree of the beating. Six hours and one more Bears touchdown later and I'm still just, well, amazed at the score and my reaction to it.

No one should be amazed at anything the Lions do. Less than a week ago, I wrote as much. We have seen the Lions routinely render a big win insignificant by losing to a team that has no right beating them. This pattern often happens in back-to-back weeks. Yet, in spite of this history, I was stunned when I heard the score for the first time today.

How on Earth can I be shocked? A Lions season, any Lions season, is much like the movie Groundhog Day. We just keep living the same thing over and over and over again.

Knowing this, why am I caught off guard by the latest pathetic performance? Thirty plus years of living down to our expectations and every once the Lions can still utterly amaze me with their incompetence. That may be more amazing than the loss itself.