Welcome back football! Week 1 is almost in the books (tune in tonight to watch the Giants shit the bed!) and it felt…honestly pretty normal. The differences didn’t bother me much at all. The lack of fans wasn’t that noticeable. The sounds were the same. It felt comfortable, like slipping into an old pair of shoes that you recently replaced the laces on. It felt right. I genuinely want this to work out and I hope it doesn’t fall apart.

We had our usual gaggle of week one nonsense too. Teams with hype getting punched in the dick (The Bucs Super Team!), teams that nobody thinks are good giving us the best games of the week (Colts/Jags and Raiders/Panthers ruled!). A general air of uncertainly because we still have no idea which of these wins and losses were flukes yet. But some things felt constant. Like the Lions!

So I actually had this comic idea pretty early in the Lions/Bears game. I got it started, and the final panel was a bears fan going “At least Trubisky still sucks”. Then, as Redzone swapped back to the Bears game right when Trubisky threw the go-ahead touchdown to complete the Bears 4th quarter comeback, I realized I had to scramble to change the panel to the other constant that gives us all comfort in these trying times: the Lions tragically snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Remember when Jim Cladwell got fired for Matt Patricia? Jim Caldwell deserves more credit. The Lions have been a joke under Patricia and losses like this are just a prime example why. This felt inevitable in the way only a continuous disaster can. The Lions made Mitch Trubusky look good for one quarter and they fumbled a 3 score lead. It came down, as it tends to do, to a heartbreaking single play in the final drive, this time being D’Andre Swift catching the game winning TD in his hands and dropping it. The Lions can’t let you down easy. They go out of their way to stomp on your hope with exceptional malice.

Welcome back, football!

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