The Detroit Lions, a team in the NFC North, are currently 5 – 4 and are in first place by virtue of a win last week over the suddenly super-shitty Vikings.  Because I am not a Lions fan and haven’t watched any of their games this year, I did some research* and discovered the following interesting facts about this team:

• Calvin Johnson is still retired.
• The 2016 Lions are the only team in NFL history where each of its first nine games were decided by seven points or less.
• In each of the Lions’ five wins, they have trailed in the fourth quarter.
• Matt Stafford does NOT have Down’s Syndrome.
• Marvin Jones Jr., Golden Tate, Anquan Boldin and Andre Roberts have all done a fairly adequate job replacing Calvin Johnson.
• Golden Tate’s catch against the Vikings in overtime, most likely fueled by stolen doughnuts, was pretty impressive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCxajKYgtLg

•  Their defense is filled with guys I have never heard of:   Kerry Hyder, Khyri Thornton, Stefan Charles, A’Shawn Robinson, Armonty Bryant, and Tahir Whitehead.
• The NFC North is dog shit.

Huh.  Who knew?

Anyway, last Tuesday, when America elected a sentient bag of moldy Florida oranges as its President, I attended the Colorado Avalanche game with my 7 year-old son and a friend and his son.  My friend is a native New Yorker, liberal Democrat, and a genuinely tightly-wound human being.  Needless to say, he spent the entire game checking the election results on his phone.  Being an overconfident idiot, I watched the game with boys and basked in the sonic pleasures of Staind, Van Halen, and Nickleback reverberating around the arena (Hockey!).  As state after state was called for the Cheeto Nazi, I tried to reassure my friend that Clinton was still going to win, and that we had nothing to worry about.  He was so distracted by the whole thing that he made us leave at the end of the second period, and wouldn’t even let the boys wait to meet the big dumb Avalanche mascot, Bernie, the St. Bernard:

Throughout the months building up to the election, I had this uneasy feeling that Annoying Orange was going to pull this off, but I kept telling myself otherwise.  The entire night, I was Homer chasing his runaway pig:

By the time he dropped me off, my friend was basically Bart saying “it’s gone”.

After the election, we all know what it is like to be a Lions fan in 2016. You have a team that is perfectly adequate with a quarterback who is having his best season. Your lamp of a head coach, while far from the most charismatic person in the world, is fine, and nowhere near as bad as some of the alternatives.  And, hey, you are in the lead and everything is trending in the right direction.  But then the FBI releases a last minute report on your e-mails, Lisa pushes your pig down a hill, the refs pick up the pass interference flag, and the Dallas Cowboys and Donald Trump fly out of the dam, ruining your barbecue.

In conclusion:

Updated 2016 Lions Prediction:  They’re the Lions.  This will not end well.

* Googled “2016 Detroit Lions” .