The apathetic Lion fan

If you are a Lion fan -- or a former Lion fan -- you may need therapy. At 1:00 on Sunday you will more than likely be having football withdrawal symptoms.

You will have this urge to turn on the boob tube to see if this might be THE day. You know the feeling: if you watch enough Lions games THIS JUST MIGHT BE THE ONE.

Of course you know you feel that way every off season. Even though the Lions collapse on an annual basis, you still feel a ray of hope. This past off season might just be the perfect example, as the Lions did well in the pre-season.

We Lions fans had faith. Yes. We had a ray of hope. Yes, we naive Lion fans really believed that THIS JUST MIGHT BE THE YEAR.

Of course that ray of hope ended two minutes into that first game. Yet, we continued to watch, because perhaps the Lions JUST MIGHT TURN IT AROUND. If I watch another five minutes, the Lions just might reward me.

It's that thought, "This might just might be the game" that drives us Lion fans. And, yet, the Lions never seem to deliver. The Lion fan stays in waiting, and hoping, and... ever disappointed.

That's okay, though, because there's always the Pistons. There's always the Redwings. There's always the Tigers. Still, there would be nothing more rewarding than to end the Bobby Lane curse.

There is hope. Right? The Cubs have a good team. The Redsox and Whitesox broke their respective curses lately. So, there is hope. Right?

Right?

Tell me there is.

Okay, let's just be real here. The Lions are not going to produce THAT team this year. That when you are the worse team in football nine years going, you really can't collapse. So, this year REALLY isn't a collapse. It's... it's the way it is with the Lions.

I learned long ago that you don't get your hopes up with the lions. If you did, you'd be the fool to throw his remote control each week. If you did, you'd be the fool who yells profanities at the TV.

No. You are not that fool. You are the one who has learned to take each Lions game in stride. You are the eternal phlegmatic fan. You are apathetic.

The alternative is too pathetic to see. The alternative is an unhappy man. The alternative is depressed. The alternative is a man or woman in the doldrums of life.

No, you are not that fan. That's why you seek therapy. Tomorrow, on this very blog, I will reveal to you alternative therapies you can do at 1:00 on Sunday when you used to watch the Lions.

Yes. It's time for you to admit: THIS IS NOT THE YEAR; THIS IS NOT the GAME.

Say it. Say it again. It's good therapy.