A smoking ember of optimism

Everyone is very excited about the massive beat down the Lions put on the Rams this past Sunday, but lets try and put this game in perspective.

First of all, the Rams made a lot of mistakes. A lot of BAD mistakes. I'm not even counting going for the onside kick to open the game, which is a choice I liked...and not because I'm a Lions fan. What a great way for a visiting team to immediately seize all momentum and neutralize the crowd than to demoralize the home team by stealing the ball right off the bat? It's surely not an aggressive play you'd see the Lions ever try. It hearkens back to the Saints onside kick in the last Super Bowl. Catch the other team off guard and then go to work while they're still in shock.

And lets not even speak of the dropped gift interception the Rams refused from the Kansas Kid early in the first quarter. You don't think there was a pretty good chance the Lions would go into their usual shell-shocked mode if that were to have happened and the Lions?

And penalties! The Rams gave a lot away too.

So the monster win over the Rams doesn't give me hope. It does make me very happy and it really makes me believe that the Lions can win against the teams they are supposed to beat, but it doesn't exactly give me hope for the rest of the year.

But something else does...the NFL as a whole. It's crazy this year. It's the wild, wild west and everybody's going into shootouts with cooked spaghetti. In other words, it makes no sense at all.

Who has the best scoring offense in the NFC? The Detroit Lions. Who is winning the NFC West? The Arizona Cardinals--and they've been outscored by 50 points this year. The Packers just got beat by the Redskins who were beaten a week ago by...you guessed it, the Rams, who the Lions just destroyed.

The Bears are leading the NFC North with a 4-1 record, but do you really trust them? Nope. Aaron Rodgers went down with a concussion last week and probably won't play this week, not to mention the injury bug is all over the Packers locker room in spades.

The Minnesota Vikings and Dallas Cowboys, early Super Bowl favorites, are both 1-3.

The Lions play the 3-2 NY Giants this weekend. This is a team that laid down and died against the Colts and the Titans. The Titans looked horrible a few weeks ago.

My point is that you just don't know who is going to show up every week at any game.

On the Fox pregame show on Sunday, Micheal Strahan said, "the word around the league on the Lions is that they are a 'caged' animal, once they get that first win and get loose, watch out."

Here's hoping he's right.