Campbell’s aggression
is fun … breaks with the norms .. but
pragmatism struck
Campbell’s aggression is fun. It breaks with the norms. It’s because of that aggression – because of the fourth-down decision-making; because of his belief in Goff – that the Lions found themselves in the NFC title game to begin with. Still, it’s tough to square Campbell’s decision to kick a field goal at the end of the first half rather than push for a touchdown with his refusal to kick field goals in the second half. Pragmatism struck Campbell when there was a chance to take a three-score lead into the break, only for the swashbuckler to return in the second half.
From Miscues, bad luck and ladybugs: how the Lions blew their best chance at a Super Bowl by Oliver Connolly.
This article was slugged: Detroit had a 24-7 lead at half-time of the NFC Championship Game, and still lost. But they should have no regrets about the aggression that took them that far.
Pragmatism struck.
As Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, “thus conscience doth make cowards of us all.“
Near the end of the movie, The Madness of King George, there is an incredible bit of acting within acting when the King, with the help of some courtiers, is reading aloud from Big Bill’s play King Lear.
They finish the bit in one of the mostest bestest renditions of the scene where Cordelia wakes up the King with a kiss that has have ever been put on film.
All the participants are so moved that no one speaks until someone breaks in with, “Is that the end your Majesty?”
To which George III responds with some angst, “Oh, good Lord, no. Cordeli is hanged, and the shock of it kills the king. So they all die.”
The King looks around then yells in frustration trying to make sense of it all, “It’s a tragedy.”
That was the game last between the Detroit Lions and the San Francisco 49ers.
A tragedy as in the meaning of the genre of the theatre!
The dictionary defines this type of tragedy as “a play dealing with tragic events and having an unhappy ending, especially one concerning the downfall of the main character.“
If that doesn’t define that game, no other single word will.
If that doesn’t define the continued ongoing existence of the Detroit Lions Professional Football Club, no other single word will.
So close.
What might have been.
Oh Fortuna!
I can hear the greek chorus.
Let me tell you, it had to happen this way.
All the breaks had to break the wrong way.
The Lions had to get the early lead.
They had to be able to wedge the door open to let us peak through.
Let us peak through and say … NOPE!
That is not who the Lions are.
Losing that game, and the way it was lost, that is who the Lions are.
As for me?
How does I feel after watching it?
After waiting for this moment for 30 years?
And knowing this may be the last time they will get this close in my lifetime?
Wouldn’t have it any other way.
I am a Lions fan.
Don’t look for me to cry.
My head is high.
I am a Lion’s fan!
As King Lear said:
“Pray do not mock me, I am a very foolish, fond old man.
You do me wrong to take me out of the grave.
Thou art a soul in bliss, but I am bound upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears do scald like molten lead.”
Have to play my part.
It’s a tragedy you see.
No Haiku For You 