Like that fruitcake that your Aunt Bea gave you or the sweater with the blinking reindeer nose from your Grandma, sometimes people give you crappy presents. Sometimes it’s intentional, like the blender you gave your cousin Larry for his birthday that he gifted back to you and sometimes it’s not embarrassingly accidental. Well, this one is intentional.

Some people say that I am too negative about the city. Some people say that I’m overly sarcastic. However, there is one thing that unites Detroiters in negativity. That thing is the Detroit Lions. Year after year, fans show up in droves to watch another Lions season with dreams of the Superbowl or at least an above 500 season. The Lions tell us that they’re starting fresh – they have some great talent and are going to win this year. However, reality is often different. Usually by the time our annual Thanksgiving game rolls around the Lions are statistically eliminated from the playoffs. In the off-season a coach is sometimes fired (remember the glory days of Wayne Fontes?) , a couple players are traded, and maybe we’ll get some new draft picks to be excited about. The press will get all excited about training camp in Allen Park, people will sell out Ford Field (or the Silverdome back in the day), and the Lions will have yet another losing season.

Therefore, as our third gift, I think we should gift the Lions to a city that hasn’t had a football team yet. Maybe it will cheer them up. There are other metblog cities out there that don’t have NFL teams yet, Portland, Oregon ^[1], Orlando, Florida ^[2] or Austin, Texas ^[3]. I’m sure they’ll fake enthusiasm when they open the present to find the Lions, like when you got that tie that plays music. They’ll say, “Oh Detroit! You shouldn’t have! I’ve always wanted a football team!” then we’ll get the Lions re-gifted back to us next year.