After a brief hiatus, \u201cSong of the Game\u201d has returned, back by popular demand of our Editor in Chief and Sticktator, Jeremy Reisman. While I\u2019ve been absolutely swamped between work, writing\/editing, podcasting, being a husband and a parent, the next half hour I\u2019ll spend writing this is a welcome break of such serious bellyaching about the secondary.<\/p>\n
Lions vs. Jets Week 3 Song of the Game: \u201cDashboard\u201d by Modest Mouse<\/p>\n
Growing up in the day and age of burning CDs to create the soundtrack of your bus rides to and from school, Modest Mouse was a staple of my collection. \u201cFloat On\u201d and \u201cOcean Breathes Salty\u201d spun a bunch on my Sony D-EJ360 Walkman<\/a>. It hit me right in the midst of my percolating angst as middle school tested my place in the world, and Modest Mouse was just what the doctor ordered<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cDashboard\u201d is the lead single from the band\u2019s fifth studio album\u2014a track guitarist and songwriter Johnny Marr, formerly of The Smiths, worked on during his first day riffing with Modest Mouse. It\u2019s much more dance-driven pop rock than the slacker rock the band debuted with a decade prior, but even in a different flavor, it\u2019s still damn good.<\/p>\n Modest Mouse\u2019s lineup has changed a bunch over the band\u2019s life cycle, as has the Detroit Lions coaching staff over Dan Campbell\u2019s six years as head coach. Aaron Glenn was one of my favorite hires Campbell made at the start of his tenure, and what he managed to accomplish as a defensive coordinator in 2024 was nothing short of remarkable. It led him to taking a head coaching position with the New York Jets the year after, and while it was a rocky start for the former Jets cornerback, he\u2019s undoubtedly got that team in a position that feels eerily similar to the way Campbell had the Lions in 2022. They\u2019re still feeling out the way to win, but they\u2019re right there\u2014and with tons of draft capital in this upcoming draft.<\/p>\n Oh, it should\u2019ve been, could\u2019ve been worse than you would ever know Detroit\u2019s defense is still very much a work in progress, especially on the backend, and that\u2019s not something you want to hear about a football team through three weeks of regular season play. Many drew tired of Glenn\u2019s unwillingness to spy mobile quarterbacks, and found him to be overaggressive by the end of his time in Detroit, and we\u2019re seeing how any place other than where we\u2019re at with this defense is someplace we\u2019d like to see it go.<\/p>\n Well, it would\u2019ve been, could\u2019ve been worse than you would ever know And yet, with as bad as the defense has been\u2014with the dashboard melted\u2014we still have the Lions offense playing their same ol\u2019 tunes. 31 points in three straight games, and this game would\u2019ve been, could\u2019ve been worse than you would ever know had it not been for this offense keeping this team in the win column.<\/p>\n Well we scheme and we scheme but we always blow it<\/p>\n We spent all week waiting to see the adjustments Kelvin Sheppard and the defense would make after getting embarrassed on \u201cThursday Night Football.\u201d What sort of adjustments could they possibly make to clean up that mess? But up until the fourth quarter, the Lions held the Jets to just 10 points. Detroit had a comfortable 24-10 lead, they had schemed and schemed\u2026 but they ended up blowing that lead, letting the Jets tie the game with a little over four minutes remaining in the game.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve yet to crash, but we still might as well tow it Four plays later, the Lions have the lead, the defense forces a game-winning turnover, and I spent my op-ed this week<\/a> reminding everyone that while the Lions\u2019 dashboard is melted, we\u2019ve yet to crash, and the radio\u2019s still working, so we might as well enjoy it.<\/p>\n If you want to relive previous Lions seasons, you can find the playlists we curated below: 2016<\/a>, 2017<\/a>, 2018<\/a>, 2019<\/a>, 2020<\/a>, 2021<\/a>, 2022<\/a>. And if you want to read previous versions of our Song of the Game columns, you can find those here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a brief hiatus, \u201cSong of the Game\u201d has returned, back by popular demand of our Editor in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":864900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[79878,167857,364975,88,216],"class_list":["post-864899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-detroit-lions-conversation-starters-and-community-questions","tag-detroit-lions-discussion","tag-detroit-lions-song-of-the-game","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=864899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/864900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Well, you told me about nowhere well it sounds like someplace I\u2019d like to go<\/p>\n
Oh, the dashboard melted, but we still have the radio<\/p>\n
Standing at a light switch to each east and west horizon
Every dawn you\u2019re surprising
And in the evening one\u2019s consoling
Saying, \u201cSee it wasn\u2019t quite as bad as.\u201d<\/p>\n