Mickey's Musings: From Miami to Germany: Gibby, A bomb on Friday the 13th and Bundesliga
Welcome to Mickey's Musings, my weekly notebook where we skip the linear narrative and dive straight into three completely unrelated, but entirely fascinating storylines that are bouncing around in my head.
From Miami to Germany: Gibby, A bomb on Friday the 13th and Bundesliga
Let’s get into our three topics and I’ll tie them together later…
Topic # 1: Gibby
Gibby is my dog, beagle/lab and who knows what else mix. He’s a 14-year-old former shelter dog that was around 3 months old when we rescued him. Pre-Covid I used to go to the gym before work. I would run, then go inside and work out a bit, shower – and off to work. On the weekends I would run from home and when I got home – Gibby would follow me around the house until I got his leash, because he knew we would then go for a walk. That was his routine for nearly 8 years. In March of 2020 my gym closed and that changed my morning routine. Instead of running from home just on weekends, I started doing it Monday through Friday as well. The very first time I ran from home on a Monday (and continuing to this day as I never went back to the gym) I would come home and find a furry friend staring at his leash hanging on the hook and then chasing me, howling, as he knew “Dad is home from his run, it is now time for us to go for a walk!” As I always say, the question is “Who really has who trained here?”
That brings me to the Lions game against Miami. I hate, hate, HATE!, the phrase “Same Old Lions”. That being said, didn’t this game feel like one that the SOL would lose? In the days of SOL, it felt like every year they’d blow a game they were supposed to win. On Sunday, late in the 3rd quarter it was still a 9-6 game. One fluke play – a tipped pass from Jared Goff, a scoop and score on a fumble, a punt return where the coverage breaks down – and the Fins would be ahead. Just like Gibby, that’s how we’ve been conditioned to think. We know how things are supposed to go and we just go with the flow. Fortunately, that fluke play never happened and we walked out of Hard Rock Stadium with a win.
Topic # 2: Friday the 13th
This Friday is Friday the 13th of November. On Friday the 13th of January back in 1984 all of my classmates and I showed up at Houghton Lake High School as we normally would. Prior to classes beginning the teachers were scurrying around, and at approximately 8:15 we learned why. There had been a bomb threat phoned into our principal’s home saying it would detonate at 9:45 a.m. At 8:15 a homemade explosive went off in the darkroom used by the yearbook/journalism photographers. A student told the police he walked into the darkroom and saw an electrical cord connected to a box, and was blown some 15 feet back into the next room when he opened it. He was mostly uninjured, minus some minor facial burns from the blast. He later confessed that he had built and set off the device himself as he was facing a deadline and had not completed a homework project. This took place during my senior year and the student that fabricated this scenario and set off the bomb was a junior.
Let’s be real, we all did stupid things when we were 16 or 17 years old. I haven’t seen this schoolmate of mine in 40+ years and I hope his life wasn’t defined by the bad choices he made on that one day. Looking back, I’m sure he’d say something like “I wish I would have just fessed up and done what I needed to do to get the work done.”
Isn’t that option more like the Lions last Sunday in Miami? Instead of blowing things up – they buckled down and plowed through to get it done. It wasn’t pretty. Nobody is putting that game tape in a museum. The offense wasn't lighting up the scoreboard with explosive, 60-yard bombs to Jamo - mostly because they leave the actual bomb-making to 1980s high schoolers. Instead, they just buckled up their chinstraps, chewed up the clock, and let Jake Bates kick field goals until the Dolphins gave up. It was pure, unadulterated, unglamorous grit. At the end of the day, grinding through the boring stuff wins games – and it keeps your eyebrows intact.
Topic # 3: Bundesliga
Admittedly, I’m not much of a soccer fan – or as our European friends refer to it – “Futball.” The Bundesliga is the top tier professional soccer league in Germany. I’ve heard of the Premier League, but that’s England. The Bundesliga is the German equivalent. The Premier League is known for their financial power. La Liga, the top men’s league in Spain is known for their technical abilities.
The Bundesliga is known for their pure physical power. Most of the 18 clubs in the league play a style known as Gegenpressing.
The goal of Gegenpressing is pressure. Constant. And lots of it. The moment a player loses possession, they don’t retreat, they swarm the opponent to create a mistake and a takeaway. It forces the opponent into making panicked, rushed decisions – especially in their own territory. In Gegenpressing the best defense is an overwhelmingly violent and immediate offense.
Does that sound familiar, or what?!? If ever there was a team that would play in Germany and the German fans would identify with – it would be the Dan Campbell coached Detroit Lions!
Ultimately, this isn't the franchise of decades past, and it’s time to stop treating them like it. For years, we Detroit fans were conditioned like Gibby - trained by history to know what to expect. But, these are emphatically not the Same Old Lions. They don’t look for an easy out when the pressure mounts; they don't panic and violently overreact like a kid trying to blow up a high school darkroom just to escape a deadline. Instead, they show the same relentless, suffocating aggression as a world-class German Gegenpressing scheme. European sports fans won't just see an American football team. They’ll see a masterclass in tactical dominance, and a long-suffering fanbase that is being rewarded for its loyalty.
Bring on the Patriots! Go Lions
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