SCHADENFREUDE

*sigh*

So it’s come to this –

Fourty percent into the season, and it’s come to this.

My movie geek buddy Beau Kaelin, from the bourbon snob capital of the universe, Louisville, Kentucky, relishes in the word –

Schadenfreude –

Satisfaction from the suffering of others. So much that he’d named his film making studio after the German –based word on how I’m viewing the events of the day –

I’m not going to go into the x’s and o’s of what happened today. Most of you who follow this column, and have found it bare lately; get your brain overloaded by hundreds of bloggers on hundreds of sports sites from ESPN to the local grass roots outlets.  Like me, you read these daily, and slurp on what’s become the man drama of the era.  But I feel compelled to make priority in my cluttered life to pound out on the keyboard what I’m feeling after today’s monumental shitpile of a football game.

First of all, let me say with finality –

Last year –

Was Last Year. Period. All of the superlatives attached to this Keystone Kops of a defense in 2013 mean NOTHING. NOTHING.  FIVE Steve Smith Seniors could not help this team, not defensively.  While I refuse to accept the fact the absence of Greg Hardy made the difference, I WILL say that the complete turnover of the defensive backfield HAS.

BUT –

The word –

Schadenfreude.

You may have been like me and Dano and Patrick – We turned off the game early in the third quarter and turned on “Red Zone”. Lauren went shopping.  I saw a guy in his Cam Newton jersey mowing the grass.  And we began to cheer the Baltimore Ravens stomping fifteen new assholes in The Duckies.  Great.  And we gave claw to each other when the Detroit Lions put fourteen unanswered points on our closest rivals in the division, those Naw’ins Saints – and I felt some weird satisfaction at our opponent of last week “Bungling” to a SHUTOUT – A SHUTOUT!!! The Browns, a team the Buckeye State is SO READY to embrace and cheer for, laying a huge titanosaur egg at the downtrodden Jaggy-whyers.  The Bears taking it on the nose AT HOME to the Dull-Phins. The media darling Sad Diego Chargers, blowing a winnable game, also at home –

And I had a sickening feeling at enjoying the misery of fellow fans I’ve come to feel genuine affection for at best, and honest respect for, at worst.

How did it come to this?

And as I swill on a medicinal Basil Hayden’s, I understand, briefly, my friend Beau’s fascination with the word.

Schadenfreude.

Taking a misguided and guilty delight in the misery of the fans of the Squeelers, Browns, Saints and Duckies.  

Even though at the end of this day, The Carolina Panthers are SOLIDLY in first place in our miserable division, we have to realize that it’s not out of the question that certainly EVERY team in the division can potentially overtake us. One could take the optimist’s approach and look at the numbers and pound on the ideal that “a loss is a loss no matter if by one point or fifty”.  Not me. I look at trends. And ours is looking down, my friends. Look at the next four weeks and tell me if you feel good about getting out of that with a winning record!

I didn’t think so.

I know this isn’t the first time I’ve tuned out the Panthers this early in a game this early in the season, but it sure feels like it.  And I know that statistically there’s still plenty hope to salvaging the season, but after what we’ve seen today, I can’t feel  it.

So it’s been reduced to this.

Shadenfreude.

And cheering every loss from our hated rivals.

And feeling some kind of sick relief from it, making the season more bearable.

And continuing the best tailgate party in the NFL, despite it all.

That’s MY “view from the lot” this week – and I’ll see some of you IN THE LOT – next week –

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