After a short hiatus, the “Game Song” is back, back by popular demand by our Editor in Chief and Sticktator, Jeremy Reisman. Although I’m completely torn between work, writing/editing, podcasting, being a wife and parent, for the next half hour I spend writing, it’s a welcome respite from such a serious stomach ache about the second.
Lions vs. Jets Week 3 Song of the Game: “Dashboard” by Modest Mouse
Growing up in the day and age of burning CDs to soundtrack your bus rides to and from school, Modest Mouse is a staple of my collection. “Float On” and “Ocean Breathes Salty” set my Sony D-EJ360 Walkman spinning. It hit me in the middle of my angst as middle school tested my place in the world, and Modest Mouse was just what the doctor ordered.
“Dashboard” is the lead single from the band’s fifth studio album—a track guitarist and songwriter Johnny Marr, formerly of The Smiths, worked on on his first day riffing on Modest Mouse. It’s more dance-driven pop rock than the slacker rock the band pioneered a decade earlier, but even in a different flavor, it’s still good.
The Modest Mouse lineup has changed a lot over the band’s life cycle, as has the Detroit Lions coaching staff during Dan Campbell’s six years as head coach. Aaron Glenn was one of my favorite hires Campbell made early in his tenure, and what he managed to accomplish as a defensive coordinator in 2024 is remarkable. This led to him taking a head coaching position with the New York Jets a year later, and while it was a rocky start for the former Jets cornerback, he no doubt got that team into a position that looked frighteningly similar to how Campbell had the Lions in 2022. They still feel the way to win, but they are right there—and there’s tons of draft capital in this upcoming draft.
Oh, it must have been, it could have been worse than you’ll ever know
Well, you told me about somewhere good, sounds like somewhere I’d like to go
Detroit’s defense is still a work in progress, especially on the backend, and that’s not something you want to hear about a football team through three weeks of regular season play. A lot of people got tired of Glenn’s unwillingness to scout mobile quarterbacks, and found him to be overly aggressive towards the end of his time in Detroit, and we can see how any place other than where we are defensively is a place we want to see it.
Well, it turns out, it might be worse than you know
Oh, the dashboard melted, but we still have the radio
And yet, as bad as the defense was—with the dashboard melted—we still have the Lions offense playing their same tunes. 31 points in three straight games, and this game has been worse than you’ll ever know if it wasn’t for this offense keeping this team in the win column.
Well we scheme and we scheme but we always blow it
We’ve been waiting all week to see the adjustments Kelvin Sheppard and the defense will make after being embarrassed on “Thursday Night Football.” What kind of adjustments can they make? possibly do to clean already trouble? But until the fourth quarter, the Lions held the Jets to just 10 points. Detroit had a comfortable 24-10 lead, they planned and planned… but they ended up blowing that, allowing the Jets to tie the game with just over four minutes left in the game.
We haven’t crashed yet, but we can still enjoy it
Standing on a light switch on each east and west horizon
Every morning you are surprising
And at night the comfort of one
It says, “Look, it’s not that bad.”
Four plays later, the Lions have the lead, the defense is forcing a game-winning turnover, and I spent my op-ed this week reminding everyone that while the Lions’ dashboard is melting, we’re not down yet, and the radio’s still working, so we might as well enjoy it.
If you want to relive past Lions seasons, you can find the playlists we’ve curated below: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022. And if you want to read previous versions of our Song of the Game columns, you can find them here.