⚠️ Content Note: This episode includes discussion of sexual assault in the context of a jury trial. Listener discretion advised.

We start with football: the Lions taking down the Baltimore Ravens—and with them, the last shred of doubt about who this team really is. Touchdowns traded, gutsy fourth downs, Jared Goff dropping dimes into buckets…it was a game that reminded us why we love this team.

Then the episode shifts. Because if you listened last time, you know David was going through something heavy. Here, he begins to unpack it: he served as jury foreperson on a trial involving kidnapping and sexual assault.

We don’t finish the story here; we set the stage. We describe what the case is about, and get David’s impressions of the perpetrator and the victim. The miracle of what happened next—how David led a divided jury room through an extraordinary transformation—that’s for the next chapter.

It’s part one of a bigger story, but it’s already a testament to conviction, composure, and the unexpected ways friendship can prepare us for life’s hardest arenas.

Theme music: Mr. Jukes and Barney Artist, "… Steam (Open Up Your Mind)"

Note: David's traumatic experience in the pet store is chronicled in the episode "It's possible, yeah…but not likely" (August 19, 2023)

This episode’s different: David isn’t on the mic. He’s preoccupied with something heavy, something consuming. So Marshall does the show to him instead of with him.

It starts with joy: Marshall’s enduring memory from the Lions’ mauling of the Chicago Bears will not be trick plays, or even the many skill-player highlights. It will be the willpower moment: the inspiring third- and fourth-down stand that, to Marshall, defines real football.

Then (03:45) it shifts into something deeper: a message for David (and maybe for all of us) about stepping up when no one else will, holding the line on civility, and letting reason, not rage, be the guiding light.

It’s football. It’s friendship. It’s leadership. And it’s proof that sometimes the most important plays happen off the field.

Theme music: Mr. Jukes and Barney Artist, "Blowin Steam (Open Up Your Mind)"

The Lions came out flat. And for the first time in the Dan Campbell era, so did our hope.

For Marshall, the Lions' lackluster loss to the Green Bay Packers hit so hard he did what he’s never done under Dan Campbell: he shut the game off. And as he reached for the remote, he heard his father’s old refrain from childhood Sundays—“That’s enough.” To Marshall, this didn't feel like just sloppy football. It felt like the end of something.

David pushes back, pointing to new guards adjusting, penalties that can be cleaned up, and Campbell’s own postgame promise that things can be fixed. Together, they debate whether this was just one game’s collapse or the first crack in a dream we’ve waited decades for.

From the offensive line looking like a sieve, to contract decisions that raise more dread than excitement, to one jaw-dropping catch that did just enough to rope you in for next week, this is the conversation that every scarred Lions fan knows too well. Was this just one bad Sunday? Or is this who we are now?

Theme music: Mr. Jukes and Barney Artist, "Blowin Steam (Open Up Your Mind)"