Outrage over Lions? No, folks just like whine with big meal

You know what we haven't heard this Thanksgiving season? I mean, other than, "Man, I love standing in line at the supermarket," that is?

We haven't heard how the Detroit Lions are defiling the sacred holiday of Thanksgiving football by being on it every year.

And why aren't we hearing it? Because as it turns out, we really didn't give a damn one way or the other. It was just a way to get us through the three days before last Thanksgiving, that's why.

That's the thing about outrage. Usually, it isn't about outrage at all. It's about needing something to bitch about. Kind of like the BCS, which comes closer to being an outrage but still isn't being complained about this year like it was last.

I mean, if a wrong is wrong, shouldn't it be a wrong all the time? The answer seems to be, "Not if we don't feel like it."

Which brings us back to the Lions, who were savaged mercilessly in 2008 for not surrendering the one thing they've had to cling to all these difficult years -- the Thanksgiving game. And frankly, why should they give it up? They're the ones who thought of it in the first place.

But that's the logic of it. It's the Lions' idea, period, case closed.

But what we actually discovered, as though we didn't already know, was that the American viewing public actually doesn't care who plays on Thanksgiving, and especially not in the early game. It just wants a game. And if it happens to be the Lions with all their shortcomings, there are still two other games that day to rebuild one's appetite for the couch.

So what this turned out to be was much ado about who gives a damn, and as a result of this realization (instead of the Lions being 2-8 rather than 0-10) nobody is up in arms, or even hands, about the Lions playing Thursday. They don't have the strength to grouse about something that in their hearts they know isn't really worth complaining about.

And so it is with the BCS, albeit for a different reason. The college football season has turned out to be a stunningly predictable affair, with Florida, Alabama and Texas the only teams being considered for the national championship, and either Florida or Alabama being consigned to the Sugar Bowl for losing the SEC title game. In other words, there is no Utah here.

Except that there are three, and none of them ever had a shot because they are Boise State (no voters), Cincinnati (still a surprise even at this late stage) and TCU (which has no political cover because nobody in Texas wants to antagonize the UT lobby).

In other words, in its mutant way, this national championship will be decided on the field, albeit by preseason fiat, and do you hear anyone screaming about the BCS being the odious price-fixing cartel we know it to be? No, and there's another reason.

Because America found out that the people who run college football don't care what you think of the BCS, because they know you won't give up your season tickets in protest -- money, of course, being the only reason for the BCS to exist, and money being the only thing you are empowered to withhold.

It's the new protest paradigm and the NCAA understands it. Take to the streets all you want, but if you still decide to take to the stadium afterward, we've got you, and we've got the cash to prove it.

And you understand it as well. The BCS won't change because you don't do enough to demand that change, and it can't change because they have spent countless hours penciling out what makes the most money, and they've concluded this system works better for them. They're not wrong, either, because they know math, and they know the fine print in all their sponsorship contracts, and they know that every college football fan in America will watch the BCS title game anyway, so the ratings for a playoff wouldn't grow that much, and they would lose sponsors for a lot of lesser bowl games as a result.

In other words, they've got you beat, and you know they've got you beat, so you're done complaining.

Oh, Orrin Hatch was a ridiculous enough novelty last year when everyone came to the Utah cause at the last minute, but we haven't heard from him this year now that Utah is actually Boise State, and therefore Sen. Mike Crapo's problem, or Sen. Jim Risch's problem, rather than Hatch's problem. So he didn't care that much, either.

And maybe with the state of everything else these days, you have bigger things to complain about than who gets to entertain you first on a day when all you really want is an excuse not to help in the kitchen.

Or maybe you've made peace with the Lions by viewing the Thanksgiving lineup like vaudeville, and the Lions are just the warm-up act. If that works for you, swell, with a side of yams.

And if you're still steaming that somehow the Lions are being given a gift they don't deserve and you want something to be done about it, here's what you do. Go to the NFL offices on Park Avenue in New York, go up to the guard and say, "Get the Lions off Thursday or I'm going to hold my breath until Roger Goodell turns blue."

If it works, you're Gandhi, and not to be messed with. If it doesn't, well, you just learned a valuable lesson about the difference between true outrage and something to bitch about until the next thing to bitch about comes along.

And all it will cost you is hyperventilation and an arrest record. A small price to pay for making a point everyone else stopped caring about the day after last Thanksgiving.

Ray Ratto is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.