A grand illusion, that’s what this game really is, the Buccaneers and Giants — two last-place teams — clinging to playoff chances so small it would be an exaggeration to describe them as infinitesimal.
It brings to mind a couple of lines from U2’s most recent album, Songs of Experience:
How unswerving our devotion / To the lies we know are almost true
There’s a lot of football left to be played, they tell us. Those words aren’t entirely empty. Sometimes we preach what we need to hear. The truth, however, is that the Bucs, at 3-6, are among the longest of longshots.