I live about halfway between Chicago and Detroit, but unfortunately because I’m still in Michigan, Fox and CBS always serve up Detroit Lions games if that pathetic excuse for a football team happens to be playing. On the other hand although their games aren’t very fun to watch, there has to be something to an organization that has taken losing to such a high art.
The Detroit Lions are to football what the Los Angeles Clippers are to basketball. It’s kind of like those tabloid psychics — even if they are complete frauds with no special talent whatsoever, you have to believe that sheer chance would occasionally produce some accurate insight or a good team.
But alas, even when the Lions occasionally made the playoffs, they did so with the worst looking playoff teams I’ve ever seen (and usually got blown away in the first round, indicative of the fact that they really didn’t belong there in the first place).
After a typical loss yesterday to the Cincinnati Bengals, the big question in Detroit now is whether or not an 0-16 season is possible. The San Diego Chargers came very close last year, and perhaps the Lions saw that as a challenge they need to rise to meet.
There are only a couple ways the Lions could avert such a disaster. The team is moving to a new stadium next year and is currently in a dispute with the owners of its current stadium, the Pontiac Silverdome, over financial terms of its old lease. As a result the Silverdome owners have refused to allow the Lions to practice in the stadium. Detroit News sports columnist Joe Falls suggests the Silverdome could go a step further and do everyone a favor by refusing to allow the Lions to play their games in the stadium as well.
The other possibility is the very last game of the season against the Dallas Cowboys. Detroit News columnist Mike O’Hara oddly claims that Dallas game is the Lions “only sure victory on the schedule.”
Earth to O’Hara: the Cowboys have actually won two games (that’s two more than the Lions, if you’re keeping track).
As for me, I’m rooting for them to go 0-16. If the team is going to be mediocre for years on end, they might as well try to excel at that. A 2-14 record would be ho hum, but 0-16 — that would be a real accomplishment.