I rarely blog about sports, but I'll make an exception for today, given that football history is likely to be made later this afternoon. I'm not much of a football fan, at least not of professional football. These days, the games take even longer than a baseball game and all too often lack the excitement of even that.
Especially when it's the Detroit Lions playing.
Of course, even though my interest in pro football is relatively weak, I do take in a game from time to time, and I still have a soft spot in my heart for my hometown team, despite their two decades of futility and never having gone to a Superbowl since the Superbowl was inaugurated. That's why I'm with my fellow Detroiters as described by Mitch Albom this morning:
That's what's left to brag about, Mr. Ford.
We're the worst. We made history. We scraped bottom. Nobody does losing better than us. Those are boasts actually being hollered, Mr. Ford, because when your football team drops below bad, below terrible, below the talent, organization and performance level of every other team in the NFL, that's all that you have left to get excited about.
Perfect Awfulness.
So this afternoon -- as your 0-15 team gives it one last try on a wintry Lambeau Field in Green Bay -- you stand on the brink of being forever remembered as the captain of the Titanic, the commander of the Hindenburg, the man at the helm of the biggest crash in the history of professional football.
And some Detroiters are rooting for it.
More than just some. A lot--and rightfully so. I never thought this way before, but the Lions have--shall we say?--"inspired" me to say: If you suck, suck the worst. Don't embrace mediocrity. No one remembers the mediocre, but they do remember the worst, and the Lions have their opportunity to suck the worst, to be the worst football team in NFL history. That infamy is the only thing for which they're likely to be remembered for a long time to come. They should stop struggling and embrace their suckitude. Certainly I'll be rooting for them.
To lose.
0-16. Struggle no more. Make history. Be the worst.
ADDENDUM: It's official. The 2008 Lions are the worst team in the history of the NFL.
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Someone needs to make the Rams look good.
While it's a sound principle, its fruition requires that the Packers win. No moral being can be down with that.
Didn't Tampa Bay have an 0-16 season a couple of decades ago?
0-14. That was before the NFL added two games to the season.
Synchronicitously, the lions lose over here too!
Granted this is going to come off as a bit schadenfreude, but...
I remember a Patriots game a couple weeks ago, I don't remember which one, but it was against another basement dweller. I was saying that this was a perfect situation for running up the score. Unlike college, where it's bad form and tends to pile humiliation up on players who have other concerns in life, in the pros, it's these peoples' job to play. Running up the score by a superior team on a basement dweller says "You have no right to be here. You suck. Your management sucks. If we had relegation in the NFL, you'd be demoted. Get better or get lost."
Not that this is done, but...
And the Lions lay down with the Rams ?
Oh, and yeah, the Bucs first season they laid down a 0-14 record. but not long after that they just about reversed it.
I guess Lions fans will have to line up with the Cubs fans. . . "Maybe Next Year"
The Lions are the best team evar! I love the Lions!
As a Dolphin fan (sort of, since Marino retired), facing the prospect last year of the Patriots having a perfect season, I kind of hoped that the Dolphins would, if the Patriots succeeded, go 0-16 as a kind of cosmic bookend. Both failed by a game but the Dolphins experience should give Lions fans hope because, if they win today, they'll be the first team ever to go have only one win and come back next year, win their division and go to the playoffs.
A lovely twist to the "be all you can be" crap.
and you get your wish ... 0-16.
Being an honorary Detroit supporter (married to a girl from Detroit ... Go Wings!), I have to admit that I was rooting for 0-16 a month or so back. It seemed the only way to save anything of the season.
I'd hate to be the #1 pick in the draft round about now.
Q: What do Billy Graham and the Lions have in common?
A: They can both make 60,000 people thrown their arms in the air and yell "Jeeezuz Christ"
Ha! How old is that joke?
"I'd hate to be the #1 pick in the draft round about now."
I am sure that a few million dollars a year for several years would more than make up for it -- and that does not include money from endorsements.
Just one of those guys could easily donate enough money to run the NCSE for years.
The Lions have had the top draft picks for the last eight years and they have lost 23 out of the last 24 games. Detroit has had a bad year in many ways. Detroit's mayor watched the game in prison.
Detroit has had a bad year in many ways. Detroit's mayor watched the game in prison.
See Wayne, this is where we differ, because I look at that fact as possibly the only positive news for Detroit this year. Because everything else has been on a spectrum of "wow, that sucks," to "holy shit, why don't you just go kill yourself" sucky. Kwame going down was a breath of desperately needed fresh air.
Seen on Fark.com:
Knock, knock. Who's there?
Owen.
Owen who?
Owen Sixteen
Mr. Ford, for the love of God, please sell your team.
You show no confidence in running any organization, let alone a professional football team. The NFL draft makes it possible for teams that sucked one year and go to the playoffs the next, like the Atlanta Falcons who where 1-15 last year to being division champions this year into the playoffs. Why can't the Lions do this? There is not one person who is trustworthy enough to pick or run the team.
Not even William Clay Ford Jr. is confident enough to pick the manager either, he picked Matt Millen to run the team, and it took him three years to figure that out, on top of it all WCF Sr. extended his contract for 5 more years , so till 2011 you'll be paying him $5 million dollars a year, where can I sign up for that gig, when you fired you stll get paid 20 million dollars.
Since 1958 the Detroit Lions have one playoff win, and that was during a shortened season during the strike year of 1991. I quit being a fan of the lions, back in 1998 after the terrible ending season, and watched Barry Sanders press conference in April of 1999, it was a sad day to see, but after hearing his own words of Barry, stating that he quit, because the organization had no plans on hiring qualified coaches, personnal, and an owner who did not commit to winning, but rather filling the seats of a stadium was more important.
The Detroit Lions are the most pathetic team in all of sports, other teams have failed in the playoffs before, but not as bad as the lions, and today they confirmed and engraved the Lions into the history books for all the see.
The Ford family needs to sell the team.
Thanks for nothing 0-16
Don't mind wearing the raggedy britches
Cause them as succeed are all sons of bitches
I don't mind failing in this world
Kinda started as a Unitarian Spiritual by Malvina Reynolds. I have a version at home by some alt rock band but the name escapes me just now or I'd google it.
That link should have been to the tune but this is best I can do for now.
The whole of Detroit is just depressing. This thread has links to gorgeous brick family homes going for $9k:
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=4108331
I'd like to thank the Lions for making that Billy Graham joke stay relevant - it's one of my favorites.