Marketplace of Ideas Blog

In the final week of this NFL season, 13 of the 16 games will feature either at least one of the seven teams that have clinched playoff spots, or one of the 11 teams still in the hunt for the five remaining playoff spots.

And then there’s Sunday’s game at Lambeau Field, one of three games with no hope of either opponent getting into the playoffs. The Lions–Packers game also gets the dubious honor of having the worst combined win–loss record of the week, with Green Bay’s 5–10 against Detroit’s 0–15.

(Fox Sports’ Chris Rose and John Lynch, who are announcing Sunday’s game, now know where they stand with Fox, as do CBS’ Bill Macatee and Steve Beuerlein, who get to announce Kansas City (2–13) at Cincinnati (3–11–1) on 10 CBS stations on Sunday. Fox’s Ron Pitts and Tony Boselli get the final non-playoff matchup, but the records of Washington (8–7) and San Francisco (6–9) are much better. The Redskins can clinch a winning season with a win or tie, which would mean every NFC East team would have a winning record.)

Sports Illustrated’s Peter King has a point for those worried that Detroit might beat Green Bay Sunday and thus avoid the ignominy of the worst record in the history of pro football:

I think this is all you need to know about the Lions’ chances to avoid 0–16: They are 0–17 in Wisconsin since 1992, and they try to avoid infamy Sunday by traveling to Green Bay.

The Packers are also 13–1 in season-ending games in the past 14 seasons. That and a dome team playing outdoors (early forecast: mostly sunny, high 24) bode ill for the Lions.

Tampa Bay’s first season ended with an 0–14 record, but Detroit has already set the record for most losses in a season, since NFL seasons now are 16 games long (in the same way that New England set the record for wins in a season, 18, one year ago, even though the Patriots lost game number 19, while the 1972 Miami Dolphins went 17–0, including their Super Bowl VII win). The Lions also have clinched the number-one pick in the 2009 NFL draft.

With a Packers win Sunday, the Lions will join the NFL’s Hall of Shame, including the 1934 Cincinnati Reds (0–8), 1942 Lions (0–11), 1943 Chicago Cardinals (0–10) and the 1944 “Carpets,” the World War II-caused merger of the Cardinals and Pittsburgh Steelers (0–10; evidently the merger didn’t help). Next to these four are the two teams that didn’t lose every game, but didn’t win any — the 1960 Cowboys (0–11–1) and the 1982 Baltimore Colts (0–8–1 in a strike-shortened season — that tie was to, by the way, the Packers). This is reminiscent of the last pre-Vince Lombardi Packers team, the 1958 Packers, of whom sportswriter Red Smith said the Packers “overwhelmed one team, underwhelmed 10 and whelmed one,” with many of the same players with whom Lombardi would win five NFL championships and two Super Bowls.

The Lions’ hideous season has been charm-free, unlike Tampa Bay’s first season, which was at least enlivened by their coach, John McKay, who went from national champion teams at the University of Southern California to, arguably, a less talented pro team. (When asked after a game about his team’s execution, he replied, “I’m all for it.” After the Buccaneers improbably won the NFC Central title in his fourth year as coach, he said the reason he talked about a “five-year plan” was: “I had a five year contract. If I had a three-year contract I would have had a three-year plan. So that’s how smart I was.” One of McKay’s assistants was Wayne Fontes, who coached a parade of seemingly underachieving Lions teams in the 1990s — he ended as the Lions’ winningest and losingest head coach — but, as Detroit’s Out of Bounds Web site puts it, “Wayne wasn’t Knute Rockne, either, but his days in Detroit are looking better and better, aren’t they?”)

Had the Detroit hockey team, the Red Wings, been similarly bad, fans could call them the “Dead Things,” in the same way Tampa Bay fans shortened “Buccaneers” to “Bucs” to just “Yuks” during their many bad early seasons, or New Orleans Saints fans removed the first S from their team’s nickname. No, this is just a bad, bad team — 27th in points scored, 30th in offensive yardage, and dead last in points and yards given up, particularly embarrassing for a head coach whose background is on defense.

Lions coach Rod Marinelli is well thought of in the NFL (he was the Buccaneers’ defensive line coach during their Super Bowl season), but may be over his head as a head coach; regardless, he doesn’t deserve this kind of treatment from humor-challenged Detroit sportswriters.

Given that the general manager is more important than the coach in football, the 0-for-2008 record (surprisingly after a 4–0 preseason) is more attributable to the Lions’ disastrous general manager, Matt Millen. Millen was a very good announcer with Fox, but he demonstrated as general manager that, well, he didn’t know what he didn’t know. Moreover, the Ford family, owners of the Lions, inexplicably (but fortunately for Packers fans) didn’t figure out until just this season that he could neither draft well nor do well in signing free agents.

If you believe NFL observers, there is less difference in roster talent from one NFL team to the next than fans might think. Perhaps for that reason, and because surely no Lion player or coach wants to be associated with the first 0–16 team in NFL history, there is some pressure on the Packers Sunday. While it appears that this Packers team was overrated coming into this season, there is no way it is as bad as the Lions are. (For one thing, While Lambeau Field seems to have lost its home-field advantage (3–4 is tied for 22nd best in the NFL), the Lions will be on the road after becoming the ninth team since 1980 to lose every home game. So if the Packers lose Sunday, Packer fans may be in even more foul a mood than Lions fans.