Epic Fail

I don't know if any of you are football fans, but even if you are not, I feel attention should be paid to a team on the edge of infamy this year.

The Detroit Lions are well on their way toward becoming the first team to lose every single regular season game this year. There are some stories on the current state of the team, here describing how the quarterback is desperate for a single win, here about how local fans have failed to sell out 4 of the last 5 games in a relatively new stadium specifically built to enable sellouts after the absurdity of asking the Lions to regularly fill the Pontiac Silverdome's 83,000 seats.

It has been a bad year for the Lions- at 0-12, they've already fired their quarterback and replaced him, in mid-season, with 31-year old glass-boned Dante Culpepper, who started for the team like 72 hours after being hired and, judging by the size of the play cards on both his wrists, unsurprisingly still doesn't know the offense. He remains, nevertheless, a high point for the team this year. Revel here in the numerical explicitness of the Lion's failure, lingering over their bottom of the league placings in on both offense and defense, and the still shocking .000 win percentage.

The thing is, the Lions aren't just having a bad year- they have actually become an institution for the generation of mediocrity, ruining the careers of the highly talented draft picks their poor showings entitle them to each year. Think about it- who was the last great Lion since Barry Sanders, for whom Detroit can't take developmental credit anyway? He showed up the best running back in the league, and retired the best running back in the league, a year away from the rushing record, his years with the Lions having destroyed his enjoyment of the game. Yes, they've produced a couple of decent receivers over the years, but have not been able to translate them into wins. Or even playoff appearances.

So, Ahab like, I'll be watching the game this Sunday with a friend from Minnesota, who apparently wants someone to laugh at over his buffalo wings. The sports-talk radio station in Detroit, 97.1, hosted a conversation last week focused on who might buy the team for next year, what city they might move it to, and whom they should fire in what order. I'm right there with you, Detroit- this organization has been mediocre for as long as I've been alive, and downright horrible far too many years. Detroit Lions: what is wrong with you? This isn't baseball, where century-long losing streaks are possible- the salary cap and drafting system have tended to ensure a high degree of volatility. At least this year the Lions have managed to excel at something- even if that thing is the opposite of the reason this extremely expensive organization exists.

Lions, enjoy the bitter fruit of 2008. And then please: fire people, shake things up, move to Montana, start taking better steroids, start doing voodoo rituals before games, replace yourselves with cyborgs, disband the freaking team, but don't make me watch you do this again.