Lions Season Summed Up in 18 Seconds With Fumble and Two Sacks to Seal Loss to Vikings

The 0-11 Lions have many believing that a winless season is not only possible, but probable. This is 0for08, FanHouse's eye on the Detroit Lions and their quest for a winless season.

Cheesy network slogans are always fun (like "Season on a Brink"). So are microcosmic - macrocosmic examples in life. For instance, to end the Detroit Lions' 13th loss of the season on Sunday, here's how the final two plays (following a Minnesota field goal which created a four-point lead) unfolded:

Daunte Culpepper drops back, gets ready to unleash a 60-yard hail mary, gets sacked, fumbles, Lions recover, Daunte's arm hangs by a string. Immediately after that, Drew Henson (I wish I was joking) comes in to take a hail mary snap himself with two seconds left, drops back, gets ready to unleash that cannon of an arm he has and ... summarily gets sacked to end the game.

In other words, it was the perfect ending for the Detroit Lions, if the purpose of said ending was to summarize their 2008 season in a span of 18 seconds or less. And that's what it did -- even though, as Sam Rosen and Tim Ryan pointed out, the Lions have legitimately looked like they care about winning recently.

Sure, they're still 0-13 now, and sure, the odds continue to look better and better that they will go completely winless this season, and sure, at this point, we're all really pulling for it, even if it means having to watch three weeks of Henson wasting precious snaps of Calvin Johnson's career, but goshdarnit, they're trying.

But that, as you know if you watched the final 18 seconds of that Minnesota debacle, is the beauty of the trainwreck that Matt Millen assembled in Detroit: no matter how hard they want to win, or hard they try to win, they can't help but fail. And that, while sad and pathetic in it's own right, is also kind of beautiful in a tragic and sickening way.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

12-07-2008 @ 6:52PM

Ed said...

This excuse for an article is the worst piece of crap that I have ever read on here. We Lion fans know that the team is bad and will be (until William Clay Ford Jr. takes them over) for the most part as they have been for most of the last 50+ years. I, as a proud Lions fan am really astonished at how people would want them to finish 0-16. Are these a lot of the same people who wanted the Dolphins to go winless last year? I bet very few if any wanted the Cowboys to run the table back in '89.

I think it takes a very mentally disturbed person such as Will to boast his supposed desires towards a team who has been around for longer than his parents (and probably his grandparents) have been. What Will convieniently left out is that the last loss to the Vikings was very contraversial with a blown pass interference call. This could have been a Lions victory if the NFL attorney had not interfered with the arbitor's decision regarding Pat and Kevin Williams.

For all of those who want to down the Lions, go right ahead. I will remember this. (Make sure you have the guts to mention your favorite team. Hopefully I will be around to raz you should they happen to have a really bad season which will happen sooner or later. Don't worry I'm patient. After all I have waited my entire life for the Lions to win the super Bowl. I can wait as long as I have to. Perhaps before then your favorite team will do that slide too. If they do, look behind you because that's just where I might be to remind you.). Have a good day Will and the rest of you Lions haters. May your teams be cursed forever for picking on the Detroit Lions!!

12-09-2008 @ 1:10PM

motown bob said...

bring back the likes of # 37, doak walker & # 22 bobby layne.

12-07-2008 @ 7:06PM

tifosiotaku said...

Hah, a Lions fan in denial? I'm loving it!

12-07-2008 @ 8:13PM

Yohncc said...

I see you are too afraid to mention your favorite team. Try being a real man and take your diaper foof of your head!

12-07-2008 @ 8:42PM

Erie Doctrine said...

this is a joke right? "picking on the Lions"? bro, the Lions' management, coaching, bad luck, and competitive play is truly unremarkable...i mean seriously, this team is (and has been for years) dysfunctional of epic proportions....

Will is just pointing out the obvious....

and btw, i'm a Cowboys fan...so i remember back in '89 when they were a laughingstock...plus i have endured times like today when they blow a game they should have won....but you know what, you deal with it and move on...

look at how the Fins have turned it around

12-07-2008 @ 9:48PM

Unforunately, Eric, this is no joke. Will wanted to pick on the Lions, and that's why he incurred my wrath.

You're right the Cowboys were really bad in '89. However, since you remember (or claim that you do anyway), you will recall that 1) The Cowboys had just been sold to Jerry Jones less than a year earlier which prompted Tex Schram's and Tom Laundry's retirement. 2) The Cowboys were 3-13 the year before Jerry Jones bought them. 3) Not long into the '89 season the Cowboys brilliantly traded Herchel Walker (for 11 players; most of them draft picks). While it has been regarded as probably the best trade in N.F.L. history, it hurt the Cowboys for the '89 season.

My point is is that before 1989, the Cowboys had a Front Office,Good Ownership (Something the Lions have lacked for many years) and Super Bowl Titles. The Dolphins hired Bill Parcells for their front office which has turned them around remarkably. They too have won Super Bowls prior to last season.

Will's comments did not state the obvious as much as they were mean spirited. Interestingly enough you omitted whether you thought people were rooting for the Cowboys to go 0-16 in '89. As I recall CBS and Brent Musberger were feeling quite sorry for them. It would be nice if the same sympathy was extended to the Lions.

For making your comment about Will stating the obvious I would curese the Cowboys, however having Tony Romo playing for them might be curse enough especially at playoff time.