subject: Detroit Lions- Winning Records No One Wants [print this page] Among all of the many and varied season in the history of the NFL, the League's players have broken one record after another both individually and as a team. Many of those records were once thought to have been incapable of being broken. In 2008, one team set a new record that left many of the sport's fans in utter disbelief. It was during that year that a record was set by the Detroit Lions that every other team in the NFL now hope remains theirs and theirs alone. For in that season's campaign, Detroit suffered a loss in every single game of the year, and established the record for the worst NFL team season ever - sixteen heartbreaking losses and no wins.
Winless teams of the past
In the first years of the NFL, there were many winless teams. In fact, during the decade of the twenties, there was at least one squad each year that managed to lose every game. From that point on, however, the feat became somewhat less common. The 1934 Cincinnati Reds lost their first eight games, and ended up being disbanded before the season was completed. Then, in 1942, Detroit went 0-11 on the season, which was followed by the Cardinals of Chicago losing all ten of their games the next year - something that the Card-Pit team would repeat in 1944. Dallas' 1960 team was winless, as was the 1976 team from Tampa Bay and the Baltimore Colts squad that played in the strike-plagued season of 1982. After that, no team would go winless again - that is, until the 2008 season ended.
Low expectations
It is not like anyone expected the Lions to win the Super Bowl or anything. They have been a mediocre franchise for some time, but most fans and analysts anticipated that they would at least win a handful of contests. After all, it had been fully one-fourth of a century since the last NFL team had failed to find at least one victory in their season. To make matters worse, many fans actually expected that the team might win more than a handful of games, as they burst out of the gates by winning four pre-season contests in a row - something that should put to rest for all time the idea that pre-season games have any merit in properly evaluating any team's chances for success during the regular season.
Chances lost
The most memorable part of the season would be the opportunities that the Lions had to avoid their winless results. Their week-six game against the Vikings was certainly within reach, as the Lions lost by only two, and several other games were within ten or fewer points. Even in the last contest of the season against Green Bay, the Lions were in the game for almost the entire sixty minutes of play. Their failure to stop the Packers from scoring in the fourth quarter, however, was an almost fitting end to what will always be remembered as one of the worst seasons in any team's history in the NFL.
