ESPN, the leader in sports mediocy, predicts the Detroit Lions to win Super Bowl LIX, which is fine by us, obviously. It would be cool to see a team that has never played in the NFL Championship Game spectacle to get there and win it. The Lions almost made it last year, of course, so they’re a trendy pick to climb the mountaintop this year and conquer some demons. One of those demons? Being the first 0-16 team ever.

It’s interesting to see how a team could have gone winless in an NFL season. It happened to an expansion team once, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They went 0-14 in 1976, but just three seasons later, the Bucs were playing in the NFC Championship Game. We can understand how an expansion team could be so bad; what we can’t comprehend is how Detroit went from a 7-9 season in 2007 to a winless season just a year later.

We should disclose here that we were living in Michigan during the 2008 NFL season, and many of our social companions were big Lions fans. It should also be noted that it takes both a serious lack of talent and a lot of bad luck to go 0-16 in the NFL. Just as it would take an awful lot of talent and a lot of luck to go 16-0 in the NFL (or else have a nice little cheating thing going on, right, New England?). Detroit suffered, for sure.

The Lions actually started off 6-2 in 2007 before the wheels came off the season with six consecutive losses: four of those defeats came by a combined 28 points, including a one-point loss to the Dallas Cowboys on December 9. But Detroit had a mediocre quarterback (Jon Kitna) who tossed more interceptions (20) than touchdowns (18), so maybe the 6-2 start itself was a mirage. Whatever way you dice it, the season was sad.

No individual player topped 1,000 yards from scrimmage, and the defense gave up 444 points—the worst in the NFL. So, it was clear the team was “less” than its 7-9 record suggested. Perhaps this was just a five-win squad, for example, on a sabermetric level. Either way, the Lions needed to do something big to improve in 2008. But … you can Google General Manager Matt Millen to see just what Detroit was doing wrong then.

This specific piece was published in September 2008, before the team finalized its place in history. It’s a decent example of just how little people thought of Millen and his personnel moves at the time, and it all came crashing down in 2008: he was fired after Week 3, in fact. Detroit lost its first three games by a combined 48 points, and the change in organizational leadership came a little bit too late, really.

The Lions had a bye in Week 4, so the thought probably was to turn things around; that didn’t happen: Detroit lost its fourth game by a 34-7 score. Then the bad luck really kicked in, as the next four losses all came by single digits, by an aggregate 92-71 margin. The Lions led, 10-2, in the third quarter of Game 5 against the Minnesota Vikings on the road, but they gave up an 86-yard TD pass and then lost on a field goal.

The winning FG came with less than 10 seconds left in a 12-10 loss, so Detroit was that close to winning a game and getting off the hook somewhat early in the season. Then, in Game 8, the Lions were up, 23-13, at halftime over the Chicago Bears on the road. But the defense collapsed in the second half, as the offense stalled. A 27-23 loss put Detroit halfway home to its winless season, despite having multiple winning opps.

In the final eight games, the Lions seems mentally beaten most times out: only twice did they lose by single digits, and one of those losses was a 31-22 defeat where the offense committed four turnovers. The rematch against the Vikings was the closest Detroit came to winning a game in the second half of the season: trailing by a point late, the Lions gave up just enough yards to let Minnesota kick a 50-yard FG with 22 seconds left.

Imagine if the Vikings had missed that kick: Detroit might have had its own chance to kick a long one late for a victory. The Lions kicker, Jason Hanson, was a perfect 8-for-8 on FG attempts of at least 50 yards during this horrible season. Sometimes, again, luck just isn’t on your side when you need it, as the Minnesota kicker, Ryan Longwell, was himself 6-for-6 from long distance during the 2008 season. Oh well.

The Lions defense was worse in 2008, too, giving up 517 points, the worst number in the league. The offense scored enough points to finish 27th out of 32 teams there, and sabermetrics suggest the team could have won two or three games based on its statistical profile. That’s where that luck stuff comes in, obviously: it just wasn’t meant to be for Detroit in 2008. The team started three different QBs, famously, as well. Nothing.

The offense had some talent, in the form of running back Kevin Smith and wide receiver Calvin Johnson, both of whom surpassed 1,200-plus yards from scrimmage and combined to score 20 TDs. But if defense wins championships? It also can leave you winless, as the Lions under Millen didn’t do enough to fix a terrible defense from the 2007 season, keeping the same DC, and it ended up costing them mightily in 2008.

How does a team not fire the defensive coordinator after giving up a league-worst number of points? Some might argue the Lions had it comin’, but that wouldn’t be fair: after all, it’s still the players that need to execute, and there is a full staff of coaches and talent-building personnel, too, in the front office. But in the end, that may have been the ultimate mistake: not changing it up enough and thinking you were “close” …

Detroit learned the hard way, and it’s taken the organization a long to claw its way back to respectability. Since 2008, the team has just four postseason appearances: 2011, 2014, 2016, and 2023. But after a 9-8 season in 2022, the Lions have posted two consecutive winning seasons for just the second time since the heyday of Barry Sanders (1993-1995). Head Coach Dan Campbell seems to have changed the culture now.

Only time will tell if the Detroit franchise can get the ultimate monkey off its back this season.