Los Detroits Lions They are the worst team this year with a 0-8 record. Nothing indicates that this record could improve in the near future, the next two games are visits to Pittsburgh and Cleveland, contending teams, and then close the month with their traditional Thanksgiving game, the day they will host their divisional rivals, the Chicago Bears . This last week has been the best of the entire season for them as they did not lose any game on bye week, while all their divisional rivals were defeated.
The history of contrasts of the Lions
The Detroit Lions are one of the franchises that have never played the Super Bowl in the NFL. His best foray into the playoffs since the inception of this game was a Conference Final in 1991, with a team trained by Wayne Fontes and where the most legendary player in the franchise, RB Barry Sanders, was.
But not all are bad results for this historic team: they are holders of four absolute championships of the NFL: 1935, 1952, 1953 and 1957. Throughout its more than ninety years history they have not always had bad players, up to 22 members of the Hall of Fame have worn their blue and gray colors. To the aforementioned Sanders we can add others such as Bobby Lane, Alex Karras and Calvin Johnson, without neglecting other legends such as Dick Lebeau or Dutch Clark, a player who comes from the Portsmouth Spartans, the name of the team when it was founded in 1930. Perhaps, someday ex-players like Ndamukong Suh O Matthew Stafford can also enter the Hall of Fame.
The curse of Bobby Layne
The legendary Lions quarterback broke his ankle on the penultimate day of the 1957 season. His replacement, Tobin Rote, led the team to the NFL final and won the last franchise title. Management then decided to trade Lane to the Pittsburgh Steelers, and when he found out about it, he put his curse on them: The Lions would not win a title for the next 50 years.
Not only was he not wrong, but he was even short: for now, they are 63 years old and everything indicates that they will be at least 64 to dream of seeing them champions.
In this period, not only have they not won a championship again, but precisely when the period of the curse ended – in 2017 – the team starred in the most shameful chapter in its history, being the first to finish a season with a record 0-16, something the Cleveland Browns would match a few years later. Hidden in the long history there is another shameful record: in 1942 Detroit finished with a 0-11 record, hence they are the only existing franchise that accumulates two seasons losing all its games.
There would be no two without three
2021 is the first season with 17 regular-season games and the Lions could be the first team to lose, now, all 17 games, and needless to say, the embarrassment would reach stratospheric proportions.
There are still nine games to play, but the reality is that the calendar does not invite optimism. We have already written about the dark omens for the month of November, although the next two months do not invite us to be very optimistic, with meetings against Vikings, Broncos, Cardinals, Falcons, Seahawks and Packers, teams that could all be with options for the playoffs. .
Perhaps, the best scenario for them, is that the Packers do not play anything in the last game and decide to rest their starters – if they are classified for the postseason – but being a divisional rival and playing against history, anyone knows what what could happen.
The real drama of the Lions, aside from their record, is that there is no improvement in the team. Each defeat is worse than the previous one and shows how difficult it is for the team to be minimally competitive. Of their current eight defeats, only two were with adjusted scores, in both cases they lost by a field goal in the final seconds and even in one of them. Justin Tucker had to break the yardage record.
The rest of the falls are not debatable, and in all of them it was possible to observe a team unable to maintain the rhythm of the rival. Against the Bengals, Rams and especially the Eagles, a group was seen to be totally outmatched and playing at an unseemly level for a professional team.
Who can they use to get a win?
The head coach Dan Campbell He lives his second experience in the position after a stage as an intern in Miami. No one can deny your vigor, drive and enthusiasm, but none of that is enough when you have a franchise with such limited and scarce talent.
It is true that he received a staff very diminished by the passage of Matt Patrícia; among others, we can count the exit via transfer of Darius Slay last year, or offseason moves that further weakened the team with the departures of QB Matthew Stafford and WR Kenny Golladay, without bringing in compensation little beyond the QB Jared Goff.
Team Pillar Injuries as CB Jeff Okudah, OC Frank Ragnow, LT Taylor Decker o RB D’Andre Swift have been accompanied by disappointments in the performance of the DE Trey Flowers, AT T.J. Hockenson y LB Jamie Collins, who ended up being cut off. In the last Draft they reinforced their offensive line with the OT Penei Sewell, a player of immense talent, but who, for the moment, contributes little from his position.
The dramatic situation for the Lions can get much worse with the added pressure of winning a game to avoid the 0-17 embarrassment. As we have discussed, the Lions not only play against their rivals and against themselves, but against their own history.
What record do you predict for the Detroit Lions at the end of the 2021 NFL Season? We read you in the comments under this column and on our social networks.
