0-16 Isn't as Bad as 0-4

Do events, even if they are inevitable or at least fully anticipated, still constitute interesting or worthwhile news? This is the main question I'm asking myself as the Lions completed the official worst season in the history of the NFL on Sunday. There are some arguments as to whether they are the worst NFL football team ever or the second worst team ever, but that's probably a pointless debate because of our inability to time travel. You may think I am exaggerating if you are not a sports fan because I do have a tendency to cheat and exaggerate a little bit with the English language, but in this instance, I'm not not exaggerating even the slightest bit. The Lions are the first NFL team ever to go 0-15 and, subsequently, 0-16. Yesterday, the organization fired their coach, Rod Marinelli, who was unable to lead the team to a single non-preseason victory in more than 12 months. Both of these events have been very well covered in the past couple of days, and there has been much discussion through the months regarding whether or not the Lions could succeed at complete and utter failure for the 2008 football season.

We here, in Michigan, have become accustomed to failure of many of our professional organizations - particularly the Lions. We spend our time and mental energy preparing for failure and bracing ourselves for the locally-directed national hostility and general good time at our expense. For now, it has become a way of life, and I find myself to be very impressed by our people's ability to manage with the crappiest onslaught of news since the SciFi Network decided to pull the plug on Farscape one season early. Those were dark times. The way that the creative team decided to end season 4 was intensely mind blowing.

I would have thought, at the beginning of the season, that my team going 0-16 would be supremely distressing. Now that the fat woman has rung the final bell, I'm more upset about a hole in a pair of my socks than the Lions. It was far more difficult to watch the team go 0-1, 0-2, 0-3, 0-4 - because you could almost tangibly feel the optimism slipping away. By the time we got all the way to 0-5, it was virtually impossible to feel any more embarrassment or pain about the team. I find it far less enjoyable to make fun of someone when they don't care that I am making fun of them. While others seem to have great joy at reveling in our football failure, I want to do my part to reduce their enjoyment by proudly stating that we genuinely stopped caring a long time ago. If your goals is really to get to us, first off, congratulations. It's just like when someone walks around downtown and kicks the homeless. "Maybe if you had a home, I wouldn't be able to kick you. Ever think about that?" Instead of football, you should focus on making fun of our employment levels, automobile industry, loss of intelligent young minds, and/or declining population levels. As long as it makes you feel better about your life, fire away.