There is nowhere else to go but up when you’ve hit rock
bottom
There is nowhere else to go but up when you’ve hit rock bottom.
As a lifelong Detroit Lions fan, this is where I find myself. Rock bottom. You could call this season a sports intervention because there is no other way to describe how disgusting 0-16 feels. My faith in being a sports fan has been shaken to the core.
You expect to win some and lose some. You never expect to lose all of them.
Sitting at Stubby’s Sports Bar & Grill Sunday, which is where I’ve spent almost every Sunday over the last four months, the calls and text messages came raining down.
Today will be forever known as the day the Lions achieved perfection.
Somewhere, someplace, Barry Sanders is crying.
I’m so, so sorry.
I didn’t ask for this. I rooted like hell against it. I changed my routine week to week, thinking maybe I was the problem. But in the end, there was no avoiding it: The 2008 Detroit Lions are now the worst team in NFL history, and deserve the distinction as the worst team in the history of professional sports.
A terrible offense combined with sub-par special teams and the worst defense I have ever seen made it possible. The Lions were two touchdowns and two two-point conversions away from allowing the most points in NFL history. Half the games were over by halftime. As a result, I have become an expert on awful football.
After losing 31-21 at Green Bay in the season finale, Jason Hanson, a veteran kicker who has spent his entire 17-year career in Motown and is one of only two players on the roster I actually like, summed it up quite well.
“I almost can’t believe it,” he said. “It’s surreal. Like, did it happen? But this is what people have been waiting for, I guess. Very sad. Very disappointing.”
Sad and disappointing are accurate, but understatements. Rookie running back Kevin Smith came closer.
“You try to smile, not cry about it,” he said.
“I wish it was just a dream.”
This season has been a dream, an absolute nightmare.
I wrote a column five years ago titled “True fans are suckers.” It was meant to show how real fans stick with their teams, even when times get tough. I mentioned three reasons I was Lions fan. One; my dad, a native of Michigan, pulled me out of bed to watch Barry Sanders highlights each Sunday night. How could you not love watching Barry Sanders? Two; DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket hadn’t been invented until recently, so I couldn’t watch all the stinkfests. Three; when the Lions actually started winning games, I wanted to be able to throw it back in the face of all the people who talked down to me.
Here’s an excerpt from that column:
‘Being as bad as the Cincinnati Bungals is no picnic, so as things appear to be looking up (and they couldn’t really have gotten any worse after last year), fans’ hopes start to gain momentum. The Lions have a proven new coach (Steve Mariucci), a talented young quarterback (Joey Harrington), and the next great receiver (Charles Rogers), according to the suspect word of the day, potential.
For years, Lions fans have seen that word define the high point among many of its players’ careers. Luckily, management has decided to stop wasting their breath hyping mediocre players for the future (see QB’s Scott Mitchell, Charlie Batch and Mike McMahon). Football more than almost any other sport requires superior talent to win games and GM Matt Millen has made it a priority to start acquiring reputable talent.’
Ugh. I feel like someone just puked on my head and told me it was raining. Worst of all, if I were to look up, I would see my own sick face.
Since 2003, Gilroy native Jeff Garcia came and went, and, in the process, saved his career. Two coaches have been fired, with Rod Marinelli meeting the chopping block Monday. And, four first-round receivers later, Millen is gone. (I was disgusted to see I actually hyped Millen in that article. I can’t believe it. That may be the worst part about this whole fiasco. I never would have remembered writing that otherwise.)
A teacher in high school once told me things are never as good or as bad as they seem, and it’s true. I woke up today and should wake up tomorrow with the same family and friends intact. But a little piece of me, the sports fan, died with what I saw this season. Like war, there are just some things so terrible you can’t unsee them.
“I think we let a lot of people down,” Lions center Dominic Raiola was quoted as saying after the game. “We let ourselves down. We let Rod down. We let the entire coaching staff down. We let down the whole city of Detroit and all the fans.
“This is rock bottom.”
Now take a deep breath and remember that the NFL Draft is only four months away. Pain like this can’t last forever.
