NFL Countdown: Lions make history for all the wrong reasons in 2008
The Detroit Lions have largely struggled throughout their entire existence. The franchise has not even played in a Super Bowl, let alone won one. Throughout their entire history, the Lions have only had 11 winning seasons from 1934 (renamed from the Portsmouth Spartans) through to 2021.
December 28, 2008: After their 16th loss of the season, the Detroit #Lions became the 1st team to go winless during a 16-game season in NFL history. The 2017 Cleveland Browns joined them as an infamous 0-16 team
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During that time, the team has only made the playoffs 12 times as success has been hard to come by for the NFC franchise.
For today's NFL Countdown, we are going to take a look back at the Lions' 2008 season where they created history for all the wrong reasons.
Lions make unwanted history in 2008
At the start of every season, each team is confident that they will be able to make something of the season. For Detroit, they were coming off a 7-9 season in 2007 so it was thought that another season of progression could land them in the playoffs.
Today in 2008, the @Lions become the first NFL team to lose 16 games in a season. Sorry @danorlovsky7.
#TodayInSports #NFL #Lions
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In 2008 they had quarterback Daunte Culpepper, who had an 0-5 record, 786 passing yards, four touchdowns and six interceptions. They then switched to Dan Orlovsky, who had an 0-7 record, 1,616 passing yards, eight touchdowns and eight interceptions. Finally, they tried Jon Kitna, who put up an 0-4 record, 758 passing yards and five touchdowns along with five interceptions.
Unfortunately for Detroit, they went the other way, and badly. The season started with a 34-21 loss to the Falcons, and then followed that up with two losses, to the Packers (48-25) and the 49ers (31-13) before their bye week.
It was a chance for the team to reset and find some positives to work on. They found none aside from receiver Calvin Johnson (1,331 receiving yards and 12 touchdowns for the season).
Detroit was blown off the field against the Bears 34-7 in their Week 5 clash before they faced the Vikings in what was the closest they got to a win all year. The 12-10 loss was heartbreaking as the Lions were so close to that elusive win.
It looked as if the Lions were improving as their next three losses were by a single possession. They just couldn't get over the hump. Detroit would only suffer three blowouts for the remainder of the season against the Jaguars in Week 10 (38-14), Tennessee in Week 13 (47-10) and the New Orleans Saints in Week 16 (42-7).
The 2008 Detroit Lions remain the only NFL team ever to go 0-16 in a season. https://t.co/66eflXZVe5
Sitting at 0-15, the final game of the year came around for the franchise to avoid the dreaded 0-16 record. It was against division rivals Green Bay and Detroit put up a fight before losing 31-21 to create a slice of unwanted history.
It was the first winless season under the league's new 16-game format. The only other team to go winless in the 16-game format is the Cleveland Browns in 2017.
Both teams own a piece of history that they will surely want to forget.
All stats used in this article are via profootballreference.com.