I must be blog-happy this week, but as I was thinking this morning about how bad this current Lions team is, I decided to do some research and share it with you all.

We all know this team is bad, but from a purely historical perspective, exactly how bad are they?  Are they really 0-16 bad?  Are they truly a candidate for the worst team in NFL history?  My first reaction to that is, geez, I hope not.  But after watching the last six debacles, they might be.  Anyway, I compared the Lions to the worst teams since the NFL went to 16 games in 1978.  I know, I know... that leaves out the '76 Buccaneers.  So for fun, I did that comparison, too.

Let's start by looking at all teams in that era that had 2 or less wins for the season.  The total is a surprisingly low twenty-eight.  That's 28 teams out of 881 possible or less than one team a year.  Twenty of those were 2-14 (2.3%) and 8 were 1-15 (0.9%).  How many of those 28 were the Lions?  If you said two, you were correct - in 2001 and 1979 (both 2-14).  Given that, the odds are statistically very low that the Lions win 1 game or less, but these are the Lions.

So, taking the 2008 Lions out of the picture, who was the worst?  Well, there were some bad teams out there.  The worst offensive team looks like the '92 Seahawks.  They averaged a paltry 8.7 points a game - the worst in the last thirty years.  Stan Gelbaugh (who?) was their QB and was rated last in the league with a 52 rating.  Chris Warren did scrape together a 1017 yd rushing season, but only scored 3 times.  The worst defensive outing was the '81 Colts - bar none.  They allowed an historic 533 points (still the NFL record) averaging out to 33.3 points a game for the season.  Still, both of these teams managed to put together two wins.

Now, for the '76 Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  The only defeated team in the league at 0-14.  Although this is so long ago that they weren't even in the NFC yet, they set the bar as low as you can for inept play by a "professional" team.  No doubt many good college programs could have beaten them soundly.  So how did they grade out on offense and defense?  Well, they were slightly better than the '92 Seahawks, averaging 8.9 pts per game and also slightly better defensively than the '81 Colts with 29.4 pts a game.  I know that point totals don't tell the true story, but no doubt you can see the trends with all 28 of these inept teams.

Finally, how do the 2008 Lions stack up against the worst of the worst?  For that, I simply averaged out the data from the first 6 games to compile a 16 game set of stats.  On offense, the Lions are on pace with the better of the worst teams, averaging over 16 points a game - which is about average for most 2-14 or 3-13 teams.  On defense, it's a different story.  They are on pace for giving up 498 points this year!  That's a whopping 31.1 points a game!  This would rank 3rd in NFL history only behind the woeful '81 Colts and the '66 Giants (501 pts).  That, my friends, is what we get after three years of a defensive-minded coach - mindblowing.  I'll give myself a bit of a disclaimer here that scoring, both offensively and defensively, does not give a 100% clear representation of the horrible plays a team makes over the course of the year.  I've seen highlights of the '76 Bucs and it makes your jaw drop.  So let's just go ahead and forgive me for rationalizing this in such a basic manner.

I'll end with this thought.  I personally, do not think that the Lions will go 0-16.  They'll win a game or two, because history dictates that they will.  There is less than a 1 percent chance that they go winless.  I know... these are our Lions.  But I'll hedge my bet with history as the control here.  Also, I'll let you know who I think was the worst team of all-time.  Actually, it's very close to a tie with the '76 Bucs.  The 1990 New England Patriots finished the season 1-15 while averaging barely over 11 points a game and giving up around 28 points a game on defense.  Marc Wilson was the quarterback until he was benched and barely eeked out a 60 rating.  The defense was also a bunch of no-names (aside from Tippett) that could barely average a sack or two a game.  Given some of these horrible teams from the past, it's unlikely that the Lions will end up the worst unless they lose them all.  Then they'll win by default  - or should I say "lose by default" - either way, it's really bad.