Thursday open thread: Are the Lions the least depressing team in Detroit?

It’s a rough time for sports in Detroit. The Red Wings and Pistons are a few months out from missing the playoffs—the Pistons for the seventh time in eight years, the Wings for the first time in 26 seasons. The Tigers are in the midst of an already disappointing season. As of writing this, they are seven games back in the Central, six games behind a Wild Card spot, and we haven’t even hit the All Star break yet.

At this point, the Detroit Lions are pretty clearly the best professional team in town. No team has made the playoffs more recently than the Lions. And while the Tigers and Pistons are now constantly on the outside of the postseason looking in, the Lions have made it three times in the past six seasons.

This led Twitter user and major Detroit sports fan @WorldofIsaac to post the following:

So today’s Question of the Day is:

Are the Detroit Lions the least depressing professional team in Detroit?

My answer: I think the answer is yes, but I’m not fully ready to accept it. While the Lions have had the most recent success of any Detroit franchise, that success has been quite limited. Despite the recent playoff appearances, the Lions remain well over two decades removed from their last playoff victory.

That being said, the other Detroit sports teams are starting to build postseason droughts of their own:

Considering, baseball aside, it’s much easier to make the playoffs in those other sports and teams get an entire series to win a single playoff game, the Lions’ drought almost doesn’t seem that bad anymore.

And when you consider the trajectory of each of these teams, it’s clear the Lions are the most promising of each team.

While no Detroit team seems to get my hopes up only to crash them down like the Lions, they are the only Detroit team that has even a little excitement around it. So, yeah, they are the least depressing team in Detroit right now.

Your turn.