Today the Detroit Lions became the first 0-16 team in National Football League history. 

The question now is whether these Lions merit the worst NFL team ever. Only five other teams have started a season 0-12. Three of those went on to win their next game, and one — the 1980 New Orleans Saints — lost 14 straight before finally claiming their first victory with a week to spare. Only one, the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, reached the end of the year without winning a game, but at that time the season was only 14 games long.

No team has ever lost 16 games in a season, but reaching that number would not necessarily mark the Lions out as the worst team in history. After all, where the Lions have lost by an average of just under 15 points per game, the Bucs lost by more than 20. Where the Lions have at least held fourth-quarter leads in four games, the Buccaneers managed that feat only once, for a total of 183 seconds. Where the Bucs failed to score in five of their 14 games, the Lions have always managed at least one touchdown.

In the Bucs’ case, though, there was one giant mitigating factor — namely that they were an expansion team who had been formed that season. And besides, their winless season came before the advent of free agency and the salary cap. The latter has been critical in creating parity since it was introduced in 1994 and the general consensus these days is that it would have been impossible for any team to drop all 16 games. Even though some teams would be stronger than others, the slender margins between success and failure were supposed to ensure that — on any given Sunday — any team could beat any other. 

Since the league expanded to a 16-game schedule, no team has gone an entire season without a victory.   No team in the history of the NFL has ever lost 16 games in the regular season. That’s probably because they only play 16. You have to be a really bad football organization to finish 0-16, which is why no one has accomplished that feat before.  Therefore we declare the 2008 Detroit Lions as the works NFL Team Ever!  And maybe the worst professional sports organization in history.

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