The Worst Franchise in Sports?

A lot of people think the Detroit Lions are the worst franchise in sports.  I mean a lot. Any why not?  They certainly haven’t given anyone reason in the past 10 years to feel otherwise.

Well, Mike Wilbon on PTI the other week said that his hometown Washington Nationals were the worst franchise in all of sports.  This inspired The Nats Blog, a fellow Bloguiner, to come up with a collaborative piece on all the potential worst sports franchises.  He gathered six bloggers from some of the worst sports organizations and allowed them to defend their teams, once and for all.  If you’re interested in reading the entire piece you can find it on The Nats Blog here.

We had the distinct honor of going last to defend our team (4 out of the 6 said the Lions were the worst), so here is what I had to say in response…  (Disclaimer: I was rushing out the door to see the new X-Men movie when I was finishing this up, so the ending is not as solid as I would have hoped it to be.  I think the point is clear, though):

************************************************************************************************

Worst franchise ever?  The Detroit Lions?  C’mon….. So what if we’re fresh off perfect futility?  A lot of teams have gone 0-16, right?  Alright, it goes way beyond being the first franchise ever to go 0-16.  The Lions are 31-128 in the past 8 years, just a little over three wins per season.  I think saying they’ve hit a rough patch the last decade would be a gross understatement.   The Lions have won no Super Bowls–hell, they don’t even have one Super Bowl appearance. They’ve hosted it twice, though.  That goes for something, huh?

All of that is exactly what you would undoubtedly bring up if you wanted to argue that the Detroit Lions are the worst franchise in all of sports.  You might also bring up that it’s where every quarterback has basically gone to die since the late 1950s.  Why the late 1950s?  Well, because after Bobby Layne led the Lions to their last championship (1957, before it was called the Super Bowl), he was traded to the Pittsburgh Steelers.  As legend has it, he was so upset about being traded after leading the Lions to three championships in nearly a decade that he cursed the Lions and said they would not win for 50 years.

It’s now been 52 years to be exact since the Lions last championship.  It hasn’t been all paper bags, Fire Millen chants, and fan suicide threats, though.  The Lions went to the playoffs six times in the 1990s, had one of the best RB in NFL history, and host the annual Thanksgiving Day game–a tradition that dates back to 1934.

Okay, so there’s not a very long list of accomplishments for this lowly Lions franchise.  I know you want me to start defending my case that they’re not the worst franchise by giving a detailed look at another franchise that could possibly be worse.  I don’t think that would be entirely fair.  I hate that the Lions are even in this category of potential teams as much as I hate that the Lions are the butt of every Jay Leno NFL joke, so why should I hurt someone else as much as this hurts me?

I will say, the Lions time will come.  Look at the Boston Red Sox.  They went 86 years before winning another title.  The Detroit Red Wings went 42 years before winning another Cup in 1997.  Look where those teams are now.  I realize comparing those two to the Lions is like comparing day and night, but I’m just trying to say that the Lions aren’t in the biggest drought ever.  In fact, I believe that accomplishment goes to the Chicago Cubs, who have made the playoffs just one more time than the Lions in their franchise history and the Cubbies have been in existence nearly 55-years longer.  And they’ve now gone over 100 years since their last championship….

So… I think there’s other places to look before stumbling across the Lions as the worst franchise in all of sports.