1 Happy St

At least 2 of the people who have ever come to this site are from Michigan. So perhaps one of them can answer Joe Posnanski's questions:

Do Detroit Lions fans want their team to go 0-16? I think this is a deep question, one that might take a full blog post or essay or something. But I try to put myself in a Lions fan shoes, and my first reaction is that, yes, absolutely, I would want 0-16. I mean, that’s a bit of history. If the Lions go 1-15, they’re just down there with a handful of nondescript and incredibly bad football teams — there wouldn’t be anything SPECIAL about them. If you are going to be bad, be historically bad, that’s what I always say.

But, then I started to think of my own childhood, when I was a young Cleveland Browns fan, and how every football loss took away a little piece of my soul. Oh man, those weeks at school after Browns losses were TERRIBLE. I had that awful feeling in the pit of my stomach for just about the whole week — you know that feeling, when something bad happened, and you just had that sick feeling. You might not even remember precisely what happened was but you still feel it in your belly. I know there are young Lions fans out there who are like that, and I could not wish 16 losses on any of them.

But then I started to think about how much pain the Lions have put those fans through the last few years — I mean, it has been ptiful. It wasn’t just that the Lions were terrible; no, they have snubbed their nose at the fans by refusing to fire their GM, by continuing to hire goofy head coaches, by doing all sorts of nonsensical things in the draft. And as a fan, maybe you want 0-16 so that ownership will REALLY panic and start doing the George Castanza opposite thing. I mean, sure, 1-15 might lead to a new direction, but 0-16 DEFINITELY leads to a new direction, that’s like a punch in the face and everyone would have to stare in the mirror and say, “Um, OK, we literally could not have been worse. I guess every single thing we have done the last few years has been wrong. So let’s completely change course.” That would be good for the Lions.

But then I started to think about those players, the coaches, all the people who invested their hearts into this team. Do they deserve 0-16? Does anyone? Detroit is going through rough times. Isn’t this too cruel?

So basically, I don't know the answer to the question.