It is being hailed as the Greatest Year in Sports History. 2008 gave us a Super Bowl for the ages, an OT NCAA hoops title game, an epic Nadal-Federer Wimbledon final, a Celtics-Lakers resurrection, Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt transcending human limitations, and Tiger Woods winning on one leg.
But not everybody thought the year was all that. NFL fans in Jacksonville, Green Bay, Cleveland, Buffalo and, of course, Detroit thought it outright sucked.
No other teams defied expectations quite like these. (Seattle's expectations were modified after losing its top six wide receivers to injury.)
For fans of the five most disappointing teams in the league, the Sundays of Our Lives were pure misery.
1. Jacksonville Jaguars
How do you disappoint when nobody expects anything from you? Ask the Detroit Lions.
Sure, nobody thought this year's Lions squad was going to be a contender, but they weren't supposed to be the worst team ever either. Sports Illustrated pegged them to repeat their 7-9 record of 2007, an almost conservative projection given Detroit's 4-0 preseason mark and apparent upgrade in the secondary, adding corners Brian Kelly and Leigh Bodden and safety Dwight Smith to a unit that gave up a league-high 32 touchdown passes in 2007.
But it didn't take long to get a hint that despite the new faces, things may not have changed much for the Detroit DBs. On the third snap of the 2008 season, the Lions were beaten for a 62-yard touchdown pass from Matt Ryan to Michael Jenkins.
On Atlanta's seventh play from scrimmage, Michael Turner broke a 66-yard touchdown run to make it 14-0 less than halfway through the first quarter of the first game. Seven wins was a pipe dream.
But even with expectations plummeting faster than a Bernie Madoff-invested portfolio, the Lions still found ways to disappoint. They lost their first two home games to rivals Green Bay and Chicago by a combined 50 points. They lost their first four by double digits. In a Thanksgiving Day Massacre at the hands of the Titans it became clear they would have lost even if they'd only been required to provide a two-hand touch on Tennessee ballcarriers.
Through 15 losses the Detroit defense has a mere four picks and has allowed an almost incomprehensible 109.3 QB rating on the season. Steve Young is the all-time leader at 96.8. In other words the Lions turn every QB they play into a significantly better quarterback than the NFL's all-time highest-rated passer.
Even for fans inured to losing, this historic Lions season has been especially painful.
