Detroit Lions suffer most embarrassing loss in team history

The Detroit Lions once again discovered a new way to torture their loyal fan base on Monday Night Football against the New York Jets.

If the Detroit Lions made anything perfectly clear on Monday, its that no team is better at letting it’s fans down. Disappointment, not automobiles, comes off the assembly line these days in Detroit, and supply far exceeds demand.

That was not a season opener. Certainly, it was for the Jets, but for the Lions?

That wasn’t even Preseason Week 5.

Matt Patricia, Matthew Stafford, and the rest of the players and coaches apparently forgot to mark their calendars, because not a single one of them showed up at Ford Field last night.

I am not one to overreact. I am not going to call for jobs. I am not even going to say the Lions’ season is lost.

What I will do is call Monday’s loss exactly what it was: the single most embarrassing loss in franchise history.

Let’s give this one a name, because it certainly deserves it.

How about the Monday Night Massacre? The Meltdown in Motown? Or the Monday Nightmare?

Pick your favorite, but no pressure; all of them apply.

With the intensity and anticipation of a new team, a new head coach, under the bright lights of Monday Night Football, at home, the Lions once again showed the entire country just how much of a disaster they really are. And they did it against the Jets, whose fan base somehow believes they are the NFL’s most tragic blunder.

Boy, did we prove them wrong.

The Lions did it in typical Lions fashion. They opened the game – and Sam Darnold’s career – with a dramatic pick-six. Immediately after that moment, though, the team folded like a lawn chair.

Simply falling to the ground just isn’t the Lions’ style, though. No, even on solid ground, they managed to spiral and free fall into a sinkhole that only they could possibly manufacture.

I can get over the mistakes.

I can get over Stafford’s horrible decision-making, which rivaled that of a novice Madden player. On this play, I’m throwing to X no matter WHAT.

I can get over the defense forgetting how to tackle.

I can get over special teams redefining the word “special.”

The Lions have lost many games with that strategy in the past. They went the entire 2008 season without winning a game using that strategy. Over the years, I have become pretty good at accepting it and moving on.

What made Monday night the single most horrific loss in team history was not the final score but the humiliation that came with it. In the fourth quarter, the very clear audible sound coming from my television of “J-E-T-S! JETS! JETS! JETS!” put me over the edge. I cannot ever remember a visiting team’s fan base taking over Ford Field. As disrespectful as it is to make that cheer in a visiting stadium, the Lions – not the Jets fans – were the ones void of respect.

Just when you thought the wound could not sting any worse, when you were absolutely positive it could not get more humiliating, ESPN simply stopped showing the game. Instead of subjecting their national audience to such ineptitude, they instead switched coverage over to Oakland – for a pregame show.

That’s right. With six minutes of football (sort of) remaining, ESPN elected to cut early to a pregame show. So much for prime time in Motown. Even if you had to look away or change the channel, traditionally it took your own effort to do so. This time, ESPN literally changed the channel for you. 

The Lions specialize in creating new levels of embarrassment, and this was no different. While fans have grown to expect it, somehow, someway, the Lions find a new way to reduce you to tears.

No team collapses more tragically on a big stage quite like the Detroit Lions. Unfortunately for fans everywhere, Monday was simply a reaffirmation of what we’ve known all along.