The Detroit Lions season

Well OK, in a game that mattered not one whit whatsoever, and one that only the hardest of hard core fans of both Detroit and Green Bay paid attention to -- let alone anybody else -- the Lions dispatched the Packers 35-11.

Let's look back at the Lions' season regarding wins and losses.

The wins.

Over a pretty bad Arizona Cardinal team.
Over an even worse NY Giants team.
Over the Minnesota Vikings, but they were freshly down to their third string quarterback at the time.
Two over Green Bay, both without the services of Aaron Rodgers.
Over Cleveland? Please. The Campfire Girls could beat the Browns.
Two over the typically woeful Chicago Bears.
Over Tampa Bay, which appears to be in complete disarray.

That's nine wins, none of which came over a good team, or at least one that wasn't missing their starting quarterback.

The losses.

Down to Atlanta.
Down to Carolina.
Down to New Orleans.
Down to Pittsburgh.
Down to Minnesota after that third string QB, one Case Keenum, had a few games under his belt.
Down to Baltimore.
And then the killer. Down to Cincinnati to finally extinguish whatever playoff hope the Lions had.

Add it all up and what do you have?

The Lions beat the have-nots on their schedule, which was pitifully weak by normal league standards.

But notice they lost to every team with a record over .500.

The loss to Cincinnati in the penultimate regular season game was the proverbial dagger in the hearts of Lions fans. Most everybody expected them to win that game and go up against a severely depleted Green Bay team with an outside chance for a playoff spot on the line.

Yet it's difficult to feel much sympathy towards the ever-gullible Honolulu blue and silver faithful. I mean, c'mon. They HAVE to know this is coming. Why? Because it has EVERY year since the Ford family has owned the team -- and that dates all the way back to the John F. Kennedy presidential administration.

So OF COURSE the Lions lost to the Bengals. Just when one thinks the Lions have been the benefactors of every break imaginable over the season (they were), and nothing can go wrong -- be assured they will find a way to screw it up.

They remain, along with the Houston Texans, new Cleveland Browns, and the Jacksonville Jaguars, the only four teams in the NFL to have never made it to a Super Bowl, let alone win it. And while the Lions date back to the beginnings of the NFL, the other three are expansion teams. And don't look now, but Jax is pretty good these days.

On the Detroit/Cinci game, at least one head coaching job was likely at stake. Whether it was Jim Caldwell of the Lions, who is obviously not the answer to what ails them, or Marvin Lewis of the Bengals, who has stunk it up seemingly forever (15 years!!), somebody's gotta go. In fact, both of them should be given the broom. Todd Knowles in NY Jets land appears clueless, and Vance Joseph has run the Denver Broncos into the toilet. That's without even mentioning the foibles of such past coaches as Romeo Crennel, Lovie Smith, and the late Dennis Green. This Rooney Rule thing doesn't seem to be working out, Mike Tomlin of the Steelers aside.

So it's off to another year of oblivion for the Detroit Lions. Over 50 Super Bowls played, and they've never got there. In all those years, they have won a grand total of one -- count it -- ONE measly playoff game.

Quarterback Matthew Stafford, hailed as a hero in Detroit, continues to pass for bazillions of yards, but after a decade in the league, has a sub .500 record and is yet to win a playoff game.

How he somehow became the highest paid player in the entire NFL is a question for the ages. They're telling us Stafford is worth $7 million MORE than Tom Brady per year? REALLY? Only in Detroit could they come up with such a ridiculous notion.

But this is probably the greatest thing to ever happen to other potential free agents around the league. All they and their agents have to do is walk into a team's General Manager's office and say -- "Hey, if Matthew Stafford is worth $27 million a year as a perennial loser, then I'm worth at LEAST that". That would be a mighty hard argument to rebut in many cases. This salary cap thing could get ugly in the near future thanks to Detroit's version of the Georgia Peach.

Yet in the end, it's boiled down to what it always does.

Yes, the Lions found a way to come up short --again.

No, they won't be getting anywhere near sniffing a Super Bowl -- again.

And yes, they remain the same......old...... Lions.

It's just another year.

Yawn.