What I’m about to write goes against every fiber of my being as a Packers fan.

Someone needs to save the Detroit Lions. Enough is enough.

Last week (September 14, 2008), I watched the Packers-Lions game on Fox. The game was mostly a laugher. Green Bay led 21-0 in the first half, relinquished that lead to fall behind 25-24 early in the fourth quarter, then scored another 24 points in rapid-fire fashion to make it a rout again. It was the Packers’ sixth win in a row over the Lions, and their third in a row at Ford Field in Detroit, where the Lions at least have a ghost of a chance of winning (Detroit has not won a road game in the home-and-away series since 1991).

For Lions fans, those who still care enough to watch with even a passing fancy, the game must have been something of a 60-minute encapsulation of this team’s odyssey of futility since the decade began. The Lions got stomped down early, showed a little heart in a mid-game rally, then quickly dashed any hope of real improvement by choking the game away. (It sounds more like a preordained storyline for a professional wrestling match.) Football fans in Detroit have grown accustomed to this type of tease – whether in a single game or a 16-game season, this ball club and its fans have been caught in an endless cycle of emotional abuse. New personnel are acquired, new coaches hired, new stadiums built, and new promises are made, but the result is always the same: a run for last place in the division and first pick in the draft.

Mercy for an opponent is not the province of the sports fan. From 1992 up until about a few years ago, when the Packers routinely annihilated the Chicago Bears, do you think I felt sorry for them or their badly-mustached, Polish-sausage-eating fans? The Bears are the Packers’ #1 rival, and spent the 80s humiliating Cheesehead nation. The payback was so sweet, we didn’t even mind having Jim McMahon on our Super Bowl championship team. Besides, as a fan, I always reminded myself: They’ll be good again. It may not seem possible now, with Peter Tom Willis at quarterback, but some day the Bears will be a good team, and they’ll delight in crushing the Packers on their way to the playoffs while we cry into our pints of Leinenkugel’s. No mercy!

I don’t get that feeling with the Detroit Lions. And, quite frankly, they don’t even scare me as underdogs capable of the occasional upset. When I look at the Packers’ schedule every year, I know that even if they field a team of blind and deaf grandmothers, they’re guaranteed to win AT LEAST two games: One when the Lions come to Lambeau, and one in Motown. Whatever team is scheduled to play Detroit on Thanksgiving always has at least one thing to be thankful for. For several years, I looked at the Lions predicament the same way as the Bears in the 90s: No mercy. It’s not the Packers’ fault the Lions suck. Besides, the NFC North (nee Central) had to deal with Barry Sanders for ten years…it’s only fair.

But it’s getting to the point where a game against the Lions isn’t just an automatic “W,” but an exercise in enabling incompetence. In the NFL, underdogs upset the undefeated, last place teams vault into first, and Super Bowl dreams abound in August for every fan – every fan, that is, except for the Lions fan. Take a look at the Lions’ regular season won-loss records since 2001:

2-14
3-13
5-11
6-10
5-11
3-13
7-9
0-2 (so far)

If you think the 7-9 mark last year represents progress, keep in mind the team started out 6-2 before stumbling to a 1-7 finish.