Dominic Raiola

Special to the Detroit Free Press

Dominic Raiola spent his entire 14-year career with the Detroit Lions, including during the franchise's historic 0-16 run in 2008. Known for his fiery personality, Raiola was the starting center on that team. He agreed to write this column for the Free Press entering the final week of the regular season, with the Cleveland Browns threatening to join the Lions as the only 0-16 teams in league history.

It's impossible, right?

Even if you play in this league long enough, there’s not a chance that you think about going winless.

After a 4-0 preseason, expectations were sky high for the Lions. But little did we know, the 2008 team would become the laughing stock in the history of football.

It was a snowball that turned into an avalanche, a nightmare we couldn’t wake up from.

We opened the season at Atlanta. Michael Vick was gone by that time, and the Falcons started rookie first-round pick Matt Ryan.

We couldn't lose, right?

Wrong.

We fell behind 21-0 and tried to scratch our way back in it.

0-1.

On to the home opener vs. Green Bay, another loss, 48-25. It looked like a blowout, but if you were there, you know we had the lead in the fourth quarter but lost it with 24 straight points. Back-to-back pick-6's put us to sleep.

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Losses to the Bears and the 49ers left us in an 0-4 hole. Then the infamous Dan Orlovsky running-out-of-the-end-zone safety happened against the Minnesota Vikings in Week 6. Nobody mentioned that Michael Gaines didn’t block Jared Allen and caused that to happen. We were up 3-2 at the half and ultimately lost that barn burner, 12-10.

I remember that week we traded Roy Williams to Dallas and Jon Kitna got placed on IR. It felt like people were bailing, and we were awful. I remember asking myself if this was (expletive) real or not. We played the Titans on Thanksgiving and we lost that game before it started.

Before we knew it, we were at Lambeau Field in Week 17 with our backs against the wall, just trying to get to ONE win!

0-16.

If I told you there were two likely Hall of Famers (Jason Hanson and Calvin Johnson) on this squad, you’re probably laughing or saying "How the heck can this happen?"

I know it’s hard to win in this league, but not this hard, right?

We weren't good, but tough

Rod Marinelli. I can tell you one thing, our coach that year, is a great coach. More than that, he was a great man. He ate, slept and breathed football (still does to this day!).

Arguably, he is one of the greatest defensive line coaches ever. He would start meetings by showing clips of the Junction Boys, the Texas A&M team led by Bear Bryant, and guys jumping over a wall at their training camp, quitting because it was too hard. The point of this was to show that we had this losing season going on, but we’re gonna be a tough, hardened team that competed no matter who was on the field.

Competing wasn’t good enough, and he knew this. Rod never wavered, never blinked, and he stared adversity straight in the face and coached.

You get the picture: Week after week it was a soap opera.

I knew people in that locker room weren’t in it for the long haul. There were guys who thought the season would end, and they’d be erased from the history that we made.

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Not only were they not with the Lions anymore after that season, they weren’t in the NFL anymore. There were a few who wanted to change the culture. Those guys lasted and saw the light that was coming.

Going through this changed my perspective on playing. I never appreciated this game as much as I did after going winless. Our city was in a recession, and we owned the worst record in the history of the NFL.

Crown the Browns

I couldn't care less if the Browns go 0-16. ... Well that’s a lie. I would love some company in this exclusive group. I don’t feel bad; hell I went through it!

I will tell the Browns we turned it around and went to the playoffs a couple times since then. Calvin became Megatron and we all know about him. Cliff Avril went on to win a Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks and is having a stellar career.

Good luck, Cleveland.

Just as the 1972 Dolphins pop their bottle of Champagne when there are no more undefeated teams left each season, I have a bottle of Crown Royal ready to pop if you do what the 2008 Leos did.

Good luck.