The Cleveland Browns are having a rough go of things in 2016, failing to win a game 15 weeks into the season. They are 0-14 after being shellacked by the Buffalo Bills in Week 15 and don't have any easy games left on the schedule. Going 0-16 isn't a possibility anymore, it's a likelihood.
And the last -- and only -- team to ever put a goose egg in the win column over a 16-game season isn't rooting for the Browns to join them.
In fact, members of the 2008 Detroit Lions, technically the worst team in the history of football, are actually pulling really hard for the Browns to pick up a win.
Multiple members of the team spoke to Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free-Press in an excellent story that really captures the pain of having to lose week after week after week after week for 16 weeks.
"I don't want to have anyone have to go through that," former Lions long snapper Don Muhlbach told Birkett. "I just remember how rough that was. Just every week, having to just -- it just kept building and building. That's not football, in my mind. There's too much other stuff going on, too. I hope they get one."
Former linebacker Ryan Nece recalled a situation heading into Week 17 where he tried to give a pep talk and, a few moments into his motivational speech, everyone basically told him to stop talking.
"Guys were like, 'Ah, screw this pep talk. Let's just go play,'" Nece said. "It was like, 'Let's go get this over with and either we're going to face the music in that we become 0-16 or we find a way to get a victory and then we never talk about it again.'"
Dan Orlovsky, perhaps the most famous member of that team because of his safety-inducing run out of the back of the end zone in his first start replacing Jon Kitna, is basically so traumatized by the season that he wouldn't do interviews with Birkett for the story.
"I think you know my personal feelings," Orlovsky said.
The Browns were one of the friskiest bad teams in football at the start of the season, losing some tough games. As the losses and injuries piled up -- Cleveland has used five different quarterbacks so far -- the energy level from the team has dissipated. Cleveland hasn't even covered against the spread at home once this year (0-7) and has eight straight losses against the spread.
Stuart Schweigert said he believed Lions players "mailed it" in late in the year.
"I felt there were guys that needed to step up that didn't," Schweigert said. "And when you have that, guys that don't really know that situation or rookies, they're looking up to figure out, 'Well, what's status quo here? How are we supposed to react?' And when you have guys coming in late, what do you think? 'Oh, that's OK?' Or if you have guys coming in late, and coaches aren't doing anything about it, it becomes part of that culture, and that's just a culture that's going to permeate un-success."
The entire story is worth a read because it's so illuminating into the locker room of a team that's winless late in the year.
Cleveland, just like the '08 Lions, is a punchline to the rest of the country. But tensions are escalating inside the building and it's absolutely clear just how unenjoyable the ride is for everyone involved.
Which is why the Lions, despite catching a historical break if the Browns fail to win, don't wish their lack of success on anyone else.
