My money says no on the Rams, and maybe on the Lions, although I think the odds are as good with them as it was for Miami last year. If you’ll recall, it took an epic no-show by Brian Billick and his Ravens in week 15 to grant the Dolphins its lone victory after 13 consecutive losses.
I’ll make each team’s case separately:
The reason I don’t see this happening for St Louis is not because I suddenly see the Rams coming together, but instead, when I look out into the NFC West landscape, I see nothing but mediocrity. The NFC West division might hoist its champion this season with 7 or 8 wins, so for me, you can cross the Rams off the list. When you’re opponent in the division has 5 wins themselves, it’s not exactly a lock… you know what I mean? Everyone is due for an off-day throughout the season. I also see a coaching change taking place soon, probably within the next few weeks, so whoever takes over will most likely be able to rally the troops for a short while before the veteran players decide that with 2 to 3 wins entering December, they might want to take it easy and avoid injury so they can enjoy their off-season on some beach resort.
Now on paper, the The Lions have a much better shot because they’re going 0-6 in the division; mark that one down. Even the Orton led Bears are going to pummel the Lions. They have no identity whatsoever; on defense they’re horrible and on offense you can’t just drop back and pass the ball all day. Even in EAs Madden video game, they’ve made the necessary adjustments to prevent players from being able to do so. They’ve also just passed their quote unquote easy part of the schedule and were humiliated by Atlanta and San Fransisco. Looking to the future, the only team that they match well against would be the Texans but that game is in Houston and Detroit hasn’t exactly fared well away from home in the past few seasons.
The purgatory of awfulness officially began in Detroit this week when Matt Millen was shown the door, but the healing process will take time, much like the United States current economy woes. There are no quick fixes and left in Millen’s wake is still a horrific football team. If they lose in Houston however, the road to 0-16 gets a whole lot easier, and what better way to cap off the final season of the Millen era than with a big goose egg in the win department? I can think of no other.
