BAD COMPANY
Cleveland threatens to match Lions’ infamous 0-16 feat
T HE Browns find themselves on the doorstep of history once again. It isn’t easy to go 0-16. Only the Detroit Lions have done it, and that was nine years ago.
But here come the irrepressible Browns, who were 0-14 before beating the Chargers last Christmas Eve at FirstEnergy Stadium and blowing their chance at ignominy and shame.
“You don’t want to say it was our Super Bowl,” Joe Thomas said afterward, “but it kind of was.”
This time, it is the Bad News Bears in Chicago who stand in the way of a Perfect Season Parade 2.0, partially funded by Excedrin, around FirstEnergy Stadium on Jan. 6. Against Mitchell Trubisky, the rookie quarterback from Ohio they were eyeing at the NFL draft, the Browns may be forced to play their worst game of the season to have a shot at 0-16 in Pittsburgh on New Year’s Eve.
Dan Orlovsky became the quarterback of the 2008 Lions because Jon Kitna (back) was placed on IR. Orlovsky missed four games with a thumb injury before returning for 0-13, 0-14, 0-15 and 0-16.
“It was a terrible experience,” Orlovsky told Serby Says by phone. “Going to work isn’t fun. You have this expectation level of almost failure. You’re just trying to survive. You’re trying to keep your head afloat. You know the end result is coming. People’s lives are gonna be drastically impacted by everything that’s going on, and you’re a laughingstock of so many markets and people and fans, and it stinks because it’s not like you didn’t work for success or didn’t try, just there were a lot of variables that worked against you. It wasn’t a fun year. I don’t wish it upon anybody.”
Orlovsky was asked what it was like for him when he went out in public.
“You didn’t do it,” he said. “The Lions are a really big deal to the people. And they take great pride in their football team, all their sports teams. It’s a cold climate, so they look forward to their Lions on Sundays and success and it drastically affects their mood during the week.
“Going out and being winless, you’d run the whole gamut of emotion from people — people would laugh at you, people would get mad at you, people would say, ‘ You suck.’ Just take Twitter and put it face to face. I didn’t go out much, to be honest with you. I don’t think most of us did.”
Orlovsky’s infamous safety in Week 5 against the Vikings in his first start was symbolism at its best ... or worst.
“A play had come in from the sideline and I had called timeout because I didn’t really like the play,” Orlovsky recalled. “I wanted to change the play because it was really a oneman route with Calvin [Johnson], and I kind of had the desire to maybe get more guys out in the pattern because it was third-and-long ... and I just wanted to get the ball out of my hands and avoid a bad play-type thing, and kind of went back on the field with the same play.
“I just remember Jared Allen split the double-team, and I’d never really been in that situation before. ... Usually when you take a drop back or you scramble, you go backwards, right? I was unprepared for the situation.”
Lions general manager Matt Millen was fired in September that year. Browns GM Sashi Brown was fired early this month. Lions
head coach Rod Marinelli was fired when the season ended. Hue Jackson will return next season.
John McKay’s 1976 expansion Buccaneers had gone 0-14.
Orlovsky recalls the mood before the Lions’ 2008 regular-season finale against the Packers at Lambeau Field.
“It had never happened before, so everyone knew what was at stake,” he said. “The weird thing is I went into many games thinking, ‘ We got a legit chance to win this game.’”
The Lions pulled to within 24-21 in the fourth quarter.
“You got your hopes up like, ‘ Oh my gosh, we’re actually going to avoid this kind of legacy of disaster,’ and obviously it didn’t happen,” Orlovsky said.
Then Aaron Rodgers hit Donald Driver with a 71-yard TD pass and 0-16 happened.
“You never think of yourself as a player who can’t win a game-type thing, who was on a team who couldn’t win a game,” Orlovsky said. “There were a lot of emotions tied to it, and I think there was a part of it that guys were just happy for it to be over, or happy that it was done. The misery was done.”
Jackson and the Browns were 1-15 last season. Now this.
“It sucks, man, it sucks,” Orlovsky said. “I feel for them, they’ve had a rough twoyear stretch. You’re dealing with all of the emotions and the questions that are gonna be coming, that have been, and they’re just getting intensified. There’s a great part of me that hopes that they’re able to figure out a way to find a win. Here I am 10 years later just about answering questions about it, right? I know what the long-term picture of it looks like when it doesn’t go your way.
“There’s young guys on the team that are just fighting for a job, there’s young guys on the team that are like, ‘ What the heck did I get myself into?’ There’s veterans that are four, five years in going, ‘OK, can I get another year or two in the NFL?’ or, ‘ Man, I’m not coming back here.’ Then there’s veteran veterans I would imagine that are going, ‘Well, I’ve made my money so I just can’t wait for this to be over’ type thing.’”
Orlovsky, to his credit, has not shied away from his blooper.
“People will post it on my Twitter all the time,” Orlovsky said. “If I’m gonna go forward and get into either coaching or television or broadcasting, it’ll be unavoidable because of the technological world we live in, where everyone has access to everything and everybody.”
Orlovsky announced his retirement in October.
“I have friends and family who joke about it with me,” Orlovsky said. “If I had played four years in the NFL and that was kind of the ending of my career type thing, I think it would have been harder for me to look back on. ... But I had played for almost a decade later. ... I’m more proud of the fact that I didn’t let that hold me back from continuing to play. I didn’t let it define me. I didn’t let it kind of bury me mentally.”
Easier said than done for most. Orlovsky was asked what advice he would have for the Browns.
“Figure out a way because you don’t know what the long-term ramifications are until you’re doing that dance,” Orlovsky said, “and I do.”