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The 2008 Detroit Lions set a high standard for low standards. They were the first 0-16 team in NFL history, an achievement that merited an upside-down banner and a parade down a street full of banana peels.

It took almost three decades for a team to go 0-16.

It might take one year for it to happen again.

Interesting stuff. Why the Titans have not managed to win a game is really surprising, but the other teams without any wins all have messed up coaching and/or poor player choices. It is probably exaggerated by random chance this year, but there does seem to be an underlying pattern.

There are a couple of things going on. I think some teams saw Pittsburg's Tomlin come in and win a Super Bowl almost instantly and went out looking for their own young aggressive coach. What they forgot is that Tomlin inherited a Super Bowl grade team.

There are many teams that have consistently made the mistake of bringing in one or two very expensive free agents and expecting them to improve the team. It rarely significantly improves the team and even when such teams do well they tend to fall apart in the playoffs. These teams tend to compound that problem with a constant turnover of coaches and players.

Depth of skilled players and consistent quality have become even more important since the league went to a 16 game schedule. At that length, you have to expect to loose at least a few players for at least a few games. In many ways the difference between the first rate teams and the second rate teams in the NFL has become quality of backups. The second rate teams can face the first rate teams as long as they have their top players in, but if they have to go to backups their quality drops fast. The third and fourth rate teams don't even have great starters, and if they do have to go to backups things get very bad.

Jay

The NFL needs to look at supporting a tier two league. Some place where the almost good enough players can train, practice and play. Even if it doesn't make money, it would expand the talent pool.

I suspect a big part of the talent problem is the college teams are not really designed to train players for the pros. They take to may physically talented players and push them to rack up college wins, without the training or education that they would need to be successful at the pro level.

Jay