Detroit Lions: The 10 Most Despised Nemeses in Franchise History

Like any franchise with a long history of losing, the Detroit Lions have a lot of bitterness.

The Lions have a fair share of bitter enemies, bitter rivals, bitter regrets, and bitter hatred for those who have harmed the franchise in the past, whether on purpose or not.

As a result, the average Lions fan has certain buzzwords. These are the types of things you say to a Lions fan if you want to hear him rant for an hour.

And not even an angry Lions fan. Just bring these up in conversation to the most sunny, optimistic of Lions fans, and watch the sparks fly.

Some of the items on this list are players. Some are teams. Some are events or just general ideas.

But all of them are likely to get even an average Lions fan fired up, even on a good day.

Of course, there are a number of people/teams/things that could make the list, and there's no doubt this is a list of 10 things heavily influenced by the author.

You have a different set of issues that light your fuse as a Lions fan? That's okay, and I bet your things deserve to make the list as well.

But just in case, why not post it below in the comments box so we can make sure?

10. Russ Thomas

They look like a friendly bunch, don't they?

Yeah, they weren't. You probably gathered that much. Lions owner William Clay Ford (left), and longtime GM Russ Thomas (right) were looking over practice, likely looking for salary to cut, as was the Lions' modus operandi for so much of the 1960s and '70s.

Most likely under Ford's directive, Thomas spent the majority of his tenure making sure he never paid anybody any money.

In a weird way, although he was an equally terrible GM for a much longer period of time, Thomas was sort of the anti-Matt Millen (for a great retrospective on Thomas, check out this fantastic, but criminally underread piece by Greg Eno).

Where Millen paid astronomical amounts of money to players who didn't deserve it, Thomas drafted players who deserved to get paid, and didn't.

The result is that Thomas drafted a bunch of Hall-of-Fame players, but they all ended up playing for AFL teams.

His penny-pinching ways drove a bunch of guys off the team, including moderately successful head coach and team icon Joe Schmidt. I mean, has any other NFL team driven more head coaches to resign and retire out of sheer frustration?

Worst of all, in Thomas' 22 seasons as GM, the Lions had six winning seasons. And that was okay. His job was not to build a winning football team, it was to keep salary down and put out a product that would physically function, quality notwithstanding. He did that, and he kept his job until he was able to retire comfortably.

Is it any wonder the team was owned by Ford?

9. The Washington Redskins

It seems like every time the Washington Redskins and Detroit Lions get together, somebody is going to end up in shambles afterwards.

That said, this might be one of those things that is starting to flip to the Lions' favor.

The Lions beat the Redskins in 2009 and effectively ended Jim Zorn's tenure on the spot (though he wasn't officially fired until the end of the season).

When the Lions beat the Redskins again in 2010, the story was Mike Shanahan's decision to pull Donovan McNabb for Rex Grossman, a decision that resulted in seven backbreaking Lions points and the game after one play. That effectively ended McNabb's tenure in Washington.

But in the past, Washington has dealt even more heartwrenching losses to the Lions.

In 1991, the Lions' most successful year in the modern era, they played the Washington Redskins in the NFC Championship game. The eventual Super Bowl champs won the game by a 41-10 landslide.

Though the Lions lost only five games that season, two were to the Redskins: their first and last games of the season.

Fast-forward a bit. The Lions make a surprise trip to the playoffs in 1999, the season after Barry Sanders abruptly retired. This is the last time the Lions made a playoff appearance, and predictably, they lost in the wild-card round.

Who to? Of course, the Redskins.

In the following season, head coach Bobby Ross resigned, and VP Chuck Schmidt followed suit after the season, paving the way for Matt Millen.

But one other man had a very important role in bringing all this about.

8. Paul Edinger

Let me paint you a verbal picture.

The date is Dec. 24, 2000. The Detroit Lions, somehow getting a slight boost from the retirement of Barry Sanders, are gunning for their second straight playoff appearance.

The team has been through its fair share of tribulation over the course of the season, having seen their head coach resign mid-season, almost as suddenly as their star running back retired the year prior.

Interim head coach Gary Moeller has gone 4-2 since Ross' resignation, and they control their own playoff destiny with a win-and-in situation against the Chicago Bears.

The teams play to a 20-20 tie through 59:58 of a back-and-forth game, which featured such household names at quarterback as Shane Matthews, Cade McNown and Stoney Case.

Then, with two seconds left on the clock, and the Bears have the ball at the Lions' 37-yard line.

Out comes Paul Edinger for a potential game-winning 54-yard field goal, his third attempt of the day. He is 2-for-2 in the game thus far.

The kick is up, it has the distance, and...

Congratulations Detroit Lions! Not only do you miss the playoffs this year, but Matt Millen will be running your franchise for the next eight years, which means you won't make the playoffs for the next decade, either!

And nobody took greater joy in the Lions' impending misery than the next Lions "nemesis" on this list.

7. Chicago Bears Fans

It's not the team, it's not the team, it's not Soldier Field, it the insufferable people who think that they root for one of the best teams in football.

Now there's nothing wrong with being a fan, and there's nothing wrong with the rose-colored glasses that go along with it, making everything your team does look better than it actually is.

But that's not what we're talking about here. Bears fans (and this is a generalization, because I've met a handful of level-headed, admirable Bears fans) have a bad habit of tearing down every other team in an effort to prop up their own.

This is why the worst thing that can ever happen is losing to the Chicago Bears. The outpouring of trash talk is insufferable.

Never was this more apparent than after Week 1 of the 2010 season. If you want a tangible example, read through the comments on this piece about the "process of the catch" game.

Read until you've gotten the point, but stop before you throw your computer out the window.

I mean, I'm sure there are a fair number of Lions trolls who do this to other teams, but they at least don't use their one playoff victory in 50 years as some sort of moral high ground to talk about how they're the greatest franchise in the world.

Bears fans often like to do this with their one Super Bowl win in franchise history, which is funny, because since 1950, the Lions have three championships to the Bears' two.

Just saying.

6. The 1990s Dallas Cowboys

Throughout the early 1990s, the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys had a bit of a rivalry stemming from their star running backs.

Though the teams could never really compete on equal footing (except in 1991, when the Lions smacked down the 'Boys in the playoffs 38-6 before the Cowboys went on to win three of the next four Super Bowls), Barry Sanders and Emmitt Smith did.

One of those two won the NFL rushing title every year from 1990-1997, a battle which ended at a 4-4 tie.

Of course, the Lions and Cowboys could never really compete beyond that, which might have had something to do with the Cowboys having a quarterback, offensive line and defense.

Still, the Lions sort of served as gatekeeper to the Cowboys in 1991 (think the Pistons to the Michael Jordan-led Bulls), and the debate still rages on today about Smith vs. Sanders, and what Sanders could have done with more support and an actual commitment to winning going on around him.

Though the Cowboys are the undisputed dynasty team of the early 1990s, there was never a team I, as a Lions fan, wanted to see beaten more than the Cowboys in that time frame.

5. The NFL Draft

Take out the last three years and 1989, and the NFL Draft has been nothing but a series of kicks to the gut for the Detroit Lions.

The worst part is, the atmosphere of the draft encourages such optimism, and Lions fans, eternal optimists that they are, can't help but get swept up in it.

And so the story is always the same, step-by-step.

1. Fans anticipate the draft with great excitement.

2. Fans pin their hopes on a particular player in the draft.

3. The Lions pass on that player, pick the player nobody wants/expects.

4. Fans convince themselves it was a good pick after all.

5. Expectations are raised for next season, on account of "great draft."

6. Expectations for next season are not met.

7. Fans anticipate the draft with great excitement.

And so it goes. In a roundabout way, the NFL Draft is the source for most of the Lions' disappointment in the last 50 years.

Oh sure, there have been some gems scattered throughout. Nobody will forget the Detroit Lions lucking into Barry Sanders because the Green Bay Packers took a steroid-laden Tony Mandarich.

But the vast majority of Lions drafts have resulted in nothing but regret.

Maybe, just maybe, the Mayhew-Schwartz era is leading the Lions to be friendly with the draft, for just about the first time in their history.

4. Lambeau Field

Yes, the field. The "Frozen Tundra," as it were. I hate that place.

The Lions haven't won on that hallowed ground since 1991, and I can't stand it.

In part, I'm a little jealous. Though I hate them, I have the utmost respect for the Green Bay Packers and their history, and Lambeau Field represents everything I wish the Lions were.

Tradition. Great coaching. Unshakable fan support. Championships. And the kind of bitterly cold home-field advantage that grinds opposing teams down.

Ford Field is a great venue, but it's clearly built more for fan comfort than great football in the elements.

Some of the most memorable NFL games in history were played in blinding snow (can you say "Ice Bowl," or perhaps "Tuck Rule?"), and it's a shame that the Lions will not have that kind of experience in a home game.

Lambeau Field is a monument to everything great about football. It's historic, it pushes players to their limits, and it houses champions.

As a Lions fan, I see it only as a place to be conquered by the opponent.

The Packers and Lambeau Field are synonymous terms, and I will not rest easy until the Lions march out of that field with a victory. That is how you will know the Lions have turned a corner.

Of course, it's not just about the field, it's mostly about...

3. The Green Bay Packers

The ultimate slap in the face to the Detroit Lions is that a Great Lake away from a historically awful team is a place that calls itself "Titletown."

At present, the Packers are winners of the first and last Super Bowl ever played. The people of Green Bay are not just fans of the team, they own the team.

The Lions have been in the Packers' division ever since both teams existed, and they have yet to step out of the Packers' shadow. I'm not saying this is "little brother" status or anything, and it isn't as though the Packers haven't had their fair share of horrible seasons.

It's just that the Lions haven't been good enough for long enough to really outshine the Packers for any reasonable amount of time.

Both teams have the tradition, the history, the Hall-of-Famers, the fanbase. It's just that the Packers have the wins.

Even the Lions' big wins over the Packers have been relatively small in scale. The 1962 "Thanksgiving Day Massacre," when the Lions sacked Bart Starr 11 times in one game, was the Packers' only loss of the season.

A season in which they ended up winning the league championship. Again.

That the Lions playing spoiler to an eventual championship team is such a point of pride for Lions fans should leave no doubt as to how far the team has to go.

Even 2010's 7-3 victory over the (again) eventual Super Bowl Champion Packers was a major point of pride for the Lions last year.

Isn't it time Lions fans start expecting to beat the Packers, instead of celebrating it like a once-in-a-lifetime event?

And isn't it true that the reason we get so worked up about beating the Packers because we have just the right amount of respect and hatred for them to make them a perfect rival?

2. Matt Millen

Is this horse dead yet? Because we've been beating it for years.

I'm as guilty as any, but consider any future mentions of Millen as a historical perspective. To be fair, Russ Thomas made the list, too.

Everything that can be said about Millen and the Lions has already been said, so I won't go into too much detail here.

The point is, Millen literally could not have done more damage to the Lions as a franchise if he had been specifically hired by another team as a mole with the express purpose of ruining the team.

Think about it. If he was actually trying to damage the team, could he have done any worse? Or would he have failed at that too, and accidentally improved the team?

Regardless, I think if there is one positive to the Millen era, it's that I have never seen Lions fans more united and organized than they were against that man.

And although fans still disagree over the draft every year in April, I like to think that shared sense of community that fans built over the Millen era has carried over to happier times.

1. The Detroit Lions

In 20 years of watching Lions football, I have never seen any team beat the Detroit Lions as many times as the Detroit Lions.

And that's not taking any credit away from the teams that have beaten the Lions over the years. They're deserved wins, no question. But the Lions beat themselves so often, I'm surprised they haven't lost a game on a Friday practice.

Stupid penalties. Late, unnecessary turnovers. Defensive breakdowns. More stupid penalties. Sitting on relatively insecure leads. Throwing an incomplete pass instead of running down the clock. Spiking the ball on fourth down during a two-minute drill. Taking the wind in overtime.

The list goes on, but I think that's enough.

The Lions have made a habit of taking winnable games and doing something stupid to lose them. It has happened so often, we've had to start talking about the Lions' "culture of losing" just as an attempt to explain their uncanny ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

This isn't even in reference to what the Lions do in the front office, either. This is strictly on Sunday afternoon. On any given Sunday, the Lions are likely to be their own worst enemies.

That started to change in the latter half of last season. But it needs to change on a more consistent basis, because the Lions are never going to be consistent winners if they have to play every game trying to not beat themselves.