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Lions get drubbed by Saints, fall to 0-15

Dec 21, 2008 - 11:41 PM DETROIT (Ticker) -- The Detroit Lions are one loss away from rewriting the NFL's single-season record for futility, and they had some harsh words to describe their latest defeat.

Detroit became the first 0-15 team in NFL history Sunday, as Drew Brees threw two touchdown passes to lead the New Orleans Saints to a 42-7 rout of the hapless Lions.

"I think today was a disgrace," Lions rookie running back Kevin Smith said. "We laid down, I said it. As a whole, we laid down."

"Awful, embarrassing, we stunk," quarterback Dan Orlovsky added. "No one played good. Any bad adjective you can use."

Since the NFL expanded to a 16-game schedule in 1978, no team has played an entire season without a victory. The last winless team was the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who went 0-14.

But the woeful Lions can set a new benchmark for single-season ineptitude with a loss next week at Green Bay, where they have not won since 1991.

"(Winning in Green Bay) is a daunting task," Orlovsky said. "I'm sure everyone will be betting against us."

Lions center Dominic Raiola was not nearly as optimistic in his perspective of Detroit's winless campaign.

"It's right there," Raiola said. "It's right there in front of us. It's pretty sad that it's come to this. It's real, it's as real as it has ever been all season."

Playing in their last home game of this brutal season, the Lions fell behind right away to the Saints (8-7), who reached the end zone on each of their first seven drives.

"I thought we'd come out and really get after them and compete hard," said embattled Lions coach Rod Marinelli, who fell to 10-37 since being hired prior to the 2006 campaign. "But on defense we couldn't hold them. Then you don't have a chance."

Detroit was outscored by an average of 22 points in its eight games at Ford Field this year, easily passing the previous league record for average margin of defeat at home - set by the 1960 Dallas Cowboys (20.8 ppg).

Brees finished 30-of-40 for 351 yards to improve his season total to a league-leading 4,683 - just 402 yards shy of breaking Dan Marino's all-time mark of 5,084 yards, set in 1984.

"We certainly came in here understanding what Detroit is playing for as well," Brees said. "We felt like we needed our best game."

Brees, who leads the NFL in passing yards and TDs (30), downplayed talk of him possibly breaking Marino's record.

"If it's meant to be, it's meant to be," Brees said. "I'm trying not to think about it as much as possible. It's hard to do because everybody wants to talk about, but we'll see."

New Orleans took the lead for good just five plays into the contest when wide receiver Robert Meachem coasted untouched into the end zone on an end around.

Detroit responded by moving the ball to midfield and appeared to tie the game when Orlovsky found Calvin Johnson for a 52-yard scoring pass. But the touchdown was nullified by an illegal formation penalty, and Orlovsky was intercepted at the New Orleans 3-yard line on the following play.

That turnover, the first of two from Orlovsky, essentially ended the Lions' chances, as the Saints reeled off a 17-play, 97-yard march capped by Deuce McAllister's 2-yard TD run.

"It starts with me," said Orlovsky, who was battling flu-like symptoms and was replaced by Drew Stanton in the fourth quarter. "I'm the quarterback. Everything has to go through me. Obviously, I didn't do a good enough job running the offense."

Mike Bell and Pierre Thomas scored on short runs in the second quarter for New Orleans, and Brees tossed a pair of TD passes to Marques Colston in the third.

Smith was one of the only bright spots of the day for Detroit, rushing for 111 yards and the Lions' only touchdown.

"We gotta want to win bad enough," Smith said. "We can't just not want to lose. We gotta want to win more than we don't want to lose."

But despite the harsh words for his team, Smith praised the job done by Marinelli.

"It's not Rod's fault," he said. "Rod does a great job of preparing us. He's the best motivator I've been around."

The Saints, who were eliminated from the NFC playoffs with last week's loss at Detroit, scored their franchise-record 50th touchdown of the season on Bell's 1-yard run with 4:40 remaining in the first half.

Thomas scored from 2 yards out just under four minutes later - his sixth straight game with a TD - and finished the contest with 103 yards from scrimmage. Colston had a season-high eight catches for 99 yards.

"I was pleased with our effort," Saints coach Sean Payton said. "I thought we did a good job offensively on third down. Because of that, we were able to sustain drives. I thought we had good balance."