Detroit Lions

The Detroit Lions are an American football team based in Detroit, Michigan. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference (NFC) in the National Football League (NFL), and play their home games at Ford Field in downtown Detroit. Originally based in Portsmouth, Ohio and called the Portsmouth Spartans, the team began play in 1929 as an independent professional team, one of many such teams in the Ohio and Scioto River valleys. For the 1930 season, the Spartans formally joined the National Football League (NFL) as the other area independents folded because of the Great Depression. Despite success within the NFL, they could not survive in Portsmouth, then the NFL's smallest city. The team was purchased and moved to Detroit for the 1934 season. The 2008 Detroit Lions became the only team in NFL history to lose all 16 regular-season games. They are only the second team to go winless without a tie (next to the 0-14 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers) since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970. They went 2-14 in 2009. The Lions currently hold a 20 game road losing streak, the 4th longest in NFL history.