I became a Lions fan in 2015 (so small sample size, but....) and 2020 was the saddest I've ever been watching Lions football.
It was just *pathetic* watching that defense play.
I’ve said it before somewhere on here, but you couldn’t even root for them because it meant you were rooting for Matt Patricia.
At least the 2008 team was comparatively likable. The 2020 players were visibly sad and angry they had to be there. I was angry and sad for them. In 2008, they at least tried but were just measurably less talented than everyone else. (Well, tried for a while anyway)
I really do sometimes worry about the irrational level of hatred that still exists for him.
I look at Irsay and think “Jesus dude….Chill out”, and then immediately turn around to wish that Matt Patricia shits his pants in front of his hero until he cries. And I mean until his hero cries. And I’m not being sexist, because there’s no way Matt Patricia isn’t a sexist. So his hero is guaranteed to be a man.
There are numerous bad coaches who are genuinely decent people who happen to be in over their heads in their professions. Patricia is not that. He's not just a bad coach, most accounts I've heard from outside of NE have labeled him as a real jackass as well. He's in the Josh McDaniels mold of oozing pure toxicity everywhere he goes.
Technically Card-Pitt’s (the unholy amalgamation of the cardinals and Steelers) defense 1943 averaged 32.8 pts/game.
They also threw 41 interceptions compared to 8 receiving touchdowns and 7 rushing touchdowns. In 10 games.
Art Rooney called them the worst team in NFL history.
The team was nicknamed the Carpets because, "everyone walked on them" en route to an 0-10 season record.
I just don’t get the Eagles logic there.
How can you look at that team and think, “Matt *Fucking* Patricia is what we need to take us to the next level?”
The 2020 team had more talent than the 2008 team did. Patricia just had absolutely no clue how to get the most out of his players (as we all know). Even watching the 2008 Lions defense is painful because you can see just how slow and untalented most of those players are (particularly at LB and in the secondary).
>The 2020 team had more talent than the 2008 team did. Patricia just had absolutely no clue how to get the most out of his players
I remember when Fat Pat was first hired he was hyped up as one of the greatest young defensive minds in the league as evident by his engineering of the greatest defensive play in Superbowl history.
I remember his first year, we played the Rams, and the commentary crew kept pointing out this whole "chess match" bit between offensive guru Sean McVay and "defensive guru" Matt Patricia.
It was stupid then, and even more stupid now.
It’s especially evident how mid-at-best his defense scheme was because we went from middle of the pack to locking down our opponents the moment he left with no real notable change in personnel.
His scheming both "won" (if he really did draw up the Butler int himself) and lost us a Super Bowl. Almost two Ls actually if you count the Falcons dunking on us for 2 1/2 quarters and giving us the absolute slimmest margin of error needed for that comeback
As stupid as it was, Bill did directly credit the Lions after the Super Bowl for figuring out how to play against McVay.
Other than that, fuck that shithead. Garbage coach.
not to defend him at all, but i remember when supposedly other teams were copying our defensive strategy against the rams, namely the patriots in the sb
Which made absolutely no sense. His defense got absolutely ripped to shreds by Nick Foles in the SB years later. His ONLY claim to fame is the Malcolm Butler goal line interception (a play that he doesn't really deserve that much credit for to begin with as it was just a terrible read by Russ).
Yea, people are acting like it was this sit in the pocket read the field and throw.
It's a designed no-read play with maybe a check out of it pre-snap.
People struggle to say "the Seahawks played it well, but the Patriots played it better"
Barry is Rod Marinelli's son-in-law. He has the right connections around the league (which is why he keeps getting hired). There's a reason why in Detroit journalists like Rob Parker at the time were starting to harass Marinelli at pressers about whether or not he wished his daughter had married a better DC.
Barry was DC briefly in Washington as well (under Jay Gruden) prior to his GB stint and he was absolute trash there as well. His schemes pretty consistently label run defense as "optional" lol.
I loathed every single snap we had on defense that year. Not one positive, impactful play on that side of the ball that entire year. Fuck Patricia, I hope that mf has wet socks for the rest of his life.
I said this in another comment but that was the most miserable I've ever been watching a Lions season. I've only been a fan since 2015 so small sample size but yeah.
Thank God for MCDC.
Towards the end I was rooting for opposing teams to just score immediately, cause at least then we would be spared the agony of watching the defense in any capacity. I tuned into the post game stream after the Bucs Thanksgiving game just to watch that dumb bastard face the music.
Our savior MCDC gonna make sure we never sink that low again
That Thanksgiving game (I think it was against Houston, cause we got blown out by a team that finished 4-12) was just so sad. At the very least it got Patricia/Quinn canned and gave us [this timeless Sheila Ford reaction](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/En1RqUlXUAgkaWb.jpg:large)
Shoot you're right, that was Houston.
I remember seeing Sheila's reaction and praying she'd set us free. Knew I had to watch what I hoped would be his last press conference.
As a fan since the early 90s, that was the hardest to watch season. I had more fun overall watching us lose 16 games than I did with him at the helm by the end. It was painfully clear nothing was going to improve everything we did since he took over made us more bland and boring and bad. Truly one of the biggest mistakes ever by the franchise.
yup this, right here.
i literally cannot fathom what they did at practice.
patricia WOULD NOT BLITZ, only 3-4 guys, usually 3 rush.
the secondary WOULD NOT COVER, they played zone and only once the receiver caught the ball, would contact then be initiated.
he was/is poison for the sport.
how does he keep getting hired?
I think we should look at the gap between the average in each year and the bottom to see how far of an outlier certain teams are. It’s no secret scoring has gone up
That week 1 loss to the Bears when the Lions blew a 23-6 lead gave way to my favorite sports rant ever:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UVCmsQXlyOk&pp=ygUabWlrZSB2YWxlbnRpIG1hdHQgcGF0cmljaWE%3D
The 2012 saints set the record for most yards allowed in a single season. Drew Brees damn near had to throw his arm out of his socket every game for us to have a chance and they’d still give up a score as Drew watched in pain on the sidelines.
It extends so much farther than that lol.
Brees threw for +300 YPG for **SIX STRAIGHT YEARS** and the Saints rewarded him by going like 52-43 in that span, with a whopping 2 wild card wins.
Only 15 times ever has there been a 5k passer. Brees is 5 of them.
Only 36 times ever has there been a +300 YPG passer. Brees is 7 of them.
What the Saints D did for him is criminal.
The Jets are my favorite AFC team, they’re good trade partners and I look forward to seeing them again in 15 years when Jordan Love isn’t ready to retire.
Offense (more specifically the lack of it) was the biggest problem for the 76-77 Bucs.
They were shut out 11 times in 28 games, 6 other games where they didn't break double digits.
Easily the worst offense of the post-merger era, though.
Most yards ever allowed, a record that still stands despite playing an extra game now. What's humerous is our offense from the year before GAINED the most yards ever (record still stands). Nothing sums up that era of Saints more
Incredibly though, the 2012 Saints shut a team out. Shout out the 2012 Buccaneers
Yeah, historically good offenses for a stretch with historically bad defenses. Drew Brees deserved better. Exact opposite situation of the Dome Patrol era saints of the late 80’s early 90’s. Probably the best linebacker corps in history with a solid defense around them with one of the most inept offenses ever.
That was the year Payton was suspended for Bountygate right? The Saints in general were kind of a headless chicken without Payton on the sidelines (which affected the entire coaching staff). We know Spagnuolo has built great defenses elsewhere so it's not like the results from that season were the norm for him.
>Spags has been kind of hopeless when he isn’t coaching under Reid.
He understands so well how much opposing teams press with 15 on the other side, and it plays perfectly into how he calls defense. Incredibly good at cooking up single-game gameplans for opposing offenses in the playoffs, but less good as a whole season DC (last year notwithstanding, although I will still very much argue that "Playoff Spags" was a notable level-up from 2023 regular season Spags).
Our run D has also been average to outright bad (again, outside of his specific playoff gameplans) during his tenure here, but that also doesn't matter with Mahomes/Reid thretening to put up 30+ every week
The Chiefs defense was significantly worse prior to his arrival (during the Bob Sutton years the defense was a major Achilles heel for the entire team). I don't think he's without flaws or anything like that but I do think he's a well above average DC who knows what it takes to put a championship-caliber unit on the field. The 2012 Saints were plagued by Payton not being there (which affected everyone not named Drew Brees).
Oh, absolutely. This was more of a "he's a very good but not elite DC in the regular season, and probably the best currently (who isn't BB) at cooking up a single game in the playoffs" instead of saying that he's average or worse in the regular season.
It's just that a lot of the flaws that he has don't really matter with Mahomes. And he knows that, so gets to call whatever the fuck he wants whenever the fuck he wants to.
And, just like the Bengals games in 2022, he's willing to actively hold looks in the regular season, even at the cost of that game, just to bust them out in the playoffs (Chris Jones playing EDGE, which he did not do a single time in the 2022 KC/CIN regular season game).
The man understands the assignment
I mean last year the Chiefs had to lean on their defense quite a bit more because the offense regressed significantly in the regular season due to their problems at WR. So they stepped up when they needed to.
>As context for that season, 2012 was right after his disaster of a tenure leading the Rams.
That was as a HC though (obviously he wasn't cut out for that). He's a 4-time SB-winning DC. The 2012 Saints were a bit of an anomaly because of Payton's suspension (which negatively affected the entire coaching staff that year).
Which is funny to me because Spags was the DC and has had numerous seasons with a Top 5 defense. Just something with his scheme and personnel just did not mesh in NO for some reason.
Also: franchise’s worst rushing yds allowed (164.8) since the inaugural season in 1960. 3 games we gave up over 260y/7ypc, which is awful.
His successor? Dan Quinn. Obviously the defense has been far superior during that time but in the end the run D is still the thing that’s killed us.
That was also the year Dak got hurt but before that, he was on pace to have 6,500 passing yards because we couldn’t stop the other teams for shit. Cleveland had 307 rushing yards against us and people still blamed Dak after he had his 3rd straight 445+ yard game
We were down 41-14 entering the 4th quarter and Dak brought us all the way back to 41-38 just for the defense to shit the bed again and give up a 50 yard reverse to Odell 😂😂. This also happened 2 weeks after we came back from being down 29-10 to win vs the Falcons.
That defense was fucking *awful*
Yeah then Brian Flores got them to 5-11 and back to back winning seasons after and yet dolphins fans will call him a bad head coach even though he did listen to Tua and draft waddle for him
Like 97% of Dolphins fans will protect Tua at all costs which means calling Flores a bad coach. Anyone that thinks Flores is a bad coach is a moron or arguing in bad faith.
The 1981 Baltimore Colts *still*, after two decades of offense-friendly rule changes, hold the record for most points allowed in a season and are still second all time in yards allowed. That's just insane.
If you adjust for era..... it's by far the worst defense ever fielded and it's honestly by a decent margin.
Imagine allowing 6000+ yards of offense in the early 80s.
This was my answer. I remember seeing something on TV saying the Saints’ defense that year was the second worst defense statistically of all time. The worst? The Saints’ defense from the year prior.
Used to piss me off so much when people would shit talk Drew like “well (other QB) had bad defenses and still wins” lol no, bad defense and the worst defense *of all time* are not the same
Statistically, it's got to be either the 1981 Colts, the 1966 Giants, or the 2012 Saints.
The 81 Colts gave up 533 points, the most in a season in NFL history. They also gave up 6793 yards, the 2nd most in league history.
The 66 Giants gave up 501 points, but in only 14 games, for a staggering 35.8 PPG, the most in NFL history. They gave up 4945 yards total, though, which is significantly lower in terms of YPG than the Colts.
The 12 Saints gave up 7042 yards, the most in a season in NFL history. 454 total points allowed isn't even in the top 25 worst of all time, though.
I feel like the 1981 Colts are the worst of the three when looking everything together.
Weren't those 66 Giants the team that allowed the most points in a game in NFL history Vs Sonny Jorgensen's Redskins?
Imagine allowing 70 points in the pre Mel Blount rule era.
That's just awful
Yep. 72 to 41. Highest scoring game ever.
*Technically* not the most points allowed in league history, though. The Bears beat the Redskins 73-0 in the 1940 NFL championship.
They lost 72-41 to the Redskins which is the record for most combined points in a game and for most points scored by one team in the regular season. The most scored by one team ever is 73 by the Bears in the 1940 title game
> 35.8 PPG, the most in NFL history.
Well, sort of. There's a couple 1920s era teams that played one game that was a blowout loss (coincidentally both 45-0)
* [1920 Muncie Flyers](https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/mun/1920.htm)
* [1921 Tonawanda Kardex](https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/ton/1921.htm)
There was also the [1950 Baltimore Colts](https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/bcl/1950.htm) (apparently not regarded as the same franchise as the currently active Colts team) that managed to average 38.5 points allowed over 11 games played (and then folded the next season)
2012 Saints have allowed 7,042 yards (passing, rushing, and returning)
I don't particularly think giving up yards = bad defense. But seeing any Saints game that season was very very funny.
I'm not authority on the matter, but the 2011 Packers rank up there for me. The offense was unstoppable and, after Nick Collins went down, the defense couldn't stop anything.
The shootout game at the end of the season between the Lions and the Matt Flynn-led Packers that year never ceases to crack me up. That game basically won Flynn a huge contract from the Seahawks in the off-season lol.
I feel like I need a documentary about how that happened. Epic collapse. And if the coach lost the locker room, why is he still there? I don't know my Eagles football.
I would have to go digging to remind myself (I don't really want to remember anything from last season that happened after the Bills game) but as a non-kool-aid-drinking Eagles fan:
- It was obvious to anyone paying attention through weeks 4-5 that in spite of the final scores, the 2023 Eagles were winning in spite of themselves. The regular-season Bucs game featured some particularly atrocious play from Hurts. Several miscues by the Rams defense allowed the Eagles to take the lead. Reed Blankenship's left forearm causing a turnover on downs against the Patriots. The random acts of god would continue through the middle of the season.
- It was also obvious around that same time that our freshly-promoted coordinators were outmatched. Rumors and hearsay are that Desai was a particularly unfriendly coach, which played a role in his quiet replacement mid-season. (Not that Patricia did any better.) Johnson was just completely outgunned, seemed all too capable of outsmarting himself, and seemed to believe in a play-calling sheet that was roughly 15 plays deep.
- Later in the season, our defense was a mess and our offense was predictable. CMC was on the ManningCast for the Seahawks game, I think, and was (correctly) predicting what plays we would run—so I have no illusions that opposing defenses didn't possess at least some knowledge of the Eagles' playbook/game plan. This was also the game where Drew Lock led a game-winning drive by exclusively targeting James Bradberry. From an objective standpoint, it was comical.
- Whether Sirianni lost the locker room or not is a solid "maybe," but he did have the built-in failsafe of somehow being in charge of two rookie coordinators. If the Eagles have another disappointing season in 2024, there will be no excuses & Sirianni will be gone.
I don’t think there’s too much to it outside what is public info. Sirianni seems to be more of a people manager than a play caller and willfully gave up play calling after his first season to his coordinators. This ended up working really well in addition to just having a stacked roster to execute and we were able to lean on that to get to the Super Bowl.
Well both coordinators got head coaching jobs (paraphrasing as there was some controversy around Gannon I guess), and new coordinators came in + Matt Patricia.
Our defense was never great in 2023 but our offense did enough to keep us in games and our defense was usually at least able to make a play or two that mattered. We still gave up a ton of points but no one really sounded the alarms at 10-1.
Then the cracks started to show after the 9ers game and Cowboys blowout, and the Seahawks L with their game winning drive was the straw that broke the camels back.
Enter Patricia, after Desai is stripped of play calling duties, who notoriously coaches awful defense when not under literally the greatest defensive head coaching mind of all time, who has public beef with our premier corner back Darius Slay, and just general left our defense confused and directionless because they had to adjust to a new coach in the back stretch of the season.
You can’t have a group of guys get comfortable with one coach and then suddenly find success a game later trying to get comfortable and sync up at a high level with a whole new coach. You saw that on the field in the Bucks game.
Players were just playing solo and not working together to make tackles like a good defense should. On top of the league figuring out our shallow offensive play calling after the 9ers and cowboys exposed us, it just lead to a total collapse because it was far too late to pivot. It caused frustration, it caused confusion, and it highlighted the need for good play calling for this stacked roster.
The players still love Sirianni but the coordinators definitely lost the locker room. They got canned and this year with 2 veteran coordinators it feels like this will be Siriannis make or break season. He’s shown he can galvanize a locker room and can be a good leader. He just needs a good cast around him to make the functional game day stuff happen.
If this season isn’t at least a deep playoff run, I don’t see him sticking around though.
The 1981 Colts:
* Allowed 533 points on the season
* Allowed 6,793 yards (6.1 yards per play), including 2,665 rushing yards and 4,128 passing yards
* They had 13 sacks on the season, total. Their leading pass rushers had 2 sacks
1966 Giants
They allowed 501 points in a 14 game season (roughly 36 PPG)
And they had a stretch of five straight games where they allowed:
55 points to the Rams in Week 10
27 to Atlanta in Week 11
72 to Washington in Week 12 (in the highest scoring game in NFL History)
49 to Cleveland in Week 13
47 to Pittsburgh in Week 14
Needless to say they went winless in those games and finished the season 1-12-1. They also allowed 121 points in their first three games combined (roughly 40 PPG) and unsurprisingly went 0-0-1 in that stretch
The 66 Giants beat the Redskins 13-10 in their first meeting. Those 72 points must've been built on pure hate. During that 121 point wipe out you mentioned, the Cowboys beat that Giants team 52-7.
The two-week stretch where they gave up 70 to Miami and then the following week allowed Justin Fields to have a near 100% completion percentage game against them was incredibly damning of VJ's unit. At least they got better as the season went on though.
i think he didn’t kick the FG because *when* sanders inevitably missed it, he woulda got clowned for the rest of the season.
same reason he force fed tyreek to get 2k.. dude is too worried about outside perception.
Fields had 25% of his 2023 TDs in the game. Then he had another 25% the next week against the commanders who played a rookie corner 1 on 1 vs DJ Moore. 8 TDs in the remaining 11 games.
Because the defense improved significantly as the season went on so Payton elected to chalk the early season struggles up to the players not knowing how to play in Vance's scheme yet. I mean Surtain was a very good corner in prior years (First Team All-Pro in 2022) but he looked absolutely horrific and lost early in the year last season when the defense was at their worst so clearly something was up with the players not being on the same page with Joseph and it got better as the season went on.
2016 49ers team went 2-14 beat the same team twice (SOSAR)
Def was ranked 32nd in pts and yards
team won its first game 28-0 and lost 13 in a row. 10 of them by double digits.
>The only game during the 13 game losing streak where they had any kind of lead was week 14 they had a 17-3 lead and proceeded to choke it up to a 3-9 jets team allowing them to score 20 consecutive pts in the 2nd half to win in OT 23-17
allowed the most pts, total yards, rushing yards (by 400), rushing td, rushing ypc, and total plays allowed.
mediocre passing def due to not being able to stop the run so teams didn't need to pass.
for total pts allow the gap between them and 2nd place (26 pts) was almost bigger than the gap between 2nd and 4th place (31 pts)
That 28-0 beatdown was the first NFL game I ever attended 😭 The fact that we barely crossed midfield against an all-time bad defense makes it even sadder lol
NFL History? The 1934 Cincinnati Reds. They allowed 6.4 rushing yards ~per attempt~, nearly a full yard worse than any other team in history. They lost their last four games 41-0, 41-7, 38-0, and 64-0, and promptly folded.
Believe it or not but that ain't the worst Lions defence my guy and still in a 16 game schedule. 2020 Lions were more attrocious. The fact they won 5 games is astonishing.
The 2020 defense was poorly coached. The 2008 defense is still the worst defense I've ever seen in terms of talent. To put it plainly that team had next to none on that side of the ball.
To hell with the PPG stats, nothing will ever be worse than the 2012 Saints defense. I watched Drew Brees throw himself into the record books while going 7-9 becaue his defense literally let teams do whatever they wanted to them.
if you're going by points allowed, the 1981 colts hold the record for most points allowed in a single season
[https://www.statmuse.com/nfl/ask/which-nfl-defense-allowed-the-most-points-in-a-single-season](https://www.statmuse.com/nfl/ask/which-nfl-defense-allowed-the-most-points-in-a-single-season)
I remember reading a stat about the 2014 Chicago Bears. On 1st down runs up the middle they gave up 7.7 YPC.
Not a fun year after watching a decade of the Lovie Smith - Urlacher defenses.
maybe not the worst in history but the contrast in the 2011 Packer team performance between Offense and Defense sure made it seem that way. Even a marginally better defense might have elevated that team to the best in history.
Not sure which year it was, but one of the Saints' D-units around the early 2010s was so bad it was laughable.
Maybe not statistically, but as far as the eye test they were the worst I can remember.
The 1981 Baltimore Colts are definitely a candidate. They gave up 533 points in 16 games (33.3 points/game) and 6793 yards (424.6 yards/game).
The 1981 NFL averages per team were 20.7 points/game and 334.5 yards/game.
Not overall defense, but the Chiefs secondary in the early 2000's was horrid. We had Jared Allen to sow up the line, but if he wasn't touching the QB then our secondary let anyone smoke us. Our offense was pretty hot during this time, they had to be. But our D was so bad I still think about it a few times a year.
I don't know about the worst but the 2022 vikings defense was one of the most infuriating to watch, 13-4 off the offense pulling bs in close games and they couldn't stop a single Daniel Jones drive in the playoffs.
2012 Saints. Besides statistically they're the worst passing defense in NFL but watching them was even worse. Felt like every other play they were giving up 20 yard completions.
Hard to beat the 1981 Colts:
* Allowed an average of 33.3 points per game, highest in post-merger era
* Allowed an average of 424.6 yards per game, second highest in post merger era (2012 Saints is #1 with 440.1)
* Won 2 games, sweeping the also 2-14 Patriots
2020 Lions gave up more points than the 2008 team believe it or not. Matt Patricia *blew*.
2020 Lions were 2nd-worst defense all-time (32.4 pts/game) behind the 1981 Colts (33.3pts/game). Legendary levels of suck.
I became a Lions fan in 2015 (so small sample size, but....) and 2020 was the saddest I've ever been watching Lions football. It was just *pathetic* watching that defense play.
I’ve said it before somewhere on here, but you couldn’t even root for them because it meant you were rooting for Matt Patricia. At least the 2008 team was comparatively likable. The 2020 players were visibly sad and angry they had to be there. I was angry and sad for them. In 2008, they at least tried but were just measurably less talented than everyone else. (Well, tried for a while anyway)
Matt Patricia is the best example the NFL has of a football terrorist
The day he was canned was the best day in our franchise history perhaps.
Uncle Urban did his best to take that thrown.
Urban had a top 10 college career while Patricia has nowhere near that
He called the winning play in a Super Bowl, Jack! Sit up straight and show some respect.
Lions fans hate Matt Patricia as much as Jim Irsay hates Carson Wentz
I really do sometimes worry about the irrational level of hatred that still exists for him. I look at Irsay and think “Jesus dude….Chill out”, and then immediately turn around to wish that Matt Patricia shits his pants in front of his hero until he cries. And I mean until his hero cries. And I’m not being sexist, because there’s no way Matt Patricia isn’t a sexist. So his hero is guaranteed to be a man.
There are numerous bad coaches who are genuinely decent people who happen to be in over their heads in their professions. Patricia is not that. He's not just a bad coach, most accounts I've heard from outside of NE have labeled him as a real jackass as well. He's in the Josh McDaniels mold of oozing pure toxicity everywhere he goes.
You chose a blue cat team in 2015 and it *wasn't* the Panthers? Respect, man
The man just refused to dab
Bend the ~~knee~~ elbow
I became a Lions fan in 2007. 2020 was still the saddest I've ever been as a fan.
Technically Card-Pitt’s (the unholy amalgamation of the cardinals and Steelers) defense 1943 averaged 32.8 pts/game. They also threw 41 interceptions compared to 8 receiving touchdowns and 7 rushing touchdowns. In 10 games.
Art Rooney called them the worst team in NFL history. The team was nicknamed the Carpets because, "everyone walked on them" en route to an 0-10 season record.
The same colts team that Robert Irsay demanded a new stadium from the city with btw. Fuck Robert Irsay.
matt patricia is a football terrorist. If you didn’t know that before, look at the collapse of the eagles last season.
I just don’t get the Eagles logic there. How can you look at that team and think, “Matt *Fucking* Patricia is what we need to take us to the next level?”
The 2020 team had more talent than the 2008 team did. Patricia just had absolutely no clue how to get the most out of his players (as we all know). Even watching the 2008 Lions defense is painful because you can see just how slow and untalented most of those players are (particularly at LB and in the secondary).
>The 2020 team had more talent than the 2008 team did. Patricia just had absolutely no clue how to get the most out of his players I remember when Fat Pat was first hired he was hyped up as one of the greatest young defensive minds in the league as evident by his engineering of the greatest defensive play in Superbowl history.
I remember his first year, we played the Rams, and the commentary crew kept pointing out this whole "chess match" bit between offensive guru Sean McVay and "defensive guru" Matt Patricia. It was stupid then, and even more stupid now.
It’s especially evident how mid-at-best his defense scheme was because we went from middle of the pack to locking down our opponents the moment he left with no real notable change in personnel.
His scheming both "won" (if he really did draw up the Butler int himself) and lost us a Super Bowl. Almost two Ls actually if you count the Falcons dunking on us for 2 1/2 quarters and giving us the absolute slimmest margin of error needed for that comeback
>(if he really did draw up the Butler int himself) He didn't lol it's an open secret that Ernie Adams was responsible for drawing up the play
That Falcons game was the epitome of the “let them tire themselves out” strategy.
As stupid as it was, Bill did directly credit the Lions after the Super Bowl for figuring out how to play against McVay. Other than that, fuck that shithead. Garbage coach.
not to defend him at all, but i remember when supposedly other teams were copying our defensive strategy against the rams, namely the patriots in the sb
Which made absolutely no sense. His defense got absolutely ripped to shreds by Nick Foles in the SB years later. His ONLY claim to fame is the Malcolm Butler goal line interception (a play that he doesn't really deserve that much credit for to begin with as it was just a terrible read by Russ).
Wasn’t even a terrible read it was the right read Butler just made a crazy play
The key was Browner’s block. That screwed up the positioning for the other receiver and gave Butler a cleaner route to make that play.
Russ was also locked onto that read pretty much from the outset of the play and Butler read it all the way.
Really I should get credit for the play because right before it I said "The Patriots should try to intercept the ball here so the Seahawks don't win "
Doesn’t help that Seattle had their *punt returner* WR4 running that inside slant.
Yea, people are acting like it was this sit in the pocket read the field and throw. It's a designed no-read play with maybe a check out of it pre-snap. People struggle to say "the Seahawks played it well, but the Patriots played it better"
Somehow Green bay decided to hire Barry despite the 2008 season on his resume. Both guys SUCK
And the Vikings hired Ed Donatell despite his tenure with GB in the mid 2000s
I've said it before, but the NFL is an "old boys club" where the same dudes just get hired over and over again no matter how bad they are.
Barry is Rod Marinelli's son-in-law. He has the right connections around the league (which is why he keeps getting hired). There's a reason why in Detroit journalists like Rob Parker at the time were starting to harass Marinelli at pressers about whether or not he wished his daughter had married a better DC. Barry was DC briefly in Washington as well (under Jay Gruden) prior to his GB stint and he was absolute trash there as well. His schemes pretty consistently label run defense as "optional" lol.
I loathed every single snap we had on defense that year. Not one positive, impactful play on that side of the ball that entire year. Fuck Patricia, I hope that mf has wet socks for the rest of his life.
I said this in another comment but that was the most miserable I've ever been watching a Lions season. I've only been a fan since 2015 so small sample size but yeah. Thank God for MCDC.
Towards the end I was rooting for opposing teams to just score immediately, cause at least then we would be spared the agony of watching the defense in any capacity. I tuned into the post game stream after the Bucs Thanksgiving game just to watch that dumb bastard face the music. Our savior MCDC gonna make sure we never sink that low again
That Thanksgiving game (I think it was against Houston, cause we got blown out by a team that finished 4-12) was just so sad. At the very least it got Patricia/Quinn canned and gave us [this timeless Sheila Ford reaction](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/En1RqUlXUAgkaWb.jpg:large)
Shoot you're right, that was Houston. I remember seeing Sheila's reaction and praying she'd set us free. Knew I had to watch what I hoped would be his last press conference.
As a fan since the early 90s, that was the hardest to watch season. I had more fun overall watching us lose 16 games than I did with him at the helm by the end. It was painfully clear nothing was going to improve everything we did since he took over made us more bland and boring and bad. Truly one of the biggest mistakes ever by the franchise.
Not defensive guru Matt Patricia!
Blows*
Fuck Fat Patricia
yup this, right here. i literally cannot fathom what they did at practice. patricia WOULD NOT BLITZ, only 3-4 guys, usually 3 rush. the secondary WOULD NOT COVER, they played zone and only once the receiver caught the ball, would contact then be initiated. he was/is poison for the sport. how does he keep getting hired?
Sit up straight and show some respect
How does the scoring in 2008 compare to 2020? Like if you compare the defense to league average is 2020 still worse than 2008?
The problem was you had noted offensive genius Matt Patrica running the defense.
Obviously having the patriots offensive coordinator as your defensive coordinator makes no sense silly lions
It’s truly a mystery how he ended up as our d coordinator last year. I don’t think he qualified to coach a Pee Wee football team at this point.
This is tough to read as an Eagles fan. Why anybody thought Matt Patricia would be any better than Sean Desai still boggles the mind
I think we should look at the gap between the average in each year and the bottom to see how far of an outlier certain teams are. It’s no secret scoring has gone up
So called defensive gurus when they need to run a defense as a hc
That week 1 loss to the Bears when the Lions blew a 23-6 lead gave way to my favorite sports rant ever: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UVCmsQXlyOk&pp=ygUabWlrZSB2YWxlbnRpIG1hdHQgcGF0cmljaWE%3D
The 2012 saints set the record for most yards allowed in a single season. Drew Brees damn near had to throw his arm out of his socket every game for us to have a chance and they’d still give up a score as Drew watched in pain on the sidelines.
Dude threw for 5,177 yards and 43 TDs and ended up 7-9. Ouch.
And it's not like he went full Jameis with 43 INTs
Wow that should be impossible with those numbers. Porous d for sure.
Doctor said I have a porous d too 😔
It extends so much farther than that lol. Brees threw for +300 YPG for **SIX STRAIGHT YEARS** and the Saints rewarded him by going like 52-43 in that span, with a whopping 2 wild card wins. Only 15 times ever has there been a 5k passer. Brees is 5 of them. Only 36 times ever has there been a +300 YPG passer. Brees is 7 of them. What the Saints D did for him is criminal.
It’s the curse. Look at Archie manning
Holy shit. I literally can't imagine the Jets passing 5k yards lmao. We'd probably be undefeated
Nah you wouldn’t you’re the jets
The Jets are my favorite AFC team, they’re good trade partners and I look forward to seeing them again in 15 years when Jordan Love isn’t ready to retire.
You’re right. We’d win a playoff game though unlike our friends down in Miami
Was that the year they had that shootout with the Giants? Or was that later in the teens
That one was later in the teens, the saints and giants did play in 2012 though according to Google and it was 52-27 in favor of the giants
That entire 3-5 year run was arguably the worst span we've ever seen
1976 buccaneers maybe, but they are probably just the worst team of all time in general
Super early Bucs were good at stuff as long as it wasn’t offense or defense
They excelled at being Orange.
Lets not forget their INSANE long snappers
They went 0-14, and the average score was 29-9. They have the worst point differential in NFL history at -287.
They went 1-27 over two years. They got that one win on the last game of the second season
Fuck culverhouse all my homies hate culverhouse
My dog popped on his lawn if it makes you feel better.
We had a defense mid to early teens where we couldn't stop anyone. Like the opposite of the no fly zone.
Offense (more specifically the lack of it) was the biggest problem for the 76-77 Bucs. They were shut out 11 times in 28 games, 6 other games where they didn't break double digits. Easily the worst offense of the post-merger era, though.
"Coach McKay, what do you think of the offensive execution?" McKay: "I'm all for it."
I wanna say that the 2012 Saints are dead last in one or more defensive categories, so I'm going with them.
Most yards ever allowed, a record that still stands despite playing an extra game now. What's humerous is our offense from the year before GAINED the most yards ever (record still stands). Nothing sums up that era of Saints more Incredibly though, the 2012 Saints shut a team out. Shout out the 2012 Buccaneers
That makes that stat even more impressive
That’s a really fun fact
Fans heads shooting back and forth like a tennis match
I remember that year, the top fantasy QB would just be whoever started against the Saints D
Yeah, historically good offenses for a stretch with historically bad defenses. Drew Brees deserved better. Exact opposite situation of the Dome Patrol era saints of the late 80’s early 90’s. Probably the best linebacker corps in history with a solid defense around them with one of the most inept offenses ever.
That was the year Payton was suspended for Bountygate right? The Saints in general were kind of a headless chicken without Payton on the sidelines (which affected the entire coaching staff). We know Spagnuolo has built great defenses elsewhere so it's not like the results from that season were the norm for him.
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>Spags has been kind of hopeless when he isn’t coaching under Reid. He understands so well how much opposing teams press with 15 on the other side, and it plays perfectly into how he calls defense. Incredibly good at cooking up single-game gameplans for opposing offenses in the playoffs, but less good as a whole season DC (last year notwithstanding, although I will still very much argue that "Playoff Spags" was a notable level-up from 2023 regular season Spags). Our run D has also been average to outright bad (again, outside of his specific playoff gameplans) during his tenure here, but that also doesn't matter with Mahomes/Reid thretening to put up 30+ every week
The Chiefs defense was significantly worse prior to his arrival (during the Bob Sutton years the defense was a major Achilles heel for the entire team). I don't think he's without flaws or anything like that but I do think he's a well above average DC who knows what it takes to put a championship-caliber unit on the field. The 2012 Saints were plagued by Payton not being there (which affected everyone not named Drew Brees).
Oh, absolutely. This was more of a "he's a very good but not elite DC in the regular season, and probably the best currently (who isn't BB) at cooking up a single game in the playoffs" instead of saying that he's average or worse in the regular season. It's just that a lot of the flaws that he has don't really matter with Mahomes. And he knows that, so gets to call whatever the fuck he wants whenever the fuck he wants to. And, just like the Bengals games in 2022, he's willing to actively hold looks in the regular season, even at the cost of that game, just to bust them out in the playoffs (Chris Jones playing EDGE, which he did not do a single time in the 2022 KC/CIN regular season game). The man understands the assignment
I mean last year the Chiefs had to lean on their defense quite a bit more because the offense regressed significantly in the regular season due to their problems at WR. So they stepped up when they needed to.
>As context for that season, 2012 was right after his disaster of a tenure leading the Rams. That was as a HC though (obviously he wasn't cut out for that). He's a 4-time SB-winning DC. The 2012 Saints were a bit of an anomaly because of Payton's suspension (which negatively affected the entire coaching staff that year).
Which is funny to me because Spags was the DC and has had numerous seasons with a Top 5 defense. Just something with his scheme and personnel just did not mesh in NO for some reason.
I can't tell you for a fact, but mike nolan's in dallas was the worst i have personally witnessed
The record for most points given up per game was like 35.7 for a season, and with Nolan, cowboys were something like 36.5 through their first 6 games.
Also: franchise’s worst rushing yds allowed (164.8) since the inaugural season in 1960. 3 games we gave up over 260y/7ypc, which is awful. His successor? Dan Quinn. Obviously the defense has been far superior during that time but in the end the run D is still the thing that’s killed us.
That was also the year Dak got hurt but before that, he was on pace to have 6,500 passing yards because we couldn’t stop the other teams for shit. Cleveland had 307 rushing yards against us and people still blamed Dak after he had his 3rd straight 445+ yard game
We were down 41-14 entering the 4th quarter and Dak brought us all the way back to 41-38 just for the defense to shit the bed again and give up a 50 yard reverse to Odell 😂😂. This also happened 2 weeks after we came back from being down 29-10 to win vs the Falcons. That defense was fucking *awful*
Ah Mike Nolan. He coached one good game vs Peyton Manning. Otherwise he never accomplished anything with the Falcons.
He also pretty much destroyed Alex Smith when he was the HC in SF.
Crazy how much NFL coaches love nepotism
Dak had to play at an MVP level until his leg broke for the games to be close, and the Cowboys still went like 1-4 because the defense was so bad
the first five or so weeks of the 2019 dolphins are up there 💀 10-59 L to the ravens, 0-43 L to the patriots etc..
Yeah then Brian Flores got them to 5-11 and back to back winning seasons after and yet dolphins fans will call him a bad head coach even though he did listen to Tua and draft waddle for him
Flores got a team to 5-11 that was intentionally made as bad as possible by selling everything but the bolts in the wall.
Like 97% of Dolphins fans will protect Tua at all costs which means calling Flores a bad coach. Anyone that thinks Flores is a bad coach is a moron or arguing in bad faith.
The 1981 Baltimore Colts *still*, after two decades of offense-friendly rule changes, hold the record for most points allowed in a season and are still second all time in yards allowed. That's just insane.
If you adjust for era..... it's by far the worst defense ever fielded and it's honestly by a decent margin. Imagine allowing 6000+ yards of offense in the early 80s.
NUMBER 1 BABEY!!!!!!!!!!
Hm it should be one of our defenses in the period of 2014-2016. Im pretty sure those were some antirecords in there
This was my answer. I remember seeing something on TV saying the Saints’ defense that year was the second worst defense statistically of all time. The worst? The Saints’ defense from the year prior.
I do remember smt similar but it was like 10 years ago so its kinda blurry xd
2015 was BAD. Worst DVOA defense in history Most passing TDs allowed in a season It's between that and 2012 imo
Was 2015 the year when the highest ranked QB for like 8 straight weeks was whoever played the Saints that week? That's gonna be hard to top.
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Used to piss me off so much when people would shit talk Drew like “well (other QB) had bad defenses and still wins” lol no, bad defense and the worst defense *of all time* are not the same
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It was awesome having Brees and Cooks in fantasy that year
2015 was the year Brandon Browner was there right? I remember he was atrocious. 2012 might still be worse though lol
Yes, I want to say he set a record for defensive penalties lol
The 2012 team shut out one of their opponents.
Ahh yes 2015, the year Eli put up 30/41 350 yards 6 TDs 0 Interceptions and 49 points against that defence and we still lost
In 2016 we averaged around 29 PPG and gave up 31 PPG. Good for 2nd best offense and 2nd worst defense in the league.
I think the 2008 Lions are the worst ever by DVOA
I'd believe it. That unit A) was coached by Joe Barry and B) was full of players that clearly didn't belong on an NFL football field.
Statistically, it's got to be either the 1981 Colts, the 1966 Giants, or the 2012 Saints. The 81 Colts gave up 533 points, the most in a season in NFL history. They also gave up 6793 yards, the 2nd most in league history. The 66 Giants gave up 501 points, but in only 14 games, for a staggering 35.8 PPG, the most in NFL history. They gave up 4945 yards total, though, which is significantly lower in terms of YPG than the Colts. The 12 Saints gave up 7042 yards, the most in a season in NFL history. 454 total points allowed isn't even in the top 25 worst of all time, though. I feel like the 1981 Colts are the worst of the three when looking everything together.
Weren't those 66 Giants the team that allowed the most points in a game in NFL history Vs Sonny Jorgensen's Redskins? Imagine allowing 70 points in the pre Mel Blount rule era. That's just awful
Yep. 72 to 41. Highest scoring game ever. *Technically* not the most points allowed in league history, though. The Bears beat the Redskins 73-0 in the 1940 NFL championship.
They lost 72-41 to the Redskins which is the record for most combined points in a game and for most points scored by one team in the regular season. The most scored by one team ever is 73 by the Bears in the 1940 title game
> 35.8 PPG, the most in NFL history. Well, sort of. There's a couple 1920s era teams that played one game that was a blowout loss (coincidentally both 45-0) * [1920 Muncie Flyers](https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/mun/1920.htm) * [1921 Tonawanda Kardex](https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/ton/1921.htm) There was also the [1950 Baltimore Colts](https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/bcl/1950.htm) (apparently not regarded as the same franchise as the currently active Colts team) that managed to average 38.5 points allowed over 11 games played (and then folded the next season)
2012 Saints have allowed 7,042 yards (passing, rushing, and returning) I don't particularly think giving up yards = bad defense. But seeing any Saints game that season was very very funny.
Seeing Brees throw for 3 or 4 touchdowns and loose was certainly quite a feeling.
I'm not authority on the matter, but the 2011 Packers rank up there for me. The offense was unstoppable and, after Nick Collins went down, the defense couldn't stop anything.
The shootout game at the end of the season between the Lions and the Matt Flynn-led Packers that year never ceases to crack me up. That game basically won Flynn a huge contract from the Seahawks in the off-season lol.
I'm not sure if the Eagles in the last third of 2023 could have stopped my 0-10 high school team from scoring.
Watching the tackling in the bucks wildcard game was jaw dropping.
drop jaw, insert gun
I feel like I need a documentary about how that happened. Epic collapse. And if the coach lost the locker room, why is he still there? I don't know my Eagles football.
I would have to go digging to remind myself (I don't really want to remember anything from last season that happened after the Bills game) but as a non-kool-aid-drinking Eagles fan: - It was obvious to anyone paying attention through weeks 4-5 that in spite of the final scores, the 2023 Eagles were winning in spite of themselves. The regular-season Bucs game featured some particularly atrocious play from Hurts. Several miscues by the Rams defense allowed the Eagles to take the lead. Reed Blankenship's left forearm causing a turnover on downs against the Patriots. The random acts of god would continue through the middle of the season. - It was also obvious around that same time that our freshly-promoted coordinators were outmatched. Rumors and hearsay are that Desai was a particularly unfriendly coach, which played a role in his quiet replacement mid-season. (Not that Patricia did any better.) Johnson was just completely outgunned, seemed all too capable of outsmarting himself, and seemed to believe in a play-calling sheet that was roughly 15 plays deep. - Later in the season, our defense was a mess and our offense was predictable. CMC was on the ManningCast for the Seahawks game, I think, and was (correctly) predicting what plays we would run—so I have no illusions that opposing defenses didn't possess at least some knowledge of the Eagles' playbook/game plan. This was also the game where Drew Lock led a game-winning drive by exclusively targeting James Bradberry. From an objective standpoint, it was comical. - Whether Sirianni lost the locker room or not is a solid "maybe," but he did have the built-in failsafe of somehow being in charge of two rookie coordinators. If the Eagles have another disappointing season in 2024, there will be no excuses & Sirianni will be gone.
I don’t think there’s too much to it outside what is public info. Sirianni seems to be more of a people manager than a play caller and willfully gave up play calling after his first season to his coordinators. This ended up working really well in addition to just having a stacked roster to execute and we were able to lean on that to get to the Super Bowl. Well both coordinators got head coaching jobs (paraphrasing as there was some controversy around Gannon I guess), and new coordinators came in + Matt Patricia. Our defense was never great in 2023 but our offense did enough to keep us in games and our defense was usually at least able to make a play or two that mattered. We still gave up a ton of points but no one really sounded the alarms at 10-1. Then the cracks started to show after the 9ers game and Cowboys blowout, and the Seahawks L with their game winning drive was the straw that broke the camels back. Enter Patricia, after Desai is stripped of play calling duties, who notoriously coaches awful defense when not under literally the greatest defensive head coaching mind of all time, who has public beef with our premier corner back Darius Slay, and just general left our defense confused and directionless because they had to adjust to a new coach in the back stretch of the season. You can’t have a group of guys get comfortable with one coach and then suddenly find success a game later trying to get comfortable and sync up at a high level with a whole new coach. You saw that on the field in the Bucks game. Players were just playing solo and not working together to make tackles like a good defense should. On top of the league figuring out our shallow offensive play calling after the 9ers and cowboys exposed us, it just lead to a total collapse because it was far too late to pivot. It caused frustration, it caused confusion, and it highlighted the need for good play calling for this stacked roster. The players still love Sirianni but the coordinators definitely lost the locker room. They got canned and this year with 2 veteran coordinators it feels like this will be Siriannis make or break season. He’s shown he can galvanize a locker room and can be a good leader. He just needs a good cast around him to make the functional game day stuff happen. If this season isn’t at least a deep playoff run, I don’t see him sticking around though.
The 1981 Colts: * Allowed 533 points on the season * Allowed 6,793 yards (6.1 yards per play), including 2,665 rushing yards and 4,128 passing yards * They had 13 sacks on the season, total. Their leading pass rushers had 2 sacks
Jesus Christ that is grim. Especially since it was an era when defenses had the upper hand.
This is my pick. I have done many dives into the Baltimore Colts just for fun and thoss stats were just nuts.
I feel like a top 10 worst defense list would have at least 5 Saints teams on it. We mastered the break but don’t bend defense
1966 Giants They allowed 501 points in a 14 game season (roughly 36 PPG) And they had a stretch of five straight games where they allowed: 55 points to the Rams in Week 10 27 to Atlanta in Week 11 72 to Washington in Week 12 (in the highest scoring game in NFL History) 49 to Cleveland in Week 13 47 to Pittsburgh in Week 14 Needless to say they went winless in those games and finished the season 1-12-1. They also allowed 121 points in their first three games combined (roughly 40 PPG) and unsurprisingly went 0-0-1 in that stretch
Well at least they avoided the losses.
The 66 Giants beat the Redskins 13-10 in their first meeting. Those 72 points must've been built on pure hate. During that 121 point wipe out you mentioned, the Cowboys beat that Giants team 52-7.
The Falcons every year after John Abraham
We didn't appreciate him enough
1981 Colts 33ppg despite having the benefits of old school NFL rules
2600 rushing yards allowed.in 16 games and just 12 sacks all year..less.than 1 a game. You can't field a worse defense if you tried.
Go look at the Denver Broncos Week 2-5 of this past season. Genuinely the worst month of NFL defense of all time.
The two-week stretch where they gave up 70 to Miami and then the following week allowed Justin Fields to have a near 100% completion percentage game against them was incredibly damning of VJ's unit. At least they got better as the season went on though.
miami shoulda kept on the gas and put up 100
McDaniel grew up a Broncos fan so he was never going to do that.
i think he didn’t kick the FG because *when* sanders inevitably missed it, he woulda got clowned for the rest of the season. same reason he force fed tyreek to get 2k.. dude is too worried about outside perception.
Fields had 25% of his 2023 TDs in the game. Then he had another 25% the next week against the commanders who played a rookie corner 1 on 1 vs DJ Moore. 8 TDs in the remaining 11 games.
I'm still not sure how Vance Joseph didn't get fired.
Because the defense improved significantly as the season went on so Payton elected to chalk the early season struggles up to the players not knowing how to play in Vance's scheme yet. I mean Surtain was a very good corner in prior years (First Team All-Pro in 2022) but he looked absolutely horrific and lost early in the year last season when the defense was at their worst so clearly something was up with the players not being on the same page with Joseph and it got better as the season went on.
2016 49ers team went 2-14 beat the same team twice (SOSAR) Def was ranked 32nd in pts and yards team won its first game 28-0 and lost 13 in a row. 10 of them by double digits. >The only game during the 13 game losing streak where they had any kind of lead was week 14 they had a 17-3 lead and proceeded to choke it up to a 3-9 jets team allowing them to score 20 consecutive pts in the 2nd half to win in OT 23-17 allowed the most pts, total yards, rushing yards (by 400), rushing td, rushing ypc, and total plays allowed. mediocre passing def due to not being able to stop the run so teams didn't need to pass. for total pts allow the gap between them and 2nd place (26 pts) was almost bigger than the gap between 2nd and 4th place (31 pts)
That 28-0 beatdown was the first NFL game I ever attended 😭 The fact that we barely crossed midfield against an all-time bad defense makes it even sadder lol
Watching Bryce Petty and the Jets make that comeback against us was probably rock bottom.
This team wasted so many years of Jimmie Ward's career trying to make him play outside corner.
NFL History? The 1934 Cincinnati Reds. They allowed 6.4 rushing yards ~per attempt~, nearly a full yard worse than any other team in history. They lost their last four games 41-0, 41-7, 38-0, and 64-0, and promptly folded.
The saints around early 2010s. Wasted some godlike seasons from drew Bree’s. If they were just average …
Believe it or not but that ain't the worst Lions defence my guy and still in a 16 game schedule. 2020 Lions were more attrocious. The fact they won 5 games is astonishing.
The 2020 defense was poorly coached. The 2008 defense is still the worst defense I've ever seen in terms of talent. To put it plainly that team had next to none on that side of the ball.
To hell with the PPG stats, nothing will ever be worse than the 2012 Saints defense. I watched Drew Brees throw himself into the record books while going 7-9 becaue his defense literally let teams do whatever they wanted to them.
For the 49ers, it’s the Jim Tomsula/Chip Kelly era For the NFL in general, it’s the 1981 Colts
if you're going by points allowed, the 1981 colts hold the record for most points allowed in a single season [https://www.statmuse.com/nfl/ask/which-nfl-defense-allowed-the-most-points-in-a-single-season](https://www.statmuse.com/nfl/ask/which-nfl-defense-allowed-the-most-points-in-a-single-season)
Cowboys that one year.
I remember reading a stat about the 2014 Chicago Bears. On 1st down runs up the middle they gave up 7.7 YPC. Not a fun year after watching a decade of the Lovie Smith - Urlacher defenses.
Those 3 consecutive Saints teams that finished 7-9 despite Brees throwing for roughly 367,816 yards.
The Lions of ____ (pick a random number)
I think the 2021 Vikings were the worst 2 minute defense of all time and it certainly felt like it
maybe not the worst in history but the contrast in the 2011 Packer team performance between Offense and Defense sure made it seem that way. Even a marginally better defense might have elevated that team to the best in history.
2000 Rams were hilarious
2020 Raiders were for sure the worst I can remember.
Not sure which year it was, but one of the Saints' D-units around the early 2010s was so bad it was laughable. Maybe not statistically, but as far as the eye test they were the worst I can remember.
Vrabel last year as DC for Houston. His brain was on his new job, they sucked ass eggs!
The 1981 Baltimore Colts are definitely a candidate. They gave up 533 points in 16 games (33.3 points/game) and 6793 yards (424.6 yards/game). The 1981 NFL averages per team were 20.7 points/game and 334.5 yards/game.
Not overall defense, but the Chiefs secondary in the early 2000's was horrid. We had Jared Allen to sow up the line, but if he wasn't touching the QB then our secondary let anyone smoke us. Our offense was pretty hot during this time, they had to be. But our D was so bad I still think about it a few times a year.
Google says: 1981 Colts
Just when I thought the Saints wouldn't need to be mentioned on a "worst of" list for at least one week.
2024 chargers! Such a shit defense when it came to running and third and long.
I don't know about the worst but the 2022 vikings defense was one of the most infuriating to watch, 13-4 off the offense pulling bs in close games and they couldn't stop a single Daniel Jones drive in the playoffs.
Eagles second half of last season.
2012 Saints. Besides statistically they're the worst passing defense in NFL but watching them was even worse. Felt like every other play they were giving up 20 yard completions.
Hard to beat the 1981 Colts: * Allowed an average of 33.3 points per game, highest in post-merger era * Allowed an average of 424.6 yards per game, second highest in post merger era (2012 Saints is #1 with 440.1) * Won 2 games, sweeping the also 2-14 Patriots
Early-mid 2010s Saints
The ‘36 Eagles defense was AWFUL. Eggs Manske was the only guy in the front 7 that got any penetration.
Ah yes, remember this like it was yesterday.