NFL: Detroit Lions will be in the playoffs in 2014 if…

When it comes to futility, there are the Detroit Lions and arguably, there is everyone else.

We are certainly not trying to be neither cruel nor disrespectful, but the facts are the facts when it comes to a franchise that is the only one in the current NFC not to have reached the Super Bowl.

What’s in a number? The club’s last NFL title came in 1957, which means it will have been 57 years in 2014 since the Men from the Motor City won it all. The Lions have not won a division title since 1993, haven’t picked up a postseason victory since 1991 and this offseason, Jim Caldwell became the eighth man to serve as the team’s head coach since 2000.

Talk about teases? After reaching the playoffs in 2011 (the Lions’ first appearance since ’99), this club has fallen apart during the second half of each of the last two seasons. And even that year that then-head coach Jim Schwartz took them to the postseason, a 5-0 start (the franchise’s best since 1956) turned into a 5-6 finish and eventually a Wild Card round setback at the Superdome to the New Orleans Saints.

So in regards to the Lions making their first Super Bowl appearance, we quote the honorable Judge Smails…

This is the 10th part of a 32-team series in which we’ll look at the “if, and & but’s” of each team’s chances to make the postseason.

Meanwhile, Detroit will reach the playoffs for the second time in four seasons…