Worse way to lose: Cleveland Browns’ Kick-6 or Detroit Lions’ Hail Mary?

Their cities are separated by about a three-hour drive. The Cleveland Browns and Detroit Lions have an almost cosmic connection of futility. And just this week, only four days separated two of the most incredible and gut-wrenching losses for each franchise as time expired.

There might be no more savage, Browns-y loss than Monday’s Kick-6 disaster against the Baltimore Ravens. Thursday’s Hail Mary win by the Green Bay Packers was the Lions’ history summed up in a single, crushing play. 

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The Browns’ last playoff victory was January 1, 1995. The Lions haven’t had one since January 5, 1992. In lieu of postseason success, each team seems to torture its fans with moments of nearly impossible futility.

So which loss was more devastating and cruel? Which loss registers higher on the torture scale?

Let’s start with Thursday. There was less nothing on the line for the Browns in this game, with no playoff hopes on the line and no real progress to be made with two quarterbacks — Josh McCown and Austin Davis who have no apparent stake in the future of the team.

So when they lined up to kick a potential game-winning kick against the Ravens, the eventual outcome — having it blocked and run back for a score  — seemed almost impossible by normal-team standards but wholly likely if you know anything about the Browns and their patterned penchant for losing in only the more inventive ways possible.

So much so that many people actually foretold this ending before the play on Twitter.

Losing on a Hail Mary pass, as the Lions did, really is nothing new. We’ve seen those plays before, although they seem to occur far more frequently in college football than they do in the NFL (yes, the Packers might disagree with this sentiment).

But it was the play before the Hail Mary that made it all the more painful: a facemask call against Devin Taylor — and a questionable one at that — that extended the game by one untimed down after it should have been over. When was the last time you saw a team start lateralling the ball in prayer mode and then get to run a play after that?

Both teams also lost to hated rivals, giving those wounds a nice, thorough salt rub. It’s hard to say which one was more soul-crushing than the other.

But we’re going to go with the Lions by a sliver here. There was more to lose in this game, with the Lions faintly in the playoff loss and with the chance to sweep the Packers for the first time since Matthew Stafford was 2 years old, and in theory the play never should have happened with what appeared to be an inadvertent facemask that by the rules shouldn’t be called.

The Browns were going for the win, but a plain-old missed field goal sends them to overtime. They still could have played on in that scenario. 

Don’t believe me? Here’s my final point: When you read Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel, who was at Thursday’s game, he notes that the Lions admitted to not be expecting a Hail Mary pass but rather another series of laterals, which is almost a fireable offense. The loss was as much human coaching error as it was dumb luck.

What do you think?

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Eric Edholm is a writer for Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Eric_Edholm