He's been fired. If you are reading this then you know who I mean.
Matt Millen.
The man that has been the bane of the Lions' and their fan's exsistence for the better part of the last decade is gone. He took over operations of the 9-7 Lions and lead them to the least prosperous span of any team in the salary cap era.
So he is gone. And what now? We are left with the worst team in the league. A team that'll likely give up and pack it in for the rest of the season because they know that their coach is probably next to go as soon as the new front office takes over.
We have a team that has had high draft picks for the last several years and yet how many truly exceptional players can you think of on the Lions. Players that other teams would make an attempt to sign if they were available. Maybe six guys.
Honestly, we are left with nothing but shame and the realization that firing Matt Millen is simply not enough. We need a guy like Bill Parcels that can come into the top spot of the Lions organization and just clean house from top to bottom. I don't even want to recognize this team in 3 years. If that means no Roy Williams then so be it.
My best friend is an Oakland Raiders fan, a son of a bitch (like all Raiders fans) and the fact that he can tell me that his team has 10 more wins over the last 8 years then the Lions is an absolute travesty. Someone should be kicked extremely hard in the shin for that. Mike Ditka himself said that this situation is no all Millen's fault. He did draft the players that played, but he didn't play himself.
And isn't that going to be the Lion's biggest hurdle?
The players have really only had to deal with so much of the boos, we have been playing Millen for the last 4 seasons. When the players played bad we blamed it on Millen.
There was an ESPN poll that asked who will miss Millen the most? The Lions, The NFC North rivals of the Lions, or Overrated WRs on Draft Day?
I originally thought that the rivals will miss him the most, but who am I kidding? They didn't fear the Lions before he was here and they won't fear the Lions until they show some sign of life. Then I thought that WRs on Draft Day are going to miss getting picked in the top ten every year, as funny as that is it is also true, which made me cry. But there will always be a GM willing to reach for the promise of the next TO.
The correct answer to that question is that the Lions will miss Millen the most. Not because he was their friend or did right by them. He was horrible, but he was obviously horrible and the biggest target for pundits and fans to point their criticisms at. The Lions players, and this was Ditka's point, were the ones dropping passes, missing blocks, and getting sacked, yet Millen was getting the blame for all those things.
Now, when they suck... like they will, they will have to deal with all the blame. Which I'm sure will lead to all sorts of breakdowns and an eventual boom in the Detroit mental health industries.
Again, I ask. What now?
Week 4 is a BYE. Thank god, we can't lose. So, we'll just have to wait and see who gets the job. I imagine the job will go to an immigrant, because they are the only ones who'll do this job that no American wants.
For now, though, we really should just try to enjoy ourselves. Matt Millen was fired. That is certainly step one. We and Bill Ford have admitted that we have a problem, now... what is the next step?
