Martin Mayhew and Jim Schwartz Need Time To Develop Detroit Lions

Playoffs:  The final frontier

These are the hopes of the Detroit Lions.

Their five-year mission:  To explore the second season, to seek out home-field advantage, to boldly go where no Detroit Lions team has been in 10 years!

I'm not sure if there are any Star Trek fans out there.  And while the above take-off on that great series may or may not be humorous, there is an element of truth to it, don't you think?

In the first year of their five-year mission, Captian James Schwartz led these Detroit Lions to a less than stellar season.  But that was hardly unexpected after the 10 year reign of ineptness under the regime of Matt Millen.

On the Bleacher Report and other blogs, I have noticed a trend of impatience among Lions fans.  Again, not something that is unexpected, as we have been waiting for 52 years to have the Lions bring home a championship.

It's embarrassing that one of the oldest football teams in the NFL has yet to play in a Super Bowl, let alone win one.  They are the oldest of the five teams that have never played in a Super Bowl, thanks to the Arizona Cardinals reaching the big dance last season.

This isn't anything new to us.  I bring it up only because it sets up a point I think needs to be made:  We need to give Martin Mayhew and Jim Schwartz a chance to develop and mold the Lions into a playoff caliber team.

Matt Millen was in office for a dismal 10 years.  You can say that William Clay Ford Sr. gave him more than enough time.  However, including interim coaches, Millen hired or appointed five head coaches during that time.

How can any team gain any kind of consistency with that kind of turnover at the head coaching position?  The answer is you can't.  There isn't any way a team can be torn down and rebuilt that many times and expect to be successful.

The jury is still out on Mayhew as far as how successful he will be as a NFL general manager.  Early returns are favorable.  His first move, trading WR Roy Williams to the Dallas Cowboys for their first, third and sixth round picks, resulted in the Lions getting TE Brandon Pettigrew, WR Derrick Williams and TE Dan Gronkowski.

Williams and Gronkowski didn't contribute much in the 2009 season.  Pettigrew, after a slow start, began to pick up his game and should be a more formidable weapon for QB Matthew Stafford over the next three or four years.

According to his bio on the Detroit Lions web site, Mayhew is the team's executive decision-maker.  His focus is on "building the Lions through a plan that focuses on developing a physically tough football team."

If he can keep finding players like safety Louis Delmas, I'd say he's on the right track.  Matthew Stafford fits the bill as well, showing his toughness in the Lions win over the Cleveland Browns.

As for Captain Schwartz, I have a pretty good feeling the Lions finally have the right man for the job to turn this team around.  Of course that feeling took a pretty good hit when he praised left tackle Jeff Backus but hey, not everyone can be perfect.

He comes from a very solid coaching tree, working with Bill Belichick while at the Cleveland Browns, Ted Marchibroda with the Baltimore Ravens and of course Jeff Fisher of the Tennessee Titans.

He is a deeper thinker than recent Lions head coaches.  He's a firm believer in statistical analysis and has a reputation as one of the NFL's leading practitioners of putting it to use on the field.

For instance, he discovered that running the ball on third and short situations was more effective than passing. At the time, that sentiment was against the grain in the NFL.  Now, many teams will run in third and short situations.

I've said it before and I will say it again: This upcoming draft will be the most critical for Martin Mayhew.  In the same vein, the 2010 season will be just as critical for Jim Schwartz and his coaching staff.  At minimum, in order to say the 2010 season is successful, they will have to triple the number of wins they got last year.

Granted, going 6-10 would be yet another losing season, their 10th in a row.  I don't want the Lions to have yet another negative distinction, but I would take the improvement.  Another season with less than four wins would be tough to deal with.

Isn't that just a sad state of affairs?  That in the near future, Lions fans can only hope they don't sucks as bad as the previous year?  But it is what it is.

Which brings us to the real crux of the issue:  Willam Clay Ford, Sr.  Mayhew and Schwartz may be the right men in the right place.  But does anyone know just how much influence the inept owner has on football decisions?  I know that he and Millen talked a lot during Millen's time with the Lions.

Perhaps too much blame is placed on Mr. Ford's shoulders.  Not that I plan on going soft on the old man.  He owns the Lions, he's the one responsible for the direction they go.  He's the one that has a lot of say in who is going to run his franchise.  While he may not be part of the day-to-day operations, he is the person responsible for hiring the people who are in charge.

Hopefully, after 45 years of mediocrity and a dismal playoff record, he finally has the right crew in place.

Is five years too long to turn it around?  I'm sure all of us would rather they do it in two seasons. But the pessimist in me feels that five years is more realistic.

As Mr. Spock would say, It's only logical.