From The Outhouse To The Penthouse: Getting The Detroit Lions To The Super Bowl

First, I would like to dedicate this article to Killer Kowalski, the best beat writer for any team in any sport.

Now that the game that the Lions have never been to is over, the articles will start flying around and expounding on who they should draft to play this and that position and who they should hire to run this or that aspect of the team.

Before all this uninformed, wild speculation begins, I would like to add my own uninformed, wild speculation to the fray.

I would submit to you, the intrepid reader, that building a Super Bowl team is a simple thing—maybe not an easy one, but a simple one nonetheless.

Any focused, patient owner with a process for identifying and developing competence and talent among his executives can do it.  In other words, even William Clay Ford can do it. We've seen it done in Detroit before, and we can see it done here.

Here's how:

When Joe Dumars retired, he was immediately named president of basketball operations by Bill Davidson. When Mr. Davidson did so, he did not interview a ton of candidates and decide on Dumars after an exhaustive search. No. He knew Joe. He was comfortable with Joe. The team had been mediocre, so he gave the job to Joe because Joe had a vision of what Piston basketball was.

Joe then promptly lost Grant Hill to free agency and got a journeyman point guard named Atkins, and a big man who's no longer even with the team (his name escapes me) in return. He then passed on Mo Peterson when we needed a small forward and picked Mateen Cleaves because Cleaves was a leader. Mo has been a double digit scorer his entire NBA career and Cleaves probably hit double digits once or twice in Europe or the NBDL or something.

Now bear with me. There's a point to all of this.

Joe then went on to win 30 games. They fired the coach that would rather be golfing and found Rick Carlisle.

It is here where the comparisons between Lions and Pistons begin to make sense. It is here where their may be a glimmer of hope for Ford.

It's not that Dumars found Carlisle, it was how he found Carlisle. Joe shook every tree, looked under every rock, and interviewed every candidate before he pulled the trigger on Carlisle.

It was here that things really began to take shape for the Pistons franchise. It is a moment like this that things will begin to take shape for the Lions too.

William Clay Ford (WCF to all the cool people) hasn't shown anything of the competence and vision for running his franchise that Mr. Davidson had shown running the Pistons all these years, except for possibly being patient, and possibly picking Mayhew.

Mayhew was no more a Millen acolyte than Dumars was a Jack McCloskey or Rick Sund acolyte. But I think Ford, very aware of the terrible decision he made to keep Millen so long, was attracted to Mayhew because he saw a polar opposite in demeanor and approach from what we all saw in Millen.

Think about what we've been able to observe thus far under the Mayhew regime:

1. The Lions have been very deliberate in their approach to hiring a coach.

2. They've been very disciplined regarding messaging and leaks.

3. They were able to fleece the Cowboys for Roy Williams who was worth a second round pick at best. (When was the last time you saw a non-Pro Bowl skilled-position guy go for a first round pick?)

4. They've been very low-key—very boring, with no limelight seeking, and no controversy.

5. They hired a first-time head coach, who then hired coordinators that have more head-coaching experience than him. If nothing else, the guy is secure in himself

Now think about how Joe runs the Pistons.

The similarities go beyond this, of course. Neither ran teams prior to their current job, both were extremely well respected players in their leagues, and both are young.

And even though I'd spent the bulk of this article talking about the GM's, the point is about the owners.

In looking back at the ascension of Joe Dumars and comparing it to the incubation of Martin Mayhew, I see two owners that looked at two people they knew with specific visions and the ability to articulate and implement them, compared and contrasted them with employees they'd had, and found something formidable in both.

I must say with this move, I see a little Dumars in Mayhew, but more importantly , there may be a little glimmer of Davidson in Ford.