Detroit Lion's Firing of Matt Millen Changes Nothing

They were dancing in the streets the morning after William Clay Ford, Sr. fired Lion’s General Manager Matt Millen.

But in reality this changes nothing in an organization that has suffered with a cancer for 44 years — since 1964 when Ford purchased the team. The Lions last won a championship in 1957, the year after I was born, and I shoulder none of the blame for the ensuing drought.

General Managers come and go — remember Russ Thomas whose hard-nosed tactics in refusing to renegotiate a player’s contract after the first year just because some other player in another organization inked a deal that paid more were considered old school? And the coaches come and go, never to coach elsewhere in the NFL. Wayne Fontz, who scrapped the Run ‘n’ Shoot offense because it scored too quickly, leaving his defense on the field too long; Marty Morninweg, whose brilliant strategy in a sudden death overtime game was to give the ball to the opposition to start the overtime period because he believed his defense, which had given up points to the opposition in their last three possessions to lead to the overtime and were standing on the sidelines bent over sucking wind, was the best strategy, and perhaps it was if his goal was to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory; Darryl Rogers who, after his firing, was quoted: “What took them so long?”; Bobby Ross and Monte Clark among other no-names. Nothing really changes.

But the players come and go, too, and nothing changes. For 10 years the Lions had, arguably, the best running back to ever carry a pigskin — Barry Sanders — and they were no closer to the promised land the final year Barry played than they were after his rookie season.

General managers come and go, head coaches are hired and fired, players are drafted, signed, injured, retire or are traded away to become stars for other teams: All things flow; nothing abides. Except in the Lion’s ownership.

And why should it? Lions’ fans pack Ford Field for every home game, while Bill Ford, Jr. gives all the politically correct rhetoric that they (the fans) deserve better. But in the words of William Munny in Unforgiven in response to Little Bill’s outrage that he doesn’t “deserve to die like this:” “Deservin’s got nothing to do with it.” Shame on the Lions, shame on the Fords; but shame on the fans, too, for continuing to support this hapless franchise. Only when the team plays before an empty house will anything really change.

At least Mike Illitch, owner of the Red Wings and Tigers, when he couldn’t give away tickets to Wings games in the 1980s, went out and signed some players and a bona fide hockey coach, did the same for the Tigers, and now those teams are at least fun to watch. The Wings won the Stanley Cup last year, again in 1997, 1998 and 2002, while the Tigers made it to the Fall Classic two years ago, and won it all 1984 and 1968.

The Lions? In 44 years, under Ford's stewardship, the Lions have won one playoff game. Other teams build dynasties; those dynasties crumble only to rise from the dust to fall again while the Lions continually put forth the same pathetic product, a model of mediocrity, a franchise of futility, perhaps even a symbol of what the automotive industry has become: unable to compete in this modern era.