Thursday, September 25, 2008
The Long, Strange Trip of Matt Millen
I was going to entitle this column, "At Last, Our Long National Nightmare is Over," but damn it, the incomparable Kissing Suzy Kolber blog beat me to it (they made it one of their blog tags on the Millen story, rather than the headline)
I'm not a Lions fan, but my goodness has my heart bled for those fans for years and years and years.
In Millen's first year, 2001, the Lions regressed from 9-7 and a narrow miss at the playoffs to 2-14, a very ugly sendoff for the venerable Pontiac Silverdome. The christening of Fold Field the following year saw the team improve to a sparkling 3-13 record.
Two years of near-league worst records is often enough to lead to the ouster of many coaches and executives — Cam Cameron was let go as the Dolphins head coach after just one 1-15 season in charge — but Millen rode the wave another year, and head coach Marty Mornhinweg was fired instead.
2003 was another stinker at 5-11. During Millen's first three years in charge, the Lions won nary a single road game; their 24-straight road losses remains a league record. Surely, with now historically bad results, Millen must not be retained.
But no; another double-digit loss season, thanks in large part to horrendous draft picks Millen is widely credited with being responsible for (Charles Rogers, Mike Williams, Joey Harrington), and Millen, stunningly, is given a three-year contract extension.
With that, Lions fans rightfully lost their minds. It's one thing to be patient to the extreme in trying to turn a losing football franchise into a winner. It's another to actually reward an executive after 16 victories in four years.
To understand how the contract extension happened, you have to understand William Clay Ford, Sr., owner of the Lions. I can't claim to know him, but I can glean certain things from the facts.
1) Ford is 83 and was 75 when he hired Millen. I'm not really sure how sharp he is or has been over the past decade, but he seems to get around well enough. His prime was in the '40s and he fought in World War II. I would have to think loyalty means something more to him than future generations. That sounds like a compliment, but I don't mean it to be.
2) Here's an interesting Millen retrospective photo gallery . There's several photos therein of Ford and Millen together, and in almost every one, Ford is regarding Millen with a beatific smile on his face. Ford clearly loves the guy. If we haven't benefited from it ourselves, we at least know people who have been kept on jobs much longer than they should've because for one reason or another, they caught the apple of the boss's eye.
3) This isn't the first time Ford has kept on key personnel long, long after they outstayed their usefulness. Russ Thomas was GM of the Lions from 1966 to 1989. In that span, the Lions did not win a single playoff game. Ford purchased the Lions in 1964. Thomas died in 1991.
So the 2005 contract extension was perhaps not so surprising, but it did enrage the Lions' fan base. 2005 is when the "Fire Millen" movement picked up steam, helped along by gestapo Ford Field security guards ejecting fans holding "Fire Millen" signs. A "Millen Man march" was organized. Lion fans would wear the colors of the opposing team to home games. They would stage halftime walkouts.
But as Millen remained in 2005, 2006, and 2007 (5-11, 3-13, 7-9 with a 1-7 finish), the Fire Millen movement did not simply spread, but became a solidarity movement among sports fans from across the country and across sports. "Fire Millen" chants would ring out from the Staples Center in Los Angeles to the Verizon Center in Washington, DC, usually when the opposing team was from Detroit, but sometimes not. Of course, fans of the Vikings, Packers. and Bears would come to the games with "Keep Millen" signs and chants.
Now it's over, according to the AP, cars zipping past Lions headquarters in Allen Park, and Michigan today cheerfully beeping their horns.
"I've been a season-ticket holder for 28 years and because they fired Matt Millen, I'm going to renew. This is the happiest day of my life," said one fan, Eddie Gates.
One has to wonder if a big part of Millen might not be actually relieved. Although as of this writing it does not appear Millen has talked to the press, his wife has, stating that they are "fine" and that her husband has been let out of "football prison."
In fact, it's the Lions fans who have been set free.