Matt Millen took over as chief decision maker for the Detroit Lions in 2001.  Such would begin one of the most futile reigns of any general manager in the history of organized sports.

The first season produced a 2-14 record.  Things were almost as bad the next season, Marty Mornhinweg directing his troops to a three-win season.

And so it would go for seven seasons and change with Matt Millen at the helm.  Every year the team would finish below .500, some more embarrassing than others (like the 0-16 fiasco in 2008). 

The wrong coaches were hired, the wrong quarterbacks chosen, the wrong draft pick over and over again.  It was a disaster of epic proportions, and the only real miracle is that Millen was permitted to run the franchise for as long as he did. 

So what was an organization to do when it was decided that a new leader was desperately needed?

Did they go poke around New England or Green Bay, trying to pluck some young up-and-comer from their front office to take over in Detroit?

Did they go pry a legend like Ron Wolf out of retirement?

Regardless of what the final decision was going to be, you could rest easy knowing that after such an extended run of ineptitude, this franchise was going to turn over every rock and search in every little corner to uncover the very best man for the job. 

Right? 

Well, it turns out they had a different philosophy entirely, and now the team is paying the ultimate price.

Simply Indefensible

What the team actually did required no searching at all.  They simply shoved Millen aside, and promoted the man directly to his right, Martin Mayhew.

You read that right.  Following the darkest period in franchise history, the Detroit Lions actually decided to promote from within.  Simply indefensible.

The results that followed such a choice almost do not matter.  Whether Mayhew would have directed the Lions to a slew of Super Bowls or botched the job and taken them to the worst record in the league (today’s reality), it does not change the fact that such a franchise-altering decision was made without the slightest bit of thought or imagination.

How much lazier does it get from an organizational standpoint than to watch the losses pile up, the draft picks flame out of the league, the coaches dismissed every 2-3 years, then simply decide, “Well, that was a complete bust. Hey, let’s just hire that guy sitting over there.”

It’s one thing to be excited by someone that spent years assisting a genius.  Then you figure some of the intelligence rubbed off, that this unproven commodity will assuredly find success when given his own opportunity at the helm.

But this wasn’t that.  This was ridding the Lions of Millen, in essence admitting that his regime was an outright disaster, but somehow saying in the same breath that we really admired the work of those operating right underneath him.  The logic of the situation was never apparent to me.  Maybe that’s because there never was any to begin with.

Such a diatribe is in no way suggesting that the Lions continued struggles all falls on the shoulders of Martin Mayhew.  He has improved upon the very low bar set by Millen and even put together a couple of rosters that qualified for postseason play.  But he was never the right man for this post.

The Ford family needed prove to the people of Detroit in 2008 that losing 10, 11, 12, even 16 games every year was not acceptable.  They needed to break open the piggy bank and go find the most experienced, successful personnel man in the business.  Even if it was a football dinosaur like Bill Parcells, at least the loyal-to-a-fault Lions fans could have slept that night knowing the organization was fully committed to forming a consistently worthwhile product.

Instead, they inexplicably chose to reward the assistant to the least successful general manager in the league’s near century-long history.

Deja Vu

So now we are back, living in 2008 all over again, even if the calendar tells us it’s seven years later.  The team has sunk to the very bottom of the sea, fans and media alike calling for all key decision-makers to be booted, much sooner rather than later. 

Mayhew will eventually be part of such a housecleaning, and all will celebrate on the streets as if some giant hurdle was cleared, as if many victories and champagne-filled locker rooms will commence shortly thereafter.

But what reason is there to believe this changing of the guard will be handled any better than it was almost a decade ago? 

The Lions have undoubtedly been the worst professional sports franchise since the 21st century began.  Half of that was under the watch of Matt Millen, the other half under Martin Mayhew.

You’d think tomorrow would have to be better.  That when you hit rock bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up.

Unfortunately, we’ve seen that is not always the case. 

The Same Helpless Place

The Lions went zero and sixteen in 2008, the only time it’s even been done.

One general manager later and they are back in the exact same spot, a single win better in the ledger, but in absolutely the same helpless place from an overall organizational outlook.

There’s an old Seinfeld episode where George tries defending his eating of an eclair that he’d found in the garbage.  His argument was that it was above the other trash, that it was unsullied by its surroundings, that it was still plenty good enough to rescue and consume enjoyably.

But Jerry knows better.  If it was in the trash, then it’s trash.  As Jerry says, “Adjacent to refuse...is refuse.” 

The comparison is not apples to apples, but the Millen-to-Mayhew trade-off was very much life imitating art. 

The Lions had to discard their past, get rid of it entirely in one foul swoop.  But they tried to cheat the process.  They convinced themselves there was a bar of gold sitting just beneath the surface of grime.

They were wrong.  So very wrong.  And as a result, our gridiron nightmare continues.

With no end in sight.