Millen Gone — But That Should Only Be The Start

Matt Millen is gone. Done. Fired. Ziggied. Finished.

The Lions, apparently, have taken the first steps in the Eno Plan, seen here on Monday. They fired president Matt Millen late last night.

That’s just the beginning, though. Or at least, it should be just the beginning.

There’s lots more work to do, but none of it — NONE of it — could take place unless Millen was removed. Well, he’s gone now, so let’s get to work.

Do You Believe In Now?

NOW the Lions need to start a search, and an earnest search, for a new football czar. NOW they need to start their scavenger hunt, sending corporate raiders into the offices of the Patriots, Cowboys, Colts, and the like. NOW they have to place phone calls for potential new head coaches, assuring them that the Wicked Witch Is Dead, and it’s safe to come to Oz, er, Detroit. NOW they must totally re-evaluate the rest of the organization, from the scouting department on down.

The Lions must Believe In Now.

A pro football team, more than any other team sport franchise, can operate during the regular season without a GM, per se. Unlike baseball, basketball, and hockey, an NFL team’s roster is pretty much set once the bell rings in September. Few moves are made, beyond signing a free agent or two due to injury. So the Lions must think NOW, but not in the sense that they need to fill Millen’s seat immediately. The NOW part refers to the search and the change in philosophy.

So what of Rod Marinelli?

Well, he’s a lame duck, lamer than lame. Lamer than Gary Moeller was, lamer than Dick Jauron was. Marinelli might as well follow right behind Millen, packing boxes in hand, because there is no scenario at all in which Marinelli keeps his job under a new administration. None. Bet the farm, the kids, the family dog. Marinelli is going to be the ex-coach of the Lions. It’s only a matter of when, not if.

But no sense, really, in changing head coaches now. Not until you get the new czar in place. As I said Monday, now is the time to think rationally. I called for Marinelli’s firing as part of the Eno Plan, and I did indeed suggest that it happen before the next Lions game, on October 5 against the Bears in Detroit. But that was under the assumption that the Lions wouldn’t fire Millen; I thought that canning the coach would be the first step taken, with the Millen axing coming soon after the season ended.

The Lions, frankly, surprised me with this move — and why didn’t I insert the word “pleasantly” in there?

But allow me one more word of cynicism.

The good news, of course, is that the Lions removed Millen, whose 31-84 record during his tenure was beyond bad. It was beyond even embarrassing. It was, truthfully, disgraceful. But I must ask: what was the final straw?

Was it simply the public words of frustration uttered by vice chairman Bill Ford Jr. on Monday?

Well, geez — if THAT’S all it took, then why didn’t Junior say something before? WAY before? There’s been plenty of evidence that suggests Junior has been mystified by Millen for quite some time. So I’m a little ticked that it took a public calling out of his father by Junior to get this done — especially when it should have been said years ago. But that’s all water under the bridge, I suppose.

So the Eno Plan is off to a good start. Millen is gone, Marinelli is soon to be, one would think, and now the franchise’s enema can begin.

Those who have made the honorable mistake of being a regular visitor to OOB know that I was one of the last holdouts when it came to Millen. I jumped off the wagon seconds before the last wheel came off. When the Lions signed Millen to a fat contract extension in 2005, I defended the move. My reasoning was: well, who are you going to get at this point? The Lions were four years into the Millen Era in the summer of ’05, and it just seemed, to me, the wrong time to change direction. I thought that the time lost on a rebuild would be greater than the time it was going to take to correct the problem from within the organization. I still stand by that opinion, by the way.

It wasn’t until sometime in 2006 when I, too, became too mystified to continue defending the man. Millen had no idea, but I was probably one of his last remaining supporters when I saw the light. Hey — I never said I was a fast learner.

So where do the Lions go from here? Well, you already know what I think they should do. As for what they WILL do, here’s my guess.

Tom Lewand, the team’s executive V.P., COO, and salary cap guru, is likely to be in charge on an interim basis, with any personnel decisions being made by assistant GM Martin Mayhew. But it’s all temporary. Such an arrangement will only last until the end of the season. After that, we might be in for one of the most fun and eventful off-seasons in Lions history.

I suppose it’s possible that the Lions will find their Jack McCloskey anytime between now and January, especially if it’s someone who’s currently not affiliated with any other NFL team. You never know how these searches will turn out, once they begin. Someone could fall into their laps rather quickly.

We’re only a third of the way there, folks. The GM is gone, but so must be the coach and the scouting department. But I have a feeling that the first domino has just been knocked over, and for that all Lions fans should be thankful. May as well break out the turkey and the dressing and the cranberry sauce — we just had Thanksgiving in September.

The Good News: Matt Millen Speaks!; The Bad News: Matt Millen Speaks!

It’s funny with Matt Millen. On the one hand, you wish he would make himself more visible, more accessible, more accountable for the mess that has been the Detroit Lions for the past eight years. Then, after he does speak, you wish he hadn’t opened his mouth to begin with. And that’s what has made him one of the most maddening executives, if not THE most maddening, to ever wear a half-Windsor knot in Detroit.

Millen, the Lions GM, poked his head out and talked to the media, portions of which were printed in this morning’s newspaper. And it’s not even really worth discussing. Because things are just fine and dandy, and will all work themselves out. Really.

Feel better now?

Feel better that Millen believes in coach Rod Marinelli? Feel better that he believes in the players on the field? Feel better that a foundation has been laid? Feel better that the Lions are doing things the right way in practice? Feel better that, if we can’t see that, then we don’t know anything about the game of football?

The preceding paragraph pretty much sums up Millen’s words, and notice that I didn’t use any quotation marks, because they really aren’t necessary. It’s gone beyond quoting Millen for a good laugh, like the good old days of two, three years ago, when it was still chic to actually think that he might one day get it. But why quote someone who’s whistling in the dark? We’re now down to just summarizing his words, barely scanning them, the way you do the latest great credit offer you receive in the mail.

Of course, what would I expect him to say, you might ask.

How about a few of these, which I WILL place in quotation marks:

“What’s gone on here is unacceptable, and the fans here deserve better.”

“It tears me up inside that I haven’t been able to deliver for such a nice, loyal owner who should have canned me years ago.”

“If we don’t win this year, there will be changes.”

“The team is finally made up of Rod’s guys, so if we don’t win, he’s out of excuses. We’re ALL out of excuses.”

“We haven’t been able to bring the right talent to the Lions, and for that I am responsible.”

“Sometimes I can’t even look my owner in the eye.”

You know, just for starters.

There’s nothing worse in sports than, when someone does a piss-poor job, not hearing that person admit that they did a piss-poor job. Or to hear what they’re going to do to stop doing a piss-poor job.

With Millen, all you get is a bunch of canned responses that could have been delivered by the office manager instead of the general manager. He’s a walking team brochure. The marketing department must love him.

I’m tired of beating up on Matt Millen. It bores me. The Lions bore me. And there’s no greater indictment in pro sports than that.

Not Hard To Decipher Junior’s Feelings On Millen

One of the prerequisites, if you are contemplating whether to join the bottom feeders and get into blogging or journalism, is to hone your skill at reading between the lines. It’s a talent (?) that will serve you well. I promise.

Sometimes, you will find out, reading between said lines isn’t all that difficult. In fact, you may even find that the spaces between those lines practically reach out and yank on the cuffs of your pants, craving attention.

I’d say that pretty much sums up the feelings Lions Vice Chairman Bill Ford, Jr. has for President Matt Millen — without saying so, of course. Leaving us to our own devices.

Several months ago, in one of those “exclusive” newspaper interviews that was long on quantity but low on quality, Ford spoke on many subjects re: the Lions. Inevitably, the topic turned to Millen, the beleaguered prez with the 31-81 overall record. How would Ford, who pushed for Millen’s hiring, judge the man now?

“Matt doesn’t report to me,” Ford said in the beginning of a non-reply that was more of a reply than you can imagine. “So I don’t feel like I should comment on that.”

Wow. That was one of those things that creates an awkward silence, even if you’re alone reading it, as I was at the time.

The other day, Ford was at it again. He had just attended a Lions training camp practice, and was collared on his way off the field. And again Millen came up, because, well, why wouldn’t he?

“I discussed that earlier in the year (Ed. note: well, not really), and I don’t want to talk about it,” Ford said.

Sheesh.

Ford Jr., left, will talk all day about coach Rod Marinelli; not so when it comes to Millen

That sounds about as far away from even a mild endorsement as you can get, from someone who SHOULD have an opinion, and SHOULD deem it necessary to at least give it a cursory comment.
Junior’s going out of his way to NOT talk about Millen shouldn’t be all that hard to decipher, even for those who don’t make it a point to write drivel about the team as a career, or hobby.

There wasn’t even the obligatory, intelligence-disrespecting attempt to toss us some canned words, like, “I think we’re finally on the right track”, or “No one is more frustrated than Matt,” or anything at all suggesting that Millen has even the tiniest bit of support, or confidence, from Junior.

Rarely have two instances of, essentially, “No comment” spoken so loudly around Lions Land. If you’re inclined to read between the lines — in this case, wide gaps, like a double-spaced child’s book report.

I just found it odd, and like I say, kind of uncomfortable, that Ford Jr. would take such a hard, “mum’s the word” approach when it comes to Millen, when it would have been totally in character and expected if he fed us some malarkey, if only to give the appearances of some solidarity in the executive washroom, whether that was the case or not.

But Ford chose to evade the subject, lamely explaining that since Millen doesn’t report to him, that means he has no opinion on the matter — or at least, not one worth mentioning.

Now, THAT’S some malarkey.

It doesn’t take much of a leap, I don’t believe, to suggest that Ford Jr. declines comment on Matt Millen because he is taking some sort of sage advice from an elder: If you have nothing kind to say, then say nothing at all.

But that advice comes with the rider that, by doing so, by staying mum, you pretty much show your cards anyway. There’s another old saying: The silence is deafening.

Ford was asked what, if any, ramifications there will be if the Lions do not make the playoffs in 2008.

“I’m not getting into that,” Ford said. “I’m not getting into any kind of what-ifs and end of the year. That’ll sort itself out at the end of the year.”

Now THERE’S the kind of canned response that was missing when it came to Millen.

But Ford makes sense in this instance. No reason to talk tough or make threats about people’s jobs, in the first week of training camp, when the team is trying to be optimistic and flowery.

When it comes to Matt Millen, it’s obvious that Junior has little say, if any, in the prez’s fate. It also seems obvious that, HAD he any say, Junior might have pulled the plug on the Millen Era, perhaps even years ago. That part just might frustrate him beyond belief. And might lead one to choke out a “no comment”, when you’d love to do just the opposite.

Of course, that’s just me reading between the lines.

Millen’s Cowardice Has Only One Cure: Winning

The short, dumpy, bespectacled man with the un-combed hair and ill-fitting suit stood before the throng of reporters at his introductory press conference and if you thought he was funny-looking, you were in for a treat once he began speaking.

In a squeaky, nerdy voice singed with Canada, he said, “As long as Jimmy Devellano is the general manager of the Detroy-et Red Wings, we will NOT trade a draft choice.”

It was the summer of 1982, and this little pipsqueak of a man was the one entrusted with the future of a hockey franchise teetering on the brink of self-destruction.

Jimmy Devellano. Jimmy D. The first man hired by new Red Wings owner Mike Ilitch, taking over after the Norris family era had fizzled out with one playoff appearance in 12 years. Years damaged by “Darkness With Harkness” and curious coaching hires and absurd draft choices. Grotesque re-naming of the team the “Dead Things” by an increasingly fed up media and fan base. A new hockey palace, Joe Louis Arena, that was hemorrhaging ticket-buying peasants.

Devellano’s addition, for my money, was the best bang-for-your-buck executive hire in Detroit sports history. He still works for the Red Wings as an Executive Vice President, and has been a key cog for six Stanley Cup winners: three in Detroit, to go along with the three he helped win with the New York Islanders, when he was a scouting genius. Twenty-six years of faithful service in Detroit ensued when Mike Ilitch, in one fell swoop, put an end to the front office nonsense that had been going on with the Red Wings for over a decade.

After he bought the Tigers in 1992, Ilitch monkeyed around with different GMs and scouting directors and player development people before he finally found his gem in David Dombrowski, hired in 2001. This time, Ilitch righted his own wrongs, instead of cleaning up someone else’s mess.

Bill Davidson, who would work out of offices in Detroit, then Pontiac, then Auburn Hills with the Pistons, was trying like mad to get his arms around a highly-dysfunctional front office after he bought out a syndicate of owners in 1974. He made some bad decisions before a league insider tipped him off to a little-known man sitting on the bench of the Indiana Pacers as an assistant coach.

When Davidson hired Jack McCloskey in December 1979, the Pistons had been reduced to expansion team status. McCloskey’s words. Once, Trader Jack offered his entire roster to the Lakers for Earvin “Magic” Johnson. When I reminded him of this youthful indiscretion a couple summers ago, McCloskey laughed, recalling it fondly and with total recollection.

McCloskey, though, was no fool. He built a championship team from the dregs he was handed when he signed on with the Pistons. And he did it rather rapidly, all things considered. Hiring a coach named Chuck Daly accelerated things a bit.

Davidson would learn more lessons after McCloskey departed, all of them the hard way. Until he handed the Palace keys over to Joe Dumars in 2000.

The Red Wings, Tigers, and Pistons have all graduated from the school of hard knocks. The Lions are still in detention hall.

Matt Millen was no coward on the football field. There really aren’t any of those in the NFL, if you want to know. One does not play professional football if one has any propensity toward fear. Millen was a middle linebacker, the kamikaze of the defense. He learned linebacking from the LB factory of college, otherwise known as Penn State University. Some schools make good doctors, or lawyers, or scientists. Penn State made linebackers. And Millen was one of the best – college and pro. He won pro championships – almost being able to fill all of his fingers on one hand with rings.

Millen does not run the Lions, anymore, with the zeal or reckless abandon that he once used to crush enemy ball carriers. There may not be any cowards on the football field, but there sure are some of them walking around in the management offices of professional sports teams across the country.

Millen is now one such coward.

He held an absurd, brief Q&A session with some Detroit sportswriters at the NFL combines in Indianapolis the other day. The newspapers printed portions of it, and the websites ran it in its entirety. But it had all the substance of a rice cake.

The questioners wanted to know why Millen is increasingly less visible and quiet the deeper he gets into his reign, which is now 112 games old – 81 of those losses.

“I can’t do anything about the perception,” he said. “You can perceive it any way you want. The facts are these: I have 100% confidence in Rod Marinelli. I trust him. I think he’s doing it the right way. I trust his words. So I don’t have to say anything. I think he does a great job with it, and I think it’s good. There’s one voice. Go ahead and speak. I’m very comfortable with him. …”

In other words, I’m going to prop my coach out there to take all the heat, even though he’s working with the chicken feathers I’ve given him, his charge being to make chicken salad out of it.

Millen says we can perceive it any way we want. That’s a fastball down the middle.

Millen is in seclusion most days because he has nothing good to talk about. Simple as that. And losing breeds cowardice among executive types.

When the Tigers were losing 119 games in 2003, Dombrowski didn’t vanish. Dumars of the Pistons and Kenny Holland of the Red Wings have put themselves in the line of fire, answering all the “what happened?” questions in the wake of playoff disappointments. No cowards, they. Winning has made them visible, and by extension, brave. And I can assure you that none of them would go into hiding if things were to ever go south again. They’re not those types of dudes.

Because they’re hard-knock school graduates, you see. They have diplomas, where Matt Millen has been too yellow to earn his.

Lions’ New-Found Success Also Buying More Years For Millen

They were both Lions, through and through. One was a player, then a scout, then an assistant coach – even a broadcaster, when radio ruled. Then he was handed the reins to the front office. The other was a Hall of Fame player, then an assistant coach, then promoted to head coach.

Yet that’s pretty much where the similarities ended. Because while Joe Schmidt, the second of the two above-described men, could have been elected mayor of Detroit in certain years, the first – Russ Thomas, was very often times targeted for a coup d’etat. The fans would have led the way with torches and gladly have directed the masses to the nearest guillotine, Thomas in tow.

Of course, there was no Internet, and no sports talk radio to speak of, and therefore no organizers for cleverly-named protests like The Millen Man March, when Russ Thomas ruled the Lions with a tightwad, iron fist in the 1960s, ‘70s, and most of the ‘80s. Yet the Lions did a lot of losing in those days, and the rumble for Thomas’s head was there – if not as public or as loud as today’s pleadings to sack the current GM, Matt Millen.

Russ Thomas, I believe, was maybe the most hated man in Detroit sports history, at the apex of the fans’ vitriol. Just because they couldn’t express their outrage into a cell phone while tooling down I-696, doesn’t make their venom for the man any less so.

Thomas presided over the team in my formative years as a sports fan, and on his watch the drafts were spotty, the money-spending was miserly, the coaching hires often curious. A typical Lions year under Thomas was 7-7, and a distant second place behind the Minnesota Vikings. The playoffs rarely beckoned.

Yet Thomas, a close friend of owner Bill Ford, had rock-solid job security. His time as GM was about 25 years, after Nick Kerbaway left to helm the Pistons in the early-‘60s.

In the mid-‘70s, the Lions had an extremely talented player named Ron Jessie. He was a tall, fleet-footed wide receiver and kick returner who had been a track star in college. He was heading into the prime of his career.

But there was always the issue of money with Russ Thomas, and when there wasn’t enough of it tossed in Jessie’s direction, he took his gazelle-like legs and soft receiving hands westward, to the Los Angeles Rams. Thomas tried to pry a young running back named Cullen Bryant from the Rams as compensation. Bryant didn’t want any part of the Lions. He fought the proposed exile to Detroit tooth and nail. Thomas settled on some draft picks, none of them used wisely anyway.

So Jessie joined the Rams, and was reunited with their head coach, Chuck Knox. A couple years earlier, Knox – a loyal Schmidt assistant, was passed over for the head coaching job here when Schmidt surrendered in his lost power struggle with Thomas. Rams owner Carroll Rosenbloom knew Knox had something, and coaxed him to take over his team. In Los Angeles, Knox led the Rams to one divisional title after the other. They were perennial Super Bowl contenders, thanks to players like Ron Jessie.

Ten years before Knox fled, the Lions let another good one wriggle off their hook. They had under their employ a bright, young secondary coach – the last time the Lions were truly a good football team until Schmidt took them over.

Don Shula, Lions assistant (1960-62)

In subsequent years, when the Lions would get their tails kicked by the Baltimore Colts and then see the whole league get pasted every week by the Miami Dolphins, they’d wonder how good they could have been, had they let Don Shula become their head coach.

Millen, you could say, has perhaps surpassed Thomas in terms of fans’ detest.

The most-hated man in Detroit sports history, since Russ Thomas (or ever?)

The other day, I found myself trapped in the car, a captive audience of sports talk radio. I could have turned the dial, but they sucked me in.

How much credit, the jabbermouths wanted to know, should Matt Millen get for the Lions’ spiffy 6-2 start in 2007?

Not surprisingly, the feeling was unanimous.

NONE!

WXYT Co-host Mike Valenti, kind of a poor man’s Mad Dog Russo (for those fellow oldtimers), literally started yelling into his microphone – not uncommon for him.

“He (Millen) deserves none. Zip. Zilch. Nada. NOTHING. It’s all (coach) Rod Marinelli and (offensive coordinator) Mike Martz. Even Tom Lewand (the salary cap guru) is a better player personnel guy than Millen,” Valenti railed.

The notion that Lewand, a numbers cruncher, is a better judge of football talent than Matt Millen, is laughable. And so is the contention that Millen deserves zero credit for the Lions’ resurgence. But dudes like Mike Valenti aren’t paid to be the beacons of common sense, or rationale.

Thankfully, partner Drew Sharp of the Free Press, frequent wielder of the poison pen when it comes to Millen, voiced some reason.

“You can’t say Millen deserves zero credit,” Sharp said, echoing my out-loud thought as I coasted in traffic. “Because he’s the guy who hired Marinelli.”

“Do you think that was Millen’s call?,” Valenti asked.

Oy vay. Who needs to be rational, if one is wearing headphones blabbing into a microphone?

But I chuckled anyway, because what the callers and Valenti don’t seem to want to accept is that, thanks to this jackrabbit start, the Matt Millen Era figures to have been extended by at least another two, three years. If Ford didn’t fire Millen BEFORE this, what makes you think he’ll do so imminently?

Millen just might approach Russ Thomas’s length of tenure in the Lions’ front office, when all is said and done. Especially said.

Sorry to break it to you.

Again, Ford Wonders What All The Fuss Is About

If only we could all not worry, like Bill Ford Sr. doesn’t worry. If only we could all exhibit the patience of Job, and refrain from hand-wringing. If only we could emerge every so often, unruffled, tanned and relaxed, and ask what all the fuss is about.

Ford, the Lions owner and centurion, did it to us again yesterday. The 82-year-old showed his face at Lions HQ in Allen Park, ostensibly to talk about franchise giant Charlie Sanders and his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame a week from Saturday. And, as he’s done so often in the past, Ford either sounded like: a) the voice of reason; or b) Nero.

To wit, according to Nicholas Cotsonika of the Free Press:

“I’m usually optimistic anyway going in. But I think this year will be a little bit special.”

“I could see right off the bat that they (president Matt Millen and coach Rod Marinelli) were compatible … I got to know Rod much better and I could see where they would mesh. You don’t want to break up a combination like that.”

On reports of Millen’s impending firing last season:

“I don’t know where those originated. I sure never said anything even approaching that — or if I did I didn’t mean to.” (laughs)

“I didn’t say, ‘You’re safe, don’t worry about it,’ in so many words (about Millen’s job security). But by the same token, I never intimated to him that he wasn’t safe. It was business as usual.”

Boy, he’s got THAT right, at least.

On whether his judgment of Millen is clouded because of his personal like of him:

“It’s possible. But I think if you like somebody and you believe in the same things that they believe in, I don’t know what other yardstick to put against it.”

On the 2007 season:

“I’m always an optimist before the season starts … When the team doesn’t live up to it, you’re very disappointed.”

“Thank goodness I can put that behind me and look forward. If I dwelled on the past, I’d shoot myself. Really, I’ve never felt that way. But if I were a fan, I could understand it.”

Talk amongst yourselves.

During the 1995 season, the Lions sitting at 3-6, Ford told the media that coach Wayne Fontes had to make the playoffs to keep his job. They did that, thanks to a 7-0 streak to finish the year. Then in the playoffs, the Lions got whalloped by the Eagles, 58-37 — a game in which they trailed at one point, 51-7.

Surely, the scribes and blabbermouths on the radio said, Fontes cannot possibly survive this debacle. For several days, speculation ran rampant that Fontes would be fired. That nobody could lay an egg like that and keep his already-tenuous job.

Ford emerged a couple weeks later, and he said, basically, that Fontes had achieved the mandate, and made the playoffs. His job was safe. And again, Ford wondered what all the fuss was about. He suspected, apparently, that we would think that simply making the playoffs, then getting torched on national TV, would be acceptable.

Sometimes I wish I had his countenance. Better on my health.

Fire Gehringer?? That May Have Been The Catcall, Back In The Day

I doubt any marches were staged. I can’t imagine the fans showing up and dressing in the team colors of the opponents. Certainly no sports talk radio back then, so no rabble-rousing would have been going on in that manner. No websites to get the blood boiling. No fans in other cities holding up placards screaming a similar two-word chant.

“Fire Millen!”

But were there “Fire Gehringer” signs in the 1950s in Detroit? Did anyone stop stuffing telephone booths or sitting on flagpoles or put their burger, fries, and malt dinner on hold long enough to get their cardigan in a knot over the abysmal performance of Charlie Gehringer as Tigers GM?

Even a generation later — when I was actually around to see it — I don’t recall much of a movement to kick Dickie Vitale out of town when he was ruining the Pistons. I think that was because it all happened so fast, though — leaving us too stunned to react. Besides, the owner gave him the ziggy with a quick trigger, though not quick enough to stop the hemorrhaging of one franchise and the dynasty-rebuilding of another.

Great players, or loudmouthed college coaches, don’t a good general manager make, necessarily. Obviously. Nor do hotshot sons of GMs, or radio announcers, or PR guys. We’ve had ‘em all in Detroit.

Gehringer, as the MUCH more successful player

Maybe no GM has been allowed to hang around long enough to compile the mind-numbing 24-72 record that Matt Millen has forged with the Lions. It’s all relative. Ninety-six NFL games are like 972 MLB games, or 492 NBA/NHL contests. And none of the above — with the exception of the Boy Wonder Randy Smith (the son of Tal Smith) were in Detroit anywhere near as long as Millen. Even Elgin Baylor, mostly unsuccesful during his interminable run with the Los Angeles Clippers, has tasted the playoffs on occasion.

But Gehringer, the marvelous, Hall of Fame second baseman for the Tigers, was the first in Detroit to display his decidedly non-knack for being an executive when the team hired him on August 10, 1951. But unlike Millen, who was plugged into the NFL as a longtime TV analyst, Gehringer had been out of baseball for about ten years.

“I hated the job,” he recalled years later. “I had been out (of baseball) for ten years. I didn’t know who was and who wasn’t.”

Not that it stopped him from trying trades. Gehringer, like Vitale a quarter-century or so later, ran amok, like a kid with a cache of bubble gum cards in front of a drugstore with his pals.

In ’52, Gehringer shuffled his deck of bubble gum cards fevrishly. He traded George Kell. He picked up Johnny Pesky from the Red Sox. He got Walt Dropo. He sent Dizzy Trout packing, along with Kell. Hoot Evers, too, was dealt. So was Vic Wertz. He fired his manager and gave the job to one of his pitchers, Fred Hutchinson. When the dust settled, the Tigers finished 50-104 and dead last in the league, 14 games out of 7th place.

In 1953, the Tigers won ten more games but that was still only good enough for sixth place, 16 games out of fifth. And again Gehringer tried trading his way out of quicksand. Among those Gehringer picked up that season was Ralph Branca, famous for giving up Bobby Thomson’s home run in the 1951 NL playoff.

After ’53, Gehringer was out — his record in two seasons 110-198. A winning percentage of .357 — awful but still 100 points higher than Millen’s .250 with the Lions.

Fifty years after the Tigers hired Gehringer, the Lions inked Millen.

Matt Millen, it appeared, had all the right stuff to make good decisions about football. He was an outstanding middle linebacker who played in nothing but winning programs: Penn State, the Oakland Raiders, the San Francisco 49ers, the Washington Redskins. He was connected to the league by virtue of his work with Fox Sports. He knew good football people.

Sadly, Millen never surrounded himself with those good people. He never created a football posse and delegated to them key areas of expertise. He could have, from the beginning, hired some of the most brilliant minds in the game — folks who would have leapt at the chance to work for him and Bill Ford Sr. But he tried to do it all himself, and now, Matt Millen is damaged goods. He can’t hope to attract those kinds of people now.

“Fire Gehringer!”

Doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?