The Matt Millen Story: CEO of the Detroit Lions

Turn back the clock to 2001, the Detroit Lions have begun to rebound from the premature retiement of the great Barry Sanders. I know its hard to imagine, but the Lions were actually 9-7 that year and missed out on the playoffs because of a 54 yard Chicago Bear field goal on the final play of the season. Then, shockingly, the Ford family hired Matt Millen to become the CEO of the Detroit Lions, despite the fact that he had no prior player-devlopment or front-office experience whatsoever. A move not so surprising to Detroit natives, considering how the current generation of the Ford family has run Ford motors into the ground just as Millen has run the Lion organization into the ground. This marked the beginning of a "rebuilding" effort which is still under way and may be under way for years to come.

Millen's body of work is as fragrant as a cesspool in July. Local talk shows have begun using the adjective "garbage juice", to describe the Lions, as garbage is too polite an adjective to describe them.

Millen is a pioneer in the field of ineptitude. No one in the history of any major American professional sport has led a team to such abysmal failure. Why, you ask, is Millen under the Ford's employ, when any other Average Joe would be fired six times over for the same work in another job? The answer lies in the ownership. William Clay Ford may posess the virtue of loyalty by sticking with Millen, but his vice of stubborness greatly outweighs it. Ford refuses to believe that Millen is not the man for the job, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In fact, Ford has become so enamored with Millen that he was given a five year contract extension last year. I know its hard to believe, but you probably live in a city not named Detroit.