Matt Millen

Now that the news has sunk in I suppose I can go back and try to describe what it was like to live through the Matt Millen era. To be honest, this is probably an era that will be remembered with horror for years and years, the way our grandparents shudder when they remember the Great Depression. Fifty years from now some young Lions fan will be bitching and moaning until some old dude sits him down and tells him he doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about, that back in the day we had to suffer under the reign of Matt Millen. And then the old fart will proceed to horrify the young dude with tales of Joey Harrington, Charles Rogers, Mike Williams, Marty Mornhinweg and fans wearing paper bags on their heads and the numbers 31-84.

And it's those numbers which will stand the test of time, numbers which will be stuck in the record books long after memories of Millen's stunning incompetence begin to fade. That comes out to an average record of roughly 4-12. 4-12! That's not even a bad season in Detroit. That is an average season in the era of Millen. In almost every other football city in the country 4-12 is damn near reason for a riot. It is apocalyptic and it is always the forebearer of almost total change in both management and personnel. But for the Lions it was just the standard. 4-12 is mediocrity under Millen. 7-9 is the fucking apex. The more you stare at those numbers the more incredible it is that he both lasted as long as he did and that the fine people of Detroit didn't rush Ford Field and murder him in his office.

Look, the Lions were always pretty bad before Millen came along, but there was always the hope that they would get better, that even though Wayne Fontes might end up fucking up in the playoffs or that Barry Sanders would fold if he had to play outdoors that at least there was a chance that the Lions might, if everything broke right, win. I haven't mentioned this yet, but I happened to be in attendance in 1991 when the Lions had their lone playoff victory in the last fifty years. I was 12 and there was a feeling that the Lions were finally on the right track after years of mediocrity. We had Barry, we had an exciting offense, we had a team that fucking steamrolled the Dallas Cowboys, and there was the palpable sense that it was only the tip of the iceberg. That's what made the rest of the 90s so frustrating. The Lions always seemed like they were on the verge of recapturing that and finally even moving past it. But then Barry retired, Matt Millen came in and hope became a memory that faded more and more with every miserable season.

Look, at first it was kind of funny. Ha ha, can you believe how fucking bad these guys are? But we still thought that this Millen dude knew what he was doing. Sure he didn't have any front office experience but he was part of some great teams with both the Raiders and the Niners and the naive amongst us thought that he could have learned some of that through osmosis. I mean, once a winner, always a winner, right? Now, I know that has been disproved over and over again in a myriad of sports. Just look at Isiah Thomas. But, man, we wanted to believe. And we wanted to believe because we had been so close and we felt like we deserved it. But then one bad season turned into another and pretty soon it wasn't so funny anymore. This asshole was clearly a dunce of the lowest order.

And that brings us to the cold, harsh reality of today. Matt Millen is gone now, but his years of failure have removed any sense of that hope. Barry Sanders is approaching middle age, and there is nothing on the horizon like him. There is nothing about our team that inspires hope, nothing that makes us think that maybe next year things might turn around. Fanbases live and die based on hope, and we haven't had hope in a long, long time. And that, even more than the stupid and bizarre choices Millen made during his reign of incompetence, is what I will remember Matt Millen for. He took not only success but the dream of success away from Lions fans. People are happy today, and why shouldn't they be? The disease has finally been removed. But in a week and a half when the Lions take the field again, they'll remember the terrible toll that the disease took on its host. And they'll remember for the next several seasons as the Lions try to heal from that disease, and with each one of those seasons that pass, more distance will grow between the present and a past whose hope gets dimmer and dimmer. So, thanks Matt. You're gone now, but your stink remains.