Cloudy / 57° FScott Novak: Lions finally purge themselves of Millen
Published 4:00pm Friday, July 9, 2010The Detroit Lions finally purged themselves of the Matt Millen era.
The final two players drafted over a five-year span by Millen are gone.
The Lions traded Ernie Sims earlier this year and released Daniel Bullocks this week.
Millen effectively sent Detroit into this tailspin that it has not been able to recover from.
He drafted 39 players over that five-year stretch and every one if them is now gone.
Some were traded, others left as free agents and the rest were released.
Among them were six first-round selections and five second-round picks.
How can someone be that wrong about that many players?
Millen, while a great player in San Francisco and a pretty good TV analyst, was a terrible general manager.
Why he was allowed to continue his string of unsuccessful drafts is beyond me.
Even if you liked the guy, as a team owner one would think he would have at least given over control of those calls to someone else.
The result of Millen’s failures as a GM is still being felt.
The Lions were winless two years ago and won just two games last season.
While things are looking up in Detroit with the addition of some key free agents and a pretty solid draft this year, it is still going to take a while to purge that culture of losing in Detroit.
I think the Lions are on the right track, but their fans better not expect too much, too soon.
Detroit is a long way from being a contender in the National Football League.
I think a real expectation should be that the Lions can reach .500 this season and then go from there.
There are still more pieces to be fit into the puzzle before we can count on this team being a contender for even a division title.
So hold on tight Lions fans. It’s almost time for the preseason games to get started.
And then it will be on to what I believe could be a roller coaster season.
If Detroit finishes above .500 this season, let’s all enjoy the success and look forward to a brighter future.
Scott Novak is sports editor for Leader Publications. He can be reached at scott.novak@leaderpub.com
Scott…I know that covering all of the high profile sports in and around Niles is time consuming. But, man, Matt Millen left in November 2008…almost two years ago. So the real question is, “What third-grader did you steal that column from?” I could go on and on with corrections to your errors…but let’s leave it at this, because it speaks volumes for how bad you really are. MM was NOT a general manager. He was CEO and President of the Detroit Lions. How can you, with any degree of credibility, comment on someone when you don’t even know their title?