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Detroit Lions: The enduring legacy of Matt Millen

By Tredell Suber

PROVO, UT - SEPTEMBER 20: Matt Millen, an ESPN analyst, on field before the game between the Virginia Cavaliers and the Brigham Young Cougars at LaVell Edwards Stadium on September 20, 2014 in Provo, Utah. (Photo by Gene Sweeney Jr/Getty Images )
PROVO, UT - SEPTEMBER 20: Matt Millen, an ESPN analyst, on field before the game between the Virginia Cavaliers and the Brigham Young Cougars at LaVell Edwards Stadium on September 20, 2014 in Provo, Utah. (Photo by Gene Sweeney Jr/Getty Images ) /
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Photo by Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images
Photo by Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images /

What is the enduring legacy?

At first glance, it’s not a good one to be honest. There’s no way around it and even after engaging in some revisionist history, it still wouldn’t be able to paint Matt Millen’s time in Detroit as anything other than a thorough failure.

The best thing that you can say about how the team was running back then is that they provided a template on how not to run an NFL franchise.

It’s kind of ironic but that is the enduring legacy that Matt Millen left in Detroit. I used to say that everything from that timeframe needed to be forgotten but that couldn’t be further from the truth. For better or worse, that era is still a part of Detroit’s history as much Bobby Layne or Barry Sanders.

If Bob Quinn and Matt Patricia can learn what actions not to take from the missteps of the most negative period in franchise history, they will be better equipped to lead the Lions into a new future. One of philosopher George Santayana’s most famous aphorisms is ”Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

The mistakes from Millen’s time do not need to be repeated.

Matt Millen was a good football player and an even better man who was unfortunately put into a post that he couldn’t succeed in as a novice with few worthy advisors.

Next. Ranking the 5 best Lions draft classes of the past 30 years. dark

Considering the fact that he’s currently in a fight for his life, his shortcomings as the Lions CEO seems like small potatoes in comparison.

Godspeed to the Millen family.

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