The Detroit Lions just hired yet a new coach. How they did it illustrates why I have never been able to stomach rooting for the team.
First, the existing head coach Bobby Ross quit. Couldn’t blame him — the problem with the Lions, who have never come close to playing in a Super Bowl, are with the organization and are bigger than any particular set of players or coaches.
Second, they replaced Ross with Gary Moeller. Moeller was a former University of Michigan football coach fired from that job after he got in a mini brawl at a restaurant after having too much to drink. I thought Moeller was a horrible choice, but not surprising.
What was surprising is after a couple of wins, they gave him a three year contract. The reasonable thing would have been to put out some vague, “we’re going to evaluate our coaching situation at the end of the season.” But no, the owner had to go and give him a three year contract.
And then promptly fire him at the end of the season to replace him with Marty Mornhinweg. Mornhinweg is the choice of the new Lions president Matt Millen.
Millen knows football, and if the Ford family will just let him do his job he can probably turn the franchise around. On the other hand if the Lions keep insist on making stupid decisions, like they did with Moeller’s three year contract, it’ll be another 40 years before they find themselves seriously competing for a championship.