CHFF assembles a list of the players Millen passed on, in his attempt to resurrect The Posse or Three Amigos. Among the misses, Adrian Peterson, Shawne Merriman, Dallas Clark, Ben Rothlisberger...
You know what would drive me the craziest if I were unfortunate enough to be a Lions fan? Having to watch and listen to Jon Kitna, who seems to be a hairier, balder Sarah Palin. He probably enjoys getting concussions because they make him feel closer to Jesus.
It always makes me cringe to see the players the Warriors have bypassed in favor of guys like Todd Fuller. It really isn't just luck that franchises like this stay so bad for so long.
It's not just the first round where Millen whiffed. You build the guts of your team in rounds three through seven--backup OTs, nickelbacks, slot receivers, etc. The Lions have done an abysmal job of finding gems in the mid-to-late rounds, and so have been relegated to picking up second-tier UFAs every year. (Top-tier UFAs, of course, want nothing to do with the Lions.)
I just looked at the Lions current depth chart. Their starting DEs are Jared DeVries and Dewayne White. 'Nuff said.
I heard this list on the radio this morning, they also said there was another list that showed how many of Millen's picks are completely out of the league now.
Chris Rock made a joke the other night about how Palin was such a bad pick, he though Al Davis made it. I would hate to see who Matt Millen would have picked as a VP
man, you must love tormenting us lions' fans out here. this is painful stuff.
(and you haven't even gone back to the days when joe schmidt delivered the legendary "ziggy" to himself, rather than deal with the BS that the old guy ford gave him!)
even though i kind of gave up on them when barry sanders walked away from them - how smart does he look now? - i still have to admit that i am a lions' fan. i can't help it. once it's imprinted, it's almost impossible to wipe away.
all we can hope for is that the old guy gracefully exits and leaves the job to the younger ford.
and, then, hopefully, he knows what he's doing.
but this hurts...
Millen's a wreck, no doubt, but I'm not sure you can hold every one of the people he passed on against him. You can't blame him for not drafting Polamalu with the #2 pick when the guy got taken at 16. Clearly, nobody expected him to be a multiple pro-bowler.
I think the fairest way to look at it is who was taken in the few spots immediately after Millen's pick, with more spots open for fair critism later the later he picked, since those are bigger judgement calls.
Looking at it that way, Millen's biggest goofs were in 2004 taking Roy Williams at 7 and passing on Big Ben & DeAngelo hall, who were taken at 8 & 11; and in 2005 taking Mike Williams at 10 & passing at Ware & Merriman at 11 & 12.
As good as it finally is for the Lions to dump Millen, I'm not even sure that fixes this team. The Lions needs a complete makeover from top to bottom; that means coaches, scouts, and the Ford ownership itself. They've only made, what, one playoff game since 1957? They've been so damn bad that the NFL's best RB chose to quit (when he had at least 3-4 more good years in him) rather than play for them anymore. How bad is that?
Millen, to me, is sort of the precursor to Sarah Palin: grossly underqualified to run a major organization but sold to fans as an outsider who could shake up the way the NFL did business. In that way, I feel sorry for him - just like I feel sorry (sort of) for Palin: the Lions never really gave him a chance to succeed because he was never qualified for the job.
But really, it's hard to mock Millen for whiffing on some of those guys. Lots of people had Charles Rogers and Roy Williams high on their draft boards. The only real misfire you can point to is the Mike Williams pick. That was a terrible choice - no one but Williams, his agent and his mama had him going that high.
Please - can we just enjoy the moment for a day or two? We've been miserable since virtually the day of his hire, and this is the first relief we've had in 7 years. And this brief elation will soon be dashed when Ford Sr. picks his next Millen, so let us please just enjoy this...
How many pro-bowlers did he draft? How many fundamentally good players? It isn't just that his highest profile picks have all been busts, but he doesn't appear to have had any sense for NFL talent at all.
I've always felt bad for Joey..he was always put in virtual failure situations, where unsurprisingly he failed.
Has everyone also forgotten that in the infinite wisdom of the Lions management they fired Steve Mariucci and kept Millen for another 3 years?
So who, now, are the worst personnel chiefs in the NFL right now? I guess it doesn't have to be just GMs, since Al Davis is clearly ruling Oakland with a shriveled fist.
My nominees: Carl Peterson (KC) and Jay Zygmunt (StL). I don't think Zygmunt is GM, but he is the central figure for player personnel. It still ASTONISHES me that the Rams won the Super Bowl with that front office.
And Peterson... too reliant on old FAs and never emphasized building through the draft until the last year or so. Christ, Him and Herm in KC... It makes me pine for the days of 9-7 playoff teams, Marty Schottenheimer and Steve Bono.
As much as I love to hate on Millen (And I do love to hate on Millen), I don't fault him as much for the Roy or Rogers picks. Roy would be Pro Bowler with a good QB, and Rogers was the overwhelming fan favorite. True, they should have realized his injury history and failed drug test at the combine made him more risky than Johnson, but I'm not going to pretend I didn't cheer for the pick at the time.
The one that really got me was Mike Williams. He had been out of football for a year, showed up to the combine fat, slow and arrogant, and basically turned off every other GM in the league, despite Mel Kiper ranking him as the top prospect in the draft. The nine teams ahead of us knew he was a bust waiting to happen, but not Millen. I'm convinced that it's because Millen is the only GM in the NFL who actually listens to Kiper. His draft results are as much an indictment of Kiper as Millen, since Mel defended every pick at the time.
What really hurts is that any of the next three players taken (Demarcus Ware, Shawn Merriman or Jammal Brown) would have improved our team dramatically. Big Mike is already out of football and pounding cheeseburgers for a living.
As for CJ, yes Adrian Peterson should have been the pick. But Megatron is a beast- get us a new QB and he will soon be one of the top five receivers in the NFL.
Mike Williams was a worthless sack of crap, I forgot where he went to training camp this summer (Carolina?), but he tipped the scales at tight end weight.
He didn't practice much either when he was with Detroit, a reporter asked him why he was such a poor practice player. Williams said that was how we did it at USC.
You build the guts of your team in rounds three through seven--backup OTs, nickelbacks, slot receivers, etc. The Lions have done an abysmal job of finding gems in the mid-to-late rounds, and so have been relegated to picking up second-tier UFAs every year.
Agreed, with the salary cap in place you have to find some good back-ups and starters on the cheap. Look at San Diego, they lose Lorenzo Neal (their great FB) and pick up the UFA Tolbert. Tolbert is playing pretty well and at the league minimum is worth every penny. See also, Darren Sproles picked up in the 4th round of the 2005 draft. I especially like this "negative" the scouts had. It certainly doesn't describe the Darren Sproles that's playing today.
Lacks the pure speed to run to daylight.
In the NFL starters are going to get hurt. The good teams are able to overcome this by having good back-ups in place. It also allows them to put capable players in place for a few plays to give starters a breather so they aren't gassed in the fourth round. It's not an accident that good teams seem to have that ability to put the game away and come from behind in the fourth quarter.
FreshEDoug says: "Damn, this blog has a lot of Lions followers. "
No, it's just that the NFL has been jamming the sad sack games of that pathetic franchise on everyone on Thanksgiving for so long. Suffering suckitude!
Here's a piece no one cared about. Meh, whatever, probably the most enjoyable article I did during my stint at TIME. Premiered a month before I got laid-off. The nail in the coffin? Ya think?
Here's me going after Al. I didn't so much have a problem with him, as I had a problem with media acting like this dude was the go-to guy for everything black.
This was my first real story at time. I was writing for the Business section, a real change of direction for me. At any rate, it's about Wal-Mart's attempts to colonize the inner-city. As much as I enjoyed this piece, I mostly enjoyed going out to Chicago, which is a beautiful, beautiful city.
This a piece I did about the cops just outside our nation capitol, in Prince George's County, a few years back. I wanted to offer a counter to the dumb, conventional wisdom that if you paint your police force black, you could eradicate police brutality. In fact, Prince George's--one of the richest, blackest counties in the country--also had one of the most brutal police force's in the country.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
You know what would drive me the craziest if I were unfortunate enough to be a Lions fan? Having to watch and listen to Jon Kitna, who seems to be a hairier, balder Sarah Palin. He probably enjoys getting concussions because they make him feel closer to Jesus.
It always makes me cringe to see the players the Warriors have bypassed in favor of guys like Todd Fuller. It really isn't just luck that franchises like this stay so bad for so long.
It's not just the first round where Millen whiffed. You build the guts of your team in rounds three through seven--backup OTs, nickelbacks, slot receivers, etc. The Lions have done an abysmal job of finding gems in the mid-to-late rounds, and so have been relegated to picking up second-tier UFAs every year. (Top-tier UFAs, of course, want nothing to do with the Lions.)
I just looked at the Lions current depth chart. Their starting DEs are Jared DeVries and Dewayne White. 'Nuff said.
Adrian who? And a moment of clarification, what is this "NFL" you keep speaking of? I can't find it on Politico. Does it work for the McCain campaign?
I heard this list on the radio this morning, they also said there was another list that showed how many of Millen's picks are completely out of the league now.
Chris Rock made a joke the other night about how Palin was such a bad pick, he though Al Davis made it. I would hate to see who Matt Millen would have picked as a VP
man, you must love tormenting us lions' fans out here. this is painful stuff.
(and you haven't even gone back to the days when joe schmidt delivered the legendary "ziggy" to himself, rather than deal with the BS that the old guy ford gave him!)
even though i kind of gave up on them when barry sanders walked away from them - how smart does he look now? - i still have to admit that i am a lions' fan. i can't help it. once it's imprinted, it's almost impossible to wipe away.
all we can hope for is that the old guy gracefully exits and leaves the job to the younger ford.
and, then, hopefully, he knows what he's doing.
but this hurts...
Again, the Lions are 8-50 in their last 58 road games. that's eight road wins over seven years!
Millen's a wreck, no doubt, but I'm not sure you can hold every one of the people he passed on against him. You can't blame him for not drafting Polamalu with the #2 pick when the guy got taken at 16. Clearly, nobody expected him to be a multiple pro-bowler.
I think the fairest way to look at it is who was taken in the few spots immediately after Millen's pick, with more spots open for fair critism later the later he picked, since those are bigger judgement calls.
Looking at it that way, Millen's biggest goofs were in 2004 taking Roy Williams at 7 and passing on Big Ben & DeAngelo hall, who were taken at 8 & 11; and in 2005 taking Mike Williams at 10 & passing at Ware & Merriman at 11 & 12.
As good as it finally is for the Lions to dump Millen, I'm not even sure that fixes this team. The Lions needs a complete makeover from top to bottom; that means coaches, scouts, and the Ford ownership itself. They've only made, what, one playoff game since 1957? They've been so damn bad that the NFL's best RB chose to quit (when he had at least 3-4 more good years in him) rather than play for them anymore. How bad is that?
Andrew Fly says: "Again, the Lions are 8-50 in their last 58 road games. that's eight road wins over seven years!"
Wow, that ties them with the 2007 Patriots!
...and he's the genious who drafted JOEY HARRINGTON and made him a starter. LOL.
Much love for invoking the Three Amigos and The Posse.
Millen, to me, is sort of the precursor to Sarah Palin: grossly underqualified to run a major organization but sold to fans as an outsider who could shake up the way the NFL did business. In that way, I feel sorry for him - just like I feel sorry (sort of) for Palin: the Lions never really gave him a chance to succeed because he was never qualified for the job.
But really, it's hard to mock Millen for whiffing on some of those guys. Lots of people had Charles Rogers and Roy Williams high on their draft boards. The only real misfire you can point to is the Mike Williams pick. That was a terrible choice - no one but Williams, his agent and his mama had him going that high.
Please - can we just enjoy the moment for a day or two? We've been miserable since virtually the day of his hire, and this is the first relief we've had in 7 years. And this brief elation will soon be dashed when Ford Sr. picks his next Millen, so let us please just enjoy this...
How many pro-bowlers did he draft? How many fundamentally good players? It isn't just that his highest profile picks have all been busts, but he doesn't appear to have had any sense for NFL talent at all.
I've always felt bad for Joey..he was always put in virtual failure situations, where unsurprisingly he failed.
Has everyone also forgotten that in the infinite wisdom of the Lions management they fired Steve Mariucci and kept Millen for another 3 years?
So who, now, are the worst personnel chiefs in the NFL right now? I guess it doesn't have to be just GMs, since Al Davis is clearly ruling Oakland with a shriveled fist.
My nominees: Carl Peterson (KC) and Jay Zygmunt (StL). I don't think Zygmunt is GM, but he is the central figure for player personnel. It still ASTONISHES me that the Rams won the Super Bowl with that front office.
And Peterson... too reliant on old FAs and never emphasized building through the draft until the last year or so. Christ, Him and Herm in KC... It makes me pine for the days of 9-7 playoff teams, Marty Schottenheimer and Steve Bono.
As much as I love to hate on Millen (And I do love to hate on Millen), I don't fault him as much for the Roy or Rogers picks. Roy would be Pro Bowler with a good QB, and Rogers was the overwhelming fan favorite. True, they should have realized his injury history and failed drug test at the combine made him more risky than Johnson, but I'm not going to pretend I didn't cheer for the pick at the time.
The one that really got me was Mike Williams. He had been out of football for a year, showed up to the combine fat, slow and arrogant, and basically turned off every other GM in the league, despite Mel Kiper ranking him as the top prospect in the draft. The nine teams ahead of us knew he was a bust waiting to happen, but not Millen. I'm convinced that it's because Millen is the only GM in the NFL who actually listens to Kiper. His draft results are as much an indictment of Kiper as Millen, since Mel defended every pick at the time.
What really hurts is that any of the next three players taken (Demarcus Ware, Shawn Merriman or Jammal Brown) would have improved our team dramatically. Big Mike is already out of football and pounding cheeseburgers for a living.
As for CJ, yes Adrian Peterson should have been the pick. But Megatron is a beast- get us a new QB and he will soon be one of the top five receivers in the NFL.
Mike Williams was a worthless sack of crap, I forgot where he went to training camp this summer (Carolina?), but he tipped the scales at tight end weight.
He didn't practice much either when he was with Detroit, a reporter asked him why he was such a poor practice player. Williams said that was how we did it at USC.
Damn, this blog has a lot of Lions followers.
You build the guts of your team in rounds three through seven--backup OTs, nickelbacks, slot receivers, etc. The Lions have done an abysmal job of finding gems in the mid-to-late rounds, and so have been relegated to picking up second-tier UFAs every year.
Agreed, with the salary cap in place you have to find some good back-ups and starters on the cheap. Look at San Diego, they lose Lorenzo Neal (their great FB) and pick up the UFA Tolbert. Tolbert is playing pretty well and at the league minimum is worth every penny. See also, Darren Sproles picked up in the 4th round of the 2005 draft. I especially like this "negative" the scouts had. It certainly doesn't describe the Darren Sproles that's playing today.
Lacks the pure speed to run to daylight.
In the NFL starters are going to get hurt. The good teams are able to overcome this by having good back-ups in place. It also allows them to put capable players in place for a few plays to give starters a breather so they aren't gassed in the fourth round. It's not an accident that good teams seem to have that ability to put the game away and come from behind in the fourth quarter.
FreshEDoug says: "Damn, this blog has a lot of Lions followers. "
No, it's just that the NFL has been jamming the sad sack games of that pathetic franchise on everyone on Thanksgiving for so long. Suffering suckitude!
The Lions and Cowboys plan on Thanksgiving because they were the only teams willing to do it back in the day. Now it's become tradition.
There's something to be said for that, IMO, and it's not just because I'm a Lions fan.