Here’s the latest from the That’s The Dumbest Thing I’ve Ever Heard, But It Doesn’t Surprise Me In The Least Since It’s ESPN news desk: the monolith had considered filling Tony Kornheiser’s vacancy at Monday Night Football with America’s F*vorite F*ckup, former Detroit Lions GM Matt Millen.

[ESPN's executive vice president of content John] Skipper said ESPN brass “talked internally” about recent hire Matt Millen and other candidates but didn’t “interview” anybody but Gruden.

“We’re always looking to make our lineup better. We were talking to Gruden. He was trying to figure out what he was going to do,” Skipper said. “He did very well on the draft for NFL Network. I know sometimes people think we’ve got research and have been doing this for three months. This all happened in the past 10 days.”

I’m curious how this info got out. Deep down, I think this is ESPN’s way of screwing with us. You see? We could have made this so much worse for you! Matt Millen, granted, is much better behind a mic than he was in the front office. Still, and this has been said before, his authority as a football guy is totally shot. What could he possibly add to a telecast now? Is there something that he’d know that 35 million other people wouldn’t? Other than what William Clay Ford looks like inside of a 12-year-old? Enjoy 2009 Lions fans; it’s not every season that you get a guarantee of not doing worse than the year before.

|GameOn|

The jubilation over Matt Millen’s firing is so widespread that it would be wrong to not give him one more kick in the pants as he walks sadly away.  Above is a photo from the Detroit Free Press’s massive photo essay on Millen.  Feel free to sift through it to see pictures of him mowing his lawn and feasting on the shattered dreams of Lions fans. (via Deadspin)

After the jump, enjoy the absolutely perfect video tribute from Tirico Suave. It makes you feel good about other people’s misfortune, which is just about the nicest thing I can say about anything.

Read the rest of this entry »

Just days after Lions’ vice chairman Bill Ford publicly stated that bumbling oaf and team president/GM Matt Millen should be fired, Jay Glazer has reported that the reign of incompetence is finally over:

Millen was informed of the move last night during a late-night high-level meeting. This morning several people within the building confirmed that he had large packing boxes in his office and he made his way around to different employees telling them of the move.

It is unclear if Millen was fired or removed himself from the equation…

I like to think it was neither.  The way I see it, an angry mob stood outside the complex with torches and pitchforks, and the Fords tossed Millen into the crowd in order to save themselves.  Then the crowd was like, “Actually, we were just here to demand more environmentally friendly cars from the Ford Corporation.”  But I’d like to think that they had the common sense to stab and burn him to death anyway.

Everyone on the planet knows that Matt Millen is absolutely horrible at his job, but Lions owner William Clay Ford still won’t fire him, even with an NFL-worst 31-84 record since Millen was hired in 2001.  Now, with Detroit falling to 0-3, Ford’s son Bill — the Lions’ vice chairman — is speaking out.

“I think the fans deserve better and if it were in my authority, which it’s not, I’d make some significant changes,” Ford said Monday.

Asked by a reporter if he believed Millen should leave the team, Ford said, “Yes, I do.”

This isn’t some talking head at ESPN saying Millen sucks.  It’s the team’s vice chairman.  It’s like if Dick Cheney spoke out against the president’s choice for Secretary of Defense, or if my mom asked my dad why he was teaching me to throw, because I was “gonna grow up to be a pussy anyway.”

…I’ll have you know that last example was strictly hypothetical.  Ignore the quotes.

[More at Kissing Suzy Kolber]

The Lions, predictably enough, have started the season 0-2 with a pair of embarrassing losses. President and GM and Matt Millen, who has long been the NFL poster boy for incompetence (the Lions are 31-83 with him at the helm), is now ratcheting up the blatantly obvious buffoonery by ripping off the Bush Administration’s anti-logic:

“Stay the course,” Millen said. “It’s a little bump. … It’s not like you have to panic. You don’t have to make wholesale changes. You don’t have to do all that stuff. It’s all right there.” [...]

“I think the people who came out (to training camp), they like what they see because they see discipline. They see the approach is right. They’re practicing right. All the little things.”

What about the fan who says, ‘That’s practice, but these are games’?

“Well, if a fan says that, then they don’t understand the game of football, because it can’t happen on the field if it doesn’t happen here,” Millen said.

Yes!  Yes, that’s it!  It’s not that the Lions are bad, it’s that the fans don’t understand progress.  Those idiots think that “results” in “games” are what matters.  What a bunch of jackasses.  Matt Millen’s talking about practice.  Not a game.  Practice.

[FanHaus]

I know these '80s team songs are bad for me, but I just can't stop.  They're like Pringles for me that way.  And by Pringles I mean crack.

Anyway, if you can handle six and half embarrassing minutes, here's the '86 Raiders.  It's got RadioShack commercial star Howie Long, Penthouse Pet harasser Marcus Allen, and incompetent boob Matt Millen.  Also featured: bonus mullet and inexplicable/awful guitar solo.  In other words, it's slightly more intelligent than FOX's NFL pre-game show.

[FanHaus]