Filed under: Lions
Detroit Lions President Matt Millen, the man who took over a 9-7 team after the 2000 season and has turned them into the laughingstocks of professional football, says there's one thing and one thing only that the team must do after its 0-2 start:
"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."
A little bump? The Lions are 31-83, by far the worst team in the league, since Millen took over, but this is just a little bump? No need to change anything? Everything is going fine?
According to Millen, yes.
More from Millen:
"I said at the beginning of the season, 'Come on out, and you'll like what you see,' " Millen said. "And 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."
After he said that, a reporter asked Millen what he would say to a fan who says he's not interested in how the Lions have looked in practice; he wants to see how the Lions look in games.
Millen replied:
"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."
Ah, yes. If you think the Lions are a bad team simply because of that pesky 0-2 record, then you don't know anything about football. Matt Millen, who knows that what really matters is practice, scoffs at your foolishness.
Millen wouldn't say what his conversations with Lions owner William Clay Ford have been like, other than to say, "He has high expectations,".
All evidence to the contrary.
