WSJ: Lions "the NFL's worst defense, ever"

Football writer Reed Albergotti of the Wall Street Journal (the Wall Street Journal has a sports page?!) explores how the Lions defense got so terrible.

The headline says "The NFL's Worst Defense, Ever: Bad Drafts and Strategic Bungling Have the Lions Bleeding Yards at Record Pace." To be fair, nowhere in the article does Albergotti call the Lions' D the worst ever, and editors, not reporters, write the headlines. Albergotti does note, however:

The team's defense has allowed 1,033 points in 34 games—the most since Lyndon Johnson was in the White House.

Despite a new defensive-minded head coach and a completely re-engineered roster, the Lions lost their first two games this season by a combined score of 72 to 40, putting its defense back in its familiar place at the bottom of the league.

All this presents an enduring mystery: In a league like the NFL that's expressly designed to help bad teams help themselves, how can a defense whose players will earn $45 million this season be so stubbornly horrible?

Albergotti imparts to the nation reasons for which we here are all too familiar (my paraphrases):

1. Committing to, then bungling, the Tampa 2, which can work with smaller, less strong players BUT requires discipline and knowing the playbook and your responsibilities so well as to be instinctive. The Lions got smaller, weaker, less talented and the players never grasped the defense.

2. Ridiculous hires (Rod Marinelli as head coach and The Son-in-Law as defensive coordinator, neither of whom had experience in the job they were doing.)

3. Millen's impossibly bad drafting.

Though he's famous for picking bad wide receivers, Mr. Millen's greatest shortcoming may actually have come on defense. He used a second-round pick in 2007 for defensive end Ikaika Alama-Francis, who is no longer in the NFL, and two third-round picks in 2004 and 2005 for cornerbacks Keith Smith and Stanley Wilson, who are not on an NFL roster. In addition, from 2004 to 2008—when Mr. Millen left the team—nearly all of the players the Lions drafted in the late rounds haven't panned out.

Albergotti talks about how Jim Schwartz and Gunther Cunningham are transforming the defense again. Going bigger and stronger, running a more traditional 4-3. Clearly the transition isn't complete. (Albergotti defends the Lions in this respect, though -- that New Orleans offense also shredded a typically stout Eagles D the following week.)

Albergotti concludes thusly:

Mr. Schwartz hasn't been around long enough to get very much depth on defense, and a season-ending injury to defensive end Jared DeVries was a significant loss.

"What Jim Schwartz took over, in my opinion, was worse than an expansion franchise," says former Baltimore Ravens head coach Brian Billick, who will call the Lions game against the Redskins for Fox on Sunday. "There's only so much you can do in a year."

A fair and accurate assessment? Share your thoughts in The Den.

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An incredible testament to Matt Millen's drafting incompetence

The Detroit Free Press noted today that with the waiving of CB Keith Smith, the Lions now have a grand total of one player remaining from their drafts between 2002 and 2006 -- LB Ernie Sims.

One player! From five drafts! That's almost impossibly bad. That's worse than "random chance, closing your eyes and stabbing your finger into a list of players" bad.

View the roll call of whiffs here, and talk about it in The Den!

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William Clay Ford Sr. speaks out

John Niyo at detnews.com has a fairly lengthy interview with Lions owner William Clay Ford Sr., Ford's first since the firing of team president Matt Millen early last season.

Among the interesting tidbits:
* Ford did get input from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell after Millen's firing regarding a new front office leader. But he went with Millen holdovers Martin Mayhew and Tom Lewand because he knew them, liked them and found them qualified.
* An admission that both Millen and former Coach Rod Marinelli didn't have the necessary experience going into the job.
* That Ford relied on Millen to make the decision to hire both Marinelli and Steve Mariucci, but new Coach Jim Schwartz was his call and his alone.
* That Ford's son, Bill Ford's, public declaration that Millen would be fired were he in charge, days before Ford Sr. actually fired Millen, did not influence the decision. In fact, the elder Ford told Niyo, he had heard his son's dissatisfaction with Millen multiple times -- days before he went public with it; weeks; months; and years earlier.
* That Ford has never directed a coach or team executive to play or not play a player.
* That the supposed dispute over remaining money to be paid to Millen is resolved.
* That Ford feels for the fans, praises those who remain loyal to the team; understands those who have finally bailed out; and that he actually listens to the fan complaints.

A lot of meaty stuff here, obviously.

Ford's been psychoanalyzed in the past by armchair pundits. He certainly has a different way about him, and it shows through in the interview. He pays lip service to wanting to win and doing what it takes. But then he casually explains away sticking for years with Millen despite his abysmal failure at all levels, with the entire world including his son howling at him to make the necessary change.

We hear Ford casually talk about blowing off the NFL Commissioner's attempted help on not making another Millen mistake, and why his grand search for a way to turn around 0-16 ended at the end of his nose, with the front office guys right in front of him. (Don't get me wrong; that might actually work out. That still doesn't make the lack of a real examination of the situation or a search outside of a 31-97 franchise any less maddening.)

I continue to think Ford doesn't have a clue how to win, and the bottom line of why it hasn't happened for decades is it's simply never been high on his priority list. We can only hope he's stumbled into the right people who can make this successful in Mayhew, Lewand and Schwartz.

They're talking about it in The Den!

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Millen still talking, should have quit while he was behind

If 0-16 architect Matt Millen would have left things where they were after his recent news conference, the process of turning the page on his disastrous time in Detroit could have moved further along.

But come now, did you really expect Millen to do something right?

He's continuing to talk about his time with the Lions, and having the audacity to play the victim, Nicholas Cotsonika notes at Freep.com.

Millen told SI.com's Don Banks, "“I don't go backward. I just don’t think like that. There’s nothing I can do about (Detroit). All I can do is from here on out."

OK. Nothing wrong with that. Let's just call it a day then, Matt, and begin to move o--

Oh, wait. He's not done:

“I understand. In Detroit, they need a bad guy. I was a bad guy. I was to blame for the fall of the auto industry and the housing market. Somehow, I had something to do with Kwame Kilpatrick, although I’m not sure what.
“But that’s what happens when you lose in this game. You give everyone a cheap and easy story to jump on.”

EXCUSE ME?!

Exactly who is to blame, then, for almost completely whiffing on the draft for 8 years? For very high draft picks not only failing but being out of the league in a matter of a few seasons?

Who is to blame for failed free agent signings like Bill "Butterfingers" Schroeder, or for re-signing mediocre Lions to mega-bucks deals? (Cory Redding)

Millen keeps saying "Put it on me. I take responsibility." Then, in his next breath, he makes sure you know he doesn't really feel it's his fault.

It was an embarrassment that the guy didn't have enough dignity to quit when he had demonstrably failed -- oh, say, three years ago.
That he doesn't get that he owns 0-16, that he owns 31-97, is stunning. And that he in any way is putting it back on Detroit and Lions fans ... well those are fighting words.

Cotsonika sums it up well:

But for Millen to portray himself as a victim is downright offensive to the people of Detroit, Lions fans everywhere and those who cover the team. As a media member, he should know how criticism works. As a former player and executive, he should know how accountability works. He has criticized, hired and fired people himself.
Millen was not a convenient scapegoat. He was not a “cheap and easy story to jump on.” He was not blamed for the fall of the auto industry, the housing market and the Kilpatrick mayoral scandal. For Millen to rub salt in those wounds is inappropriate at best. Maybe Millen was trying to be funny. Doesn’t matter.

Discuss in The Den!

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Millen heaps love upon Lions, Detroit in press conference

Get your bricks and disposable televisions ready, Lions fans. Matt Millen's coming back. As Nicholas Cotsonika reports at Freep.com, Millen held his first media session since being hired as an analyst by the NFL Network. Millen disclosed that his pay issue (the Lions' money was apparently cut off after they fired him) remains unresolved. But he said that won't affect how he talks about the Lions on TV.

"I’ll handle the Lions like I do any other football team -- just look at them and break them down and see where they’re at."

Millen was asked if his atrocious record as an NFL executive with the Lions will cause him a loss of credibility with viewers.

“In the National Football League, you’re only judged on wins and losses, so my tenure was not good,” Millen said. “I mean, it was very poor. And so it’s been said, you learn a lot from failures, and I learned a ton. So I can bring that to the table. I view my experience in Detroit as a positive.”

Millen was effusive in his praise of Detroit during the press conference (as if that will win back any hearts and minds):

"Here’s the thing with Detroit,” Millen said. “I love Detroit. I love … I’m a huge fan of Martin Mayhew. I’m a huge fan of Jim Schwartz. I think that’s an excellent hire. I think Jim did a good job of putting his staff together. “But there is no bigger fan anywhere of Mr. Ford than me, and I would love to see him holding a trophy. That would be great for me -- for him, rather -- but more importantly, it would be great for the fans of Detroit. They deserve it. They’re awesome fans."

He then turned his praise to the Lions rookies:

“But I know this: I really like Stafford. Stafford has a real arm, and Stafford can make real throws. In our league, you have to have that guy. … “I couldn’t speak to what they would win or lose, but I can speak to they’ve got themselves a guy to really work with. I also like the tight end they got. That kid’s a good player. So there’s some pieces up there.”

My take? I think Millen's forever tainted by his toxic time with the Lions. That's not to say he can't go on and be quite successful once again as an NFL analyst -- a job he was once quite good at. It just means that there won't be nearly as much buy-in into his analysis as there was prior to his taking the reins in Allen Park. Talk about it in The Den!