Lions owner to be active
GM, president firings show Ford means business
Remember the name Martha Firestone Ford.
She means business, evidenced by the stunning firings Thursday of Detroit Lions general manager Martin Mayhew and President Tom Lewand.
Sure, firing season has come early in the NFL this year.
Ken Whisenhunt. Pep Hamilton. Joe Philbin. All canned before Veterans Day.
But in Detroit?
This just doesn’t happen with the Lions, whose 1-7 campaign is yet another chapter in the futility that has dogged the franchise for the better part of many decades.
Or rather it didn’t happen like this until now.
Which brings to mind the gist of what an out-of-work NFL head coach told me a few years ago: If he could have any job in the
league, he maintained, it would be as coach and GM of the Lions.
His reasoning? The Lions ownership — so involved with its real business in running Ford Motor Co. — would leave him alone and let him run the football operation.
He would be safe for a long time.
Which underscores part of the problem in Detroit. Without immense pressure from ownership, the people in charge of the Lions football business were afforded a certain comfort zone that did not produce winning on a consistent basis.
Enter Ford, 90, who took over the reins of the team after the passing last year of her husband, William Clay Ford. Comfort zone — gone. Embattled coach Jim Caldwell, who recently dumped offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi and two offensive line coaches, has to be in danger of walking the plank, too.
“Her desire to make it right is real,” a person with knowledge of the team’s operation who requested anonymity told USA TODAY Sports. The person did not wish to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.
“What is so significant is that I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a bold move coming from the Lions. Especially during the season,” the person said. “In the past, after going 11-5 last year, they would have saw this as an anomaly, like, ‘We’ll see what happens next year.’ ”
It’s a new day in Detroit, where the general reaction from the loyal, long-suffering fan base was described to me Thursday as one of jubilation.
Once again, Motown provides some dancing in the streets — seven years after fans staged a Millen Man March to protest the work of then- GM Matt Millen.
In reading a statement Thursday, Ford established a new target, maintaining she wanted to field a “consistently winning team” and the Lions fans deserved a winner.
That might sound pretty basic for times like these, but those are not hollow words against the backdrop of what happened Thursday — days after the Lions were embarrassed on an international stage in getting drubbed 45-10 in London by the Kansas City Chiefs.
It is apparent that Ford, with one of her daughters, Sheila Ford Harp, closely involved in the process of shaking down the football operation, will be an active owner.
I’ve never met her, but a couple of impressions recently struck me. She was present at an OTA (organized team activities) session that I attended last spring at the Lions headquarters, which team staffers told me was not unusual because, for years, she has attended several practices and training camp.
So this isn’t a case in which Ford has not been around the team, to some degree.
She also had a presence when observed during the NFL owners meetings last month in New York. Her body language, at least in my view, indicated she was energetic and actively engaged.
Now there’s an even clearer message about her expectations for the Lions, who haven’t won a playoff game since the 1991 season.
In one regard, Mayhew and Lewand are fresh victims of the burgeoning London Curse. When the Miami Dolphins fired Philbin this season, he was the sixth of the last 12 head coaches to lose games in England, then get fired during or after the season.
Now a pair of top executives have followed suit, while Caldwell has survived for the time being.
Mayhew, promoted from assistant GM after Millen was fired during the historic 0-16 debacle in 2008, oversaw a personnel department that woefully underperformed. Not a single player drafted by Mayhew over the last five years has earned a Pro Bowl selection, and, even worse, not one pick from the 2010 nor 2011 draft classes is still on Detroit’s active roster at a time when they should be entering their prime.
Lewand’s impact, or lack thereof, is more difficult to quantify be- yond the results on the field. He oversaw the team’s business operations and salary cap.
In tandem with Mayhew, Lewand sports a record that includes losing Ndamukong Suh last offseason as a free agent rather than tying up the all-pro defensive tackle before he hit the market. The Lions’ perilous salary cap situation, influenced by massive deals to cornerstone receiver Calvin Johnson and quarterback Matthew Stafford, was also an issue. According to Spotrac.com, Detroit has nearly $19 million this season in “dead money” counting against its cap, one of the highest figures in the league.
Also, the Lions rank at the bottom of the NFL for money invested in the offensive line, which has turned out to be such a glaring weakness during the team’s free fall.
Then again, this episode also brings to mind the Curse of Bobby Layne.
As legend has it, Layne — the swashbuckling quarterback who suffered a broken leg and watched backup Tobin Rote lead Detroit to the 1957 NFL title — was furious after the Lions traded him to the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1958.
On his way out, Layne said the Lions wouldn’t win another title for 50 years.
Layne was right. Since the Lions won the 1957 crown, they have won one playoff game in 58 years.
With Detroit’s last playoff victory coming during the 1991 season, only the Cincinnati Bengals have a longer drought of nonplayoff win seasons. The Bengals, undefeated heading into Thursday’s game, at least appear to be headed to the playoffs for a fifth consecutive season.
Maybe Layne’s curse has finally met its match in Martha Firestone Ford.
It can’t get much worse.