Thursday, January 04, 2007

To Whom Me It May Concern

An Open Letter

To: Mr. William Clay Ford, Sr.
Owner, Detroit Lions

From: A longtime, long-suffering "fan"



What..the..fuck.........are you thinking?

I mean, uhh...
Um.

Dear Sir:

It has come to my attention that you plan to keep Matt Millen as your president for yet another year of leading your football team deeper and deeper beneath the ground floor of the NFL's elite laughable franchises. The Lions aren't even in the basement these days, they're fast approaching the earth's inner core.

The Arizona Cardinals had two more wins than your team did this year, Mr. Ford, including a head-to-head victory. The Cleveland Browns even bested your record by one game. Does any of this make any sense to you, or don't you pay very close attention to the National Football League? You know, being a team owner and all.

The only thing that kept the Lions from having the worst record in the league this year was that season-ending, 39-point-scoring victory over the Dallas Cowboys in Big D, against Bill Parcells, a certain Hall of Famer and my favorite coach in the NFL. Congratulations, Mr. Ford. Instead of providing motivation and inspiration heading into the offseason, all that victory did was hand the very first pick in April's NFL draft over to the Oakland Raiders. Even when you win...you lose. I hope you weren't too high on Brady Quinn, because he probably won't be available when it's your team president's turn to botch his selection at No. 2. (Brady Quinn is a quarterback, by the way, Mr. Ford. For Notre Dame. In case you were too busy dreaming up new features for your Ford Focus to concern yourself with up-and-coming players that might help your football team.)

Millen has said that he won't quit.

"If it's not working, you just keep on working at it until you get the freaking thing done. And that's just what you do. You don't ever quit."

That's how he put it. Those words instill such confidence in me, I'm already quivering with anticipation for next season. Oh boy, I can't wait.

Look at him smiling over there, Mr. Ford. Do you know why he's smiling? Because you're paying him millions of dollars a year, that's why. And positive results are apparently not a condition of him keeping his job. Instead of kicking him to the curb, you're giving him contract extensions.

What does a guy have to do to get fired from a management position in one of your companies? Sell your automotive trade secrets to the people at Kia?

If you're a shrewd businessman, Mr. Ford, and are looking for a way to save a couple/few million, fire Millen and hire me. I'll work for one or two million, and while I can't promise better results, I can most assuredly promise not to do worse. Nobody...can do worse.

At least the offseason is here (you do know what an "offseason" is, don't you, Mr. Ford? it's the only season in which you can't lose any games) and I can bur...uhh, I mean...pack away my Lions gear until next year.

Sincerely,
A Colts fan


"Mr. Ford and I, we talk a bunch.
We were talking all season long.
It never even got to anything
other than just keep on
doing what we're doing."
—Matt Millen

4 comments:

  1. New coach in 2006 - Millen was destined to return in 2007 regardless of how the team finished.

    Rest assured, another founr-win season, and he will be gone.

    Bummer.

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  2. Vach my friend, I've felt your pain in the past and pain's name is Norman Braman.

    Mr. Braman is the former owner of my beloved Eagles and he was a stiff. He was the anti Daniel Snyder. Never put anything into the team and let star players leave over money that seemed to be reasonable compaired to the market (Keith Jackson, Seth Joyner, Clyde Simmons, Eric Allen, Jerome Brown (OK he died in a car crash but I still blame Braman) and that one guy who said "god" told him to come to Green Bay, right...had nothing to do with Green Bay outbiding the Skins and Niners...I forget his name but I don't like to talk about him anyway...think he retired a Panther!!!).

    But then Jeffrey Lurie bought the team and things started to turn around. We had that brief down period with Ray Rhodes (Pack didn't learn from that one did they?) but then Lurie had the foresight to hire a TE's coach to be the Eagles head coach, who while stubborn as a mule, turned out to be pretty good. And low and behold, we're retaining our young players and signing big ticket free agents and haven't done too bad (short one self centered WR) since.

    I'm taking my rambling cue from this blogg owner (i'm not saying, i'm just saying).....My point is death comes for all of us and hopefully for you it will come for Mr. Ford sooner than later.

    "Have a little faith Crap Game, it's a mother beautiful bridge and it's gonna be there..." (Kelly's Hero's)

    And if that doesn't work, a dozen Blazin wings and several 23 oz Miller Lites should help easy the pain.

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  3. Well, lookie lookie who had to come and talk football!

    Welcome, THEkid.

    And that is truly a ramble worthy of this blog. You've made me realize that I've been doing it all wrong by wishing for Millen to go back to the mike, or...ANYwhere else. I should be looking for someone to offer Mr. Ford a few hundred million in the hopes that he'll sell. That, or start convincing everybody to STOP buying Fords, so he finds himself in dire financial straits.

    I guess there's always next year.
    Or the year after.
    Or the year after.
    Or...

    Eeesh.

    ReplyDelete