Bob Cook

In 1957, Detroit witnessed two momentous occasions: the Lions’ winning the NFL championship, and Ford Motor Co.’s introducing the Edsel. One would be an indicator of the future of the Lions franchise. Unfortunately, it was the Edsel.

With the Lions at 4-7, this ugly, poorly assembled and ignobly distinctive franchise is on its 48th straight championship-free season. The fall guy for the latest underperforming model year is coach Steve Mariucci, fired Monday after a 15-28 record in two and 11/16th seasons. The success Mariucci had in his previous stop at San Francisco — a 60-43 record in six years — failed to translate to Detroit. His players bickered and questioned him, and many outright quit on him.

But it’s not totally Mariucci’s fault a team full of supposed Mustangs such as Joey Harrington, Charles Rogers, Roy Williams and Mike Williams instead kept blowing up like a Pinto. After all, the Lions are brought to you by a familial dynasty that has done its part over the past 40 years to run the American auto industry into the ground.

Of those 48 championship-free years, 41 of them have been under the ownership of William Clay Ford, Edsel Ford's son, who bought full control of the Lions from a consortium of Detroiters in November 1963 and assumed control two months later. Under Ford, the Lions have won exactly one playoff game, a history of long-term organizational ineptitude that can be matched only by the Bidwill Cardinals. No wonder Barry Sanders retired young.

As a preview of his amazing lack of acumen when it came to personnel, Ford, after his first season as owner, forced out George Wilson, who had coached the Lions to their last championship.

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Wilson moved onto the AFL’s expansion Miami Dolphins, but he never coached in the NFL again. Then again, no Detroit coach has ever been hired again as an NFL head coach after leaving the Lions. Not Harry Gilmer, Joe Schmidt, Don McCafferty (who, to be fair, had extenuating circumstances — he died of a heart attack before the 1974 training camp), Rick Forzano, Tommy Hudspeth, Monte Clark, Darryl Rogers, Wayne Fontes, Bobby Ross, Gary Moeller or Marty Mornhinweg. Yikes. Mariucci had better bank the money he still has coming under that five-year, $25 million contract he signed in 2003.

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William Clay Ford Jr., vice chairman since 1995 but in reality more involved with the Lions these days than his father, is proving to be a chip off the old engine block. Exhibit A is the hiring of Matt Millen, with no personnel experience, to be team president. Millen tossed out Moeller, who guided the Lions to a 9-7 finish after Ross left nine games into the 2000 season, to hire Mornhinweg, a San Francisco assistant. Mornhinweg coached the Lions to a 5-27 record in 2001 and 2002, the worst two-year stretch of anyone in the NFL.

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