Of course, Millen didn’t help matters with his dunderheaded personnel moves, compounded with a lack of tact. For example, Millen released Johnnie Morton after a 2001 season in which that slacker caught only 77 balls for 1,154 yards. Two years later, after Morton’s Chiefs had thrashed the Lions, 45-17, Morton saw Millen and instructed him to kiss a particularly unpleasant body part of Morton’s. Millen responded by calling Morton a homosexual slur.

Lest you believe this was an isolated incident, the previous season Millen had told Mike Ditka during a radio interview about one of his players who was a “devout coward.” Millen said, “It’s like, where are your testicles?” It’s like, what is with Millen’s fascination with male private parts, and how they’re applied?

It’s not like Millen is in any position to question anyone’s manhood. Millen didn’t have the, um, guts to tell Mornhinweg he was going to be fired after the 2002 season (a sparkling one-win improvement on the previous year’s 2-14), telling him his job was safe while Millen secretly coveted Mariucci. A month after getting his job guarantee, Mornhinweg was gone.

The NFL fined Millen and the Lions $200,000 for not interviewing a minority candidate, as league rules dictate, when they hired Mariucci. Whatever one thinks of that rule, Millen at the least deserved the fine for violating Management 101 by interviewing only one candidate for the job. By the way, Millen did that with Mornhinweg, too — didn’t he learn anything?

And didn’t the Fords learn anything? Apparently not. Before the 2005 season, Millen got a five-year contract extension, putting him on the payroll through 2010. Not bad for a team president who’s guided his team into the dumper, with a 20-55 record, the worst for any NFL team over the last 75 games. Years 42 through 46 AF (After Ford) don’t appear to be leading the Lions into any brave new world.

Both William Clay Fords often have been described as nice guys. They must have been nice to allow the Lions to go so long using the run-and-shoot, the Edsel of offenses in that it looked radically flashy but in the end got you nowhere.

But sometimes being nice isn’t the nicest thing to do. Mariucci was pretty much a goner after the Lions’ 27-7 Thanksgiving Day debacle to Atlanta, but reports out of Detroit mentioned that the Fords have a strong aversion to firing anyone over the holidays. Does letting Mariucci wait until the following Monday make the news any easier to take? Then again, Ford employees are twisting their guts this Christmas, after hearing William Jr., as chair and chief executive officer of Ford Motor Co., say that 4,000 white-collar job cuts next year will be accompanied by plant closings — which won’t be announced until January.

And certainly, the Fords are being far too nice to Millen by continuing to employ him.

So what coach is going to have his career killed by the Lions next? Whomever he is, he should read up on the history of the Edsel. You know, just to get an idea of how he'll end up.

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