I think the Lions should have fired Millen instead of Mariucci

I am not surprised that the Detroit Lions fired head coach Steve Mariucci, given that the team has had a horrific season in light of expectations of a great year. But why make Mariucci culpable and not Matt Millen, by most accounts far and away the worst GM in the NFL today. Mariucci did not build this team, Millen gets the credit for that. With 3 WR's picked in the first round in the past 3 years, and the team adding Jeff Garcia at QB and Marcus Pollard at TE, and Kevin Jones coming into his one, most experts thought this offense would really take off. But in reality it has not. The wide receivers have accomplished little except for collecting huge paychecks. When free agent Scott Vines is usually the go to receiver amongst all of those high draft picks, you have a problem. Pollard is playing ok and Roy Williams is having a decent year but Charles Rogers and Mike Williams have done little and Kevin Jones is not having a good year either. Both Garcia and Joey Harrington have QB ratings south of 70, not a good sign either.

The bottom line is that while admittedly Mariucci is not exactly a hard assed coach, you certainly cannot blame all of this on him. The amazing part? The Ford family, owners of the Detroit Lions, gave Millen a fat contract extension before the season, and that with his track record of accomplishing virtually nothing except being a former tv announcer.

Another bad sign? When fans in Detroit hold rallies calling for their GM to be fired, that is downright scary, especially in Detroit where the football fans are fairly used to a mediocre and underachieving team. Maybe they need to bring back Barry Sanders and Billy Sims?

You can read an article about Mariucci's firing and other likely coaching changes on Yahoo at the link below:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051203/ap_on_sp_fo_ne/fbn_on_football_coaching_changes;_ylt=AmyxTTQxh77e7xyJya.OrZULMxIF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--