The name game: Martin Mayhew
This is part of an ongoing series where I offer my opinion on guys who have been mentioned as possible replacements for Matt Millen to guide the most inept franchise in professional sports: the Detroit Lions.
Jason Whitlock made the case for Mayhew in this article. Here is what he had to say:
Last week I was at the same college football game as the best general manager in professional football, Indy’s Bill Polian. At halftime of the Kansas State-Louisville game, I picked Polian’s brain about young GM prospects. To my great surprise he was extremely high on Mayhew, who was just promoted to assistant GM in Detroit.
Polian is convinced that Mayhew has a deep understanding of personnel and a tremendous work ethic. Mayhew was one of only four guys Polian identified as a future GM.
If you don’t know, Polian built the Buffalo Bills Super Bowl teams, the Carolina Panthers team that advanced to the Super Bowl and, of course, the Indianapolis Colts squad that won it all. He knows what it takes to build a winner.
Mayhew might be worth hanging onto for a year or two.
I’m not sure what role Mayhew played in the deal to send Roy Williams to Dallas but if he was involved it was one positive sign amongst an absolute train wreck of a franchise.
The one problem with Mayhew? He fits the Lions perfectly as this is a franchise that has a way of taking talent and mangling it to the point where it is unrecognizable after a couple seasons in Allen Park.
Sure the Lions gave up on Charles Rogers and Mike Williams, but every NFL franchise had a chance to take those guys and resurrect them into middling professional talents. Every single franchise took a pass. That’s just Detroit’s m.o. They even killed the will of the greatest running back in football history and forced him to retire prematurely.
Like all things Lions I Want To Believe that Mayhew will burst forth from the brow of Zeus and be an excellent football executive right off the bat. Heck, he has more experience right now than Matt Millen had when he was hired to “lead” the franchise.
But this franchise is in a precarious place right now. They have an excellent shot at finishing with a perfect 0-16 record this season. The first one in NFL history. They’ve been such an embarrassment during their traditional Thanksgiving Day game that there is talk of taking the game from the franchise.
My opinion is that Whitlock has the right idea when it comes to keeping Mayhew around. I think the Leos could position themselves to end their decade-long hibernation by bringing in an older, proven GM to get the franchise to pull out of its death spiral. Then they could hand the reigns over to Mayhew at some point in the future, say 3-5 years.
That would replenish the talent level that was decimated by Matt Millen, it would allow Mayhew to continue to develop alongside a manager who has plenty of experience, and would then put Mayhew in a position to succeed if he eventually ascended to the top spot in the franchise.
LionsNo Comments
No comments yet.
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
Leave a comment
