Hey, SOMEONE had to start it! 
Prediction: You heard it here first - the Lions will win their first game next year. Regardless who it’s against.
So, this is the William Ford Annual March to the Toilet Bowl thread?
Okay. I obviously hate myself and my sports psyche. I’ll sign up.
For something substantive: Daniel Bullocks must go. He gets treated like a punk every time I’ve watched.
Nothing but blue skies. They have 4 solid draft choices. They will pick wisely and will win the division next year.
The league is set up so you can not be down long. We get the easiest schedule possible and the top draft choices. We are gold for next year.
It’ll be interesting to see how completely they clean house this off-season. Marnielli is obviously gone, and they don’t have a franchise QB to worry about dumping. Supposedly the President and GM will be retained, but their roles could be changed and player personnel specialist could be brought in. They will be glad for that Roy Williams trade come April.
In wonder if Bradford or Stafford will be the pick, or if they’ll go for an OT. Crabtree would be too funny to even stomach.
I do wish to remind you of the Cincinnati Bungles of the 1990s vintage, which spilled over into the 2000s a bit.
As a Packers fan, I hope it doesn’t happen. I am a firm believer that the NFC Black and Blue division should contain four competitive teams every year. That’s what makes the football in that division so great. 
Nope. I’d be willing to bet that Marinelli will be there next year.
The NFL rewards bad teams with an easy schedule ,top draft choices and revenue sharing. In order to stay at the bottom you have to be real,real bad. It takes organizational bad. You have to sign and draft poorly for a long time. It is not easy to sign GMs over and over that are over their heads. It is difficult to draft crappy for 30 years. When they drafted Barry it was forced. They wanted the Green Bay pick.
The Lion coaches are gone forever. They do not get another head coaching job in the NFL.Their wives divorce them. Their children pretend they do not know who they are . Their dogs bite them.
Bolding mine.
“the Green Bay pick” = Tony Mandarich.
What would you bet?
The Lions actually have some talent. Calvin Johnson is the real-deal and Kevin Smith can play. Backus and Raiola are legit starters (Cherilus needs to develop, but could still be a player). Their Linebackers are all decent, especially if Dizon finds his way onto the field more often. The fact that he’s lost every game with guys like that is remarkable. You’d expect CJ to win a game or two by himself, and they really should be a much better running team than they are. That’s on the coach, and the brother-in-law as defensive coordinator will be a millstone around his neck.
I’d bet 50 bucks. Seriously, Marinelli is getting respect fr getting his players to play hard. The Lions need continuity, which is why I was so pissed last year when they let go of Martz. I didn’t necessarily agree with his playcalling, but we need to have continuity so we know what we do have. If we always shuffle the line, if we always change the offensive coordinator, if we always change the coach, we never know what we have and then we let good people walk because you can’t work like that.
Let’s not say something about you can’t be down long.
This Arizona Cardinals fan is an expert on that subject. This Arizona Cardinals fan remembers 1998.
You’re nuts. “Moral victories” like playing hard are the types of things that lead the Lions to where they are now. Marinelli has been there for 3 full seasons, that’s plenty of continuity at the head coach position and his record is abysmal. He’s a Millen guy, and he was brought in as a defensive specialist and the defense has been a joke from day one. You can credit the 10 wins the Lions got over the last 3 seasons to Martz. No way he stays after the PR fiasco that this season has become. There’s no way the Lions sign any free agents without making a change, and at this point they might not even be able to sign their 1st round pick.
Unless they make wholesale changes they will be crippled for years to come. Marinelli might have a chance as a coordinator somewhere else, but as a head coach in Detroit he’s done and is the rest of the coaching staff. They need to bring in a new GM/Personnel man and let him bring in a young, innovative coach and staff.
And for the record, the players played hard this year because they didn’t want to be associated with historic failure. It had nothing to do with the coach, that’s simple pride not motivational speeches.
Marinelli stays.
If he stays and if a single fan is ok with that, then the Lions never deserve to win another game. In fact they deserve to have the stadium burn down and the team moved to Los Angeles.
Ownership already said their interim GM and some other personnel people are staying. Millen’s gone, but it’s hard to see where the improvement is coming from.
I fear the Cowher.
Well, Lewand and Mayhew’s only real test to date has been the Roy Williams trade and it was a huge windfall. Both are considered to be superb money men and considering that the Lions have never really had any salary cap headaches tells me that they can remain in those positions, so long as they aren’t asked to evaluate talent.
The trick will be getting a superior talent evaluator who won’t demand full GM authority. There aren’t many guys out there who are savvy negotiators, capologists and scouting experts. If they get a guy who excels at the latter and pair him with the other two guys, and everyone has a well defined and limited role, it could be a very solid office. Politics will be important, but that’s not unique to the Lions.
Pretty much every problem the Lions have comes from talent evaluation in the draft, in free agency and in selecting coaches. Most of that was helped by dumping Millen.
There’s only like 2 games each year that are still determined based on the previous year’s record, so that’s not really true that they reward bad teams with easy schedules.