Boob life

With the official end of the Big Ten football regular season schedule Saturday, there's one less place we'll have to suffer his presence. But you know Matt Millen will bumble and bluster through tomorrow night's Thursday Night Football Texans-at-Eagles contest on the NFL Network. And Monday Night Countdown next week on ESPN. And holiday football bowl games on ESPN and ABC. And for all we know, an upcoming cameo on Grey's Anatomy, preferably as a cadaver.

Is there no escaping this boob? Is Detroit's collective blind rage over Matthew George Millen — the ex-jock who, in eight looong years as the Detroit Lions president, CEO and Lord High Executioner, singlehandedly set one of the NFL's oldest and proudest franchises back at least 10 years in its development and made it the laughingstock of the sports world — so overpowering that we can't appreciate his sparkling charisma and outstanding broadcasting skills that others obviously see? Or, more likely, does this Tank McNamara of television have negatives squirreled away of top executives at the alphabet-soup land called ESPN on ABC in compromising positions, forcing them to put him on the air at every opportunity?

He is boorish. He is not what even the most generous observer might call telegenic. He delivers his opinions and insights — none particularly opinionated or insightful — with the same mangled growl as the lout on the next barstool. He walks upright, so he fools people. But in the entire universe of retired NFL players, there isn't one guy who could do a better on-camera job covering pro and college games than Matt Millen? (This echoes my question of why 102-year-old beefhead Jim Brandstatter seems to be the only man capable of providing radio commentary for both University of Michigan and Detroit Lions games, but I digress.) Doesn't even the most casual football fan know that Millen presided over the only 0-16 losing season in the history of the National Football League?

Earlier this fall, when ABC selected Millen to provide color commentary for the annual Michigan-Michigan State football clash, then defended its decision to do so, it was like sending daggers into the eyes and ears of sports fans statewide. In an age where we keep hearing every viewer is precious to the networks, as audience levels continue to dwindle, it's hard to understand why any broadcast group would alienate and outrage an entire region, deliberately or not, through such a shocking display of insensitivity.

Matt Millen sold auto tycoon William Clay Ford a lemon: himself.

With absolutely zero front-office experience, he became the second-highest-paid executive in the NFL at the time, yet didn't even bother to move to Detroit to conduct his business, preferring to commute from his native Pennsylvania. (Next time someone offers you a seven-figure gig, ask 'em if they care where you live.) And he didn't bother to say goodbye when he left — after admitting on NBC that he would have fired himself at least a year earlier — just taking his millions and slithering back to television.

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