Another Detroit disaster: The Ford family's Lions

All Detroit, all of the time. Well, not really, but there will be a lot of Detroit blogging--meaning the auto industry--in the next few weeks here.

Let's talk the Ford Motor Company. Well, sort of. William Clay Ford, Sr., who sat on the board of the firm his grandfather founded, sat on the board of directors of Ford for decades. His son is the CEO of the middle child of the Big Three.

Senior has owned the Detroit Lions since 1964.

The Lions haven't won a game this year. Sunday they play the Carolina Panthers, and former Detroit sportswriter Reid Creager, now writing for the Charlotte Observer, explains that the Ford unmagical touch isn't limited to cars--for instance, the Focus (three fuel pumps in three years) I own.

Folks, 0-9 ain't that bad for the Lions. An 0-9 stretch is just a few wins less than they usually have over that span. It's not much of an aberration.

When you're this bad for this long, everyone has a hand in it -- from William Clay Ford, owner of the sputtering automaker who hires blatantly unqualified general managers and coaches; the aforementioned overmatched "braintrusts" who acquire and draft players with equal cluelessness; and last but not least, a lot of really crummy players.

Google "worst pro sports franchises," and the Lions are almost sure to come up in every conversation. It could be the worst-run sports franchise in the past quarter-century. To play for the Lions is to put a "kick me" sign on your back -- and to coach in Detroit, well, that's applying for the Witness Protection Program.

Since the team fired George Wilson in 1964, the Lions have had 12 coaches, and none of them has gone on to another NFL head coaching job. It's almost as though being a Lions coach dumbs you down, contaminates you in some way. Some of the names aren't even recognizable to most football fans: Harry Gilmer. Joe Schmidt. Don McCafferty. Rick Forzano. Tommy Hudspeth. Monte Clark. Darryl Rogers. Wayne Fontes. Bobby Ross. Marty Mornhinweg. Steve Mariucci. Rod Marinelli.

Since 1957, the toothless Lions have won just one playoff game. That was in 1991, which brought Detroit to the NFC Championship game, where the Washingon Redskins punished the Lions 41-10. I remember that game, it wasn't as close as the score indicated.

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