For those of you who follow football, the firing of Matt Millen should not come as a great shock (and for those of you who happen to still follow Detroit Lions football, it likely comes as a Day of Liberation). If you don’t happen to follow or care for the american-style pigskin sport, this is just another example of what happens when you hire someone to manager your operations who has technical experience and passion, but next to zero management ability. The fact is that while anyone can be a manager, not everyone is actually good at it.

One of Millen’s former employees, coach Steve Mariucci, had this to say:

Matt’s interest really wasn’t there. I don’t think he was equipped with his background to do a good job. He certainly had an interest, certainly loves football, he certainly has a passion, but I think his skills would say that he simply didn’t have the experience to do a good job in management.

That’s not to say that he couldn’t have learned and honed his management craft because let’s face it…management is something that can only be learned through practice. However, judging by the fact that he made rather curious personnel moves throughout his tenure and other poor decisions that led to a 31-84 record over the last eight seasons, I would wager against that idea.

But luckily, failing doesn’t mean failure. Here’s hoping that Millen does find what he’s good at and runs wild with it.