Matt Millen documentary: He didn't want to draft Mike Williams, 'acquiesced too often' with Detroit Lions
Matt Millen did not want to draft Mike Williams with the 10th pick of the 2005 NFL draft, but the former Detroit Lions general manager was talked into taking a third straight receiver in the first round while he was on the clock, his son said in a documentary set to debut Tuesday on the NFL Network.
Matthew Millen, Matt’s oldest son, said in “A Football Life: Matt Millen” that he was in the Lions’ war rooms in 2002-08 and heard the exchange that swayed Millen’s mind.
“The Mike Williams draft, I got really mad at him because we had talked all up to that point about, ‘DeMarcus Ware is a stud. He’s going to be a great pass rusher, he would fit our scheme, and he’d be the guy that I’d take,’” Matthew Millen said. “It gets to pick 10, and there’s DeMarcus Ware, so I’m thinking, ‘All right, we got our guy.’
And then all of a sudden, there’s chatter from some other people in the room that, ‘You know what, if we got this wide receiver and paired him with Roy Williams and some of the other weapons we have, we’d be a really potent offense.’ And I can see his mind starting to change.”
When the Lions picked Williams, a receiver out of USC who flamed out in Detroit after two unproductive seasons, Matthew Millen said he thought to himself, “Are you kidding me?”
The Dallas Cowboys took Ware, a seven-time Pro Bowler, at pick No. 11.
“I’m like, ‘Great, the buffoon just picked another wide receiver,’” Matthew Millen said. “That’s what everyone’s going to think.”
Millen drafted three straight receivers in the first round in 2003-05: Charles Rogers, Roy Williams and Mike Williams. Errant personnel decisions marred his seven-plus seasons as GM, as the Lions went 31-84 under his watch.
Millen did not specifically address the Williams pick in the film, but he said his biggest failing as GM was that “I acquiesced too often.”
“If I had to go back and say, ‘what would you change,’ I would probably go back and follow John Madden’s and Bill Parcells’ advice to me, and that was make your own mistakes, don’t make someone else’s,” Millen said in the film. “John would say to me all the time, ‘Your name’s on the top of the list. You make a decision, make sure it’s your decision.’”
Millen talks candidly about his failed tenure with the Lions and his successful playing career at Penn State and in the NFL during the 45-minute film that was shot over about a six-month period earlier this year.
Chris Barlow, the film’s producer, said the highs and lows of Millen’s career — he won four Super Bowls with three different teams over 12 seasons and was considered a rising star as a broadcaster before joining the Lions — made him an obvious subject for the “Football Life” series, though some in Detroit have reacted strongly against his inclusion.
“That’s what we’re all about in this series is telling great football stories, people who have lived football lives, and you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who’s lived more of a football life than Matt,” Barlow said. “Just because it doesn’t have a happy ending right now or because there was failure associated with it, I don’t think we should shy away from telling great stories where there’s lessons to be learned, and that’s certainly the case with Matt.
“I know that’s not going to satisfy a lot of people in Detroit, and I get that. But his story is one that should be told, and we were fortunate to do it.”
Among the stories that didn’t make the final cut, Barlow said Millen once had to play peacemaker between Joe Paterno and a Michigan assistant coach when both showed up at his house on recruiting visits the same night, and that Millen purposely started fights with teammates out of superstition before his final three Super Bowl appearances, after an Oakland Raiders coach asked him to start one as a tension breaker before his first.
“I know he roots for the Lions every weekend,” Barlow said. “Not that that brings any comfort to Detroit fans, I know. I get their frustration, and so does Matt, I think.”
Millen will be live in the studio on the NFL Network at 10 p.m. Tuesday to talk about the documentary. The film airs at 9 p.m.
Click here to watch a trailer of the documentary.
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett .
