 
20043_stotter
Member
Username: 20043_stotter
Post Number: 150
Registered: 03-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 05, 2007 - 9:10 am: |    |
What a difference. Mike wants winners and Ford makes the most profit. Ford cares more about the profits than having a winner. Put him in the Hall of Shame. |
Chitaku
Member
Username: Chitaku
Post Number: 1724
Registered: 03-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 05, 2007 - 9:51 am: | |
part of me thinks ford wants a winner yet is too stubborn and incompetent to achieve that goal |
Umstucoach
Member
Username: Umstucoach
Post Number: 142
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 05, 2007 - 10:50 am: | |
When Ilitch puts his mind, and more importantly, his money, to winning it happens. Plus it really helps to have competent general managers. Although some moves might seem strange, I fully trust Ken Holland and Dave Dombrowski (WMU alum) to better the franchise and so does Ilitch.
Ford remained loyal to a lot of people who weren't good. Now, he will put a lot of money into the team, but his GM is Matt Millen and he seems to trust him as much as Ilitch trusts Dombrowski and Holland, yet Holland and Dombrowski have proven they can succeed, Millen is...well, Millen.
It wasn't always like this. Ilitch tried to do things on the cheap with the Tigers, especially during the Randy Smith era. But after Dombrowski purged the system after that horrific year of 2003 and stopped playing the sentimental game by hiring Trammell, the Tigers have been nothing short of cut-thoat.. Leyland, Sheffield, Renteria, and now Cabrera and Willis.
I think Ford wants to win, I don't know if he knows how, in the NFL, to create an organization that creates a consistant winner. Ilitch knew how to with the Red Wings and now he doing the same with the Tigers, something he WASN'T doing five years ago (and ruined many a good day in my childhood by thier consistent losing). Not anymore. |
401don
Member
Username: 401don
Post Number: 123
Registered: 11-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, December 05, 2007 - 12:51 pm: | |
It's all about the GM. I always laughed at how Ilitch was villified as a terrible owner for one franchise and a genious with another in the same city at the same time. It's not easy for the owner to know who to hire to run the show. Ilitch wanted to spend money and win so badly going into Comerica that he forced a bad GM, Randy Smith, to make things worse by signing any star he could get-luckily Juan Gonzalez refused $140 million. The reason Dombrowski is so good is that he continued to bring his scouts over from the EXpos and Marlins 2-3 yrs. after he arrived. In baseball, scouting is everything. |
Lansingfire
Member
Username: Lansingfire
Post Number: 74
Registered: 07-2007
| | Posted on Sunday, December 16, 2007 - 6:42 pm: | |
I think that Ford doesn't know how to work for anything. Nor has he ever. He expects people that he puts in charge to make a winner rather then putting hard work into it. Ilitch has worked his whole life making the best of his pizza and then expanding. Illitch is making the people he has work for their rewards. Ex the tigers didn't start using the company jet until they started winning. What does Ford provide for his winners, and does he make them feel like the team is only a piece away from greatness. |
Jiminnm
Member
Username: Jiminnm
Post Number: 1545
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Monday, December 17, 2007 - 11:41 am: | |
Throughout his ownership, Ford has made some of the worse personnel decisions (including draft choices) imaginable. I see nothing that is going to change that. I don't how much input day-to-day he now makes, as compared to his son, but I don't expect anything positive out of the Lions until they sell the club.
20043, I agree that he belongs in any football Hall of Shame. But, don't be surprised if he ends up in the NFL HOF simply because he had owned the Lions or nearly 50 years (maybe because he will have the owned the team with the most dismal record ever?). |
Jrvass
Member
Username: Jrvass
Post Number: 356
Registered: 01-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 6:44 am: | |
I got into an argument with my cousin's husband last year at Chet's funeral. Ted is a season ticket holder for the Lions. I told him he supported failure. |
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