NBC Hates Detroit

As I established in my statuses on Twitter and Facebook on Super Bowl Day, I could not believe that NBC had hired Matt Millen to do analysis for them. I mean, I had already seen him on there once, before the Atlanta-Arizona game (when he all but swore on his firstborn child's life that Atlanta was going to win) and was astounded at the time. But for Super Bowl Sunday? Sitting alongside Tony Dungy and Mike Holmgren? Please, NBC. Why are we supposed to care--AT ALL--what Matt Millen thinks about anything to do with football?

Apparently, the Detroit NBC affiliate agreed with me. They ran a crawl at the bottom of the screen every time Millen talked:

Matt Millen was president of the Lions for the worst eight-year run in the history of the NFL. Knowing his history with the team, is there a credibility issue as he now serves as an analyst for NBC Sports?

As ESPN reported, not everybody thought this was "hilarious." I have heard that Matt Millen is a nice guy. Admittedly, he has decent TV presence. I agree with the Detroit Free Press reporter who writes that nothing Millen said was very interesting, but then at least he presents it smoothly and professionally.

Nevertheless! He has burned all his credibility by being perhaps the worst GM in professional football history. (Or at least modern professional football history. Who knows what shenanigans they got up to in the 30's?) I would go so far as to say that NBC was disrespectful both to football fans, by insinuating that we should seriously listen to the man talk about football (the same is also true regarding their running of all those terrible Al Roker segments) and to Detroit Lions fans, for shoving him back in their faces after they finally got rid of him. Yeah, on some level it's funny that the Lions went 0-16, and it's easy to make fun of Detroit. On the other hand, I defy you to read this Mitch Albom story and not feel at least some empathy for them.

Tony Kornheiser derisively referred to the anti-Millen crawl as a "guerilla tactic." But I've got no problem with guerilla justice when it's the only kind you've got.