The most common reasons for hating Mayhew as the GM for the Lions are...
1) He was part of the Millen crew who gave us the only team to ever go an entire season without a win.
2) He mismanaged the contracts of Suh, Stafford and Calvin Johnson.
3) He did not sign any free agents in 2012 after they made the playoffs.
4) He draft Eric Ebron when he had two decent tight ends on the team and had many other greater needs.
I thought I would address these things....
1) There is not one shred of evidence that Millen followed any of Mayhew's advice. Yet there are many in the football world who will say that Matt Millen had an ego problem and would not listen to others. He always did things his own way. There is also the evidence that Millen never listened to anything Mayhew said, because under Millen, the Lions continually got worse and under Mayhew, the Lions have become much better.
2) First off, it is not Mayhews responsibility to work the contracts, but I will admit, he must have to okay them. However, the #1 responsibility of a GM is to supply his coaches with the most talented team he can field to give his coaches the best chance of winning a Superbowl. If the Lions had not restructured the contracts of Suh and the others, they would never have had the money to sign such free agents as Glover Quinn, Stephen Tulloch, James Ihedigbo, and others. To not restructure those contracts he would have been stating that he was giving up on the next season or two while those contracts ran out, so he could possibly lose his best players to free agency. Then we would have been stuck with another team as talented as what Matt Millen gave us.
3) Seriously? You will complain that he didn't try to add players in 2012, but you would want him to not restructure contracts and sign free agents? You hate Mayhew for not signing free agents, but you hate him because he freed up money so he could sign some. Make up your freaking mind already!
4) I don't like the Ebron pick. You don't like the Ebron pick. My dog doesn't like the Ebron pick. But the fact still remains, you cannot name a player a bust after his rookie season. Most players much less tight ends, need a year to develop in the NFL. Lets wait and see what he does this year before you say the pick was stupid.
Now lets move on with a real look at Martin Mayhew.
In 2008, Martin Mayhew took over the worst team to ever play in the NFL. None of the good coaches really wanted the job at that point. Free Agents didn't want to come to the cesspit called the Detroit Lions. The fact is, Mayhew took over what was arguably the most daunting task ever taken on by a general manager. To raise the Detroit Lions from the depths of ruin. He hired a first time head coach in Jim Schwartz and hit free agency signing players like Larry Foote.
Within three years, the Lions had enough talent to win 10 games, and make the playoffs. Considering where they came from, that was an amazingly quick turn around. Unfortunately, Jim Schwartz was not as good of a coach as everyone had hoped. His schemes lived off of the big play. Several times in 2011, the Lions came from behind in the fourth quarter to win games. I remember listening to his post game interview one week late in the season when a reporter asked him about the come from behind victories, and wanted to know what kind of adjustments they were making. He answered that they did not make any adjustments, but that it was just great players making great plays. Schwartz proved this fact in 2012 when defenses dropped two safeties back and doubled up coverage on Calvin Johnson. Having the big play taken away from them, the Lions coaches never made any adjustments to counter the defensive schemes. They continued to call the same plays they did the year before and never really got their offense going because of it. The same problem came up in 2013. The Lions offense started off strong. Stafford was looking elite. Then at mid-season, the entire team seemed to fold under. That major collapse can be attributed to the same thing, no adjustments, as two different defensive players made remarks about the Lions making it easy to beat them because they were running all the same plays. Yet, this is not a Schwartz article, but the point needed to be made. Mayhew had installed enough talent to make the Lions a playoff team, but he was stuck with a coach who did not know how to win with the talent. That was proven when in 2014, Jim Caldwell to virtually the same players to 11 victories and a playoff appearance.
In his time as the Lions GM, Mayhew has taken a team almost void of talent and made them a playoff contender. When his coach proved to be inept, he fired him and hired a proven coach.
But there is yet one more reason so many fans hate Martin Mayhew as the GM for the Lions. Mayhew's history of drafting is on the sketchy side. I wont beat around the bush here. He really was not very good at all. In 2009, his first draft, he actually did pretty decent. With five picks in the first three rounds, he added Matthew Stafford, Brandon Pettigrew, Louis Delmas & Deandre Levy. Three of the four were still starting as of last year. Delmas was also starting, but for another team. But it was pretty much crash and burn after that for a few years. Basically, in the next three years, he hit with his first round picks in Suh, Fairley (arguably), and Reiff. He also got Tahir Whitehead in the 5th round of the 2012 draft. So yeah, it is understandable that people don't like Mayhew because he doesn't draft well. But if you look deeper, you find that is a bit deceiving, and he proves that by doing something most GMs are not willing to do. He recognized the drafts had been bad and hired Brian Xanders to correct it.
It turns out, contrary to what many believe, it was not that Mayhew did not know how to draft, but that the Lions scouting department were working from the stone age. Xanders set them up with computer programs, data, charts and all kinds of ways to evaluate talent. He basically brought the Lions into the 21st century. Armed with much better info to draft with, Mayhew had his best draft yet. In 2013, he added Ezekiel Ansah, Darius Slay and Larry Warford in the first three picks as well as Punter, Sam Martin in the 5th round.. He also added such depth as Devin Taylor & Theo Riddick. Then in 2014 he hadded the much alighned Eric Ebron pick, but also added Kyle Van Noy and Travis Swanson who will likely be starting this year. Other players such as Nevin Lawson, Caraun Reid, and Tj Jones should get some playing time as well.
So you have a General Manager who took the worst team in NFL history and added enough talent to get to the playoffs in three years, was wise enough to recognize a major flaw in the talent evaluating process and have it addressed, and had the nerve as well as wisdom to fire a coach who was failing and add a good coach in his place. You hate him because he was part of the Millen crew who ruined the Lions? Well he has rebuilt the Lions. You hated him for being so bad at drafting? Well he addressed the evaluation process and has had a couple strong drafts in a row. You hate him for bungling contracts, but he has also added talent and improved that talent even with the large contracts. You hated him for hiring a coach with an ego and could not win with talent? He fired that coach and added a coach who can win. Hate Mayhew for losing Ndamukong Suh? He replaced him with another top-5 defensive tackle in the NFL. For every reason we have to hate Mayhew, if you open your eyes and look at it, you will find he has addressed that same problem. Since he took over, Martin Mayhew has steadily improved and addressed not only the teams weaknesses, but his own. The only thing he has yet to do is win in the playoffs and get to a Superbowl. I have no doubt he will address those things as well.
If you still dont believe he has done well? Try looking at the starting rosters of the team he took over and last years, as well as possibly this years roster.
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| Starting rosters for the Detroit Lions under Mayhew |
The MM haters are squirming.
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