 Millen in November 2009 | |||||||||
| No. 54, 55, 57 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Position: | Linebacker | ||||||||
| Personal information | |||||||||
| Born: | March 12, 1958 Hokendauqua, Pennsylvania, U.S. | ||||||||
| Height: | 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) | ||||||||
| Weight: | 250 lb (113 kg) | ||||||||
| Career information | |||||||||
| High school: | Whitehall (Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania) | ||||||||
| College: | Penn State | ||||||||
| NFL draft: | 1980 / round: 2 / pick: 43 | ||||||||
| Career history | |||||||||
| As a player: | |||||||||
| As an executive: | |||||||||
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| Career highlights and awards | |||||||||
| Career NFL statistics | |||||||||
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Matthew George Millen (born March 12, 1958) is an American former professional football player and executive in the National Football League (NFL). Millen played as a linebacker for 12 years for the Oakland and Los Angeles Raiders, San Francisco 49ers, and Washington Redskins, playing on four Super Bowl-winning teams and winning a Super Bowl ring for each of the three franchises for which he played.[1][2]
Following his NFL playing career, Millen was a football commentator for several national television and radio networks. His last job before joining the Lions was as a member of the number two broadcast team for NFL on Fox,[3] and the color commentator for Monday Night Football on Westwood One. On February 1, 2009, he joined the NBC broadcast team for pre-game analysis of Super Bowl XLIII. He has also been employed by ESPN as an NFL and college football analyst, and by the NFL Network as a color commentator on Thursday Night Football.[4]
In 2001, Millen was hired as president and chief executive officer of the Detroit Lions and served in that position until 2008. His eight-year tenure as head of Detroit Lions led to the worst eight-year record in the history of the modern NFL (31–84, a .270 winning percentage),[5] leading to fan outrage, and ultimately his termination from the franchise on September 24, 2008. Millen assembled the personnel and coaching staff of the 2008 Lions, which became the first team to go 0–16. It stood as the worst single-season record in NFL history until 2017, when it was tied by the 2017 Cleveland Browns who went winless in the season. He is generally regarded among the worst general managers in the history of modern sports.[6]
In 2015, Millen returned to broadcasting with Fox NFL and debuted on the Big Ten Network.
- ^ Super Bowl champs on Lions roster Detroit Lions.com.
- ^ Lions to stick with Millen by Dan Haugh Archived October 20, 2006, at the Wayback Machine Football.com.
- ^ Fox's No. 2 announcing team proving itself to be first-rate The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
- ^ [1] Archived May 9, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Rank, Adam (March 8, 2013). "Not so great Wizards of the NFL". National Football League. Retrieved March 8, 2013.
- ^ Keri, Jonah (September 25, 2008). "Keri: Worst GMS in sports history - ESPN Page 2". ESPN.com. Retrieved June 27, 2024.