"Fire Millen" chants during the Notre Dame game?
A week or two ago one of the hosts on the WTKA big show(I think his name is Kope or Kobe or something like that) said that he knows people who are going to try and start a "Fire Millen" chant during the Notre Dame game. Note: Millen will be commentating during the game for those who hadn't heard.
He believes that not only will M fans be in on it, but so will Notre Dame fans who think Millen shouldn't be allowed back into sports of any form, or something like that.
I have a couple thoughts about this;
Do M fans really care enough about the current exploits of Matt Millen to start a chant during a rivalry game?
I am a Lions fan and of course don't like Millen, but I just don't see the reason to continue badgering him for something he was reasonably good at(commentating)
And I also don't believe that Michigan fans really care enough to get a chant started.
Thoughts? Would you be in on the chant?
August 23rd, 2009 at 6:44 PM ^
It's a little disrespectful, he already got fired.
August 23rd, 2009 at 7:07 PM ^
But remember, he said he would have fired himself
August 23rd, 2009 at 7:11 PM ^
And understandably so, but he was fired, it's over, and it would reflect poorly on Michigan's fans to chant that during the game. Uncalled for.
August 23rd, 2009 at 6:45 PM ^
Waste of time. No point in harassing the guy for destroying the Lions anymore. It's done, let's move on, and let's worry about what's happening on the field during M-ND and not about the Lions. They (the Lions) are definitely moving in the right direction IMO and will hopefully be very competitive in 3 or 4 years.
August 23rd, 2009 at 6:47 PM ^
Who is Matt Millen?
Genuinely though, college football reigns (several orders of magnitude greater than NFL football) supreme in Ann Arbor.
Almost nobody will participate in this. Besides, though we all admit that it was a stupid thing for the Lions to hand Millen a GM position for, Matt has always been a phenomenal analyst and commentator.
He belongs in that position--with words, without control.
August 23rd, 2009 at 7:08 PM ^
Because everyone at the game is from Ann Arbor and nobody from the Detroit area makes the daunting 45 minute trek on Saturdays.
August 23rd, 2009 at 7:30 PM ^
No. Instead, I implied that the majority of Michigan Stadium attendees care relatively little about the NFL--the goings-on of a former Lions' GM, specifically.
Are you really interested in challenging that statement?
August 23rd, 2009 at 7:43 PM ^
You said that college football reigns over the NFL in Ann Arbor, this is certainly untrue. Though nobody would attempt to argue with the fact that Michigan football has a greater presence in the town, you still see people with Lions shirts and hats or students repping their hometown teams.
Now you've limited the scope to Michigan Stadium atendees, which is even more wrongheaded. I'd be willing to bet at least 50% of the fans at Michigan Stadium any given week follow the Lions (or Bears, etc) more closely than they follow the Wolverines. For one, because the NFL is world's more popular than the college game.
August 23rd, 2009 at 9:11 PM ^
That is both unprovable and probably untrue. IMHO.
August 23rd, 2009 at 9:31 PM ^
Frankly, you're quite wrong. It's impossible not to follow the NFL to some degree, everyone has heard of the major players and knows the basics of what's going on the league. Do you think the average bluehair alum season ticket holder follows recruiting? Do you think most of them know who Tate Forcier is? I'm not sure about you, but fairly often (when not in the student section) I hear things like "Where's Jason Forcier?"... the fact is, following a college football team at any major level requires a great deal of time and at least basic internet literacy. If you think 50% of the people in Michigan Stadium are computer literate, you're probably wrong.
Now, don't be confused: I'm sure most people care more about Michigan than an NFL team. But follow the team more than they follow the NFL? That's not possible when you get your sports from the newspaper and ESPN.
August 23rd, 2009 at 10:13 PM ^
In Michigan Stadium? I think you're forgetting the sample here. It's not just Ann Arbor or just South-Eastern Michigan. It's the University of Michigan football stadium.
Your argument is that people need to spend more time to pay attention to college football. There is likely some truth to that. But to the degree that a former Lions coach would take precedent over the events on the field. Nope.
I think you're also ignoring the number of people in the stadium that are either not from the state of Michigan or have given up on the Lions.
August 23rd, 2009 at 10:24 PM ^
My argument was general NFL, but point taken.
August 23rd, 2009 at 9:27 PM ^
While it's true that the NFL is more popular than college football among the general public, it does not logically follow to assume that the people who pay upwards of $500 a year to attend college football games are going to follow that general trend.
I think it's safe to assume that anyone willing to pay that amount of money for the right to sit in a cramped, backless seat (in often inclement weather, no less) is likely to care a great, great deal about college football. He/she may also care about the NFL, but probably not any moreso.
August 23rd, 2009 at 9:35 PM ^
This doesn't account for a few facts:
1. The tickets are a status symbol
2. NFL season tickets are far more expensive
3. The games are not always attended by the person who bought the tickets
4. There are probably a large amount of people who hold season tickets to both Michigan and the Lions and care more about the latter than the former.
August 24th, 2009 at 3:28 PM ^
why is it you have 9 gazillion points yet every time i see you post, you have -8 on your snarky, unhelpful comments?
August 24th, 2009 at 3:39 PM ^
It's a kind of magic.
August 23rd, 2009 at 6:54 PM ^
Yeah I mean the "Fire Millen" chants had their time, but now that time is over. He was a horrible GM but he's not a GM anymore.
August 23rd, 2009 at 6:57 PM ^
I hope we have more class than to partake in a Fire Matt Millen chant. Thats just stupid.
August 23rd, 2009 at 7:51 PM ^
I think it would be funny if Lions fans who happen to be at the game brought "Fire Millen" signs. It would be interesting to see if the network was cool enough to let them appear on the telecast, or if they would either censor them or just not show crowd shots with "Fire Millen" signs.
It would also be interesting to see if Millen was media-savvy enough to go along with it and make a joke out of it. Not that he could make any joke bigger than he was in Detroit.
August 23rd, 2009 at 6:57 PM ^
I had a feeling that most Michigan fans would agree. I think the guy on the radio is more of an NFL fan, but doesn't really get the true Michigan fans who hold M football above all other sports.
August 23rd, 2009 at 7:10 PM ^
Being a "true M fan" requires me to care more about Michigan football than any other sport? When did this requirement come into effect? Why didn't I get the memo?
August 23rd, 2009 at 7:35 PM ^
No, being a "true M fan" doesn't require you to care more about college football than any other sport. However, as coincidence would have it, the average M fan (as gauged with by my eyes and ears for a decade) is indeed more passionate about college football than s/he about any other sport.
August 23rd, 2009 at 7:46 PM ^
That is both unprovable and probably untrue. The average Michigan fan on a blog or message board, maybe... but the millions of people who consider themselves Michigan fans do not all fall within that group.
August 23rd, 2009 at 10:10 PM ^
does this mean "i am not a true michigan fan" of the following is true ... i care more or equally as much about michigan basketball (or any other umich sport) ... ur full of it ... being a michigan fan means u care about college football and our other sports ... otherwise ur a a michigan college football fan ... not a true M fan
August 23rd, 2009 at 7:51 PM ^
Sorry, I mistated that. I should have said that most michigan fans consider michigan to be the most important sport, which seems to be a reasonable assumption to me.
August 23rd, 2009 at 6:57 PM ^
commentating on the Western game, isn't he? No need to wait until the second game, if you want to start the chant.
August 23rd, 2009 at 7:28 PM ^
A pound of flesh? His first born? His left arm? Sure, he ran the Lions into the ground, but there's no reason he should be blackballed as a television analyst unless he starts comparing Rich Rodriguez to Adolph Hitler.
Also, let's suppose Millen hears this chant during the game. What's going to happen? He and whoever he's in the booth with are going to joke around for about thirty seconds about how Millen has already been fired from the Lions.
August 23rd, 2009 at 8:44 PM ^
Yea but it's Bullshit that NBC hired him as an analyst before last season was even over. He was commenting on the Lions Team that he created. I'm not saying he should be blackballed but he should have a taken a year off at least before getting back in the public eye. He deserves any shit that he gets because he chose to be on TV and to put himself in a position to be hackled.
August 23rd, 2009 at 10:50 PM ^
Coaches do that fairly often. For instance, in the playoffs some of the networks will have coaches from other teams doing analysis. Wasn't Terry Bowden doing college games the same season he resigned from Auburn?
Nor is there any real conflict of interest if he comments on the Lions. The worst thing he can do is to make himself look better (good luck with that). He has no control over the players on the field or the coaches.
I'm not saying don't give the guy shit. You want to get your "Millen Sucks" sign on TV, fine. I just think a "Fire Millen" movement is pointless, excessive and stupid. Unless you actually want him to be fired from his analyst gig (which amounts to wanting him to be blackballed form football).
August 23rd, 2009 at 7:37 PM ^
I will be at the game - therefor don't have to listen to him and to be honest he wasn't all that bad at it before he took the Lions job. I think his credibility is gone because of the Lions but he is really just there to fill up dead space in the broadcast. No real point to chant that - I would much rather hear a "don't fire Weis" chant, now that would be funny. I believe we did that with John L. on his last game.
August 23rd, 2009 at 7:49 PM ^
It's been done before at other Michigan events...(Not since he's actually been fired though)
I wouldn't join the chant because I don't give a shit about him anymore, but some of you are forgetting how long people can hold a grudge and how many Michigan fans are borderline insane.
I found this entertaining as well:
I wouldn't join the chant because I don't give a shit about him anymore, but some of you are forgetting how long people can hold a grudge and how many Michigan fans are borderline insane.
I found this entertaining as well:
"A "Fire Millen" sign was shown in the background of a February 3, 2007 broadcast of ESPN College Gameday at the University of Kansas."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Millen (No guarantee that's even accurate, although I seem to remember seeing it)
August 24th, 2009 at 1:33 AM ^
Forgot about this picture. My cousin is actually the one holding the "Fire" sign. The ushers took it away at halftime, so good luck keeping the sign if the ushers see it.
Seriously though, the man has already been fired and the situation has been resolved in Detroit. The Lions just need a few years to get things back in order.
August 24th, 2009 at 9:50 AM ^
i think it will start in the student section. if i go to the game and there is a chant i will join in.
you don't have to root for the lions to jump on the "fire millen" bandwagon. i like the lions b/c i like watching them fail. it is really entertaining. they failed before millen and they failed after millen. they will continue to fail this year. i think millen epitomizes the failure and should be continue to be upheld as the poster boy for the franchise and he should continue to be recognized as such - in all public venues.
on a personal note, millen's voice irritates me. he doesn't have any credibility. i do not look forward to seeing him and hearing him broadcast michigan football games. he is a pompous ass.
August 23rd, 2009 at 8:10 PM ^
No. The meme has run its course.
August 23rd, 2009 at 8:28 PM ^
Exactly. He was fired. You can't fire him again, even if you wanted to.
August 23rd, 2009 at 8:25 PM ^
I sure as hell won't participate in it regardless of what I think of Millen.
I'm frankly more worried that people will boo when Nick Sheridan takes the field on Sept. 5.
August 23rd, 2009 at 9:49 PM ^
I probably wouldn't participate, but I don't begrudge anyone who wants to do it. It's pretty hard to be more incompetent than Mike Brown, but somehow Matt Millen pulled it off.
August 23rd, 2009 at 10:13 PM ^
i mean come on ppl ... the lions are still putrid and he was getting paid to make em that way ... i will forgive him when the lions are no longer bad which might not be for a hell of a long time
August 24th, 2009 at 1:43 AM ^
Yeah he was obviously a joke of a GM, but what is being accomplished by further riding the guy? I'm in no way defending him, but what's done is done. He's been fired, it's time to move on. It's cool to blast him for his job of GM but what's it matter if he's an announcer.
August 24th, 2009 at 2:10 AM ^
In what way is he qualified to comment on the way a team is performing or being run? He's proven quite definitively that he has no comprehension of how to run a team or evaluate talent. The only thing he knows is how to play linebacker... maybe in a future world where there's an analyst for every position, he'll be a reputable source again.
Further, he never called college games in his initial tenure as a broadcaster. What insights can he possibly provide now? "Boy, that Tay Odoms looks good... I'd waste a high draft pick on him three years in a row"?
August 25th, 2009 at 1:13 PM ^
How many football announcers are qualified to do what they do really? Many are not former players or coaches. Tony Kornheiser...
August 25th, 2009 at 3:29 PM ^
There's a difference between a play by play guy and a color commentator. Kornheiser was there to hopefully stir up some controversy ala Howard Cossel. Thankfully, ESPN realized what a stupid plan that was.
August 24th, 2009 at 3:28 AM ^
This is fucking retarded. As a New Orleans Saints fan, I was A FAN of Millen. I laughed for years, along with 30 other NFL teams and fanbases, as he drove your franchise into the gutter.
Why would I, or the thousands of other students from out of state, or the adults which traveled from surrounding states up to Ann Arbor for a day of sunshine, Michigan football and fine tailgating, give a fuck about Lions football when we have passion and excitement right in front of us?
True fans of teams care about it at all times. But bandwagon fans (which would account for a lot of people in the Stadium, like it or not) don't have the passion for the Lions to do something like this. If they were a consistent playoff team? Obviously, go Lions all the time. But very few fans at the stadium would have the bitterness to do this.
I guarantee a Fire Millen chant would be met confusion, disgust, sorority girl indifference, and amusement by the less rabid fans of the NFL. Why? 95% of people will not be aware that Millen is even in the stadium. And that percentage is generous. And not too many people would care that he should be fired from a broadcasting job.
August 24th, 2009 at 3:40 AM ^
I agree with your latter assessment, though I'm baffled that you seem to assume that a large enough percentage of people at the games aren't from Michigan. 32% of students are out of staters, and considering all factors (older alums are more likely to be from in state as that number used to be in the teens, non students and non alums are extremely likely to be from the state at least originally, the number of people actually traveling from states other than those in the Great Lakes region) it's not hard to come to the conclusion that most people, probably by a 70/30 split, are from (in the most literal sense, of course) Michigan.
Does this translate into giving a fuck about the Lions? It's probably close to 50/50 when you include the people you term as bandwagoners (I'd call them casual Lions fans, there's no bandwagon to jump on).
Either way this is a moot point. As you correctly point out, almost nobody will even know he's broadcasting the game and the notoriously fickle crowd won't be swayed by such a played out meme. But we shouldn't forget that UCLA fans chanted "Fire Millen" during a basketball game, or that the chant surfaced to some success at Crisler.
August 24th, 2009 at 8:39 AM ^
'Fire Millen' chant. I like the Lions, I follow them, but this is going to be all about Michigan when I am at the stadium. If it was a Lions game I think it would be appropriate, because there is a connection there, but there is no connection at all if it is a Michigan game. That's my two cents worth; at a Michigan game I am all about Michigan and anything to do with this chant would be a distraction to the event.
August 24th, 2009 at 12:07 PM ^
how can you break something that was already a perennial doormat? He just carried on the tradition.
He never should have done the ESPN article on the Harley and all that, set himself up as a target. The GM needs to be behind the scenes, he tried to become a bit of a celebrity GM and it backfired on him.
August 24th, 2009 at 4:19 PM ^
it would be funny if we're winning handily, and classless if we're losing.
and I think Matt Millen is a dick for having the gall to offer his paid opinion on football so soon after being a miserable fucking disaster of general manager.
Dude, have some shame, disappear for a while.
August 24th, 2009 at 4:26 PM ^
I don't know why chanting/signs would reflect poorly on the class of Michigan fans.
The bottom line is, it is meant to be funny. This man will go down as one of the most comically inept GMs in sports history, and will forever be a running joke for Lions fans. Why not make fun of it at every chance?
August 25th, 2009 at 11:50 AM ^
I think people need to get off of his nuts at this point.
August 25th, 2009 at 1:26 PM ^
I will never in my life stop chanting FIRE MILLEN at any event where Matt Millen is present. He should be reminded forever of his failure and the unbearably arrogant manner in which he failed.
If he put together a bad football team, that's one thing. But he called players "cowards" in the press, was a condescending prick, and was absurdly stupid enough to call Johnnie Morton - a dude who played his off for some terrible Lions teams - a "faggot" in a pretty public situation. He didn't bother to live in, around, or within a 5 hour drive of his team. He was, without a doubt, the most incompetent and unsuccessful GM in the history of the NFL. For this performance, he is rewarded with millions to be an "expert" on football for ESPN?
The least we can do is remind him, every chance we get, that he fucking sucked.