When the news broke on Sunday night that the San Francisco 49ers were hiring Fox analyst and former NFL safety John Lynch as their new GM, the general reaction on Twitter was “what the hell?”. The second reaction was something along the lines of “didn’t they learn from the Lions hiring Matt Millen?”.
Millen himself weighed in on his former Fox colleague’s new job.
“When I heard the news, good luck,” Millen told the Free Press today. “He’s a bright guy. I mean, the parallels are kind of funny, actually. He was a defensive guy, he was a really good player. All those things, all that crap. But none of those things are factors. The things that are factors are, can you manage people? Can you get everybody on the same page? Can you handle the politics? If you got that, fine. If you don’t have it, then it’ll turn out the way it turns out.”
49ers fans are hoping that Lynch has a better tenure with their team than Millen did with the Lions, who went 31-84 with him at the helm. That record doesn’t include 13 losses suffered in 2008 after Millen was fired just three games into that season.
Millen was happy to offer some advice for Lynch, mainly “learn how to deal with people”.
But asked today what advice he would give Lynch, Millen said, “It’s not about understanding the game and knowing the game. It’s none of that. It’s not X’s and O’s. It’s about managing people.”
“The biggest thing that helps in those jobs is experience and having been exposed to it,” Millen said. “When you haven’t been and when you don’t have it, you’re forced to rely on other people. For little things. And so that’s why you have to know the people. That’s why you got to know them. You got to know their eyes, you got to know, philosophically, how they are, you got to know what they’re like politically, you got to know who’s trying to work you. There’s tons of stuff. And then you’ve got to know — when I say know the whole building, you’ve got to know all the people in the decision-making process, up to and including ownership.”
Good luck, John. You’re going to need it.
