Matt Millen out as Detroit Lions president
AROUND THE NFL
The team has struggled since he took over the job.
Matt Millen insisted he would stick with the tough job of turning the Detroit Lions into a winner instead of returning to the broadcast booth to make easy money.
So the Lions got rid of him.
Finally.
The Lions fired Millen seven-plus years after the acclaimed TV analyst and Super Bowl-winning linebacker took over as team president for one of the NFL's mediocre franchises and made it the worst.
"I have relieved Matt Millen of his duties effective immediately," Lions owner William Clay Ford said in a statement Wednesday afternoon.
Messages seeking comment were left on Millen's cellphone.
Millen's teams won a league-low 31 games since he took over in 2001, but his boss refused to get rid of him until now.
------
A yearlong ankle injury could not keep Plaxico Burress out of the New York Giants' lineup last season. The lack of a telephone call this week apparently is going to cost him a game and more than $235,000.
Less than a month after handing the man who caught the winning pass in the Super Bowl a new $35-million contract, the Giants suspended Burress for a game for missing a practice and not calling to explain his absence.
Burress' agent insisted the nine-year veteran had an undisclosed family emergency on Monday and that he will appeal the ban to the NFL Players Assn.
------
Receiver Roscoe Parrish will miss four to six weeks after having surgery to repair ligament damage in his right thumb, leaving the Buffalo Bills without their fastest player and one of their most elusive threats.
Coach Dick Jauron made the surprise announcement Wednesday, a day after Parrish had what was described as a brief but intricate operation. Jauron said Parrish told him he was hurt early in the fourth quarter of a 24-23 win over Oakland last weekend.
Jauron didn't know the exact nature of the injury, but said Parrish had no ligament support in his thumb if it moved a certain way.
------
Matthew Tryson Bryant, the 3-month-old son of Tampa Bay Buccaneers kicker Matt Bryant, died Wednesday.
"I don't have a lot of details," Coach Jon Gruden said after practice. "It's just a horrible tragedy, and I can't explain it."
Bryant, a seventh-year pro in his fourth season with Tampa Bay, kicked a winning field goal in overtime against Chicago last Sunday.
------
