It started exactly two months earlier, when Detroit Lions owner Martha Ford abruptly fired team president Tom Lewand and general manager Martin Mayhew on Nov. 5, with her franchise at 1-7 and floundering in yet another season.
She wanted to win immediately. She wanted to change things around and try to create a winning culture for a franchise that has never had one. So she shook things up, fired the two most influential people in the front office and embarked on finding someone to lead the football part of the franchise.
That led to Providence, Rhode Island, on Jan.