It’s probably the last thing Lions fans want to hear, but former team president Matt Millen - the architect of last year’s 0-16 debacle and the sorriest eight-year stretch in NFL history - said new general manager Martin Mayhew and new coach Jim Schwartz are on the verge of turning things around in Detroit.

“I think they made a great choice with Schwartzie,” Millen said. “I think Jim’s a good coach. He’ll do it. He won’t try to tie himself to a way. What he’ll do is he’ll look at what he has and adapt to what he has, and that’s smart coaching. I think that’s good.

“I’m a big fan of Martin. Mr. Ford I think is - I’ve said all that before. Those things aren’t going to change. They’re good people and they’ll have success this year. It’s just how much, and you never know.”

Millen, who was in Chicago for Big Ten football media day Monday, was fired three games into last season with a 31-84 record.

He declined to shed any light on why things didn’t work out in Detroit - “I could but I won’t,” he said. “It’s past. Can’t do anything about it now. It’s already done.” - but said his biggest regret was that he couldn’t build owner William Clay Ford a winner.

“You’re judged by wins and losses and so we lost, I was awful,” he said. “It’s that simple.”

Still, Millen said the Lions are on the right track under Mayhew, his former first lieutenant. Millen praised Mayhew’s top three draft choices this year, and said No. 1 overall pick Matthew Stafford has a chance to be special.

“If he’s the real deal, which obviously they think he is, then you got a real chance,” Millen said. “He’s not going to be great from the start, but when you have a real quarterback he can overcome a multitude of sins. So if he can develop into that, they can win for a long time.

“I’ve watched teams like the teams in Denver, they had John Elway, that was it. They went to four Super Bowls. They should have been the Denver Elways. And then when he finally got some help they won Super Bowls. So that’s the first part. If it’s a passing league you have to have a passer and you have to have some guys who can rush the passer and you have to have some guys who can cover, that’s the whole deal.”

Asked if his own failure to acquire a franchise quarterback - he drafted Joey Harrington and Drew Stanton - led to the Lions’ failings, Millen said, “That was just part of it. I don’t want to get into that. We just didn’t do it.”

This fall, Millen will return to the television booth as an analyst for ESPN, ABC and the NFL Network. He’ll do college games on Saturdays, and though he said he doesn’t have his schedule yet, it’s possible he’ll do a game at Michigan Stadium.

For fans who say Millen’s failure in the front office makes him unqualified as a commentator, Millen said his experience with the Lions actually “helps” in “a lot of ways.”

“You’ve seen things from a completely different point of view,” he said. “I played for a long time, we won Super Bowls. I was in television for a while and then I was on the other side, the management side of it, and didn’t have success. But that doesn’t diminish your ability to learn or your ability to see how things operate and don’t operate.

“All that stuff hopefully should increase, at least to some level. But I know there’s going to be people who aren’t thrilled with it. I don’t know what I can do about it. Let me know.”