Steve Mariucci would know a thing or two about tough coaching decisions in Detroit.

He had that 49ers pedigree. He was supposed to turn things around when the Lions hired him in 2003. Then he won five games in Year 1, six in Year 2 and never made it out of Year 3, getting shown the door after a blowout loss on Thanksgiving.

Fourteen years and four more head coaches later, Detroit still hasn’t won a single division title, a single playoff game, a single anything.

But Mariucci thinks the Lions are finally on the right track after showing patience with their current head coach.

“Because somehow, some way, at some point in time before we all die, the Lions have to get that revolving door out of the front of their facility,” Mariucci told MLive. "They’ve got to look for continuity. Players, front office, coaching staff. It’s been changing so much over the years, right? And so just giving a guy one, two, three years is just, like, ‘All right guys, let’s change it again. Let’s try our luck with the next bunch.’

"When you do that, you take a couple steps backwards. Changing coordinators on both sides of the ball and you start over, and sometimes you take two step backwards to take one step forward. Sometimes, it’s five steps back. So I’m glad they kept Matt."

Related: The Fords showed guts bringing back Matt Patricia

The Lions have had their share of change over the years. Since firing Wayne Fontes after the 1996 season, Detroit has cycled through eight head coaches in 23 seasons (not including interim coaches). For comparison, Green Bay, Minnesota and Chicago have all had five coaches in that same period of time.

So the Lions have suffered through three additional rounds of transition than each of their division rivals, and all the hardship that usually comes with it.

Of the Lions’ last eight head coaches, only Jim Schwartz got more than four years. He got five.

Not even Jim Caldwell, who had three winning seasons in four years and twice took the division to the final day of the regular season, got a fifth year.

Caldwell was replaced by Patricia in 2018. The Lions publicly said they made the move because 9-7 was no longer good enough and that they believed they would be ready to compete right away, although have since acknowledged a more dramatic rebuild would be required to complete the transition. Or the process, to use the word of the day.

They won just six games in Year 1 under Patricia, then three games in a disastrous Year 2 that was marred by horrific defense and a cavalcade of injuries. That includes at quarterback, where Matthew Stafford missed the final eight games of the season with a broken back. Detroit lost all eight of those games.

But the Fords, now helmed by Martha Firestone Ford -- with her daughter, Sheila Ford Hamp, at her side -- opted this time for patience. They believe the foundation has been laid to finally lift the franchise out of its endless cycle of mediocrity, although injuries prevented them from having more success in 2019.

The Fords knew their decision to keep Patricia for a third season would be deeply unpopular with fans, but they made it anyway believing consistency was in the best interest of a franchise that has seen so much change over the years.

“(Firing Patricia) would have been the popular choice, the popular decision, and we knew that,” Sheila Ford Hamp said on the day ownership announced the decision to stay the course with Patricia and Bob Quin. "But as I say, we’re doing what is right for the organization.”

And Mariucci -- who was fired with a better winning percentage (.349) than the one Patricia has right now (.297) -- says the Fords were right to stop that revolving door.

“(Patricia’s) done some good things,” Mariucci said. “They’ve lost some close games and got their quarterback hurt. Matthew Stafford, I mean, he’s a keeper now. He’s the man. And they’ve surrounded him with some talent. They just got to keep finding ways to keep finding more."