Wojo: Only a matter of time for Mayhew, Caldwell

It got worse, much worse. It almost always gets worse.

The Lions are a punch line and a punching bag again, and the next move has to be the big one. Jim Caldwell and Martin Mayhew should not survive this disaster, with the Lions 1-7 after soiling a football field on another continent, losing to the Chiefs, 45-10, Sunday in London.

If you fire one, you have to fire the other, so the only issue should be the timing. Caldwell could be dismissed immediately, with the Lions heading into a bye, and replaced by defensive coordinator Teryl Austin. I’d do the complete front-office purge at the end of the season, because right now you have no idea who would lead the search for a new regime. Any firing makes a strong case for accountability, but it has to be part of a real plan.

That’s where we enter the great unknown. Martha Ford, who made the trip to London, is in charge and presumably angry, although she rarely talks to the media. Just canning another coach isn’t the entire answer. Nothing truly changes until something substantive changes at the top. It’s a tired lament, I know, and there’s no sign Ford, 90, is interested in selling the team she’s controlled since her husband’s passing 20 months ago.

Leadership needed

Someone in ownership — Martha Ford, Bill Ford Jr., anyone? — has to make the bold calls, because there’s a leadership void Mayhew and team president Tom Lewand don’t seem capable of filling. The Lions’ 11-5 record last season was stirring, but it only truly meant something if it was sustainable. Otherwise, it gets filed like so many others in the parity-soaked NFL, where one playoff victory in 58 years is beyond incomprehensible.

You’d think an 11-5 mark would buy Caldwell and Mayhew time, but this is collapsing too rapidly to ignore. Caldwell fired coordinator Joe Lombardi and two assistants to shake up the offense and fix up Matthew Stafford, but the performance in London was so awful and listless, it’s as if the players are giving in, or even giving up. There’s never an easy fix, and after the elevation of new coordinator Jim Bob Cooter, Stafford was battered again, sacked six times after being sacked seven times the previous game against the Vikings.

It’s a horrific combination — an abysmal offensive line that basically entices defenses to blitz, and a quarterback in Stafford who simply can’t handle blitzes. He usually doesn’t have much time, but the top quarterbacks love to burn blitzes. Whether he’s shaken by the beatings or not adept at reading defenses, Stafford almost never beats a blitz with a quick strike.

The Lions lack talent, but even more damning, they lack development. All those young offensive linemen have regressed, and left tackle Riley Reiff doesn’t remotely resemble a former No. 1 pick.

Last year’s great defense lost key pieces — Ndamukong Suh to Miami, DeAndre Levy to injury — that haven’t been replaced. That’s the biggest shame, because Austin was a hot head-coaching candidate a year ago. Now, he could be the Lions’ interim coach. The bye week after playing in London has become a prime time for NFL teams to fire coaches, as the Dolphins did with Joe Philbin last month.

“I fully anticipate being able to continue to do my job,” Caldwell said after the loss to the Chiefs, although it’s unclear if he has any assurance from Martha Ford.

Worse meltdown

The Lions employ a lot of good people, from soft-spoken star Calvin Johnson to the gentlemanly Caldwell and Mayhew. But there’s no edge to the organization, no identity, nothing like the ruthlessness that Suh provided. Say what you will about his prickly personality, but the Lions have plummeted about 27 spots in the defensive rankings without him.

The Lions are not as bad as their infamous 2008 team, but in many ways, this meltdown is more troubling. You could blame 0-16 on the ineptitude of Matt Millen and be done with it. This team has what it considers a franchise quarterback (still debatable seven years in), a proven coach and enough talent to reach the playoffs last season.

And now it has huge decisions to make, and no one should feel safe. The trade deadline is Tuesday, although I’m not sure what Mayhew meant when he said the Lions would be buyers rather than sellers. First of all, the NFL deadline is nothing like major-league baseball, with its flurry of big deals. And at 1-7, the Lions would be much smarter to plan for the future — even as uncertain as it is for many of them — and pick up draft picks.

Mayhew said it was “comical” to suggest the Lions would deal Stafford or Johnson. With the salary cap, big names rarely draw much in return anyhow. But when Mayhew spoke last Friday, the Lions hadn’t yet lost by five touchdowns to a 2-5 team, and still harbored hope the staff shuffling would help.

“Everybody’s involved in what has happened thus far this season,” Mayhew said in London. “I’m responsible for our football operations, so it’s on me what has happened. … There’s a lot of things we need to do to get better.”

It’s painfully clear plenty must change. It’s less clear how it will be executed, and when it will happen.

bob.wojnowski@detroitnews.com

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