the current management. Terminated from the Lions After a 0-3 start to the Lions 2008 season, Lions vice chairman and Ford Motor Company Executive Chairman William Clay Ford, Jr., told reporters on September 22, 2008, if it were up to him, he would fire Millen. Despite this, the elder Ford claimed he had no plans to dismiss Millen. However, on September 24, 2008, Millen's tenure as team president and general manager ended. Lions owner William Clay Ford later announced that Millen had been relieved of his duties as Lions General Manager and Team President. The Lions finished the 2008 season with a record of 0–16 and did not win again until Week 3 of the 2009 season. On the January 3, 2009, edition of NBC's Football Night in America, Millen admitted his role in the team's downfall, saying he would have fired himself after the 2008 season. During NBC's pre-game show for Super Bowl XLIII, Detroit's affiliate WDIV-TV ran a ticker on their website, asking viewers to question his credibility as an NBC Sports panelist, given his past with the Lions. Over 36 pages of comments were posted on the station's website. Personal life Millen is married to Patricia Millen. They have four children and ten grandchildren. Millen was diagnosed with the rare disease amyloidosis in 2017. In Millen's case, the disease affected his heart, reducing it to operating at about 30 percent capacity. Millen was told he needed a heart transplant to continue living. As he waited for one he began chemotherapy to rid himself of the amyloidosis. The transplant surgery was performed at Beth Israel Medical Center in Newark, New Jersey on Christmas Eve 2018. Controversies On January 5, 1986, at Los Angeles Coliseum, after losing the AFC divisional playoff game to the New England Patriots, Millen intervened in an on-field dispute between Raiders player Howie Long and Patriots general manager, Patrick Sullivan, by punching Sullivan in the face. Sullivan said the punch made him "see stars" and that he required stitches. Millen later called the incident "a good hit." In December 2003, following a Lions 45–17 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium, Millen came under fire after a postgame incident with former Lions and then-Chiefs wide receiver Johnnie Morton. Millen tried to congratulate some of the Chiefs players near the Chiefs' locker room, when he confronted Morton, who claimed that he wasn't going to