--Hasn't it taken too long to build a foundation, let alone build on top of it? "From since I'm here, sure," Millen said last week. "Yeah. Obviously. But like I said earlier, I'm the one who hired (Marinelli), and I believe in him 100 percent. I believe in him more now than I ever did. That guy, he's exactly what you need."

Why? "Because he's consistent," Millen said. "You guys see that. That's not changing. He is a straight line. ... He will do what he believes is the right thing to do, and what he's doing is the right way. The players we have picked, we picked in the beginning for a reason. The same reason still exists. They still have the same skills and abilities. The staff's in place for the same exact reason. Rod likes to use the term, 'Don't blink.' I never use that term. But you just keep on walking. ... I just think what we're doing is the right thing to do, and if they just keep doing what they're supposed to do, we'll be fine."

--Millen declined to go into his discussions with Ford. He said he didn't want to put words in Ford's mouth. "He has high expectations," Millen said. "When you have high expectations, you also get frustrated, too. There's answers you want, too." Millen said he told Ford basically the same things just in more detail. "He asks all the right questions," Millen said. "Let's just leave it at that."

--The Lions' schedule for their bye week was pretty simple. The players came in Monday and looked at the film of their latest debacle, a 31-13 loss at San Francisco. The players came in Tuesday, took a team picture and took off for the rest of the week. Coach Rod Marinelli wanted to give the players a break. They need it - more mentally than physically after a horrendous 0-3 start that could kill their motivation with a lot of season left. "I want them to get out of here because the bye happened so early this year, and this is the only chance they have to really get a break for the next 13 weeks," Marinelli said.

--Asked why he thinks he and his staff are the right people to coach the Lions, Marinelli said: "I just know what I want. I see it. I just stay the course. I just keep working at it, keep evaluating what we're doing, how we're doing. I've been in these situations before. Like I've said, the two words - poise and panic. I believe in what I'm doing."

--The Lions will look at their schemes over the bye week. "We have a great week to evaluate what we're doing," Marinelli said. "I want to be able to put them in maybe positions where if it's more pressure we have to bring - we've got to be smart with it though - different ways to create a little bit more havoc offensively and on defense and find a way to make sure we can get the ball to our big guys on offense, our wide receivers. So you look at those things and do the basic things a little bit better."

--Does Marinelli feel helpless at this point? "Not helpless," Marinelli said. "I agree with what you're saying, though. We're working. I think the preparation has been good, and for whatever reason, coaches and players - all of us - aren't executing properly. Just some of the base things we didn't do a good job in."

--Is Marinelli out of answers? "No," Marinelli said. "The answers for me, personally, we'll look at film. It sounds repetitive, but that's who I am."

--Center Dominic Raiola never would have believed the Lions would start 0-3 after their 4-0 preseason: "I would have said you're crazy," Raiola said. "I'm just so frustrated. ... I don't know what to say right now. I want to win so bad."

--Kitna's frustration is obvious. "I'm frustrated with losing," Kitna said. "Our job on offense is to score more points than the other team, and we're not doing that. And so it's very frustrating. We're all taking our parts in it across the board on offense. I don't think any one of us can sit here and have big suggestions. We've just got to play and do what the coaches are asking us to do."

--Kitna doesn't seem as comfortable in Colletto's offense as he was in Martz's. "I'm not comfortable because we're not scoring points," Kitna said. "It's very frustrating. There's nothing to not be comfortable about. It's a really basic offense for me, so it's not like I have a lot of thinking or anything like that to do. We're not doing a lot of check-with-mes. We're not audibiling a lot at the line of scrimmage. So you just ... I don't feel like I'm overwhelmed by it or anything like that. It's just, we're not scoring a lot of points."

--Right guard Stephen Peterman can't believe how things have gone. "It just sucks, because there's so much hard work a lot of guys in here put in," Peterman said. "Rod has the right chemistry here, and for some reason, we're not winning. And it sucks because we put in the work. I don't know what to say, man. I don't know."

BY THE NUMBERS: 84 -- Losses the Lions suffered after Matt Millen became team president in 2001. They won only 31 games.

QUOTE TO NOTE: "We're backed up against the wall right now at 0-3, but the season's not over. We've still got to fight, man. That's what we're going to continue to do." -- WR Roy Williams, on the Lions' start.