Greg Landry was interviewed on 11/17/04 by Fred Heuman. They talked to Landry about his career and also asked for his opinions on Joey Harrington and the firestorm that is brewing locally about his future within the Lions organization.

Landry compare Harrington to Bernie Kosar, whom he coached with the Cleveland Browns as QB's coach. He said that both quarterbacks were heavily questioned by their local fans and media. He said that they were similar in the fact that they were both classic dropback passers with fairly good arms and both could put a nice touch on the ball. Landry stated he felt the Lions may have "put the cart before the horse" in their selection of Harrington because they didn't have the cadre of skill players to surround him with that might better ensure his success. Heuman asked Landry if he thought Joey Harrrington had "it", or the essential quality as a quarterback that leads teams to victory? Heuman stated he felt it appeared that Ben Roethlisberger for example, may have "it" . Landry said that he thought that sometime when it appears a player doesn't have "it", it may suddenly appear under different circumstances. He feels that strongly that a QB has to be surrounded with talent to fully exhibit their "it"-ness. As examples he mentioned Archie Manning as a capable, highly-touted QB who was pretty good but had a moderately succesful NFL career because the Saints never could surround him with the quality players for him to fully be able to show that he had "it". He also mentioned that when a team suffers from a rash of injuries like the Lions have, that the game-planning and play-calling are effected, hampering the QB's ability to thrive.

Heuman mentioned that throughout the Lions history, that the team often has had two quarterbacks competing against each other for the starting role (i.e. Munson/Landry, Hipple/Danielson, etc) could that be the problem? Heuman thought that Harrington has been handed the job without much threat of losing it, could that be the motivation that is missing? Landry stated that an experienced QB who could vie for playing time might help. He said that in his own particular case, Joe Schmidt didn't want to play a young QB, so having Bill Munson to play helped Landry have the time to develop.

Landry also stated that in each decade the Lions seem to have teams good enough to reach the playoffs. He said that he felt management never made the necessary moves to improve the team to push them to the next level in each of those cases. He and Heuman agreed that losing Jeff Hartings and Mike Compton a few years ago really has set the team back a couple of seasons in their development. It is worth noting that the Lions are very public in the fact that they are giving Mike McMahon more reps with the 1st team offense in lieu of another poor performance by Harrington. This is not a good sign for the relative success of the Lions rebuilding program.

It is also of note to mention that yesterday was the 23 yr anniversary of the game where Mike Utley was paralyzed. Utley remains an inspiration to us all.