Detroit Lions Weblog

First Pre-Season Game in the books.

Last Friday night the Lions lost to their first pre-season game to the New York Jets 10-3. The team’s performance was by no means earth shattering, yet, many players gave Lions fans cause for excitement. The offense appears to have the potential to generate a lot of yardage, but it remains to be seen if the team will become more effective inside their opponent’s twenty yard line than in recent years. They certainly were ineffective in the red zone on Friday night.

Two Red Zone sacks and a 5-yard loss on a rushing play on two red zone posessions absolutely will not cut it. Many of the Joey Harrington bashers will state that Harrington should have thrown the ball away rather than take those sacks. Fundametally, they are correct. Still, Harrington had a blink of an eye in which to get rid of the ball in those two plays. Custer stood a better chance of surviving in his last stand than Harrington finding a way to get rid of the ball. That is how poor the blocking was on those plays.

It was encouraging to see Harrington look sharp and composed delivering completions on all 9 of his attempts. Harrington’s performance really stood out in contrast to Jeff Garcia’s by comparison, mediocre performance. It was also very encouraging the Lions top 4 receivers and top 2 Tight Ends dropped zero passes. The last couple of years the team was severely hindered on offense by the rash of dropped passes by it’s receivers. It will be interesting to see how these receivers will perform if Jeff Garcia starts the next pre-season game versus the Browns as Steve Mariucci has intimated.(Mooch wants Garcia to get more reps with the first team) Hopefully, there will be no performance drop off. That would legitimize to me that in fact, the offensive skill players will perform well in spite of whomever is deemed starting QB throughout the season.

Unfortunately for the Lions, they had a starter suffer a serious injury. Corey Schlesinger, one of the premier blocking fullbacks in the NFL, will be lost for 6-8 wks. In the meantime, the three-headed monster of Paul Smith, Shawn Bryson, and rookie Will Matthews will attempt to fill the role. Smith is a special teams ace and more of a change-of-pace back than a legitimate FB. Bryson who plays in a lot of third down and single-back sets, is an excellent blocker and does a good job in blitz pick-up but it is a little undersized to play the role of primary fullback. Matthews has lot of potential and a reputation as a real thumper. Matt Millen said that by judging Friday’s performance that Matthews has to learn the difference between hitting and blocking. I would not be surprised to see the Lions troll the waiver wire for an experienced blocking fullback, especially if the Schlesinger takes any amount of time to rehab. The expectation is that “Sledge” will be back by the Tampa Bay game. Where Schlesinger’s absence may hurt the most will be in short yardage plays and in the fourth quarter when the Lions have a lead and trying to grind out the clock with runs.

Mike O’Hara was a guest today on local sports talk radio WQTX 92.1/92.7. O’Hara mentioned a valid point on the Lion’s QB situation and Joey Harrington’s role as scapegoat among Lion fans. He said that Harrington has to carry the baggage of all the losing the team has done over the last 47 years. Furthermore, the Lions are an organization with one Pro Bowler in that time. (Greg Landry) So the Lions fans have grown used for rooting for the backup QB to displace the starter in hopes of turning around their losing ways. O’Hara also mentioned that rather stating that the criticism and boos are part of the job, it wouldn’t hurt for Steve Mariucci and the front office to defend their starting QB in the media. I agree, right or wrong for better or for worse, Harrington is the guy. Even though he has started for three years, he has never received a full endorsement from the coaching staff. Joey has to earn his position, like everybody else. Yet, their has to come a time where the coaches realize his success is directly correlated with any success they will enjoy in the near future.