Detroit Lions Weblog

QB Casting Call, Marc Spindler, Bitter Pills

Sunday’s game has been a very bitter pill to swallow for me. I have been reviewing the game via a burned DVD and still can’t get over the way this team curled up into the fetal position and allowed the Bears to beat on them. It really stinks, there will be 2 more weeks worth of having a bad taste in my mouth!

It looks as if it was a smart decision for Matt Millen to make upgrades in the depth of the defensive secondary during the most recent offseason. With the loss of Fernando Bryant, players like Andre Goodman, Keith Smith, R. W. McQuarters, and Stanley Wilson, Jr. will gain an opportunity to prove their worth to the team. It is no small irony, that the best hit doled out by a Lion Sunday was on a teammate(Kenoy Kennedy’s hit on Bryant in the end zone which seemingly has ended Bryant’s season). Bryant’s loss will still hurt the team (even his performance has been uneven at best), Goodman who appears to be improved this season has never been consistent. Wilson, Jr. is a rookie with a lot of physical ability but little experience. McQuarters is too valuable as a nickel back to have him playing on every down. Smith showed a lot of promise last season but has been nearly invisible this year.

The Lions began open auditions for their QB vacancy yesterday. The first two lucky contestants were Shaun King and Jeff George. This event can be interpreted many different ways. On one hand, their is no guarantee Jeff Garcia will return healthy and the Lions could smartly be thinking pro-actively and attempting to determine who may best fit their system in advance. It could also mean that if we see another Detmeresque (My new favorite adjective, literally I’m beaming!) performance from Joey Harrington that the need for a veteran back-up becomes more immediate than the Lions have anticipated and they will need a fall-back plan. It is hard to stomach that the Lions future castoff Quarterback may not even be as good as a lot of other team’s castoffs who are bubbling on the periphery of NFL rosters. (Rick Mirer is as yet un-signed, right?)

Marc Spindler was a guest on the Fred Heuman show today on WQTX 92.1/92.7. They began Spindler’s spot with a tape of Heuman attempting to interview Spindler after a loss to the Bears that was much like the one the Lions experienced Sunday. Heuman mentioned that the team “looked flat” and Spindler went absolutely ballistic. After a long expletive-filled rant, Heuman backed down and the interview ended. I am not sure what year this interview
occured in, but it was a great lead-in after the recent loss. Spindler was very candid about the Lions. Spindler said that the Lions were terrible and that they were absolutely man-handled by the Bears. Spindler stated that in the Detroit area many fans feel that the blame resides with Mariucci. He also commented that really the whole situation is about accountability amongst the players. Team leaders hold other members of the team accountable. He gave an example of a time where maybe he would have screwed up his assignment and Chris Spielman would have got into his face and said “You owe us, You’ve got to make this up to us.” He doesn’t believe that anyone on the team has been consistently holding their teammates accountable. Spindler and Heuman seemed to agree that the sideline blow-up Sunday after Roy Williams ran the wrong route in the end zone was generally a good thing for the Lions. Spindler did state that if a coach is going to hold his player’s accountable, it should be done in private. He said that when Bobby Ross had his infamous press conference in Philadelphia after a disappointing loss, that Ross loss the respect of the team. He said that former Lions special teams coach Frank Gansz, used to say in criticism you are “not attacking the man, you are attacking the problem”.

Spindler also mentioned that in regards to the hard feelings towards Mariucci by the Lions fans that the players “Have to make plays and execute properly” and
that fans tend to focus too much on the coaches. He said that the Offensive Line has been so terrible that it has turned Joey Harrington into Joey “Scare”-rington. He also believes that Lions desperately miss Corey Schlesinger as a lead blocker and as help in blitz pick-up. Finally, Spindler said that if people believe that team’s problem is in it’s scheme or game plan and they believe that the coaches philosophy is too conservative, What do they want? If the Lions can’t execute a simple, vanilla game-plan, how can they execute a more intricate one.

Lastly, Monday’s press conferences really got me worked up. When Joey Harrington said that “Barry Sanders is not going to miraculously drop out of the sky” and that he believes that he and his current teammates can still win games and need to have faith in themselves to do so, I was left thinking, what are you exactly waiting for then Joey? When will this team make things happen? You do an awfully good job of putting a positive spin on situations like Sunday, but when do you get past meltdowns of that proportion? I also found Steve Mariucci’s defense of his game plan disturbing. He mentioned that the team blitzed more than it liked on defense and didn’t get additional pressure on Kyle Orton from it. He also said that the offense had utilized more 3 and 4 wide receiver sets and had thrown downfield more, which lead to the rash of interceptions. I guess my problem with his weak defense in both cases, is the
obvious predictability of his decisions. Of course when a team is down by 3 TD’s they will be blitzing more often. Of course when you are trying to come from behind you are going to put more wide receivers on the field and aggressively attempt to make up the deficit in the score. Every team would make these decisions, the problem people (I) have with Mariucci and his staff’s coaching philosphy is that it isn’t aggressive enough and the team has to have it’s back against the wall before we see the team take some chances. Lion’s fans just want to see the team put their opponents on their heels as opposed to the usual scenario where the Lions seem to be continuously on the retreat.