aiight...right now i'm really and truly fucking pissed.
steve mariucci, coach for the detroit lions, was fired today after his team fell to a 4-7 record for the season following a loss to the atlanta falcons on thursday.
his record is 15-28 over two and a half seasons. in that time, his team has never made the playoffs. millen and the rest of the idiots in the front office actually believe it's mariucci's fault!
so let's put the facts down...
2001 season, two friggin years before mariucci even got there, detroit finished 2-14, good enough for last place in their division. the following season they finished 3-13 which left them again in the basement of their division.
mariucci signed on in 2003, and everyone was hoping he would turn the franchise around. former college phenom joey harrington was already on board and their previous season's ineptitude guaranteed them the second pick in the draft, which they used to pick up wideout charles rogers. see, their logic was that with rogers and harrington, they were gonna form a legendary tandem along the lines of montana to rice. too bad rogers is about as brittle as my grandma's ass. if he even looks at astroturf hard enough, he's gonna break his collarbone. in fact, he's been sidelined with injuries all three years he's been there, starting only nine out a possible 43 games during that span. so there goes the magic duo.
then detroit's front office, again displaying the kind of wisdom that makes one wonder if they've all been lobotomized, use yet ANOTHER first round draft pick on ANOTHER wide receiver...this time it's roy williams, former texas player who was catching passes from chris simms. now this wouldn't have been such a bad move if not for the fact that detroit STILL didn't have a running game worth a shit. they hadn't had a decent running game since sanders.
why is this important?
because no passing game is gonna be effective without a running game the defense has to respect. why do you think it's so easy for harrington to end up on his ass after a pocket collapse? it's because the defense knows detroit don't have a running back, so it can anticipate the play before it even happens. a defense can double up on williams, look at the two receiver like he's a punk, and STILL have folk on the line who can take down harrington and all because there is no running game.
with a running game, the defense would have put more folks on the line, which opens the pass game up because then they can't commit two on williams all the time, otherwise a good running back would exploit the openings midfield and beyond. they can't crowd the line, cuz then the receivers will eat 'em up.
so knowing this, what does detroit do? they pick up a running back in the first round of the 2004 draft, kevin jones, out of va tech. this after five straight years of picking a running back no higher than the 4th round, so you know they got left with the kind of running backs who played at southeastern kalamazoo central state junior college.
they could have had clinton portis, willis mcgahee, larry johnson, rudi johnson, thomas jones, or steve jackson...all cats who are in the top fifteen in rushing for the league this year. they HAD rueben droughns (currently tenth in the league in rushing) and got rid of him! anybody hear of these cats: sedrick irvin, luke staley, artose pinner, brandon drumm? these are the running backs detroit drafted in the last five years. are any of these cats even still in the friggin league???
btw, kevin's in 28th place out of 30 running backs in the league with a whopping 523 total rushing yards.
so the blame is being put on mariucci, as if he drafted these people. now while i hold him responsible for not having the most effective system in place, if they're gonna fire him for detroit sucking, they better get rid of matt millen, too. millen is control of ALL FOOTBALL OPERATIONS, and since he got to detroit in 2001 detroit has gone 20-55. at least with mariucci, detroit has experienced at least a one game improvement in each of his seasons over the previous season.
in fact, i say they should just fire millen. i mean really...would you trust a guy with a smile like THIS to run your team? I damn sure wouldn't...
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