Sunday, November 9, 2008

Game 9 Analysis

Game 9 goes down in the books as another blow out. The Lions are looking more and more like they will be the first team to go 0-16 in a regular season. Jacksonville got beat by the Bengals to end Cincinnati's attempt at the worst record ever, but the Lions press on, allowing Jacksonville to look like an all pro team, to stay in the running.

I will say this right now, when you are 0-9 and looking at 0-16 in your third year of your tenure there is NO WAY the coaching staff should be allowed to come back for a 4th year. True, they can't get any worse, but the years it'll take to get back to winning need not be wasted on this staff… they've already proven they can not get it done.

The Lions were forced to play some of the younger guys, literally forced to, and those players with next to no experience did no worse then the "vets". Did they make mistakes? Yes. They are supposed to (or at least, expected to) where as the vets are not, therefor it is obvious to anyone who is not a Lions coach that these "vets" should not be starters, but backups at best.

This next draft is extremely critical to getting the Lions back on track. But to allow the same front office to choose the picks (sans one guy) and to allow the same coaching staff to not play the picks (as they have shown they are exceedingly likely to do) would be a tragedy… in a comedy of tragedies that are the current Detroit Lions.

The offense is in a shambles. Colletto is clueless and needs to go, now, promote Kippy Brown and have done with it.

The defense is even in worse shape. Barry is either following exactly what Marinelli wants, and thus both should go, or Barry is just incapable of being a DC, in which case he should go now. Replace Barry with whichever coach on the team has spoken up about the horrid coaching, I'm sure there is at least one, and let him change things up. What, he's going to allow the team to get blown out? Be worse then the 32nd ranked defense? Get real. This poor excuse for a coaching staff is done. It's over. There is no need to keep them, there is no need to allow them to further damage the confidence of the players. Anyone who tells me it's talent is also not paying attention. Regardless of what talent the Lions have they have proven, repeatedly, that they do not know what to do with it. Sure, there are players who need to be replaced, and many of them will be replaced by the players already on the roster, it's just that THESE coaches will not play them now, and when they do play them, they alter nothing to take advantage of anyone's strengths or cover for their weaknesses. They will do the same thing next year, sitting the newbies and playing the "vets". Get rid of these coaches now, there is absolutely no reason, not one reason, to keep them on the team… other then the one fact that the new GM/CEO can be the hero for firing them all.

When you can replace practically anyone on the team with practically anyone else and see no appreciable difference in the results you have to suspect the schemes and the coaching. You simply can not allow "talent" as an excuse or, as THEE excuse.

It may sound like I'm being hypocritical about the front office, saying it's not the talent and putting it on the coaching and schemes yet still wanting the front office replaced, but I am not. For you see, it's the front office who is not making any coaching changes. They keep replacing players on the roster, but making no changes where it counts. That's all the evidence I need to convey that the whole thing, from front office to coaching to schemes to scouts to certain players, need to go.

Get a real front office, real scouting department, real coaching staff with real schemes they can implement and know how to alter to fit both the talent they have and the talent they need to acquire and actually play. That is all they (Ford Sr and Ford Jr) should focus on from here on out. The resumes of the existing staff have been proven to be incomplete, and the revised versions prove they are not employable.

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