Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Riding The Lions QB Carousel Is Making Me Sick


Harrington or Garcia: Does it really matter?


I'm sick of writing about Joey Harrington. I'm sick of speculating whether Jeff Garcia will start, or Dan Orlovsky, or anyone on the waiver wire. I'm sick of trying to explain away his lack of production, his inability to lead, and whether or not his teammates are truly in his corner.

I'm sick of it, just as I was sick of it when Scott Mitchell was giving way to Charlie Batch, and when Rodney Peete was giving way to Erik Kramer. And it doesn't just stop there, of course, with the Lions and the man behind center.

In my years watching and covering the Lions, the team has gone from Greg Landry to Bill Munson to Landry again to Munson again to Landry again to Gary Danielson to Eric Hipple to Chuck Long to Bob Gagliano to Peete to Kramer to Mitchell to Batch to Harrington. That's 11 right there, around the maypole. It takes most NFL teams 40 seconds to call a play and yell "break." It has taken the Lions 40 years to yell "break," and the only things they have broken have been quarterbacks.

It just gets old, man. At this point I don't care if it's the system that sucks, or the quarterback using it, or the play calling, or whatever. It's a chicken-or-egg thing, as far as I'm concerned. My guess is that it's the player himself, because if a guy is truly good enough, he can play the position anytime, anywhere, under any system, for any coach.

There was more about Harrington and his supposed impending abdication to Jeff Garcia in today's Free Press. Click at the bottom for that story, if you dare.

The charade here is that coach Steve Mariucci is clearly so unenamored with his quarterback that it seems to be obvious to everyone except Mooch. The coach, by the way, would make a great press secretary. I haven't seen an NFL coach talk so much in a weekly press conference yet say nothing as much as I have seen Mariucci do it. He is saccharin where the team needs some sugar.

Same old Lions.

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