M&M redux -- again
Well, at least Rod Marinelli was alive the last time the Lions won a world championship.
Of course, he was only seven years old, and if you look at and listen to Marinelli, the Lions' new head coach, with his bald head and old school, military toughness in his voice, you know he is very far removed from age seven. Forty-nine years removed, in fact.
But he was alive, which is more than you can say for the kids they're making head coaches nowadays. No less than six men, most of them in their 30's or 40's, have snagged their very first NFL head coaching gig since the end of the 2005 season. Which means none of them were around, not even in diapers and holding rattles, when the Lions were last kings of the football jungle, in 1957.
Since Bill Ford became sole owner of the team in 1964, only two men have been able to coach the team with enough spirit and moxie to end his career in Detroit with more wins than losses: Joe Schmidt, who lasted six seasons, and Gary Moeller, who lasted seven games. Apart from them, Ford has tried just about every personality -- Type A, B and, usually, F -- every age bracket, every experience level, every degree of popularity and name recognition. He has promoted from within, snatched supposed hot properties, selected complete no-names, hired men with Super Bowl exprience, and plucked guys from college. He has paid small money, big money, and medium money. He has done it all. He has done it all, except for one thing: he has not won.
But believe it or not, there is one thing Ford hadn't tried, until now. He hadn't tried a man such as Marinelli, 56 years of age and never before a head coach. He had never tried hiring a man who should be planning his retirement instead of planning for the Bears on a Sunday. He had never tried entrusting his football team to a man with 30 years coaching experience, split between the pro and college levels. He had never tried a man who served a turn in Vietnam. He had never tried a man who was described by one of his former players, himself a perennial Pro Bowler, with these words: "He is like a coaching Socrates."
Rod Marinelli comes to town with a long resume, yet it is short. He has never, ever been a coordinator at any level, let alone a head coach. But he has been a coach since leisure suits were in style. A more mean-spirited person would say, because of his age, that when Marinelli was a player, leather helmets were all the rage. But I wouldn't dare say it to his face, lest he make me drop and give him a hundred.
I have been to my share of press conferences, and never can I recall the speaker addressing the media as "men." But that's what Marinelli did, beginning with a no-nonsense, "Good morning, men," as if he was about to give a briefing on the goings on in Iraq. A more mean-spirited person would say that the "men" word was technically inaccurate, because there were some women in the group. But I wouldn't dare say it to his face, lest he put me on latrine duty.
Because Bill Ford, through team president Matt Millen, has actually stumbled onto something new here with the hiring of Rod Marinelli, and because of the new man's coaching pedigree, and because good old fashioned mathematics -- read: odds -- say so, I am telling you that the league's blind squirrel has finally found its nut.
At first glance, there is nothing to suggest that Rod Marinelli is "the one". There is nothing that would make very many Lions fans giddy with delight. He is not Bill Parcells, for one. And he is not Vince Lombardi, for two. Nobody other than that pair would truly make a Lions fan warm and fuzzy. And they both had the same chance of coming to Detroit to coach football: slim and none -- and slim just left town. So Marinelli has lots and lots of experience coaching defensive positions. Fine. He is highly regarded among the coaching circles. Fine -- although when was the last time you ever heard a football coach bad mouth another?
"Boy, you guys just got a stinker of a coach! Rod Marinelli -- he couldn't coach his way out of a paper bag!"
No, you never hear or read those words coming from a fellow football coach.
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...the next time the Lions possess an actual football philosophy that is bought into by the entire organization, top to bottom, it will be the first.
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But it says here the Lions finally have found the right man, because never has a coach swooped into town and spoken of toughness and accountability and discipline and being physical in quite the manner that Marinelli did in his introductory press conference this past Thursday. Sure, talk is cheap. But I got the feeling that the Rod Marinelli we saw at the podium in Allen Park is basically the Rod Marinelli you get. You see, it wasn't so much what Marinelli said that impressed me -- it's what he didn't say. He didn't talk of Super Bowls or some imaginary bar or five-year plans or one-way tickets out of town. He didn't try to con us with smoothe double-speak, like some of the duds who have stood before us as brand new Lions coaches. All he did was talk about his football philosophy. And, to be honest, the next time the Lions possess an actual football philosophy that is bought into by the entire organization, top to bottom, it will be the first.
Marinelli seems to have an actual
football philosophy -- what a concept
Marinelli refused to talk about the Lions' past, which may have been partially due to pre-press conference coaching by Millen, but it was as if he was dropped onto this planet moments before the proceedings began. Whenever one of the inquisitors tried to talk about Lions life pre-Marinelli, the new coach steadfastly refused to look back. He was all about the present and the future. If you didn't know any better, you would have thought that either a) the Lions were a brand new expansion team and Marinelli was their first coach, or b) someone fiendishly erased Marinelli's memory of the past, oh, 40 years. Come to think of it, choice b) might be desirable to Lions fans.
But perhaps the best part of Rod Marinelli is the coaching lineage under which he's worked. From college to pro, from Joe Kapp to John Robinson to Tony Dungy to Jon Gruden, Marinelli has been a lieutenant for some of the best, brightest coaching minds of their time. And, better yet, he has played integral roles for those names. He was no wallflower.
There is a false impression that one must be a coordinator -- offensive or defensive -- before presuming to success as a head coach. That's not always mandatory. What sometimes matters more is what kind of motivator, teacher, organizer and leader you are. And those qualities aren't uinique to coordinators, and Rod Marinelli, according to those who should know, possesses those qualities.
Bill Ford hasn't had much success with picking head coaches for his football team. Maybe the greatest indictment is that no man -- not a one -- has left the Lions' head coaching job and landed another one in the NFL. Rod Marinelli has what it takes, though, to be a winner in Detroit.
Sir, yes sir!
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