If only Larry Brown had listened to me, he wouldn't be in this mess he now finds himself in — coaching a terrible Knicks team in New York, his point guard calling him "insecure" to the media. I tried to warn him. It was folly to think he could leave a team as wonderful as the Pistons and take his "dream job" -- his words -- in the Big Apple and be nearly as content. Oh well. Those hotshot coaches aren't paid the millions to listen to inkstained wretches like me.
But this is nothing new not paying heed to me. I'm quite used to it by now. I've had all the answers for years. Not all of them have been the correct answers, mind you, but I've had 'em. Something about a typewriter -- or a word processor -- adds dozens of points to your sports IQ, don't you know.
I can't remember who said it, but it was an NFL head coach, and he marveled at the miracle powers of a TV announcer's headset.
"I gotta go to Radio Shack and buy me one of those headset things," the coach said to the reporters who were acting as their usual football pallbearers.
"Why?," one of them said, serving up a fat pitch.
The coach grinned devilishly. "Because as soon as you put one on, you know all the answers!"
Nicely done.
Well, it's not MY fault if the Red Wings didn't take my advice back in 1973 when they fired coach Johnny Wilson, despite a fine 37-29-12 record that missed the playoffs by two measly points.
"What are you DOING? Wilson's got the team on the right track," I might have uttered back then, and probably did.
The Red Wings hired a minor league coach named Teddy Garvin -- and got minor league results. Garvin was fired after just 11 games in the '73-'74 season.
I can't help it if I ranted but no one would listen that the Lions were making a colossal mistake by hiring Darryl Rogers -- a career college coach -- to run their team in 1985.
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I've known the answers to all that have ailed our teams in the past, but yet mistakes keep being made.
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"College coaches hardly EVER make it in the pros!," I certainly squawked. What's worse, the Lions didn't listen to me -- TWICE -- during that maneuver. They let Rogers bring almost his entire Arizona State University staff with him, against my better judgement. Twelve blind mice.
Three years later, Rogers was caught by a reporter counting pigeons on the roof of the Silverdome while practice was going on nearby. A few weeks after that, he uttered, "What does a guy have to do to get fired around here?" He was gone shortly thereafter, his record dismal and his hiring a blunder.
Just like I had warned.
Where were the ears back in 2000 when the Tigers' GM, Randy Smith, was offering Fort Knox to Juan Gonzalez? I was trying to tell Randy that Juan wanted to be Juan Gone. He had no intention, Gonzalez, of staying in Detroit after a November 1999 trade brought him to the Tigers from the Texas Rangers. Yet Smith, against my wishes, kept trying to court Gonzalez, trying to squeeze Juan's square peg into the Tigers' very round hole. Even after the offer to sign a longterm deal escalated into well over $100 million, Gonzalez told the Tigers to take their money and stuff it in their jockstrap. As a result, the Tigers looked foolish, and Gonzalez bolted for free agency.
And again I had to say "I told you so."
Oh, I'm full of them. I've known the answers to all that have ailed our teams in the past, but yet mistakes keep being made.
More errors, I'm afraid, are being made right now with the Lions. Not earth shattering news there, I know, but again I am trying to shout for them to look for the big iceberg approaching. And I don't think they're hearing me. Again.
When the 2005 season ended, it was generally accepted that the Lions NFL's swiss cheese had holes in a lot of areas, but the most gaping ones were at offensive line, pass rushing, and the defensive secondary. And that's kind of like saying that the only things keeping one of Bill Ford's cars from running are an engine, a chassis, and some gasoline.
Then the news came that the Lions would have lots of money to spend under the new salary cap. Fans started having visions of sugarplums and players like Simeon Rice and Will Shields dancing in their heads. Oh, the holes they could fill, if they only would spend their money wisely.
Naturally, the Lions, addressing their needs at offensive line, pass rushing, and the defensive secondary, signed three quarterbacks in less than two weeks.
Am I in a soundproof booth or something?
The slew of quarterback signings — Jon Kitna, Josh McCown, and Shawn King — means the end of Joey Harrington's career as Lions quarterback. And I'm not so sure that three heads are better than one here. I don't know if any of the aforementioned names are a significant upgrade from Joey. The Lions seem, once again, to be on one of those slippery slopes they are so often trying to traverse.
"I don't think this is such a good idea," I am already saying with the familiar foreboding. And besides, we still have all those holes at all together now offensive line, pass rushing, and defensive secondary. Three holes. Three quarterbacks. I've never been very good at Lions math.
But in my years of experience in such matters, I have learned not to get too discombobulated when our local heroes don't heed my advice. It IS their money, and their players, and their coaches, and their balls and pads and uniforms. I know that now. And I've also learned that, just as an announcer's headset can make a TV guy smart, something else is true.
Sometimes, all that money, all those players, and all those balls and pads and uniforms can make some men in Armani suits awfully dumb.
Not that anyone is listening.
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