Lions' Lack of Discipline, Calm Directly Tied to Schwartz

Vince Lombardi is dead. Mike Ditka has faded away.

Bill Belichick is all the rage. Mike McCarthy lives on.

The Lions, the team that can’t shoot straight and hasn’t since 1957, is once againzigging when the league’s winners are zagging.

They are a team wound tight, and it all starts with their coach.

Lombardi and Ditka, two larger-than-life coaches, were godfathers of their time. There was no coach in the NFL that could evade the shadow cast by Lombardi in the 1960s, a decade he and his Green Bay Packers owned.

“What the HELL is going on out there?” Lombardi bellows even today from the sidelines, his immortal self still pumped through our televisions thanks to NFL Films. “You’re supposed to be a helluva defensive team! Didn’t look like it to me! Eighty yards down the field, just like that!”

“Nobody’s tackling out there! Everybody’s grabbing. NOBODY tackling. Grab, grab, grab!”

It’s forever iconic—Lombardi on the sidelines, in his winter coat and hat, gap-toothed and angry as his defense jogs off after surrendering a long scoring drive. Wanna bet that the Packers won the game anyway?

Ditka, aka Iron Mike, is also forever captured on celluloid and stamped on our consciousness. Chomping on his gum, Ditka gets in the faces of Richard Dent, SteveMcMichael, Jim McMahon and at whoever else Iron Mike wants to rattle his saber.

Like Lombardi in the ‘60s, Ditka was the coach with the big shadow in the 1980s. His Bearsonly won one Super Bowl in the decade, but his teams were always contenders and his 1985 squad might be among the Top 5 teams in NFL history.

Lombardi and Ditka were coaches wound tight at a time when that worked. They were rah-rah and fiery and the Knute Rocknes of their time, when Knute Rockne was still relevant even in death.

That was then.

Having a head coach that is a loose cannon isn’t what works in today’s NFL.

Belichick, the New England Patriots coach since 2000, would come in last in a Mister Congeniality Contest. He has the personality of mold. You’ll find better quotes from a frog.

McCarthy, today’s Packers coach, is the anti-Lombardi. McCarthy doesn’t toss his rolled up play sheet to the ground. He doesn’t bark. He hasn’t uttered any iconic quotes and never will. Whereas Lombardi looked like a football coach, McCarthy could be your next door neighbor who borrows your lawn mower. Probably even the one who loans you his.

Boring works in today’s NFL. Staid is the way. A general calm, from top to bottom, is what today’s winning franchises exude.

Today’s winners don’t bitch about not getting respect, especially when none is deserved.

The Lions are a team wound tight, in a freefall from their brief stay at respectability. If you want to finger point, you can skip the 53 guys in uniform and zero in on their coach, Jim Schwartz.

This is a guy who can’t even get through a post-game handshake without a hockey game breaking out.

I’ve been a supporter of Schwartz’s, and with good reason. He took a team from the abyss of 0-16 and gradually and steadily improved them, going from two wins in his first season to six in his second to 10 (and a playoff berth) in his third.

But going 2-14 and 6-10 and 10-6 (plus a first round playoff knockout) is one thing. Being consistently good and being spoken of in annual Super Bowl contender discussions is quite another.

Teams like the Patriots, Packers, Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens et al, teams who always seem to have 10+ wins every year and show up annually to the NFL playoff party, are franchises rooted in calm and which have cool heads from top to bottom.

They don’t act impetuously. Their players don’t whine to the media, or run afoul of the law or the league’s rules. Their coaches don’t act like raving lunatics.

If the Lions are going to be more than occasional (read: flukey) playoff participants, they have to calm the heck down.

They have to stop stewing about lack of respect, as center Dominic Raiola did before last Sunday’s game against the Packers. The (then) 4-5 Lions, Raiola felt, weren’t getting any love from national media websites who were dismissing his team’s playoff chances. He dared to compare the Lions to the also 4-5 New Orleans Saints.

“But then the Saints are 4-5 and they’re right in the hunt,” Raiola told the Detroit Free Press. “How the (bleep) does that work out? I don’t know. Whatever. We’re 4-5, too. So they’re basically writing us off.”

The Saints won the Super Bowl three years ago. They have been winners for several years running. The Lions have one playoff win in 55 years. And still Raiola wonders why the Saints’ 4-5 isn’t treated the same as the Lions’ 4-5.

When was the last time you heard a player from the Patriots, Packers, Steelers, Ravenset al complain about a lack of respect?

Raiola was at it again earlier this week, after the Lions imploded against the Packers and before the 9-1 Houston Texans came to town for the annual Thanksgiving Day game. He was speaking about Houston defensive lineman J.J. Watt, who is having a remarkable season.

“Bring it,” Raiola dared Watt through the media.

So Watt brung it, to the tune of three sacks, several quarterback hurries, five tackles and a couple of batted down passes. And the Lions lost.

The Lions, against the Texans, let another game slip away largely because of a gaffe committed by their head coach that was borderline incompetent.

Schwartz tried to challenge a touchdown scored by Houston running back Justin Forsett, an 81-yard gallop that should have been nullified by virtue of the fact that Forsett was clearly down according to TV cameras, yet the officials’ whistles didn’t blow. A booth review, automatic on all scoring plays, surely would have called the touchdown back.

But Schwartz, acting as impulsively and with the same lack of discipline and brains that his team frequently shows, whipped out his red challenge flag and slammed it into the Ford Field turf, a move as illegal as going through a red light, according to the NFL rule book, which states that attempts to challenge a touchdown play are as against the rules as they are unnecessary.

Now, you can say that the rule is silly. You can say that it would be nice if the referee, Walt Coleman, would have sidled up to Schwartz and said, “Jim, put the flag away. The guys in the booth will take a look at it.”

But Schwartz should know the rules. Of all the boneheaded moves the Lions (and their coaches) have made over the years, Schwartz’s blunder might be at the top of the list. It’s right up there with Marty Mornhinweg taking the wind and Bobby Ross going for two.

“I was just so mad, I had the flag out before (Forsett) got to the end zone,” Schwartz told the media after the game.

The Lions are undisciplined, mouthy and in a freefall.

Just like their coach.

Lions Suddenly Model of Consistency in Today's NFL

Roger Staubach stood at the rostrum at his Hall of Fame induction in Canton, Ohio in 1985 and addressed the crowd. He was barking out signals one last time.

But this was no football huddle, and the play that Staubach was calling moved him to tears.

Staubach, the legendary Dallas Cowboys QB, found his voice quaking and his lower lip trembling when his list of thank yous finally came down to his coach. “That man in the funny hat,” Staubach managed, before emotions overwhelmed him and he had to pause to regain composure.

Tom Landry, the man in the funny hat, was the only NFL coach Staubach had. Heck, Landry was the only coach any Dallas Cowboy had, if that player’s career spanned any period from 1960 to 1988.

The relationship between quarterback and coach in the NFL, if allowed to progress for any longer than a couple of years, is not unlike that of husband and wife. There’s arguing, rolling of eyes, tears and ecstasy. There’s name-calling, yelling and hugs. Then, eventually, there’s often divorce.

Staubach and Landry experienced all of the above, including divorce, albeit retirement-induced. Landry continued to coach the Cowboys for nine more years after Staubach hung up his right arm following the 1979 season.

After Staubach, Landry was married to Danny White. Before Staubach, the coach was hitched to Dandy Don Meredith. Before Meredith, Landry’s football spouse was tiny Eddie LeBaron, all of 5’7”, who needed a step ladder in order to read defenses.

The Cowboys’ continued success, after their growing pains of the early-1960s passed, was because of remarkable consistency in their organizational chart. The Cowboys operated for nearly three decades with Tex Schramm running the show from the top of the chart, Gil Brandt manning the scouting department, and Tom Landry coaching the players afforded him by the first two.

The Cowboys didn’t change anything when that trio formed the team’s football pyramid.

The helmets didn’t change; the blue Lone Star on silver was the same helmet worn from Meredith to Hogeboom, from Lilly to Jeffcoat, from Hayes to Pearson. The white jerseys didn’t change. The fact that the Cowboys were the only team to wear white for every home game didn’t change.

The philosophy on both sides of the football didn’t change. Landry’s famously intricate defenses especially didn’t change.

Yet all of that consistency met its match with the Green Bay Packers of the 1960s.

Landry’s Cowboys went up against Vince Lombardi’s Packers twice in the NFL Championship Game (1966 and ’67) and came up short both times. The latter came during the famous Ice Bowl game on New Year’s Eve, 1967.

The Packers had their own consistency going; Lombardi and QB Bart Starr formed another famous married couple, another relationship filled with head butting and challenges and respectful disdain.

In the AFL, the Oakland Raiders, in the latter part of the ’60s, were forming their own powerhouse platoon, led by their irascible, bombastic owner Al Davis.

Quarterback Daryle Lamonica, a discard of the Buffalo Bills, came to Oakland and Davis, through his coaches, turned Lamonica loose with an offense that was a precursor to the video games of today: have Lamonica fade back five steps and heave the football as far as he could. It was an offense that earned the quarterback the moniker of The Mad Bomber.

John Madden took over as coach in 1969 and he and Lamonica, then he and Kenny Stabler, provided the coach-and-quarterback consistency so vital to NFL success.

Davis, the Raiders’ common denominator all by himself, presided over one AFL Championship and four Super Bowl titles.

The cause and effect of franchise consistency can be found all over the history of the NFL.

The Pittsburgh Steelers of the 1970s had one coach (Chuck Noll) and one quarterback (Terry Bradshaw). The San Francisco 49ers of the 1980s had one coach (Bill Walsh, though George Seifert coached the 1989 team) and one QB (Joe Montana). The Cowboys returned to glory in the 1990s with one quarterback (Troy Aikman).

It doesn’t take more than a few minutes of research to ascertain that NFL teams who are changing quarterbacks and/or coaches like socks, are likely teams finding themselves at or near the bottom of the standings every year.

The NFL’s dynasties, starting in the 1950s with the Cleveland Browns, can be neatly divided into decades and further identified by coach and quarterback. Cleveland had Paul Brown coaching and Otto Graham quarterbacking. The Packers had Lombardi and Starr. The Steelers had Noll and Bradshaw. The 49ers had Walsh and Montana. The Cowboys had Jimmy Johnson and Aikman (Barry Switzer coached the team to its third Super Bowl win of the 1990s in 1995-96).

All this talk of consistency within a franchise’s org chart is probably making Lions fans’ eyes glaze over, like I’m writing of the components of nuclear physics. Yet it shouldn’t, because something fascinating is happening with the Lions right now.

The team that couldn’t shoot straight when it came to coaching and quarterback hires now has both of those positions locked up as tight as a drum. The 2012 season will be the fourth straight for Jim Schwartz as coach and Matthew Stafford as quarterback. You have to go so far back into the team’s history books to find such a streak that you’d need to blow the dust off before reading about it.

Four years in a row might not sound like a lot, but not since the Lions of the 1950s have they had the same coach and unquestioned starting QB for four straight years (Buddy Parker and Bobby Layne).

While the Packers ruled the 1960s, the Lions were shuffling quarterbacks and coaches. When the Steelers ruled the 1970s, the Lions were shuffling quarterbacks and coaches. When the 49ers ruled the 1980s, the Lions were…well, you get the idea.

It’s both pathetic and amazing to write this, but it’s been almost 60 years since the Lions have been so well set at coach and quarterback, at the same time, as they are now with Schwartz and Stafford.

Schwartz enters 2012 in the last year of his four-year contract, signed in January 2009, just weeks after the Lions finished the first 0-16 season in NFL history. Since then, Schwartz has led the Lions from zero wins to two, two wins to six, and six wins to ten (and a playoff berth). The progress the team has made in terms of wins and losses has been like a checker moving across the board.

Stafford missed large portions of his first two seasons due to injury, but he was still here and he was still the unquestioned no. 1 QB, hurt or not.

The consistency doesn’t end with Schwartz and Stafford. The Lions will begin 2012 also in their fourth straight year with Martin Mayhew as GM, Scott Linehan as offensive coordinator and Gunther Cunningham as defensive coordinator. That’s consistency not found in every NFL city, just so you know.

So far, the lack of football heads rolling in Detroit since 2008 seems to be working. The Lions seem to be getting better. Schwartz is on the last year of his contract, but that will soon be ripped up and an extension signed, I would imagine.

All of a sudden, the Lions are a model of consistency in today’s NFL. An improved won/lost record has been concurrent with that consistency.

Funny how that works.

Lions' Playoff Loss is Mayhew's Mulligan

They say you should never bring a knife to a gunfight.

Well, the Lions didn't; they brought a shotgun. Trouble is, the New Orleans Saints have a howitzer.

The Lions, 45-28 losers on Saturday night in New Orleans, didn't get blown out because they don't have a good offense. The Lions lost big because the Saints' offense is better, and the Lions' defense is still a work in progress. If the Lions defense was a freeway, three lanes would be shut down and it would be filled with orange cones.

Did you notice any glaring differences between the Lions and Saints, when it came to having the football?

Don't look at the quarterbacks; Matthew Stafford and Drew Brees are pretty comparable.

Don't look at the receivers; the Lions have the best one on the planet, but the Saints have a cache of good receivers in their own right.

Did you happen to notice that the Saints have something called a ground game?

Oh, what the Lions offense could look like, if they had someone to run the football with any consistency.

My kingdom for Stephen Jackson of the St. Louis Rams.

But we'll just have to settle for a healthy Jahvid Best and Mikel Leshoure; which should occur next season, if Mr. Outside and Mr. Inside recover from concussion and Achilles injury, respectively.

The Saints gashed the Lions' supposedly dominant defensive line with the run all evening, as if Brees needs any help.

And as if the Lions' could have stopped him, even if your Aunt Mary were running the football.

Brees' surgery on the Lions secondary was complete. The Saints quarterback wielded his scalpel to the tune of 466 yards passing and three touchdowns. He left the Lions looking like Gerry Cheevers' goalie mask.

Now it's up to GM Marty Mayhew to make sure another scene of carnage never happens again to the Lions in a playoff game. This was Mayhew's Mulligan. He's allowed this implosion, because his team is still just three years removed from 0-16.

But next year, and the year after, and the year after, it will no longer satiate the fan base to simply qualify for the playoffs. We've fallen for that once before, in the 1990s, when the Lions went one-and-out in the post-season five out of six seasons in the decade.

That won't cut it, with a franchise quarterback and an All-Universe Receiver.

Mayhew's charge, in a way, gets simpler with the more success the Lions find, yet it also gets harder.

It gets simpler because the holes are fewer on the roster, thanks to Mayhew's astute drafting and slick trading and signings.

Yet it also gets harder because expectations have now been ratcheted up.

The Lions got carved up on Saturday and 626 total yards later, they were nothing but a carcass, the bones licked clean by the Saints' well-balanced offense.

Mayhew has to draft for secondary help this spring, and he needs to find a new center and left tackle, to be on the ready when Dom Raiola and Jeff Backus retire.

There needs to be more roster massaging before the Lions can truly call themselves Super Bowl contenders. No one gets bumped out of the playoffs in the first round, as soundly as the Lions did, and comes back with the same cast and crew and expects to make progress.

This was no fluke loss. You can't blame this one on the crazy bounces of an oblong pigskin.

The Lions were beaten, and beaten good, by the Saints, who are legitimately elite. The Saints are what the Lions would like to become, in short order.

The Lions can now check off "Make the playoffs" on their to-do list under the Mayhew/Jim Schwartz regime.

Next is, "Advance beyond the first round."

The biggest challenge yet for Maywartz.

Lions Win, But Not Before Their Playoff Hopes Flash Before Their Eyes

The penalty was for one yard. Three measly feet. Yet it seemed like a mile, and it felt like a reminder to us of Lions ineptitude and bad timing.

One more act of stupidity, right? One very Lions-esque thing to do, to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and turn what had been a fun, festive Sunday afternoon into something that Stephen King might have penned.

Cliff Avril was the Lions player this time. He was the one looking to the heavens, shaking his head, wondering why he had just done what he had just done.

It's been a question asked too often by and about Lions players of the past.

What did Cliff Avril just do?? Are you kidding me?

Avril had inexplicably jumped offsides, as if he'd been shot out of a toy cannon, with the Minnesota Vikings on the Lions' two-yard line, sans time outs, and the clock heading for single digits.

The blunder stopped the clock, of course, with nine ticks remaining.

The infraction moved the Vikings merely a yard closer to paydirt, but that yard carried a big stick.

It was but a yard, but it appeared to represent so much more.

Avril's gift of a yard to the Vikings looked like it would be the three feet that QB Joe Webb needed to march his team to the winning score. The Lions led 34-28 but never before did a six-point lead look so fragile. It wasn't a lead, it was a fraying rope with a piano tied to it, hovering over the Lions' playoff hopes.

And Avril, it looked like, had just held a blowtorch to that fraying piece of rope.

He did WHAT?

Tell me that your thoughts didn't go back to Bobby Ross going for two or Marty Mornhinweg taking the wind. Tell me they didn't and I'll call you a liar.

Tell me, as the Vikings lined up at the one-yard line with nine seconds left, on the verge of wiping out a 21-point deficit and squeezing the life out of the Lions' season, that you didn't think back to the Matt Millen Era and the Paul Edinger field goal on the last play of the 2000 season which led to said Era.

Avril's random act of madness caused a packed house at Ford Field to cease breathing, which the faithful didn't re-commence doing until Avril, of all people, finally pounced on a football (aka the greased pigskin) that bounded some 50 yards downfield after it was slapped from Webb's hands by a blitzing DeAndre Levy.

The final play of Sunday's game was like the final scene of a horror movie---the kind where the girl is about to get killed and the hero shoots the villain from behind, when you didn't even know the hero was around.

It was a stunning finish to a game that the Lions should have had in their back pocket, except that pocket had a hole the size of Joe Webb in it.

The Lions had no clue as to how to deal with Webb, who bounced around like a pinball in the Vikings backfield, rattling off one would-be Lions tackler after the other, and always ending up in a bonus cup.

Webb ran around and around and around---sometimes appearing to run half the length of the football field, except horizontally and in zig-zag fashion.

As Lions coach Jim Schwartz said afterward as he was still catching his breath, his team tried everything against Webb. And still Webb almost led the Vikings back from a 31-14 second half deficit.

Webb started the comeback by managing to gallop from the pocket to the end zone, some 65 yards away, with no Lions defender within a 10-yard radius. He made Denard Robinson look like Scott Mitchell.

It all came down to the Vikings at the Lions' one, with nine seconds left. Three feet away from a tying touchdown and the near-certain go-ahead PAT.

Three feet from the apparent end of the Lions' season, or certainly the beginning of the end.

Three feet from another brutal loss that this town would be talking about for years to come.

Then Levy struck, blowing up Webb and the Vikes' hopes of an improbable victory.

"I was nervous, watching that football," Schwartz said afterward of Webb's game-ending fumble, his words captured by Fox 2 Detroit's post-game show camera. "I thought (Webb) would pick it up and start running around with it again."

Good thing Webb didn't. I don't think football fans can hold their breath that long.

The Not-Ready-For-Prime Time Players

October seems like eons ago.

It was a grand time, October was.

The Tigers were thrilling us in the playoffs. The Red Wings were about to begin another Cup Quest. The Pistons were forcibly removed from our thoughts, thank God.

And the Lions?

The Lions, in October, were on a nine-game winning streak, in a broken arrow way dating back to last season. They were shoving memories of the "same old Lions" further into the recesses of our minds.

They seemed to be handling their new-found success just fine under head coach Jim Schwartz, a humorless sort who really should have been a Secret Service agent.

The Lions got off to a 5-0 jackrabbit start and their heads seemed of the proper proportions. They appeared to understand that Super Bowls aren't won in October, though they can be lost that soon.

Even a two-game stumble at home against San Francisco and Atlanta seemed to be tolerable after the Lions went into Denver and made those who believed in Tim Tebow look foolish.

Then came the bye week.

For whatever reason, the Lions came back from their week off as if they'd been brainwashed at a commune.

"Discipline bad. Thuggish behavior good," is what must have been drilled into their heads.

Since the bye, the Lions are 1-3, their star d-lineman has been shamed, suspended and ridiculed and they've twice embarrassed themselves on national TV with this Bad News Lions act that isn't cute anymore.

The Lions are disintegrating before our eyes, their playoff hopes dying a slow death as their play has been one part dumb, two parts exasperating.

The latest meltdown occurred last night in New Orleans, with all the world---and Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth---to see.

It was a night that saw three---THREE---offensive pass interference penalties on the same receiver. A night that saw the Lions shove, throw footballs and slap face masks. A night with 11 penalties for over 100 yards.

The Lions have had two consecutive shots to show the nation what they're made of. Two straight chances to validate their 5-0 start, and prove that it was no fluke. Two straight games on a big stage, against big time opponents---golden opportunities to wipe the smirks off the faces of football fans outside of Detroit.

The only thing that got wiped on anyone's face was egg on the Lions'.

I've said it before: NFL games are lost far more than they are won. The teams that make the fewest mistakes win on a ridiculously consistent basis.

The Lions' 31-17 loss to the Saints on NBC only stoked the fire that is raging about how the Lions play football on the brink of disaster.

They are like the guy in that old kids game, Tip-It. Remember him? The one who precariously balanced on top of the pinnacle, always destined to fall?

It was always just a matter of time when the Tip-It dude would come tumbling down.

The word is out on the Lions. The book on players and teams in the NFL spreads like wildfire. It doesn't take long for your opponents to catch on, and once they do, you'd better change your ways, and fast.

The book is this: the Lions can be baited. They can be toyed with, almost, until they do something suicidal in nature.

An ill-timed personal foul. A cheap shot. An unsportsmanlike foul. Just a little trash talk, or a slight shove after the whistle, and you can get the Lions off and running---toward their own goal.

One of the Packers players said as much after the Thanksgiving Day game.

Just be patient, the player said, and the Lions will do something stupid.

"They've done it all year," the Packers player, so wise, said.

Indeed they have, but it's getting worse as the year goes on, not better.

In the salad days of October, I heaped praise on Coach Schwartz for keeping his players on an even keel despite the heady 5-0 start.

But then Schwartz himself went sideways against 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh after that loss in Detroit, and ever since his team has followed suit with mind-numbingly stupid play.

If one is to give Schwartz credit for what happened in September and October, then he has to take the heat for the shameful play that has taken place since.

The Lions are 7-5 and even though their playoff chances are tenuous, they have pretty much lost games that we expected them to lose and won most of the games we expected them to win, i.e. against the bad teams.

They will likely beat Minnesota next Sunday and move to 8-5. After that it's a crap shoot.

So it's not that they're doing anything completely unexpected when it comes to wins and losses. Did you have them beating the Bears in Chicago, the Packers on Thanksgiving or the Saints in New Orleans?

I had them losing all three---and they obliged.

It's one thing, though, to get beat by superior teams. It's another to commit football Hari-kari and show yourself to be, in a way, the "same old Lions."

It's not like this is the first time stupid penalties and dumb play has vexed them.

It's just happening when the stakes are higher, that's all.

Lions Coach Schwartz Has That Winning Look

Jim Schwartz has been the head coach of the Detroit Lions for nearly three years and I don’t trust him.

He doesn’t have “the look.”

How can he be the coach of the Lions and not look like he just saw Humpty Dumpty fall down and bounce back up?

The Detroit Lions coaches of years past have always had “the look.” The one that speaks the ghoulish thousand words.

They’ve all had it, from Schmidt to Forzano to Clark to Rogers (who had the look from the moment he signed his contract) to Fontes to Ross to Mornhinweg to Mariucci to Marinelli.

It’s the look of exasperation combined with defeat and humiliation. Sometimes the look is expressed on the sideline, after watching another fumble or completed pass to the other team or a game-killing nine-minute drive by the opponent to eat up the rest of the fourth quarter.

Sometimes the look happens during training camp, when the coach realizes that his players don’t have that thing called talent.

Sometimes the look occurs during one of those post game press conferences, when all the geniuses holding tape recorders and microphones ask, “So what happened?”

The look has claimed some fine football coaches in Detroit, and some clowns.

Schwartz is different, and that’s why I don’t trust him.

When is he going to have the look? And if he isn’t, then I’m really suspicious of the guy.

Schwartz bounced into town in January 2009, just weeks after the Lions pratfall to a still unbelievable 0-16 record. The NFL is a league of parity and, at times, mediocrity is enough to get by.

To go 0-16 in the NFL is longer odds than beating the house at blackjack. But the Lions pulled it off. Someone could have won a mint.

So here comes Schwartz, fresh off a defensive coordinator’s gig in Tennessee, and he had that typical “just hired” look that all the Lions coaches had at one time or another: smiling, at ease, no crow’s feet. He looked like the Presidents of the United States do on Inaugural Ball night, before the job turns them into the gray-haired, wrinkled and crucified.

The cameras snapped and the tape recorders whirred and a beaming Schwartz posed with a football and a Lions helmet and all you could think of was, “That poor, poor man.”

Now, it must be pointed out that to follow 0-16 is like being a singer going on stage after a comedian who bombed; you’d have to be a pretty God-awful crooner to not get applause.

Schwartz’s Lions won three games that first year, in 2009. It was a decent enough honeymoon, especially considering that his starting quarterback, Matthew Stafford, missed some playing time due to injury.

Then came 2010 and Stafford goes down just before halftime with a severe shoulder injury on Opening Sunday—surely that would have been time for Schwartz to flash the look.

The Lions gamely soldiered on during that game in Chicago and had a potential game-winning TD pulled back from them by the officials, and all the Lions could do was look on like they were at a dinner table with a sleight of hand artist.

All this happened before the season was 60 minutes old.

Still, Schwartz never got the look.

After 12 games last year the Lions were 2-10 with Stafford having suited up for all of three contests, his shoulders ravaged with injury. Even the backup, Shaun Hill, went down with a bad wrist.

Schwartz kept his cool and his composure. He didn’t fly into a Bobby Ross-like rant. He didn’t talk of pounding the rock like Rod Marinelli. He didn’t wonder, like Darryl Rogers did, what it took to get fired around here.

Schwartz didn’t stand in front of the inquiring media minds and say, “See you at the graveyard,” like Monte Clark did in 1983. Schwartz didn’t take the wind instead of the football, like Marty Mornhinweg.

And he didn’t quit, like Ross did—and had done before and after coaching the Lions—in the middle of the season.

Schwartz stayed the course, working with a third-string quarterback, a second-string running back and a defense that was front heavy and back light.

Then something funny happened. The Lions beat the Packers for their third win of the season. They knocked Green Bay QB Aaron Rodgers senseless before halftime.

Then the Lions went down to Tampa and ended a road losing streak that dated to 2007, by booting the Bucs in overtime.

The day after Christmas, the Lions returned to Florida and stunned the Miami Dolphins with a fourth quarter comeback that included the once-light secondary making some big time plays—something we haven’t seen in these parts since Lyndon Johnson was president.

That was three straight wins, and the best part was that not only did Jim Schwartz not have the look, he didn’t have the other look, either—that of someone who thinks he’s accomplished something, when he really hasn’t.

Some of the Lions coaches of the past have had that look, too.

The Vikings came to town on the season’s final weekend and the Lions thumped them, for a season-ending four-game winning streak.

Never before did a 6-10 record look so good in the history of the NFL.

Through it all, Schwartz had a different kind of look.

It was the look of the in-control football coach—the rock steady, steely-eyed man who, when you look at him, you can’t tell if he’s winning or losing by 40 points.

Schwartz may not have always been the perkiest coach during his weekly press conferences. He may have become bristly when discussing injuries. He wasn’t Dale Carnegie.

But he wasn’t a snake oil salesman or a phony, and Lord knows we’ve seen those types on the Lions sidelines, wearing headsets.

The Lions four-game winning streak to cap the 2010 season, along with the anticipated health of Stafford and continued massaging of the roster by GM Marty Mayhew, have caused even the national football observers to look at the Lions as serious playoff contenders.

A look further at the hype reveals a common thread—the folks going ga-ga over the Lions do so because they all believe in the head coach.

“Smart” is the word that is most often repeated when describing Schwartz.

Jim Schwartz does know his football. He knows talent. And he knows what he’s doing as a head coach in the NFL.

Now THERE’S a look for you.

Lions Robbed, and It Was an Inside Job

The Lions were nursing a slim lead late in the football game. They held the ball and needed to only eat some more clock before relinquishing the pigskin with a punt deep into their opponent's territory.

They do that, and victory would almost certainly be theirs.

Suddenly, the addled quarterback faded back to pass.

"What is he doing?" the Lions' Hall of Fame linebacker asked on the sideline as he watched in horror as the play unfolded. "Why is he passing now?"

The pass on the muddy field in Green Bay was intercepted. After a long return and a few obligatory running plays, the Packers' Paul Hornung kicked a chip shot field goal and the Lions, victory once so close, let the game slip through their hands.

That was the scene in Green Bay in October, 1962, when the Lions lost a gut-wrencher that effectively killed their Western Division title hopes. The loss divided the offense and the defense. Defensive tackle Alex Karras, in a blind rage, threw his helmet at QB Milt Plum's head in the locker room afterward. Joe Schmidt, the aforementioned Hall of Fame linebacker, was angry and confused.

The talented Lions, playing their hearts out in Green Bay, were clotheslined by their own coaching staff. Everyone knew a running play was in order, not a pass.

Fast forward 48 years and some change later. The situation was eerily similar.

Center Dominic Raiola struggled to find the words to describe what happened on the Ford Field playing surface in the latter stages of the fourth quarter and overtime of Sunday's poisonous 23-20 loss to the New York Jets.

"This is," Raiola finally said, "the worst loss I've ever experienced here."

Raiola has been a Lion for 10 years now. The team's record since his arrival from college is a ghastly 35-117. So when Raiola says Sunday's loss to the Jets was his worst ever as a Lion, that's like a TV critic calling William Shatner's latest performance the worst he's ever seen from Captain Kirk.

But who can blame Dominic?

The Lions and their fan base have complained about the officials conspiring against them. They've had their wind sucked out of them because of injuries. They've cursed themselves for taking a gun out and firing it at their foot, repeatedly.

They shouldn't have to worry about their own coaches placing the gun in their hands.

The Lions were robbed yesterday, only it was an inside job. Friendly fire got them.

The Jets didn't beat the Lions Sunday. This game was embezzled from them, from within. The coaching staff cooked the books and left the team winless.

Head coach Jim Schwartz ought to be arraigned this morning, not giving a press conference. He took a football game from his team that they fought like mad to grab. The Lions were sitting on the brink of respectability, until Schwartz pushed them off the cliff.

How else to explain it? How else to atone for what happened at Ford Field, when the Lions had the football, their opponents sans timeouts, and an easy way to bite off 40 seconds or so from the game clock?

How else to explain the goofball decision to try a bootleg pass on a 3rd-and-five with a third string quarterback who hadn't played until the last few minutes? How else to explain why you would try a pass instead of a run? How else to explain why you'd be so gracious as to stop the clock for your guests?

The Lions shouldn't have tried that pass in Green Bay 48 years ago, and they shouldn't have tried it yesterday.

Maybe with Matthew Stafford in the game, you might entertain thoughts of a pass in that situation; after all, a first down would have effectively sealed the Lions' win. But with the less-than-accurate Drew Stanton---and that's when he's been playing all afternoon---behind center, it's Football 101 to hand the ball off and consume clock.

Or, at least I would have thought so.

You know what happened. Stanton's clumsy rollout and badly thrown pass fell incomplete, and the clock stopped cold, like a bad heart.

1:54 remained when the Lions lined up for a punt. The clock should have had at least 40 seconds shaved off that total when Nick Harris took the snap.

As it was, the Jets got the football back with 1:43 left, instead of the sub-1:00 that should have been remaining.

Sure enough, Jets QB Mark Sanchez took advantage of the extra time and led his team to a tying field goal at the end of regulation.

The Jets won the coin toss and marched forthwith to the game-winning field goal.

And that's why the Jets are going to the playoffs and the Lions are among the NFL's dregs.

This one hurts bad, maybe more than all the other losses this season. Heck, maybe Raiola is right; maybe this is the worst loss since 2001.

Why?

Where do you want me to start?

The Lions were looking at a 3-5 record, and three wins in their last four games, including three straight at home. They were looking at 3-5 with the usually woeful Buffalo Bills and newly-woeful Dallas Cowboys next on their schedule. They were looking at, perhaps, 5-5 when the fans reconvened at Ford Field on Thanksgiving Day.

How would that have been, huh?

The Lions would have, finally, beaten an elite team, one that folks are pumping for the Super Bowl. They would have gotten people talking about their resurgence. The players would have gained untold confidence.

The North Division would have been back in play. The Packers are 6-3, but a 3-5 record doesn't put you that far out of the hunt, for either the division or for a Wild Card spot.

The second half of the season would have been as interesting as it's ever been around here in years, if not the most interesting since B.M.---Before Millen.

Instead, the Lions are a yawn-inducing 2-6 with nothing to play for---again.

There's oh-so-much difference between being 3-5 and 2-6 in the NFL.

Schwartz admitted he blew it. He's pleading guilty and throwing himself on the mercy of the court of public opinion, which isn't likely to be too receptive to his confession.

Schwartz is every bit as culpable for Sunday's loss as the NFL rulebook was for what happened to the Lions in Chicago in Week 1.

But this is worse. The Lions were backstabbed by their own coach.

Schwartz, in trying to describe what happened during the two-minute warning timeout, told the media that he didn't do a good enough job impressing upon Stanton how OK it would have been to even take a sack, rather than throw an interception or incompletion.

Again, with Stafford in the game (he went down with another shoulder injury minutes earlier), Schwartz likely wouldn't have had any concerns impressing the circumstances upon his franchise QB. Stafford gets it.

Remember, this is the young man who scrambled off the ground last year against Cleveland and ran back into the game, his left shoulder on fire, because he knew the rules: the Browns called timeout so Stafford could re-enter the game instead of missing one play due to injury.

But even with Stafford in the game, a run would have been the correct call, because it was the safest call. Some have already publicly defended Schwartz's "aggressiveness" (i.e. MLive's Tom Kowalski, for one), going so far as to say it was refreshing to see a coach depart from the norm.

To those folks I say, how "refreshing" does 2-6 look this morning?

Sometimes the play-it-safe way of coaching in the NFL is the surest path to victory. And I'm sorry, but at the end of the year coaches are judged by wins and losses, not by how aggressive they are.

Jim Schwartz went FUBAR on the Lions at the worst possible time.

They sit this morning in the NFC North basement, 2-6 with their hearts ripped out.

Add the coach to the growing list of their antagonists.

Winning a Game is Great, Now Lions Have to Learn to Do it More Often

The pro football coach never smiles on the sidelines. It's the one facial contortion that he doesn't allow himself.

Even when others are around him, laughing and slapping backs and fists, the football coach stays in character, looking concerned even when the score and the time remaining belie any thoughts of a comeback by the other team.

The football coach is never happy.

Most of the time.

In the waning minutes of Sunday's football game at Ford Field, his team comfortably---even for the Lions---ahead of the St. Louis Rams, 44-6, Lions coach Jim Schwartz stepped out of character briefly and allowed the corners of his mouth to curl upward.

He shook hands with those around him, the mouth officially in a smile. This time, when he removed his headset, signifying the end of his coaching for the day, it wasn't with a sigh of defeat and disgust. It was with "validation." The word is Schwartz's.

"Even though we had played well in spots, we had never validated it with a victory. I think today was good validation,'' Schwartz told reporters afterward.

It was a victory for the Lions--just their fourth in their past 45 games. But they have just about as much time as every other NFL team has to enjoy it---that is, 24 hours, tops.

There can be no parade down Woodward Avenue. No parties well into the night. A Lions win would seem to lend itself to such celebration, but today it's back to work, to prepare for the big, bad New York Football Giants.

When you've lost as many football games as the Lions have this century, it's no longer about learning how to handle losing. It's, how do you handle winning?

The Lions have won a football game. So how do they handle it?

There are dozens of players who barely know what to do with themselves today. They won't have to watch film of Sunday's game and wince, or sink into their seats, hoping no one will see them. They won't have to explain to the media types what went wrong out there.

Not much went wrong, that's for sure.

The Lions manhandled the Rams, beating them on offense, on defense, and on special teams. For once the other team looked like, well, the Lions----what with the dropped passes and the shoddy tackling and the shaky play of an overwhelmed, rookie quarterback.

The NFL continues to amaze me, with the difference seven days can make to so many of its teams. Last Sunday the Rams won their second straight, totally shutting down the Seattle Seahawks, 20-3. They came into Detroit with what appeared to be a stubborn defense and a rising young quarterback on a mini-roll.

Then they go out and lay an ostrich egg on the Ford Field turf.

It's one reason why only a fool bets on pro football games.

The Lions go into New York next Sunday and only fools would pick them to win, despite what happened yesterday. The Lions could have beaten the Rams 84-6 and they'd still be sizable underdogs to Eli Manning's bunch.

Yesterday's game is ancient history. The Lions will have their hands completely full with the Giants' relentless pass rush. Or so it would seem.

For one Sunday, it was the Lions' turn to laugh, slap backs, and have fun on the sidelines. It was the other team's fans' turn to look at the game through parted fingers, hands on their faces. It was the other team's turn to have a long flight back home.

But there won't be any true progress made until the Lions can string a few of these gems together. It's the next step in the process---not only to win a football game, but to respond to winning with more winning. The great teams put victories behind them just as quickly as they do losses, if not quicker.

It was the great Bill Parcells who once said it best, talking to NFL Films.

"I was walking from the sidelines to the tunnel after a quote, 'big win'," Parcells said, describing his early head coaching career. "And before I got to our locker room I was already thinking about our next game.."

So you can understand why the pro football head coach never smiles on the sidelines. He's the chess player who gets his opponent into checkmate, only to have another man waiting to play him right away.

Schwartz allowed himself the smallest of grins as the clock ticked down on the Rams yesterday.

It didn't last long, unsurprisingly.

Schwartz Officially a Lions Coach After Debacle in Baltimore

Forget the press conference last January. Forget the draft in April. Forget all the mini-camps and OTAs and even training camp.

Opening day in New Orleans? Pfft! The first win, against Washington? Puh-leeze.

Jim Schwartz officially became a Lions head coach Sunday, in the steady rain in Baltimore, his hometown. 48-3, Ravens. This is how they treat the native sons in the Crab City? It was the worst homecoming since Benigno Aquino was gunned down on the tarmac in the Philippines.

Schwartz was a Lions coach in name only---like a titular head---for the first 12 games of his tenure. But yesterday he was indoctrinated. He earned his mane.

It took until the 13th game, but there Schwartz was---at the post-game podium---madder than a wet hen.

"I hope you're not going live with this," he warned the electronic media folks. "If you are, you might want to make sure you're on a delay."

It wasn't quite "See you at the cemetery" or "I don't coach this stuff!" or "I'm the 'Big Buck'," but Schwartz was just getting started.

"That's not us," he seethed. "And it won't be us. I thought we were ready to play football today, and I was wrong."

Then this: "There will be accountability, and it goes beyond benching."

Legendary Red Wings coach and GM Jack Adams used to keep train tickets to Edmonton---the team's minor league affiliate in those days of the 1950s---plainly visible, sticking out of the breast pocket of his jacket. The implication was clear, even to the bumpkin hockey players of the day.

Schwartz threatened, basically, to excise some players forthwith after Sunday's manhandling by the Ravens, in the city of Edgar Allan Poe, and even old Edgar never penned anything so horrific.

It was a dark and stormy afternoon...

Schwartz is now a Lions coach. You can remove the training wheels now. Tear up the temporary permit and give him his permanent license. His baptism is now complete.

Schwartz joins Monte Clark, whose morbid reference to being buried in Anaheim after a 1-4 start became legend around town---especially since the Lions turned things around and finished 9-7 and won the Central Division.

He joins Marty Mornhinweg, who drove away from training camp in disgust on his motorcycle one afternoon.

He joins Bobby Ross, who threw a tantrum after a road game, trying to convince us that he really WAS a good football coach, despite evidence on the field to the contrary.

He joins Wayne Fontes, who tried to become a human lightning rod, declaring that he was "The Big Buck" and all critiques should be addressed to him, thank you.

And, Schwartz joins Rod Marinelli, whose weekly metaphors made him sound like your crazy uncle.

You're a Lions coach now, Schwartzie! Congratulations.

I'm surprised it took him this long, frankly. Maybe it's fitting that his first post-game slow burn came in Baltimore, about six miles from where he grew up. Something about being embarrassed in front of friends and family, who normally don't get to see the Lions play.

Schwartz gave the players the day off today, so that he may pore over film and pick out the miscreants. Kind of like a video version of a police lineup.

"There, officer! THAT'S him! THAT'S the man who waved at Ray Rice with a feeble tackling try!"

The above line could be repeated about half a dozen times, all about different defenders.

The Lions stepped onto the field in the rain in Baltimore and then played like they were made of sugar. They "tackled" like it was touch football.

The Lions lost 48-3? Eastern Michigan University ought to sue for copyright infringement.

It could have been worse, had Ravens coach John Harbaugh not pulled his starters after three quarters.

Oh, and about that....

The Lions lost RB Kevin Smith, who was having a decent year, for the season and maybe beyond to a serious knee injury. The play happened with the Lions losing by gobs of points, early in the fourth quarter. Schwartz might want to save some of the vilifying for himself. Why was Smith in the ballgame at that point?

And while we're at it, why was Daunte Culpepper in the ballgame---during the opening possession?

Culpepper is so out of Detroit, it's not even funny. He has as much chance of returning to the Motor City as Stroh's. Yet not only was he starting, he stayed in the game for all 60 minutes. And poor Drew Stanton, who must have done something horrible to someone in the organization, couldn't even get into a 48-3 game?

That's a great confidence builder---the coach is afraid you might screw things up with your team trailing by 45 points.

But losing Smith to an injury that may affect his career, when he had as much business being in the game at that point as me, and last I looked I'm not even on the practice squad, is a tough pill to swallow. Schwartz says there'll be accountability; he might want to start with himself.

Will Schwartz cut players today? This week? It would seem to be one of those closing the barn door after the horses are out things, but I still think it would send at least a modicum of a message. Hey, he'd be the first Lions coach to actually do that, so there's something.

The Lions are three games away from another off-season full of hole-patching and four months away from their annual appearance in the Top Three picks of the draft.

And Jim Schwartz finally, FINALLY, officially became the team's head coach yesterday, nearly a year after being hired. I'd shake his hand, but it's going to be affixed to a video machine remote control all day today.

I wonder how long before he presses charges?

For First Time In Decades, Lions Seem To Have A Plan

It’s deliciously ironic that the last time the Lions had a semblance of a plan, it was designed by a moon-faced, cigar-smoking oaf of a coach.

One fall Sunday, back in 1988, owner Bill Ford levied one of the worst indictments any owner could on his football coach.

He had just seen his team get creamed once again, another mercy killing in a season careening out of control, and he gave the reporters a rare postgame analysis.

“We’re losing,” Ford said, “and we’re boring.”

It wasn’t long before the coach, Darryl Rogers, was shoved out the door.

The Lions of 1988 showed up at every Sunday gunfight with a penknife.

The offense was slow, plodding. The aerial attack was virtually non-existent, matched only by the nearly invisible running game.

It reminds me of a classic line by that crack-up/coach John McKay.

“We didn’t block,” he said about his Tampa Bay Bucs after another beatdown, “but we made up for it by not tackling.”

The Lions of ’88 couldn’t pass, but made up for it by not running.

Bill Ford was spot on: They were losers, and they were boring.

And the Silverdome was half-empty on Sundays, which also hastened Rogers’ canning.

Ford handed the keys to his Edsel to defensive coordinator Wayne Fontes with five games left in the wasted season.

After managing two wins in those five games—both against the nearly-as-woeful Green Bay Packers—Ford ripped the “interim” part off Fontes’ label and made him a full-fledged NFL head coach.

The jolly, maudlin Fontes may have projected a clown-like persona, but he had some ideas.

He had a plan, in fact.

The owner was right about the boring part, so why not un-boring things up a bit?

Fontes, during his five-week audition, managed to hire an offensive guru named Darrell “Mouse” Davis. Mouse espoused something called the Run-n-Shoot offense, in which anyone who wasn’t a lineman or the quarterback was a wide receiver.

Fontes’ order to Mouse was simple: Don’t be boring.

So Mouse scurried into town, his playbook and head filled with passing patterns and player movement and all those little receivers running all over the field.

It was a quantity-over-quality theory. The Lions weren’t blessed with talented pass catchers, but Mouse and Fontes (sounds like a vaudeville act) figured that if they sent as many of them into the secondary as the rules would allow, they might get lucky.

And the Lions, at least, wouldn’t be boring.

Wayne Fontes had a plan. For sure. He lucked into drafting the jitterbug running back Barry Sanders in his first draft. He picked up some more receivers, still not filled with talent but a little better than what he inherited from Rogers.

Then, in 1990, Fontes moved on to Phase II of his plan.

He had the run part down in the Run-n-Shoot offense with Sanders. He just needed a straight shooter.

Fontes chomped on his cigar and gave us that big Portuguese smile as he announced the drafting of Andre Ware, the gunslinger from the University of Houston.

Ware didn’t turn out to be a straight shooter, after all. His passes had a funny habit of drifting from their intended targets.

So Ware didn’t work out, but Mouse and Fontes plugged away. Eventually, Mouse left the Lions, mystified, but Fontes kept at the Run-n-Shoot, trying to emulate the success the Houston Oilers were having with it.

The Oilers, of course, had much better pass catchers. And a straight shooter, indeed, in Warren Moon.

That helped.

Fontes may have been a lot of things that weren’t so great, but he was the last Lions coach who had a plan and actually set about to implement it.

Until now.

The Lions' braintrust of (from left) GM Martin Mayhew, coach Jim Schwartz, and President Tom Lewand seem to have their ship headed in the right direction

There’s nothing clown-like or jolly or ostentatious about Jim Schwartz. He comes to the Lions with a defensive background, but that’s where the similarity to Wayne Fontes ends.

Oh, except in the plan-having department.

The Lions—and here’s where you need to fasten your seatbelt and make sure your tray is in the upright position—have a direction now. And it’s not just coming from the coach’s office.

It’s a cop out to say that, just because the Lions finished 0-16 last season, things simply can’t get any worse and that anyone would look better following such a lousy act.

To a degree, that’s true.

But Schwartz, the new head coach, and Martin Mayhew, the promoted general manager, are beginning to tantalize me with their approach to getting the Lions out of this sticky, gooey mess that they were served up upon their hiring.

Mayhew first impressed me last October, when as an interim (that word again) GM he fleeced the Dallas Cowboys—shaking them down for a first round draft pick for the confounding receiver Roy Williams.

He impressed me again when he nabbed All-Pro linebacker Julian Peterson for the overrated lineman Cory Redding.

The plan was simple, but not any less effective, if done right.

The Lions, Mayhew said, must get faster, stronger, and bigger.

So that’s what he’s setting about to do.

Aside from acquiring Peterson, Mayhew has smartly signed some free agents and made other, lower-profile trades. I say smartly because he’s not simply throwing money at his problem. He’s grabbing a mix of grizzled and younger veterans who fit into the overall scheme.

He’s doing it in lockstep with Schwartz, who displayed confidence in his job security by hiring experienced men to lead his offense (Scott Linehan) and defense (Gunther Cunningham)—two former NFL head coaches.

Mayhew was a Matt Millen disciple, which is like saying someone learned about racial equality from the Ku Klux Klan. But Mayhew is proving, to me, that he must have left Millen’s office rolling his eyes on many an occasion, overruled but not out-witted.

Mayhew seems to have a handle on this whole personnel thing. He made a couple of terrific draft picks—again, my opinion—in tight end Brandon Pettigrew and safety Louis Delmas.

He’s giving Schwartz, through other pickups, some halfway decent NFL players with which to work—enough, I suspect, to at least keep the Lions from being laughed at from sea to shining sea; until Mayhew can go back to the store and get some more provisions.

I haven’t seen this kind of level-headed, competent approach to putting together a Lions football team since Fontes tried the Run-n-Shoot to complement his hard-hitting defense.

Fontes’ teams won a little bit, and certainly weren’t boring. In that way, he accomplished his mission.

Schwartz and Mayhew. Doesn’t sound so much like a vaudeville act, does it?

Lions’ Schwartz Smart To Add Former Big Cheeses Cunningham, Linehan To Staff

When Gunther Cunningham first started coaching football players, Jim Schwartz was waddling around in diapers.

Now they both have a mess to clean up.

They have to be among the human diapers that will keep Ford Field’s turf from turning brown.

Scott Linehan doesn’t play Methuselah to Schwartz’s Baby New Year, like Cunningham does, but he’s been where Schwartz is currently.

Cunningham’s been there, too.

Schwartz, the man handed the keys to Bill Ford’s football Edsel in January, wasn’t shy to bring to his staff two men who’ve also been head coaches in the NFL.

The three of them—head coach Schwartz, defensive coordinator Cunningham, and offensive coordinator Linehan—form a triangle that best not be of the lovers’ variety.

It’s a sign of confidence and football acumen that Schwartz, after eight years as the Tennessee Titans’ defensive coordinator, has appointed two former head coaches to helm arguably the two most important positions on any football coaching staff.

Cunningham has probably forgotten more football than most Lions coaches in the past have ever known.

Not that that’s terribly difficult to accomplish.

But Cunningham’s like Schwartz in one distinct fashion: he’s a defensive guy—the coordinator for the Kansas City Chiefs from 2004-2008 (and, prior to that, also from 1995-98). He’s coordinated defenses in Los Angeles (with the Raiders), and in college.

He’s coached linebackers. He’s coached the line.

And he was the big cheese, too.

Cunningham was tending to the Chiefs’ defense, as usual, when the call came.

You’re the head coach now.

Good luck to you.

It was 1999.

And he went 16-16 in two seasons as K.C.'s head man before returning to the relative safety of being an assistant coach.

There’s a certain coziness to coordinator positions. You can be in charge without really being in charge.

Of course, it can work the other way, too.

Charlie Knox used to coach the offense for the Detroit Lions, in the early-1970s, under Joe Schmidt.

In Charlie’s day, there were no “coordinators”.

Not in Cunningham’s early days, either.

Knox, years after becoming a head coach himself, once offered his viewpoint of employing offensive and defensive coordinators.

“I’ve seen it where you have a defensive coordinator, who’s the head coach in charge of the defense, and an offensive coordinator, who’s the head coach in charge of the offense, and you’re left with a head coach who’s in charge of nothing!”

I’m sure he has.

Linehan doesn’t look old enough to have been the head coach of his kid’s pee-wee team, but he’s got some coaching chops.

He’s known for his offenses. More specifically, Scott Linehan is now known, around Detroit, for his past dalliances with current Lions quarterback Daunte Culpepper.

Linehan coordinated the Minnesota Vikings offense from 2002-04, the last year of which was Culpepper’s career year in the NFL.

That success in tandem wasn’t lost on Schwartz, at all, when he tabbed Linehan, fresh off getting the ziggy by the St. Louis Rams as their head coach, to run his offense in Detroit.

Naturally, the talk is that Linehan and Culpepper are about to make sweet music again together, with the Lions.

And rookie QB Matthew Stafford will lead the Lions to glory, simply because he attended the same high school in Texas as Bobby Layne.

If only it was that easy. If only current success was merely a nod to the past away.

Cunningham (left) and Linehan have both been big cheeses elsewhere

The Lions have indeed had, as Charlie Knox once opined, head coaches who were in charge of nothing.

Showmen. Snake oil salesmen. Clueless boobs. Stubborn old men.

The Lions have had them all.

If you think an old codger like Bobby Ross, or an egomaniac like Steve Mariucci, would have two former NFL head coaches on their staff, at the ready for upper management should things go sideways, then you’re probably still leaving milk and cookies out on the coffee table on Christmas Eve.

Schwartz is new wave. He’s secure, as a new guy stepping into the goo of 0-16.

He knows he has some honeymoon time, and so why not spend it with two dudes who know what it’s like to be the boss?

Not too many head coaches in the NFL right now can look to their right and to their left and see two more common denominators, professionally.

Schwartz has his work cut out for him, much in the same way as Michelangelo did when they gave him some paint and a brush and stuck him in the ceiling of that chapel in the 16^th century.

Thank goodness, Schwartz isn’t going with the blind-leading-the-blind routine.

Matt Millen tried that, as a first-year GM when he hired a first-year head coach.

But here comes Schwartz, flush with success from his time in Tennessee, and he goes and hires two former head coaches as his coordinators.

It may not mean automatic success, but it sure seems smart.

I have no idea how many games the Lions will win in 2009. It seems foolhardy to think that they can manage even four victories, with their rugged schedule and being one year removed from a winless season.

It might be that they win two or three and consider the season a success, in a twisted, Lions kind of way.

But I do know one thing.

Jim Schwartz has already shown, with two hires, more football sense and vision than his 21^st century predecessors displayed, combined.

Besides, how can you not love a coach of American football named Gunther?

The Unknown Coach: Don't Fear Him, Necessarily

Let’s take a little poll.

By a show of hands, how many of you heard of new Lions head coach Jim Schwartz prior to, say, Christmas Day?

I don’t see too many digits wagging. Let’s try by round of applause.

Hmm…awfully quiet in here, isn’t it?

Schwartz is the poor sap Lions management has tapped to transform its wretched football team into something that you can, at the very least, watch with both eyes open. That few people had ever heard of him prior to his name being bandied about in rumors after the season is inconsequential. He’s The Guy. So deal with it.

For the record, Schwartz was the defensive coordinator for the Tennessee Titans. Been that for the past eight seasons. By the numbers, Schwartz has coordinated some of the finest defenses in the NFL. Still, he did so largely in anonymity. Only the most diehard fans keep track of who the coordinators are for every team in the league.

Soon after the 2008 season ended – the Lions sans even one victory throughout the 16-game schedule – coach Rod Marinelli was canned. No surprise there. Then the names started being bandied about.

Schwartz’s kept rolling off the tongues of the so-called NFL “insiders”. The cape of anonymity was beginning to be ripped away from his back.

Defensive coordinator, Tennessee Titans. Even casual fans knew that the Titans have been known lately for having shutdown defenses.

2008 turned into 2009. Shaking off the fuzz of the New Year’s frivolities, more and more Lions fans became acutely aware of Jim Schwartz. He was going to be interviewed, in cloak and dagger fashion, somewhere in these United States.

Other names were mentioned as possible Lions coaches. But none more than Schwartz’s.

Then, on Monday the 12th, the Lions made Schwartz available for the media. He was in town for interview no. 2. This one was going to be with owner Bill Ford Sr. It was becoming more and more evident that this previously unknown assistant coach and little-known defensive coordinator was the Lions’ man. At the press gathering, Schwartz made a joke.

“I think,” he said of the Lions’ quarterback situation, “that it’s time to find a replacement for Bobby Layne.”

Schwartz displayed a key quality needed to coach the Lions: a wonderful sense of gallows humor.


Schwartz, prowling the sidelines as the Titans' Coordinator of Defense


Then, on Friday the 16th...

“I’m not here to exorcise ghosts of the past,” Schwartz, newly-hired as Lions head coach, said to the throng gathered at Ford Field. It was a nice sentiment, but someone should have broken the news to him: that’s exactly what he’s been brought to Detroit to do. Or else, why bother hiring a new coach at all?

Jim Schwartz has some credentials. He’s worked for a winning NFL program, in the upper level of coaching management. A coordinator position, if it was a beer, would be known as Head Coach Lite.

Don’t always fear the unknown.

In 1983, a well-coiffed gentleman stood before the Detroit media and posed with a basketball. He was dressed to the nines. We’d soon find out that, to Chuck Daly, “casual day” meant you left the hanky out of the pocket.


Chuck Daly: from unknown to Hall of Fame


Daly was unknown, largely. He had been a basketball coach out east, at the college level. He was an anonymous NBA assistant in Philadelphia. In between he gabbed into a radio microphone for a time, analyzing the Sixers games. Then, due to some unfortunate luck, Daly became interim coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers. It was a time when the team was derisively known as the Cadavers.

His record as an interim was 9-32.

And that was his career NBA coaching record when Pistons GM Jack McCloskey tried to sell Chuck Daly to the denizens in town as the answer to the team’s ongoing troubles. It was soon learned that Daly became the Pistons’ coach because a few bigger-named guys turned McCloskey down flat.

I can assure you that hardly anyone knew who the hell Chuck Daly was before he was unveiled to the media in May 1983. Then his resume was printed in the paper, and many of us wished we never met him at all. He appeared to be, at the time, just another sad sack coach breezing through town.

Today, when you walk into The Palace of Auburn Hills and look up, way up, you’ll see a banner with Chuck Daly’s name and symbolic “number” – 2 (for two NBA championships) – emblazoned on it.

The unknown coach hasn’t always worked out. To that, I must admit. And the Lions have had themselves plenty of those types.

Rick Forzano. Tommy Hudspeth. Marty Mornhinweg. Rod Marinelli. They were, after all was said and done, guys who were indeed just breezing through town.

So it’s forgivable and understandable for you to be wary of yet another low profile, no-name guy who’s been brought in to resuscitate pro football in Detroit. I don’t expect handstands and confetti because the Lions hired Jim Schwartz.

But Schwartz can coordinate himself some defense, and if there’s anything that was most slapstick about the Lions’ 0-16 season, it was the Swiss cheese defense they put on the field every Sunday. It was a defense bereft of playmakers, with pass defenders who played as if they were allergic to the football. It was, frankly, a joke.

Still, you’re given a free pass if you snicker and sneer at the hiring of the previously unknown Jim Schwartz. You do, after all, have history mostly on your side.

But what if Schwartz can coach a little bit, and sticks around for nine years or so, like Chuck Daly did with the Pistons?

It’s not like the Lions aren’t due or anything.