He said, she said

Lions hire Martz as offensive coordinator

The Lions have a new coach in Marinelli, a defensive coordinator in Henderson of the Jets and now signed Martz of the Rams as their offensive coordinator. However it seems that the Martz hiring did not go off without a hitch. Seems someone was lying or leaked information or some form of falsification over the last nine days that led up to this. I don't feel like taking a side in who did what, but it will be nice to have one of the most brilliant offensive minds leading a team such as the Lions.

Marinelli late last week mentioned that Detroit was going to be moving to a run first offense while Martz is typically known for his pass heavy offenses, this leads me to be very curious to see how it turns out. Either way, this leads me to question the players currently in the program.

Joey Harrington has been in a west coast offense up until this point and that has not gone well and I don't see a pass heavy offense really on his skills. If he is lucky, he is dropped by the Lions and picked up as a veteran back to Chad Pennington of the Jets. I feel this would be a best option for him, with a offensive system that is geared around his strengths (which to be honest, I am not really sure what they are any more).

Kevin Jones seems to have this crazy idea that he can lower his head and run people over like he did in college. Ummm sorry, even a big guy like Jerome Bettis learned 13 years ago, that you need to be a bit shifty or you will get ground to a pulp by the linebackers. He went out at least twice last year with concussions for lowering his head and popping a linebacker and a safety. If we are doing a lot of running, you may want to combine that impressive speed with a couple juke moves or a good stiff arm.

Artose Pinner is some guy that for some odd reason, I really enjoy watching and think they could be good with a fair shake. Good speed, low center of gravity, etc. I don't think he will be a superstar, but could be one of the workhorse backs that everyone depends on.

However on to other news for football. It seems that the bargaining agreement to extend the salary cap is going very poorly. I can understand why as the teams with the money rolling in don't wish to share that money with teams that are struggling. However, those teams will only get worse if they are unable to afford the talent they need to stay competitive and then you have less money the next year. The salary cap and the shared income agreement is by far the best thing they could have done for football in terms of the fans. It creates closer, more exciting games most of the time. It creates a spread of star players on all teams that give us fan favorites. It just makes the game a true battle. If we went back to the "old" ways, we would see the dynasties of old and scores similar to college games, while exciting for one team, it is eternally depressing for the losers and their fans.

Any given Sunday! Well, in 7 months.