How injured is he, Coach Marinelli?

By Os Davis  |   Sunday, June 11, 2006  |  Comments( 0 )

Detroit Lions
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Every team's got one of them: A guy who finished 2005 or started 2006 with an injury of unknown extreme that fuels media speculation throughout the pre-season. For the Detroit Lions, that player is second-year wide receiver Mike Williams, who has been down for two weeks plus due to some kind of hamstring injury suffered in camp. For head coach Rod "Almighty" Marinelli, that means a headache inducing barrage of questions.

Now, there are essentially two types of coaches in the NFL: those that can't stand the media but love to talk to them, and those that can't stand the media but must be under league orders to talk to them. Marinelli falls squarely into the latter camp. Hey, this guy may set a record for terseness this year.

Coach, they asked, is everything all right with Williams? "He's here working..." Coach, has he in fact had a hamstring injury? "Yeah, but we're getting him cleaned up here, and getting him ready to go..." "Getting him cleaned up"? Oh, never mind.

Williams was the last of three consecutive high-profile first-round WRs taken by the Lions back when they were still hoping to straighten out Joey Harrington's issues. Playing nine of the first eleven games, Williams hauled in twenty-five passes for one TD. After the Jeff Garcia/Steve Mariucci shakeup and breakup, Williams could only manage another four receptions. Nevertheless, Williams is penciled in fairly high on the depth chart.

Meanwhile, moving up quickly in offensive coordinator Mike Martz' eyes is Eddie Drummond. Apparently Drummond has become tired of collecting splinters on the bench in a career composed of four years, two receptions and minus-three yards receiving. (Yes, that's correct. And in 2005, he racked up minus-three total yards, thanks to one rushing attempt.) Martz has been enthusiastic enough about the former Penn State Nittany Lion's newfound work ethic that, with some more practice and fine-tuning, Drummond "should be a good backup."

So Coach has said (in no uncertain terms, naturally) that Mike Williams will soon be as good as new, everyone else is healthy, and the Lions may have a nice second-string secret weapon...what can Motor City media stir up until then?

For Marinelli, mum, as always, is the word.

A whole pride of Detroit Lions news awaits at Realfootball365.com
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About Os Davis

Os Davis has taken a twisted route to get to RealFootball365.com in his nearly 17 years in professional writing, working in any number of capacities in the sportswriting, news reporting and film criticism worlds. In print media, Os has served as editor at a few publications, including Albuquerque's ...
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