Stacking up the zeroes in Detroit

By Os Davis  |   Tuesday, November 14, 2006  |  Comments( 1 )

Detroit Lions
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In his first season as an NFL head coach, Rod Marinelli has received some praise from the media for getting his Detroit Lions to play hard, as opposed to hardly play. Maybe Marinelli has in fact instilled a work ethic in these Motor City beatdogs (to be fair, equally likely is that sportswriters are merely desperately seeking positives), but watching the silver-and-Honolulu blue come out listless against the San Francisco 49ers showed exactly how much these Lions have beyond elbow grease: Zero.

At this point in the season, there is little more observers of the Kitty Cats can do except stack up the goose eggs. Said zilches include the following.

Games Marinelli presided over as head coach before 2006.

Coaches with a career record worse than Marinelli's. At 2-7 lifetime in his brief stint, Marinelli is already achieving Dick Jauron levels of success and then some. At least ol' Rod looks a tad more focused than Art Shell and a tad less confused than Jon Gruden.

Teams with bigger problems with penalties. "Lack of focus" is overwhelmingly the most popular reason given by Marinelli to the piranha press for the lack of Lions success, and oh boy does it show here. On offense alone, the Lions have taken 68 penalties for 542 yards. Though the Philadelphia Eagles have been penalized for slightly more - 556 yards total - unnecessary penalties are a trademark of this team.

Times Detroit has outrun opponents since Week 2. Frank Gore's eyes must have gotten really big when he saw the Lions on the schedule this past week. Detroit has gained more yards on the ground than opponents exactly once this season, in the 31-24 loss at Green Bay. In that one, the Pack even helped their division mates by fumbling the ball three times. Last Sunday, Gore famously ran up 148 yards, more than the Lions as a team have accumulated in any one game this season. Imagine how brutal the running game would be without Kevin Jones...

More disappointing losses than this one. The 19-13 loss may not have been as brutally dismantling as, say the 34-7 drubbing pounded into them by the Chicago Bears in Week 2. However, if Marinelli is all about hard work first and second, the number of times he has been more disturbed by his team is ... well, what else could it be?

Meanwhile, the Lions continue to run up the zeroes, historically speaking, including these nadas of ignominy:

Number of teams that have a worse record than the Lions since the formation of the Houston Texans (including the Houston Texans). When Houston defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sunday, the red, white and blue Cows moved up to a 21-52 all-time mark, putting them in a tie with the Lions of the past four and a half years.

Number of teams that have a worse record since 2001. In Detroit's Matt Millen era, the Lions have gone an insane 23-66 for a success rate of just over 25 percent. (It seems even worse, though, doesn't it?) To put this in perspective, the Arizona Cardinals are five games better in that stretch.

Finally, sadly, there is one more zero to be recorded as this 2006 season cannot end quickly enough for those in Detroit. With salary cap problems, rampant rumors that Mike Martz will be heading up the Cards or Oakland Raiders next year, and little evidence that the ruling Ford family is tired of Millen, the amount of optimism in Michigan for the short-term future is exactly nil.

PS -

Fire Millen. It's the only way.

Waiting 'til next year with the Detroit Lions 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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