nychief
05-13-2006, 11:43 AM
CLARK JUDGE
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer
Tell Clark your opinion!
So the Detroit Lions finally pulled the plug on Joey Harrington, sending the disgruntled quarterback to Miami, and you want to know who got the better of the deal. Well, I'll tell you.
No one here looks better than the Lions' former head coach, who two years ago expressed reservations about Harrington. In essence, Mariucci and his staff questioned whether they could win with Harrington ... and when they couldn't, they were fired.
Now, six months later, Harrington joins them in the Lions alumni club, and pardon me, but from where I sit, Mariucci and his staff have been validated.
I know, Detroit had no choice here. It pushed Harrington out only after he said he had no interest in staying and after he offended coach Rod Marinelli and offensive coordinator Mike Martz -- both of whom embraced the guy when they joined the Lions in the offseason.
Oddly, Martz could have been the best thing that happened to Harrington, but the quarterback will never know. He showed no interest in cooperating with him or the rest of the new staff and engineered the deal that sent him to Miami on Friday.
Well, good for him. He got what he wanted. But so did Mariucci and his staff ... only too late to save them.
Mariucci had been on Harrington's case from the beginning of his tenure, insistent the quarterback couldn't push the Lions over the top, but management had too much invested in the first-round draft pick.
So the Lions stuck with him. And he lost. And lost. And lost. In the end, he lost twice as many games (37) as he won (18), and while he certainly wasn't the cause of the Lions' woes, he contributed to them with lackluster play.
And that was Mariucci's point. There was nothing really special about Harrington; nothing that made you think you could move to the top of the division -- or go on to the playoffs -- with him.
Harrington was no idiot. He knew where he stood with the coaching staff. But instead of proving coaches wrong, he wound up proving them right.
He later suggested that he had to get out of Detroit to succeed, and he might be right. I ran into an assistant coach who spent a day interviewing the guy in the offseason and described him as "scarred" by his experience with the Lions, saying it would take a minimum of six months to put the quarterback back together.
Well, now that's Nick Saban's job. Once, it was Mariucci's, and he failed. Now we know why.
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer
Tell Clark your opinion!
So the Detroit Lions finally pulled the plug on Joey Harrington, sending the disgruntled quarterback to Miami, and you want to know who got the better of the deal. Well, I'll tell you.
No one here looks better than the Lions' former head coach, who two years ago expressed reservations about Harrington. In essence, Mariucci and his staff questioned whether they could win with Harrington ... and when they couldn't, they were fired.
Now, six months later, Harrington joins them in the Lions alumni club, and pardon me, but from where I sit, Mariucci and his staff have been validated.
I know, Detroit had no choice here. It pushed Harrington out only after he said he had no interest in staying and after he offended coach Rod Marinelli and offensive coordinator Mike Martz -- both of whom embraced the guy when they joined the Lions in the offseason.
Oddly, Martz could have been the best thing that happened to Harrington, but the quarterback will never know. He showed no interest in cooperating with him or the rest of the new staff and engineered the deal that sent him to Miami on Friday.
Well, good for him. He got what he wanted. But so did Mariucci and his staff ... only too late to save them.
Mariucci had been on Harrington's case from the beginning of his tenure, insistent the quarterback couldn't push the Lions over the top, but management had too much invested in the first-round draft pick.
So the Lions stuck with him. And he lost. And lost. And lost. In the end, he lost twice as many games (37) as he won (18), and while he certainly wasn't the cause of the Lions' woes, he contributed to them with lackluster play.
And that was Mariucci's point. There was nothing really special about Harrington; nothing that made you think you could move to the top of the division -- or go on to the playoffs -- with him.
Harrington was no idiot. He knew where he stood with the coaching staff. But instead of proving coaches wrong, he wound up proving them right.
He later suggested that he had to get out of Detroit to succeed, and he might be right. I ran into an assistant coach who spent a day interviewing the guy in the offseason and described him as "scarred" by his experience with the Lions, saying it would take a minimum of six months to put the quarterback back together.
Well, now that's Nick Saban's job. Once, it was Mariucci's, and he failed. Now we know why.