Posted: Aug. 18, 2009
Former coach Rod Marinelli actually left Lions a base to build on 

BY MICHAEL ROSENBERG
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST

I am about to say something that I mean seriously, and you will think I'm crazy, which reminds me of all of Rod Marinelli's press conferences. Fittingly, this is about Marinelli, the erstwhile Head Man of your beloved Detroit Lions, who went out in a blaze of comedy.

OK, here we go.

In a way, Marinelli left the Lions in better shape than he found them.

I know, that seems silly, since Marinelli's final season ended with the first 0-16 record in NFL history, a record that will never be broken unless Marinelli gets another job. But he made the Lions better in one important sense: He changed the culture.

The 2008 Lions seemed to like each other. They played hard. They did not seem especially bitter toward the head coach or management. They cared more about winning than about their own stats.

They were also the WORST TEAM EVER.

Hey, we all have flaws.

The point here is that new Lions coach Jim Schwartz can focus mostly on coaching and improving the talent base, not changing the culture. The Lions have added some highly respected veterans. They signed veteran tackle Jon Jansen, a true pro. They brought in Larry Foote, who won two Super Bowls with the Steelers and left only because he wants to play every possible down.

The Lions traded Corey Redding, who was versatile in the sense that you could play him at any spot on the defensive line and he would be ineffective. In exchange, they got Julian Peterson, who has made several Pro Bowls.

Peterson played in Super Bowl XL in Detroit. He also played for 49ers teams that won six games, total, over two seasons. I asked him if there is really such a thing as a losing culture, or if some teams just have losing talent.

"I think (there) can be," a losing culture, Peterson said. "For some reason they don't bring in enough veteran leadership. Cincinnati, they were good in the late '80s, then they started going down once they got rid of a lot of their veteran guys."

As for these Lions: "We brought a nice mixture," Peterson said. "You've got a nice base, I would say, with this team."

It is a nice base. It is also a base that will probably result in 3-13 or 4-12, because the Lions still have some major talent issues and will probably play a rookie quarterback for most of the season.

(By the way, loyal readers remember last year's weekly installments of the Road to XVI and our motto "Nothing is Possible." I am currently in the middle of contentious negotiations with myself over whether we should do a Road to XXXII for the 2009 season. On the one hand, it's a new season, the Lions have new coaches and new players, and frankly it seems absurd for them to go 0-16 again and ridiculous to even discuss it when they haven't even played a game yet. On the other hand, I enjoy amusing myself. This is going to be a close call.)

The Lions have a long way to go, we all know that. The 2008 Lions had starters who probably didn't even belong in the NFL, and you don't fix that kind of talent shortage in one offseason.

But there are jobs when the coach comes in and privately says, "Yeesh, I had no idea it was that bad," and I don't think this is one of those cases. The Lions are just an old-fashioned massive rebuilding job -- nothing more and nothing less.