The time has come for Detroit Lions coach Rod Marinelli to tear a page out of the playbook of one of the great politicians of all time, a man who couldn't be cornered no matter how many times he was counted out.
John McCain? No. Barack Obama? No.
These desperate times call for desperate measures. The man Marinelli must emulate is ... Wayne Fontes.
Say what you will about Fontes, the former Lions coach, but the man was lights out when it came to crisis management. He couldn't handle prosperity very well, but he was brilliant in terms of survival (we'll find someone else to help Marinelli with the prosperity part if that, you know, ever happens).
One of the strength's of Marinelli's message is, you don't panic and you stick with the basics, the fundamentals, the details, and you keep working and working until you get things right.
Well, after Detroit's third consecutive blowout defeat -- this time 31-13 to the San Francisco 49ers -- it's time for Marinelli to lean on another one of his messages: You've got to put it on tape and, if you don't, you're out.
The problem is, Marinelli could apply that message, and a subsequent benching, to 90 percent of his players. Here's where the Fontes' strategy comes into play: Move the pieces to tilt the board in your favor.
Marinelli needs to make a splash, a big splash, and make it known that he refuses to accept what's going on. Even if it means trashing parts of his offense, and his beloved Tampa Two defense, he's got to pull the trigger.
He has to find a very delicate way of separating himself from the failures of the past and attaching himself to the hope of the future. Who can't recall those good ol' days when Fontes seemed to pull off that magic act every year?
After Detroit's most recent embarrassment, Marinelli hinted strongly that changes were on the way for the defense. Because the Lions can't get any pressure with their front four -- they sacked J.T. O'Sullivan just once -- Marinelli said he is considering adding a lot of blitz packages.
That's not the way he wants to play defense, but it appears he's sick and tired of dying a slow death every Sunday afternoon. He realizes that if the blitzes don't work, those deaths might be might be quick and brutal, but at least he's giving himself a fighting chance.
The other change, another Fontes classic, is to bench the starting quarterback. Now, this 0-3 record isn't all Jon Kitna's fault, but it's never entirely the quarterback's fault. Besides, Kitna has done his fair share to contribute to this mess.
Going to backup Dan Orlovsky won't work because there's not much reward in it. Orlovsky is on the final year of his contract and he doesn't have much of a long-term future with this team. Besides, Orlovsky is too closely tied to the past. That's a tough break for him, but that's the way it goes.
No, Marinelli has to go with second-year player Drew Stanton. The former Michigan State quarterback might not be good to start with, but he's going to be exciting. Marinelli has to quickly shift his focus to the future and let the fans and media chew on "what might be"
because if they concentrate on "what is,"
Marinelli's in big trouble.
You might be asking yourself at this point, other than immediate satisfaction of making changes and keeping the media and fans off his butt for a little while, what's the real reason of duplicating the Fontes Doctrine?
Simple. The one thing Marinelli needs more than anything else is time. He thought he'd be fine after three years and he'd have everything running the way he wanted. But he grossly underestimated just how lousy this franchise -- yes, franchise, not team -- really is.
If Marinelli keeps marching to the same drum he's been beating for the past two-plus years, he's going to get caught up in the gears of whatever changes are made to the front office at the end of the season. And Marinelli has to believe there will be some kind of changes coming in the front office because the current system of collecting talent is awful.
Fontes and his coaching sleight-of-hand allowed him to stick around for eight-plus years in Detroit when the reality of his record indicated he should've been around for about half of that. Marinelli needs time and he needs to buy it soon.
If Marinelli wants to survive, he's going to need some spiritual guidance. He needs to think of just one thing: What Would Wayne Do?
