Are you #$@%ing kidding me??

"We have not developed our younger players, and that’s bothersome."
-- Matt Millen 11/28/05

I already hate Dick Jauron.

At least I think I do. Because if it was his decision to start Jeff Garcia this Sunday against Minnesota, the Lions should be the first team in NFL history to fire two head coaches in one week.

I don't get this. I don't get it at all. I am completely #@$%ing baffled. Did Matt Millen not say on Monday that one of his biggest problems with the Steve Mariucci coaching regime was the failure to develop the team's younger players?

So the next logical move must be to start a 35-year-old quarterback who's led the Lions' offense to a grand total of 33 points in two-and-a-half games, and whose best apparent skills are to run around like the proverbial headless turkey and throw passes that hang in the air almost as long as that Roary the Lion blimp floats around Ford Field.


I'm trying to make sense of this. Did someone check the back of Jauron's neck for a mind-control device, the signal from which could be traced back to a house belonging to a "S. Mariucci"?

Does Jauron think Garcia gives the Lions the best chance to win what's essentially a must-win game on Sunday? Does the coaching staff and front office think the best way to develop the young wide receiver corps is to have Garcia throwing passes to them? Do certain outspoken defensive backs decide who starts at quarterback now? (More on Dre "The Truth" Bly later today, or some time tomorrow.)

Can it be any more obvious that Joey Harrington's career in Detroit is officially over? (And I realize I'm probably in the minority of Lions fans who think that shouldn't be the case.) This can't just be Jauron sticking to that old, tired "a player doesn't lose his job to injury" coaching axiom. Millen and the Lions' ownership had to have signed off on this move, too. Either that, or Jauron has balls the size of cantaloupes and is giving Millen a huge middle finger with a number 5 on it.

Someone explain this to me. At this point, I'm ready to make different plans for Sunday at 1 pm.

(Image from "Heart of the City" © 2005 Mark Tatulli)