The Pressbox

Does anyone have a clue how the Detroit Lions operate?

Running back is one of the team’s weakest positions, so Thursday they release their most talented player at that position. That’s Lion logic.

Yes, Kevin Jones has been injury prone during his career. But what would it have hurt to keep him on the roster to see if he can recover from his current problem?

The move probably has something to do with cap space, but there is other dead weight on the roster that they could have sliced off.

What a great weekend of games for the NFL playoffs. All four games had plenty of compelling action and interesting story lines. Here are a few of my thoughts.

* It was a lot of fun watching Brett Favre frolic in the Green Bay snow. And you had feel good for Ryan Grant, who basically handed Seattle a 14-0 lead with two early fumbles but came back to rush for more than 200 yards and 3 touchdowns. He made people forget about the fumbles.

* Has there ever been a player in more command of the game than Tom Brady? He is supremely confident in the pocket. Nothing seems to rattle him. It is fun to watch the way he picks apart defenses. I must admit that I was one of the people who wanted to see Drew Henson play ahead of Brady at Michigan. His development as an NFL quarterback has been astounding.

* Who would have thought that San Diego could go into Indianapolis with Antonio Gates, LaDainian Tomlinson and Philip Rivers all hurting and upset the Colts? I kind of wanted to see Peyton Manning go head-to-head with Brady, but San Diego deserved the win. It was an inspired performance.

* A Manning made it to a conference championship game, but not many were betting it would be Eli. He did a solid job, but the real credit for the New York Giants’ upset of Dallas goes to the New York defense. Injuries decimated the Giant secondary, but they still found a way to win.

I went to cover Wednesday’s Motor City Bowl because Monroe graduate Jeff Maddux was playing for Central Michigan.

Here are a few thoughts:

* It was only my second visit to Ford Field. It is a very beautiful facility and the staff there does a nice job. I was impressed with how well the traffic flowed around the stadium. The press box is spacious and comfortable, but is about a mile away from the field on the seventh floor. I felt like I was watching the game from the Goodyear blimp.

* I tried hard to keep my attention focused on Maddux, but I had a difficult time doing it. For some reason, my eye just keeps getting drawn to the ball. But, from what I saw, it seemed that he did a very nice job. The offensive guard didn’t have any penalties called on him and the guys he was blocking didn’t get free for any sacks.

* Watching CMU might give Michigan fans an idea of what they can expect in the next few years. Butch Jones was an assistant to new Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez before taking over as coach of the Chippewas this year. It’s an exciting offense, but the quarterback takes a lot of hits.

I must admit that I didn’t know much about Rich Rodriguez before he was named the new coach of the University of Michigan football team.

Of course, I’d heard the name mentioned as a candidate for some top jobs in recent years and I knew that he had put together a solid program at West Virginia.

But I’d never heard him interviewed and didn’t know much about his coaching style.

I like what I’ve learned about him in the past few days. He seems humble and humorous. He showed plenty of respect during his press conference Monday to the traditions at Michigan and former coach Lloyd Carr.

Rodriguez is taking some heat for the way he left West Virginia. It does trouble me a bit that this had to happen before the Mountaineers played their bowl game. I don’t see where waiting a couple more weeks would have caused that much damage. U-M athletic director Bill Martin and Rodriguez saw it differently.

But it is not an assault on the integrity of college athletics as the governor of West Virginia seemed to suggest. It’s just the way college football works these days.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes Rodriguez to put his stamp on the Wolverines. He will have to figure out the best ways to use the athletes at the school. They might not fit his system. Will he adapt to their talents or try to force them into his scheme? My guess is that he his a good enough coach to tinker with his system to find something that works.

The biggest test case will be quarterback Ryan Mallet. He is a classic drop-back passer in the Jim Harbaugh-Tom Brady mode. His skills don’t seem to suit a spread offense. It will be up to Rodriguez to make it work.

While watching one of the football games today, they talked about candidates for NFL Coach of the Year. Listed right up there with Tony Dungy and Bill Belichick was Rod Marinelli of the Detroit Lions.

When was the last time a Lions coach was included in that kind of company?

Marty Morniheg? Steve Mariucci? Wayne Fontes?

Not likely.

But Marinelli deserves it. He has done a wonderful job of getting rid of the troublemakers and changing the attitude of this team.

These guys play like they believe in their coach and each other.

There is a lot of season left, but it’s nice to be able to talk about the Lions as a playoff contender after their recent miserable history.

I am not ordering my Super Bowl tickets just yet, but the Detroit Lions had a pretty impressive performance against Tampa Bay today.

It’s not he level of play that I am talking about. The Lions were outplayed on many levels by the Buccaneers, but they showed tremendous resiliency, an ability to capitalize on mistakes by their opponent and a knack of coming up with big plays at the right times.

Good teams find a way to win when they don’t play particularly well. That hasn’t happened with the Lions much in recent years.

Monroe, SMCC, Airport, Milan and Dundee have qualified for the state football playoffs. Flat Rock and Whiteford will wait until Sunday night to see if the computer spits out their names.

Here are some quick thoughts on the playoff teams and the hopefuls.

Monroe: What a run this team went on at the end of the season, winning seven in a row including the last four against playoff teams. The quick, aggressive Trojan defense is a joy to watch.

SMCC: This was supposed to be a rebuilding year for the Falcons after suffering heavy graduation losses. Jack Giarmo and his staff have done a wonderful job with this young team.

Airport: The Jets have developed such a great program that they expect to be in the playoffs every year. This might be the best offense I’ve seen at Airport.

Milan: Ron Spears has put together one of the greatest seasons for a Monroe County Region running back ever and the defense has improved dramatically over last season.

Dundee: It’s great to see the Vikings enjoying success again. Ryan Irwin is one of the real nice guys in Region coaching.

Flat Rock: I’d love to see the Rams slip into the playoffs. They are small in size and numbers, but play with tremendous heart.

Whiteford: Coach Jack Luettke didn’t sound hopeful about his team’s playoff chances Friday night. I hope he’s wrong. It would nice to see the Bobcats’ high-octane offense get to take the field for another game.

I was just looking at the NFL standings this morning and have come up with a bold prediction.

The New England Patriots will win the AFC East.

What a pathetic division. The Patriots are 6-0 and have a five-game lead in the win column, four in the loss column. The rest of the division is made up of Buffalo (1-4), the New York Jets (1-5) and Miami (0-6).

The Patriots were very impressive Sunday in handling previously unbeaten Dallas fairly easily. Tom Brady is master of the game right now.

I really like the way Rod Marinelli is trying to reconstruct the attitude of the Detroit Lions. But sometimes his macho stuff goes a little too far.

It made no sense to have Jon Kitna in the game in the final minutes of Sunday’s blowout loss to Washington. Marinelli says he is driving home the point that his team is going to play hard on every down.

That’s fine, but there has to be a point where common sense takes over.

Kitna already takes plenty of hits. Subjecting him to even more when the game is out of reach is not good coaching. If Kitna gets hurt, the Lions can start planning now for another Top 10 draft choice (and, with Matt Millen in charge, it will probably be a wide receiver).

Why couldn’t the Lions play hard on every down in the fourth quarter of the Washington or Philadelphia games with the backup quarterback on the field?

I covered tonight’s Huron League football showdown between Airport and SMCC.
I can’t remember ever seeing a game that featured such a dramatic turnaround.
Airport completely dominated the first half, outgaining the Falcons 283-21. The gap in first downs was 16-1.
SMCC stopped an Airport drove at the four-yard line and returned a kick-off for a touchdown, otherwise the halftime deficit would have been much greater than 17-6.
If you asked me at halftime if SMCC had any chance of coming back to win the game I would have said no.
But the Falcons showed how much I know, dominating the second half almost as thoroughly as Airport dominated the first.
That’s the great thing about high school athletics. These aren’t hardened pros. Emotions play a huge roll in these games.
It was a pleasure to watch two well-coached, talented teams battle before a big crowd.