It's Official: What the Detroit Lions' New Hire Means for the Future

The Lions have finally made the announcement that many had predicted a week ago.  They have named Jim Schwartz their new head coach.

This is not surprising. A few days ago, the Lions staged a mock press conference for the former Tennessee Titans defensive coordinator in which Schwartz answered questions about the Lions and the future of the franchise. 

During this press conference, Schwartz spoke about the importance of the quarterback and the need to finally replace Bobby Layne.

I personally jumped on his comments and wrote an article decrying them.

Plenty of people were quick to point out the fact that his comments were meant to bring levity to what must have been a stressful room for Schwartz. 

While I believe this to be true, what I chose to focus on was the fact that he stressed that the quarterback position was the most important one on the team. This, in my opinion, is completely false, and is in fact exemplified by the Tennessee Titans themselves.

Not only did they improve once they benched their high-profile first round quarterback, but they in fact did not receive stellar play from the aging signal caller that replaced the youngster. Therefore, the quarterback position was of little consequence to the success of the Titans. 

Their success was based on a stifling defense and a yard-churning running game. But I digress.

The real story behind this hiring is all about power and pride. 

Surprising that the words power or pride could still be associated with this franchise, but hear me out. 

Many people believe that Rod Marinelli failed because he was incompetent. I am not one of those people. Coach Marinelli failed because he skipped a step in the football promotion hierarchy. He spent too much time as a defensive line coach in the same system without being promoted.

Is this his fault? Yes, and no. It is his fault because he stayed complacent, or more accurately, he stayed loyal. He was given a great job, he excelled at it, and he did not want to move on. If he wanted to, he could have taken another a job as a defensive coordinator with another team. 

We know now that he was a highly sought after defensive coach for years, especially after Tampa Bay won the Super Bowl. We also know that he would not be given a shot at defensive coordinator in Tampa due to Monte Kiffin. Kiffin is a legendary defensive coordinator with no aspirations to don the head coach cap.

Therefore, Marinelli should have moved on to another team to gain the valuable experience of being a defensive coordinator. However, he stayed in Tampa and became even better at his job. 

If you listen to his former players, they speak of Marinelli as though he could single-handedly take on Al Qaeda. That type of loyalty is unheard of in pro football, yet his players heaped it on him with regularity. 

But his great strength of loyalty turned into a weakness for his career, and his growth was stunted. 

Why is this important? Because the Lions are now taking on another coach with similar coaching credentials. 

Although Schwartz took that next step and became a defensive coordinator, he never became a head coach, and all indications are that he has not been seriously considered for a head coaching job. 

Sure, he was interviewed last year for jobs, including the Atlanta Falcons head coaching spot. But he was not being considered for any jobs this offseason despite the dominant play of the Titans. 

Is it important that the Lions are getting a coach that does not appear to be in demand? Not necessarily. Some coaches become the flavor of the month for strange reasons, and some fall out of favor for even stranger ones. Some teams may view the Titans' recent success as more of a product of coach Jeff Fisher than his assistants. 

The reasons are not important. What is important is that he never took that next step and became a head coach, and instead spent a longer than average amount of time in the same position without being promoted.

Does this mean he is doomed to the same fate as Marinelli? Of course there is no way to accurately predict that, and if I were able to do so, I would probably be using that skill set to gamble off my substantial student loans (private liberal arts educations are not cheap!).

What we can gauge by this hiring is how strong of a grip Tom Lewand and Martin Mayhew now have on this organization. 

How do we know this? Because they opted to choose an untested, inexperienced head coach as their man to lead this franchise. 

Why is that important you may ask. An inexperienced coach is much less likely to attempt a power struggle. It is like the difference between a new teacher and a veteran one. Not only is the new teacher cheaper, but they do not complain as much. They do their job, and they are glad to have one.

There is no sense of entitlement; they are just glad to have a job.

Mayhew and Lewand know this, and more importantly, they expect this. They no doubt learned this from their former boss...Matt Millen. Millen was able to deflect blame onto his coaches because his coaches, save for Steve Mariucci (who's firing should have led to Millen's as well), were untested and therefore likely to receive the bulk of the blame for the team's poor play. 

As long as the coach is inexperienced, there is at least a chance it is not the gm's fault.

Also, a new coach, especially an inexperienced one, is typically graded on a curve.  This gives the coach some time to develop, and therefore, it gives the gm time to keep his job.

Conversely, the gm is given an extraordinary amount of credit if the coach pans out.  He is viewed as a man who found a diamond in the rough. 

So therefore, from Mayhew and Lewand's perspective, the Schwartz hire is brilliant.

You may be asking "how can you blame them for this move?" Well, you can't. If you are a casual observer, you might even applaud them.

But if you are a Lions fan, you should be at least mildly upset. The Lions are again taking a huge leap of faith on an untested and unproven head coach. 

You may also be asking "what was the alternative?" There were actually quite a few, but namely four: Bill Cowher, Marty Schottenheimer, Mike Shanahan, and Brian Billick.

While Cowher was a longshot to be sure, the Lions did not appear to make any overtures toward him. They could have made him an offer he could not refuse, but alas, there was no offer.

The remaining three coaches also were not even contacted by the Lions despite their past successes. 

Of course no coach is guaranteed to make a winner. Mariucci seemed like a lock to turn the Lions around, and we all know how that turned out.

But the chances are a lot higher that a proven coach would work out better than an unproven one. 

While one of these coaches had a higher probability of being successful than Schwartz, they would have been disastrous for Mayhew and Lewand. 

If one of these experienced coaches was successful, it would have taken away from Mayhew and Lewand's legacy. 

Additionally, an experienced coach would have likely demanded more power with executive decisions, and could have pushed around the relatively inexperienced front office executives.

While you can identify with the young executives, you should not be happy about it.  With this hiring, they have effectively stated that holding onto power is more important than winning. 

Of course they want to win, but they want to win on their terms. 

Hopefully, for Lions fans, it turns out to be a brilliant move.  Only time will tell.  But at the very least it shows us that despite the name changes, things are a lot more similar to the way they were.

Millen, are you still there?