Jim Schwartz Responsible for Detroit Lions' Penalty Woes

Last Sunday, it happened again.

The Detroit Lions defense took the field. The opposing quarterback, Eli Manning in this instance, ran a few offensive plays against a very aggressive, very effective defensive front. Manning found himself sacked.

With his pocket collapsing on nearly every play, Manning needs to slow that pass rush. So he goes up to the line and delivers a hard count.

Immediately, every Detroit Lion on the field started playing football, while the offensive line remained in their stances.

The encroachment call was on Corey Williams, but it could have been on about three or four other guys. The entire line fired off on that hard count. Somewhere, at that very moment, Grady Jackson jumped a bit.

If you have read anything that I've written in the last year or so, you know I'm a big fan of head coach Jim Schwartz. I follow him on Twitter. I like his coaching philosophy, I like his eye for talent, I like the way he handles the press, I like his taste in music, I like his winning attitude. He is, without a doubt in my mind, the right man for this job, now and for the foreseeable future.

Which makes this next part a little difficult for me, because I'm hesitant to call Schwartz out on anything when he has brought such drastically obvious improvement to the Detroit Lions in such a relatively short amount of time.

But the penalties are getting ridiculous, and somebody has to be accountable for it. That someone is Schwartz.

No, he's not putting a helmet on and lining up in the neutral zone, and he's not turning fourth downs into first downs in the red zone with personal fouls. He's not holding, blocking guys out of bounds or committing egregious pass interference penalties.

But he is directly responsible for his team's discipline, which means he's directly responsible for his team's lack thereof.

Perhaps more than any other aspect of a football team, discipline comes down to coaching.

Sure, youth and inexperience factor into it, to an extent. But the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are one of the youngest teams in the NFL, Raheem Morris is 10 years the junior of Jim Schwartz and has exactly as much head coaching experience, and yet the Bucs are the least-penalized team in the NFL this year while the Lions are the most.

Committing less penalties is great and all, but the reality is, it's not really about committing less penalties. This team has to pick its spots. There may be no such thing as a good penalty, but there are bad ones and there are unbelievably awful ones.

Jeff Backus getting beat on the edge (that never happens though, right?) and dragging his defender to the ground to protect his quarterback from yet another blind side hit/major shoulder injury? Bad penalty.

Stephen Peterman running 15 yards down the field to deliver a "cleanup" block five seconds after the play is over, eliminating a big gain and a first down? Terrible penalty.

Cliff Avril drawing an unsportsmanlike call after a successful goal-line stand? Not one, but two special teamers blocking a guy repeatedly while he's five yards out of bounds? Gosder Cherilus lining up off the line of scrimmage? What are you guys thinking?

These are the types of things that need to be cleaned up. It's not so much the number of penalties, but the type.

I can deal with the occasional offsides call on first-and-10, if Kyle Vanden Bosch thinks he sees something that's going to let him time the snap count. If he's right, it's a much greater reward than the five-yard penalty. It's not okay after he's done it three times and it was just third-and-4.

I understand a holding call here and there, but there's no reason for it when the play is already behind you and Jahvid Best just crossed the first down line.

It's on Schwartz to reign his guys in, and do it fast. He doesn't need to eliminate penalties, penalties are part of the game. He needs to eliminate stupid, pointless, untimely penalties.

Schwartz has acknowledged the problem, and says that they definitely need to be addressed. He has alluded to the possibility of pulling or even cutting guys who create too many of those bad penalties. That's a start.

In just about every loss the Lions have suffered this year, there was at least one penalty flag thrown that killed a Lions drive or saved an opponent's drive, and completely shifted the game's momentum. Without those flags, the Lions could easily be sporting a winning record.

With that in mind, it's reasonable to think that dumb penalties are the biggest cause for the Lions' losing ways this season. We've seen that the talent is there, but it's not so abundant that they can afford needless mistakes.

With guys like Calvin Johnson, Jahvid Best and Matthew Stafford getting healthy again, the Lions have no more excuses. It's time for Schwartz to crack down and be the bad guy disciplinarian for the next 10 days.

This isn't a situation where we can excuse him because he's still dealing with a half-formed roster. These mistakes aren't being made because of a lack of talent, they're being made because of a lack of concentration and discipline. Concentration and discipline are things exhibited by well-coached football teams.

But even the lowest-tier NFL players know that offensive linemen line up on the line of scrimmage.

This is the first time I've really called out Schwartz, personally, to fix a major problem on his football team. For everything else I've given him ample time. Considering his starting point, I don't expect him and the Lions front office to have put together a truly complete, top-caliber roster with no major holes until about 2012.

But the Lions have shown that they can win football games with Schwartz at the helm and the players they have now.

That is, if Schwartz reigns in control of his team and gets their heads screwed on straight.

Starting immediately.