Unhappy Harrington might be ready to move on
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
By Tom Kowalski
ALLEN PARK -- Joey Harrington has grown disenchanted with his situation as the Detroit Lions quarterback.
This is not surprising. What would really be newsworthy is if Harrington was delighted with what happened during his week-long quarterback school with new offensive coordinator Mike Martz.
Think about it. For the last four years, when Harrington has been under attack from all fronts, he fought his way through it by clinging to the belief that all he had to do was stick with the program and work harder. Now he's being told by a coach with an superb resume that, in essence, he just wasted four years of his life.
That has to border somewhere between unsettling and devastating and, considering Harrington's temperament, I'd suggest the latter.
Martz has repeatedly said that he wants to tear down Harrington and build him back up. Martz wants to make wholesale changes in how Harrington approaches the job of playing quarterback and even, apparently, suggested to a national football writer that he'd like Harrington to change his uniform number. Not exactly an ego booster, eh?
There was a recent rumor that there was a rift between Martz and Harrington, but this has almost nothing to do with Martz and everything to do with Harrington. Martz believes Harrington can be successful in Detroit: the question is whether Harrington wants to be in Detroit.
This has to be crushing to a player who stood strong against all the criticism he has received because he believed in himself and believed that he was going in the right direction. This is a player who arrived early, stayed late and put in all the extra work he felt he needed. Now, he's being told that the bulk of that work and those painstaking strides were all a waste of time and effort.
For all the abuse Harrington took in his first four years, he's about to find out just how bad it can get. And we'll also see what Harrington's really made of. He'll probably get to the point where he despises Martz, who has a history of being harsh on his quarterbacks. But that's not the point. Will Harrington stay strong and fight through it and finally, perhaps, be the quarterback he could have been a couple of years ago? Or will he knuckle under and simply take his football and go play somewhere else?
Maybe Harrington is just too far gone and nothing is going to get him mentally back on board again.
The allure of starting over has to be exciting and refreshing to Harrington, but he also has to understand that, if he goes to a club with solid coaching, he's in for the same nightmare. Nobody's going to pat him on the head and said "there, there." They're going to do the same tear-down, build-up strategy that Martz has employed. They might say it a little nicer, but it'll be the same process.
Harrington has suspected this all along, but he might -- for the first time -- truly understand what he was up against in the last four years. He received lousy coaching from men who didn't want him around in the first place. Then, he was surrounded by overrated talent that did nothing more than hike the expectations and make the subsequent dive all the more painful.
The irony is that now Harrington really has coaches who want him to succeed, but it's going to be a painful process.
Look, new head coach Rod Marinelli said himself that defensive tackle Warren Sapp hated him for the first year and a half they were together in Tampa. Sometimes, it takes a little time for a player to understand that a coach, despite his seemingly intolerable approach, is doing everything to make the player better.
When will Harrington understand this? Will he ever? Those are questions the Lions have to be asking themselves. Their off-season workout program begins next week and then they have a minicamp coming up in April. We'll have a better idea of where the situation stands after that.
The Lions aren't necessarily in a time crunch here. There's no financial issue because the deadline on Harrington's $4 million roster bonus isn't until June 15. As far as replacing Harrington, the Lions weren't viable options anyway for quarterbacks like Drew Brees or Daunte Culpepper.
Instead, it's possible that moves of Brees (to the New Orleans Saints) and Culpepper (to the Miami Dolphins) have altered the landscape of the draft, allowing one of the top three quarterbacks to slide to Detroit's ninth overall position. Then comes another decision. The Lions could take Matt Leinart, Jay Cutler or Vince Young and then let recently signed Jon Kitna run the show until the rookie is ready to take over -- just like Kitna did with Carson Palmer and the Cincinnati Bengals.
If the Lions aren't sold on Harrington's stability in moving forward, it appears he might not be the only one who'll be starting over.
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No quotes from Harrington here, but word in Detroit [per a couple of local writers & radio shows] is that he already wants out of town. Martz's "tear you down, build you up" philosophy must be wearing on him after four scrutinous years with the Lions, and they aren't showing much faith in him with the signing of Kitna. Can't blame him for wanting out with all the pressure he's had to deal with up to this point, but he should feel lucky that he's even given another chance with a proven guy like Kitna on the depth chart.
This is a good sign for the Rams' outlook in the draft if a quarterback falls to the Lions and they pass up on Michael Huff.
Harrington & Martz feuding already??
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