Sports News: 1/3

Central Michigan

– Butch Jones agreed to a two-year contract extension with Central Michigan, locking him up for the next five years. Jones comes back to CMU After two interviews for the head coaching position at West Virginia.

“I’m really excited about staying at Central Michigan,” Jones said Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press. “I take it as a compliment that West Virginia showed interest in me, but at this time I’m not looking to go anywhere. The administration has been great with its support, and the future looks bright for Central Michigan football.”

I think this is really great for Central. They have a coach who wants to be there and who plans to be there. Good for them.

Detroit Pistons

– The Pistons have won 10 straight games and 17 out of their last 19. Their overall record thus far is 25-7. Needless to say, the boys are lookin pretty good! But watch out…they have another big test coming up on Saturday (1/5) against the Celtics. I’m really glad to see this old-time rivalry renewed.

Detroit Red Wings

– Its looking like the Wings are shaping up to be the best team in the league during the regular season, once again. With their 30-8-3 record and 61 points in 40 games, the Wings are dominating to say the least.

–They just signed Lindstrom to a two-year extension, Zetterberg is back in the line-up, Datsyuk is playing like an MVP and Mike Babcock is going to coach the Western All-Stars.

Detroit Lions

–Yep, you guessed it…they still suck.

Martz: Just Another Scapegoat

I can not stress how happy I am that the Lions fired Mike Martz.

His offensive scheme is far too complicated for Detroit.

And its not that it doesn’t work. Its the fact that we simply do not have the players to execute it correctly.

Martz seemed to think he was still in St. Louis with Kurt Warner and the boys. I don’t think he came to the realization that this was a Detroit team with a far inferior talent level than what he is used to.

If players can’t learn and execute an offensive system after two years of practice, it is time to move on, and that’s what the Lions did.

It’s not Martz’s fault the Lions do not have the “horses,” so to say. What is his fault is his poor play calling and terrible substitutions.

Does the combination of McDonald and Furrey sound powerful to you? Me either. Hey, let’s draft Calvin Johnson number two and then throw to him twice every other game. Great idea. Not to mention how TJ Duckett was highly underused until the end of the season when it didn’t even matter.

C’mon, do you really expect to win a football game when you run the ball SIX times a game? You have to be a damn fool. No wonder Kevin Jones wants off of the team. And no wonder Kitna wants Martz to stay…he throws the ball 50 times a game!

Anyone who knows anything about football knows that to win, you must run the ball. And not just run it, but run it well.

Sadly, Martz did not do this even though head coach Rod Marinelli swears by his motto of “pounding the rock.”

However, I do not mean to make Martz the scapegoat. His is just a minor problem in a huge tangled web of larger problems called the Detroit Lions.

And how smart are they? They promote the offensive line coach…the one responsible for allowing the most sacks in the NFL. Again, just another coach who doesn’t have the horses to do the job correctly.

Does the organization not know that a good offensive line is the foundation and basis of any good offense? Apparently not.

What I don’t get is how a regular fan, such as myself, can see just about everything wrong with the Lions and the upper management of the organization can’t. Perhaps they do not care. In which case, neither should we.

I don’t even know why I (and other Lions fans like myself) even bother wasting their time trying to figure out what’s going on over there at Ford Field. We all know who the real culprits are…

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