9602030014
DETROIT FREE PRESS
961028
Monday, October 28, 1996
METRO FINAL
1D
MITCH ALBOM Free Press Sports Writer
Copyright (c) 1996, Detroit Free Press
OF ALL THE MISTAKES, FONTES' TAKES CAKE
The quarterback was so hot, steam was coming from his head. He crossed his
arms. He glared at his coach. He was in the building physically, but in his
mind, he was packing his suitcase.
Congratulations, Wayne Fontes. Of all the boneheaded moves you have made
with the Lions, this one tops the pile.
Here, in the second quarter of a collapsing game, you pull quarterback
Scott Mitchell in the middle of a series, giving 63,000 angry fans a chance
to shower him with boos as he runs off the field. Nice. I'm surprised Mitchell
didn't just keep going, right out the tunnel, into his car, and back to Utah.
Good God, Wayne, what in the name of simple, basic leadership are you
doing? You don't emasculate your quarterback like that. You might as well
strap weights to his elbows and tie his legs together. Not only are you
embarrassing him, embarrassing his replacement and pretty much sinking morale
for the rest of the game, you're also -- let's talk some football -- confusing
your offense. According to the players out there, none of them knew what was
going on. "I was shocked when I saw (Don) Majkowski coming in," Kevin Glover
admitted. "I just assumed Scott was in for the rest of the series."
And Glover snaps the ball!
Not surprisingly, the Lions went nowhere the next two plays, and then went
less than nowhere. Mitchell, humiliated, heaved his helmet, yelled at Fontes
as he passed, and pushed away players who tried to calm him. He fumed the
rest of the half, alone on the sideline, an angry statue amidst the crushed
paper cups.
Ladies and gentlemen, your franchise quarterback.
Meanwhile, if Mitchell's teammates had been sinking with him, they went
down like a rock once he was gone. Mistakes. Giveaways. And finally, surrender
-- to a lousy Giants team. When the gun sounded, the stadium was nearly
empty. I cannot recall a lower moment in the Wayne Fontes era than Sunday
afternoon.
"Right now," said Herman Moore, after the 35-7 thrashing, "I am sick of
football. . . . By the end of this game, we were lucky if our relatives were
still watching. Some of them might have walked out, too."
A spark? He just lit Mitchell's fuse
A few minutes later, Mitchell faced reporters. He was still red-faced at
being yanked.
"I don't agree with the decision," he said, which is like saying Joseph
McCarthy didn't agree with communism. "There was a lot of football to be
played at that point."
Now, it's true, Mitchell, with three interceptions in 19 minutes, had been
horrible. But so had the offensive line. So had the receivers, who dropped
passes or deflected them into the arms of defenders. So had the special
teams. So had the defense. And Majkowski was no better when he came in.
None of that excuses Fontes. Come on, Wayne. You don't send your starting
quarterback in for one play, watch him throw an incompletion -- he was under
intense pressure -- then pull him out and make him suffer that 40-yard jog
from active to inactive. What if he had completed that one pass? Then you
leave him in for one more? Or you give him two chances to make one, or three
to make two? Is this a pro football team, or a ring toss at a carnival?
"I've made moves like that before," Fontes said later. "I wanted to see if
he'd get hot. I was looking for a spark."
Lord knows he doesn't have any in his game plan.
Hey. Either switch quarterbacks between series -- and give your players a
chance to talk to the new guy on the sideline -- or stay with your starter.
This Mitchell-Majkowski bugaboo was typical of Fontes' regime. It's a confused
coach, making for a confused team. I am not absolving the players here. They
stunk. Even Barry Sanders didn't look like much Sunday. But the play-calling
was horrible. (Sanders and Moore combined to touch the ball six times in the
first half.) The attitude was worse. And those things come from the coaching
staff.
"Every week we come out and don't seem to know what's going on," Moore
said. "We're worse than Jekyll and Hyde. Jekyll and Hyde isn't enough. You
need to throw a few more personalities in there."
Last year, Detroit had the NFL's top offense. Sunday, it scored seven
points against the Giants -- at home!
Could be worse, won't get better
And now Fontes has thrown a blowtorch on a straw pile. He insisted Sunday
that he doesn't have a quarterback controversy. He's right. He skipped
"controversy" and went right to "disaster." Mitchell, a soon-to-be free
agent, is already prone to pouting. Now he has all these angry darts to throw.
And meanwhile, the Lions are 4-4. You know the worst part? There was
Fontes, as usual, acting as if the record is no big deal.
"We're 4-4,' he said, "that's not 2-6 or 0-8."
It's not 6-2 or 7-1, either, which is what this team should be. It is so
infuriating to get this ho-hum approach to mediocrity, week after week. It's
as if the Lions don't believe they'll miss the playoffs. I have news for them.
They are pretty much out.
Even if they win the games they should win the rest of the way, the Lions
would need two upsets against Green Bay, San Francisco or Kansas City to
finish 10-6. And since they have yet to beat a winning team, why should we
hold our breath?
Answer: We shouldn't. What we saw Sunday was a desperate act by a flailing
coach, a terrible decision, made no better by the explanations afterward.
Fontes said: "Scott Mitchell will be my quarterback next week."
I bet he can hardly wait.
THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE PRINTED ARTICLE.
COLUMN; FOOTBALL; GAME; LIONS; GIANTS; WAYNE FONTES