Karmelowiczed onions . . . er, Jareds

EDIT: folks, I'm sorry, but blogger keeps mysteriously eating the links.  They are:

killer article: http://www.mlive.com/lions/index.ssf/2009/02/jared_allen_raves_about_lions.html

Star-Tribune article: http://blogs.startribune.com/vikingsblog/?p=2474

Killer Kowalski at mlive.com pointed out a little tidbit in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. It's a quick little interview/article with Jared Allen, talking about his relationship with the Lions' new defensive line coach, Bob Karmelowicz. Go ahead and check it out; I'll be right here.

Now, I should not have to remind anyone reading this that Jared Allen had an unbelievable 2008: he racked up 14.5 sacks and 54 tackles, and was the lightning rod atop a mountainous Vikings defense. It used to be that you could simply pass over the Williams Wall, but suddenly that wasn't the case. Allen singlehandedly shrunk the field for opposing offenses with his speed, strength, and tenacity.

Yet, 2008 was a tipping point for Jared Allen. His early career had been an almost unbroken string of success; as an up-and-comer for Kansas City, Allen flashed incredible potential and production.  In 2004, his rookie year, he garnered nine sacks in just 10 starts.  His second season, that sack count literally and figuratively "went up to 11" (apologies to Spinal Tap).  This trend culminated with a Pro Bowl season in 2007, where he had 15.5 sacks in just 14 games.  Allen had established himself as one of the premier pass rushers in the game, just as his rookie contract was expiring.  Still, a cloud hung over him: three DUI arrests (one in 2002 and two in 2006) had placed him in deep trouble.  Remember the "14 games" part of that "Pro Bowl season"?  Allen was under the NFL's equivalent of double-secret probation: the third stage of the Substance Abuse Program.  He'd appealed his standard four-game suspension down to two games in 2007.  However, one more incident within two years of his last arrest (September 2006), and he could be suspended for a whole season, and be one more false move away from lifetime banishment.  However, if he managed keep his nose clean until that two-year period was up, his slate would be wiped clean.  The Chiefs decided they couldn't roll the dice on that much guaranteed money for that much risk.  They franchise-tagged Allen, and traded him to the Vikes for a first, two thirds, and a swap of sixth-round picks.  Moreover, Allen got an enormous contract extension at the consummation of the trade: six years and seventy-two million dollars.  The Vikings were paying him an awful lot of money to ensure that people would continue to call them "Super Bowl favorites", no matter how many years in a row they play .500 ball.

Yet, despite (or perhaps because of) all the pressure, Allen had a tough time getting going. After five games, Allen had just two sacks--and for a guy used to more than a sack per game, that wasn't cutting it.  He called up his former position coach, Bob Karmelowicz.  It's tough to tell exactly what happened here--Karmelowicz was hired by then-new Texans head coach, Gary Kubiak, to enthusiastic response.  After one season as the defensive line coach, Karmelowicz was reassigned to "Special Assistant to the Head Coach".  Whether this was a promotion, or a demotion, I can't divine.  Either way, Allen paid out-of-pocket to fly Karmelowicz up to Minnesota every Tuesday for one-on-one coaching. I have amusing mental pictures of Allen's mom trucking him around in a minivan, his head bent up against the ceiling. "Goodbye dear; have fun at pass rushing today! Make sure you work hard and listen to your teacher!" It's eyebrow-raising, to be sure: a professional football player paying to be coached, when the team is both paying him millions to play, and paying other coaches millions to coach him. Yet, Karmelowicz made an instant improvement in Allen's game: Allen recorded 12.5 sacks in the last eleven games, terrorizing other teams on his way to his second straight Pro Bowl and the NFC North crown.  The whole story is really unusual; nfl.com's Adam Schefter wrote about it in a disturbingly-similar-to-the-Star-Ledger-piece blog entry back in December.

Karmelowicz, at first, seemed like one of the several "buddy hires" on the Lions' roster: Gunther's old DL coach from the "glory days" in Kansas City, who happened to not have anything better to do.  Interestingly, however, Karmelowicz has also coached at LSU and Arizona State, which links him to multiple members of the offensive staff as well.  It seems as though he'll be a really natural fit in terms of the culture Schwartz & Co. are trying to build.  Moreover, the Jared Allen story speaks volumes about what Karmelowicz can do as a teacher, motivator, and  defensive line coach.  I cannot wait to see what this guy does with White and Avril, let alone any linemen we choose to draft.

This is one of the things that's hard to see from our perspective, a reporter and an Internet away from anyone who really knows anything about these guys.  We see two or three sentences about an assistant coach guy and go, "Oh, right, he worked with so-and-so back in the day.  *sigh*  I wanted someone good."  The reality is, we know effectively nothing about these guys except what we see on the field on Sundays.  And what this guy puts on the field on Sundays is usually great.

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the fellowship is complete

Killer of mlive.com has the info on the Lions' complete coaching staff.

I think Steve Mariucci mentioned that between head coaches, coordinators, and assistants, the Lions hired and fired nearly eighty coaches from the time Millen took over until now.  I haven't done the research to be absolutely sure this is true, but I believe that every player that's been here more than two years since Millen took over has had to deal with a different position coach, coordinator, head coach, or all three.  That's really depressing--and it's no wonder that players like Roy, Kevin Jones, and Shaun Rogers learned to tune out the coaches!  The players with big salaries figured out that they'll be there a lot longer than anyone telling them what to do . . . so why do it?

As Schwartz made each of his coordinator hires, I said to myself (and to you all): this guy might not be the 'hot' hire, but he's had plenty of success as a coordinator, he's been a head coach, he believes in Schwartz and Schwartz's vision, and he's more than qualified to be a coordinator again.  It made me expect to see that level of expertise, that extensive resume, that level of "This is a wise and rock-solid hire" reaction to each position coach.  Like the QB, RB, WR, TE, and OL coaches all should each have had been an NFL coordinator, or college HC.  Well, with this crew, it ain't the case.

Looking over the offensive staff, it has Linehan's Pac-10/WAC/Mountain West fingerprints all over it.  The QB coach will be Jeff Horton, who was a 'special assistant' to Linehan in St. Louis, and the head coach at Nevada and UNLV before that.  The OL coach--a position we were all looking at hard for some improvement--will be George Yarno.  He's coached offensive lines in college for 17 years, including stints at Arizona State, LSU, and Washington State (all hotbeds of Gillman/Martz/Erickson coaching tree talent).  His one year of NFL experience?  Last year, as an assistant OL coach in . . .

. . . wait for it . . .

Tampa Bay.  Not exactly the bulletproof, unassailable, gosh-this-guy-will-spin-this-straw-into-gold hire we were hoping for there.

However, it's worth noting that not every position coach isn't meant to be a coordinator, just like every coordinator is not cut out to be a head coach.  The position coach is actually the main interface between the player and the coaching staff--that's the guy with the player in the classroom, in film sessions, in position drills.  On a day-to-day basis, the position coach is doing the teaching and coaching and guiding and player development, while the coordinators are working on the scheming, gameplanning, and execution.  As the Grandmaster himself said, as a head coach, you aren't coaching the players--you're coaching the coaches.  Therefore, for a position coach, having encyclopedic X-and-Os knowledge is nice, but not a requirement--and as we saw with Martz and Stanton, having a guy who thinks he's a bigger deal than he is might not be in the best interests of the player.  What's most important in a position coach is his ability to work with players, and his ability to work with the coordinator and head coach.

I look to this line from Jim Colletto's farewell interview:

"I had a talk with Jim and he said he wanted someone who was going to be here (for more than one year)," Colletto said today. Colletto, who has one year left on his deal, planned to retire following the 2009 season.

This speaks volumes about the staff the Grandmaster is trying to put together.  He himself hired a strong right hand in Guntherball, and a strong left hand in Linehan.  Then, he allowed them to pick position coaches and assistants that would make THEM comfortable and let THEM perform at their best, rather than a bunch of recently-fired coordinators who will want to help stir the soup.  You know what they say about too many chefs in the kitchen . . .

But above all, it looks like Schwartz wants to build a staff that will stay together.  Linehan said it in his introductory presser: he's sick of moving.  He wants to settle down.  He turned down offers from franchises in better on-field positions, to work with a man whose vision he believed in and who he could be happy working for.  Gunther is at a point in his career where he'd like to cement his legacy as a DC under a man who he deeply respects.  None of these position coaches are "hot names" who are going to be moving on as quickly as they arrived, changing nothing while they're here (Scott Loeffler, I'm looking at you).  It's hard to get excited about most of these hires--but with luck, they'll prove to be a group that can provide the professionalism and continuity this franchise has desperately lacked for so long.

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Detroit Lions Hire Grandmaster Jim Scwhartz

PFT is reporting that ESPN is reporting that it's Schwartz.  Props to mlive.com's Tom Kowalski for predicting the hire would be today based on the complete and total radio silence from Allen Park.

Interestingly, Killer also claims that the Lions cut their full process short to bring in Schwartz partly because of Schwartz's ties to Scott Pioli (the newly-hired general manager of the Kansas City Chiefs).  Killer disputes the PFT report that Pioli and Schwartz despise each other, saying that the Lions 'knew better', and wanted to get Schwartz signed before Pioli could lure him away.  If this is true, it speaks volumes about the way this hire has been handled; in my opinion, the Lions played their cards perfectly from the get-go.  Keeping totally silent about their preferences, interviewing many different candidates--regardless of what they thought of previous candidates--even waiting patiently to interview Ron Rivera, two days after Schwartz likely gave the interview that sealed the job.  They had a very well-thought-out process and stuck to it--until they thought they might lose out, at which point they jumped and got their man.

If Killer's characterization of all this is accurate, then I would have to say that Lewand and Mayhew get A+ marks from me.  I think the Grandmaster is an excellent coach, a brilliant hire, and this fills me with optimism for the next couple of years.  What will be absolutely cruicial, however, is the staff Schwartz hires from here on out.  Marinelli's greatest downfall was his inability to hire a competent staff . . . will the Grandmaster's opening establish a more robust pawn structure?

. . . I apologize.  You're going to have to deal with some chess jokes.

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