Friday, March
24, 2006
The History of Harrington -
Examination of a Failure
By Jason Berger
TLF Staff Writer
Not a
single player since Barry Sanders has divided the Lions’ fans like John “Joseph”
Harrington. All Lions’ fans remember hearing the news that Barry Sanders was not
going to wear the Honolulu blue and silver courtesy of a press release to the
Wichita Eagle after a disappointing 5-11 season. After a career of ducking
tacklers and then a summer of dodging his coach’s calls, Sanders was no where to
be found, opting to take a sudden trip out of the country. In the days and years
following his sudden departure, fans were divided on his legacy.
In came what some Lions’ fans deemed the next new hope, John “Joseph”
Harrington. Besides the end of his Detroit career, all that Harrington has
similar with Sanders is being a high draft pick. On April 20, 2002, it was
announced, the Lions took Harrington with the third overall pick in the draft.
Harrington had been a Heisman Trophy candidate and even had a billboard of
himself in New York to promote his Heisman run. Harrington was not even present,
besides his billboard, in New York for the draft. According to ESPN columnist
Len Pasquarelli, Harrington chose to cancel his plans to attend the draft 40
minutes before he was scheduled to leave due to talk of him falling down the
draft boards of interested teams. Unfortunately for the Lions, they too bought
into this hype, only to never see Harrington succeed again.
It has been long debated what occurred on draft day in the Lion War Room. Marty
Mornhinweg, Lions head coach in 2002, described his draft strategy to Drew and
Mike, local radio show hosts on the WRIF, as “For selfish reasons, I wanted to
go defense, but it was not my call.” If only it had been.
Unlike anything Lions’ fans had seen before, the State of Oregon seemed to
follow Harrington to Detroit.
Harrington played in the first regular season game for the Lions, coming into
the game to relieve starter Mike McMahon. In the third game of the year,
Harrington was named the starter against Green Bay. In a Harrington-esque game,
he threw for 186 yard in a losing effort. Harrington remained the starter until
a heart condition sidelined him with two games left to play.
In the off-season, Harrington’s influence on the Lions’ plan continued. Of
course, you could not have a new quarterback without having players around the
quarterback. In the first round of the 2003 draft, the Lions drafted wide
receiver Charles Rogers. This soon became a trend, as it was said Harrington
needed more weapons. In the 2004 draft, the Lions drafted wide receiver Roy
Williams and running back Kevin Jones in the first round. To complete the wide
receiver hat trick, in the 2005 draft the Lions drafted wide receiver Mike
Williams. It became obvious that the Lions were building around their franchise
quarterback, but what if he did not exist?
In 2003, Harrington was again named the starter, but this time under the new
head coach Steve Mariucci. Playing in every game, Harrington compiled a stellar
record of 5 and 11, including 3 games were he had 3 or more interceptions. In
the second game of the season against the Vikings, Harrington’s interceptions
single-handily killed the Lions chances at winning, having two of the
interceptions taken back for touchdowns. Harrington’s lows include a grand
quarterback rating of 7.1 against the Cowboys. In typical Harrington fashion, he
ended the season with an impressive win against the St. Louis Rams, once again
confusing some fans.
The next year, 2004, was not that much better for Harrington. After starting the
season with two wins, the Lions lost to an underachieving Packers team. The team
finished 6-10, with Harrington starting in every game. This was Harrington’s
best year as a Lion by far, throwing for over 3,000 yards and reducing the
number of intercepts from 22 to 12. 2004 also included Harrington’s best game as
a pro, a 28-13 wins versus the Giants. But for every victory in 2004, along came
the losses. Besides the opening two games, the Lions and Harrington could not
string together more than one win in a row. Most beneficial to Harrington was
the play of the two first round picks, Kevin Jones who won the NFL
rookie-rushing title with 1,133 yards and Roy Williams who set a Lion rookie
receiving record with 54 catches.
With the team continuing to struggle, 2005 brought competition for Harrington at
quarterback in the form of Jeff Garcia for the first time. In the preseason,
Jeff Garcia went down to with an injury effectively ending any competition.
After a win versus Green Bay, once again Harrington hit rock bottom against
Chicago, throwing 5 interceptions. This time Harrington did not bounce back.
Even before he was completely heathy, Garcia was rushed back and given the
starting job. After a crushing loss against the Falcons, Head coach Steve
Mariucci was fired and Dick Jauron was given the job as intern head coach. When
head coach Mariucci got fired, Dre Bly, cornerback, verbally attacked Harrington
on the NFL Network blaming him for the firing. It was not Bly's first outburst
towards Harrington, Bly had remarked earlier in the season that defense should
play offense instead of the pathetic unit led by Harrington. In the last home
game against Bengals, after Jauron had switched back to Harrington has starter,
center Dominic Raiola was visibly upset at the quarterback, a scene that was
visible to all in the stadium.
This brings us to the end of Harrington.
The end of Harrington with the Lions became official when on Monday, March 20,
2006, head coach Rod Marinelli stated “I’ve decided to go in a different
direction with Joey…I made the decision that I think is best for our team. We’re
moving on at this point without Joey.”
But what caused this sudden shift in attitudes from the end of February when
Lions President & CEO Matt Millen remarked, “We’re going to approach it like
Harrington’s our starter and we move forward from that,” to now?
Quite simply it was Harrington. According to reports from both Clark Judge of
CBS Sportsline and Tom Kowalski of M-live, at the quarterback school scheduled
to teach the quarterbacks offensive coordinator Mike Martz’s new offense,
Harrington was a distraction. Judge describes Harrington as “sullen and
uncooperative,” while Kowalski went further stating that Harrington refused or
was slow to open his playbook and take notes.
Throughout his poor play on the field, one could always point to Harrington’s
attitude off the field as a shining example of what players should be. Although
he was dubbed Joey Blueskies by local media and had his sexuality challenged by
some detractors, Harrington remained a standup guy until this episode.
Harrington’s childish actions at quarterback camp changed all this. If one
believes local media reports, he went from a classy athlete into a category with
Daunte Culpepper, the Vikings quarterback who used the media to demand a trade
or release. Instead of going to Matt Millen and asking for a trade, Harrington
took the route of pouting during school, sort of like what a five year old does
when he does not get his way. What was Harrington thinking?
Adam Schein of FoxSports.com puts it best when he asks, “Joey Harrington —
Honestly, how clueless can you be?”
Harrington must be clueless. It is easy to poke fun at Harrington for being
called “Joey” or for his record (18-37 as a starter) or even the fact that he
has never won a game where has thrown for over 300 yards (0-3). Unlike
Harrington throwing the deep ball, we shouldn't close our eyes to his
performance. Harrington’s play in Detroit is measured by good games, not good
seasons. When has Harrington played more that two solid games in a row?
The Joey Harrington experiment, which according to Kowalski has cost an average
of $1.4 million per victory, needed to be canceled and this last temper tantrum
is just further proof. There is no Harrington excuse or reason to justify this
flaw.
So how does Harrington compare to Sanders? Is it just an odd coincidence that
Harrington refused to answer calls from Roy Williams this off-season or that the
Lions were 5 and 11? Did Harrington take a play out of Sanders’ playbook when he
fled the country? Was this trip planned ahead of time, did he plan on missing
this week’s camp, or did he want to avoid the media?
While many of these questions will not be answered, it is obvious Harrington
will never compare to Sanders. Sanders was and still is a legend, while looking
at Harrington is just an examination of a failure.
The opinions
expressed above are solely of the author and does not reflect the opinions of
The Lions Fanatics, L.L.C.
