
This is rich. Lions head coach
Rod Marinelli has some advice for rookie third-round pick
Kevin Smith. According to
Pro Football Weekly:
... Marinelli had stressed to him numerous times following the draft and during rookie minicamps that he must stay out of trouble. Some teams red-flagged Smith as having a character question during the draft-evaluation process after Smith reportedly missed or chose to skip one team's scheduled private workout with him. Expect Marinelli's message for his rookies - to stay out of trouble - to be echoed throughout training camp.
Marinelli might want to also think about dropping this knowledge in February and March to coaches, scouts and front-office types as the Lions make draft preparations. Just a thought since the team's first-round pick,
Gosder Cherilus,
just received a year's probation after being charged with assault and battery in a bar fight while still in college, and second-rounder
Jordan Dizon getting arrested for a DUI
the week before the draft.
Maybe I'm reaching, but the 2008 Lions are starting to look a lot like the 2006 Bengals.
Marvin Lewis, trying to chance the culture of ineptitude in Cincinnati, took a chance of players with "character issues," and the move would eventually blow up in his face. The Lions are very familiar with ineptitude, and maybe the 2008 draft is an example of how Marinelli plans to change that.
Sometimes these things work out (
look at Dig Dug Jones!), sometimes you end up with
Chris Henry and
Odell Thurman. Detroit could go to a "we're only drafting guys with records from here on out" roster-building philosophy, but they'd still have
Matt Millen, which is the biggest obstacle between the Lions and the "something other than laughingstock" label.