FanHouse Scottlinehan

The Detroit Lions, who haven't won a football game since 2007, just wrapped up their final minicamp of the offseason. There's a lot that's new about them, including offensive coordinator Scott Linehan, who was good enough to return FanHouse's phone call on Thursday afternoon and answer some questions about the way the team looks to him so far.

Linehan, the former head coach of the St. Louis Rams, addressed the quarterback competition between top draft pick Matthew Stafford and veteran Daunte Culpepper, had very high praise for rookie tight end Brandon Pettigrew and called himself a longtime admirer of new Lions head coach Jim Schwartz. He also spoke of the challenge of coming in as part of a new coaching staff on a team that only has to win one game to call 2009 an improvement over 2008.

With the first pick of the 2009 NFL Draft, the Detroit Lions surprised nobody by inking a deal with the former Georgia Bulldog quarterback, Matthew Stafford. Long before the draft began at 4 pm this afternoon, Detroit and Stafford agreed on Friday night to a six-year deal worth $78 million with $41.7 million guaranteed.

While most young quarterbacks might be tempted to pull the Elway and start singing, "I gotta get out of this place, if it's the last thing I ever do," Stafford, on the contrary, seems genuinely excited to be a Lion and up to the challenge of turning this team around under his leadership. This, combined with a pretty savvy contract by the Lions that puts a lot of that $78 million in incentives based on playing time, looks like a recipe for success. So, the question remains, does Matt Stafford have fantasy value for the upcoming season in Detroit as a rookie?

Last week, new Lions offensive coordinator Scott Linehan declared the quarterback competition wide open for 2009. He's still in the process of evaluating the talent currently on the roster, which may or may not mean Matt Stafford will be in the team's immediate plans.

But as Burke wrote at the time, "Just because Linehan mentioned Matty Ice doesn't necessarily mean that Detroit's going to draft a QB. On the other hand, when 1+1=All the quarterbacks currently on the roster stink, it's hard to ignore Linehan's assertion."

Monday is the first day NFL teams can officially release veterans, and mlive.com's Tom Kowalksi thinks that Daunte Culpepper might avoid that fate. For now, anyway.

TAMPA, Fla. -- In talking to a cross-section of the National Football League intelligentsia over the last couple of days, one thing is clear: Almost everyone believes the Detroit Lions are planning to select Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford with the first pick in the NFL draft.

That doesn't necessarily mean it's going to happen – remember when everyone thought the Texans would draft Reggie Bush? – but it does mean that other teams are getting prepared for the draft with the thought that the only way they can get Stafford is by trading up for the Lions' pick, something that few teams seem inclined to do.

The Lions coaching staff is coming together nicely. Gone are Rod Marinelli, Joe Barry and Jim Colletto. In are Jim Schwartz, Gunther Cunningham, and Scott Linehan.

The Rams fired Linehan as their head coach last September after the team stumbled to an 0-4 start. By all accounts he was dreadful, amassing a 11-25 record in just over two seasons. Schwartz hiring him to coordinate the Lions' offense might seem like more of same in Detroit. But here's the thing: just because a guy is a complete and utter failure as a head coach doesn't mean he's not a good coordinator with a firm grasp on Xs and Os.

It appears former St. Louis Rams head coach Scott Linehan is about to find himself a new job, as the 49ers have offered him their offensive coordinator position as reported by Matt Maiocco of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. Should Linehan accept, he'll become the 49ers' seventh offensive coordinator in the past seven seasons, replacing Mike Martz.

The 49ers were also considering former Browns offensive coordinator Rob Chudzinski, as well as Rick Dennison and Clyde Christensen. Linehan was fired as Rams head coach on September 29, compiling an 11-25 record in his three seasons.

Linehan has quite a track record as an offensive coordinator including stints in Minnesota and Miami. As Josh Alper over at PFT points out, Linehan's Minnesota offenses all ranked in the top-five from 2002 to 2004, while the Dolphins showed considerable improvement during his one year on the job in 2005.

The St. Louis Rams will have a new head football coach in 2009, as interim coach Jim Haslett has been notified he is no longer a candidate for the full-time gig. Though he was said to have interviewed well for the job, I can't see how this is much of a surprise. He went 2-10 after taking over for Scott Linehan, including 10 consecutive losses to end the season.

Delving through the extraneous information (and the egregious typo in the title) in the article, it would seem Leslie Frazier is the front-runner, though Steve Spagnuolo is reportedly close to Frazier on the Rams' wish list. Other candidates presumed to still be in the mix are Rex Ryan, Jason Garrett, and Jim Fassel.

Twelve months ago the Rams had just put the finishing touches on a 3-13 effort. If the team had fired head coach Scott Linehan and replaced him with Cowboys offensive coordinator Jason Garrett, I think most fans and media types would've praised the move.

As I've mentioned before, Garrett's star lost some luster after a seemingly indifferent Cowboys offense went through the motions these last four months. Of course, Tony Romo missing time with a pinky injury didn't help, but that doesn't explain the late-season implosion that kept Dallas out of the playoffs.

What it does explain is the tepid response from the St. Louis Dispatch's Bryan Burwell, who admits that names like Rex Ryan, Jim Haslett, Leslie Frazier and Steve Spagnuolo fit within general manager Jim Devaney's "publicly stated description of meat and potatoes' football guys and strong leaders of men," while Garrett, well, does not.

There are two weeks remaining in the regular season and we've already seen Mike Nolan, Lane Kiffin and Scott Linehan lose their jobs for varying degrees of incompetence. But more heads will roll in the coming months, and some bone-headed decisions made yesterday will go a long way in cementing the fate of the less fortunate.

Dick Jauron, Buffalo Bills:
A crappy economy might be the only thing to save Jauron's job, because after jumping out to a 4-1 start, the Bills are now sitting at 6-8. And the last two minutes of yesterday's game against the Jets was a microcosm of their season.

With Buffalo leading 27-24 and trying to run the last 240 or so seconds off the clock, somebody thought it would be great fun to let J.P. Losman throw a pass on second-and-five from the Bills' 27. Predictably, he fumbled, the Jets' Shaun Ellis recovered, and 11 yards later, that's your ball game.

On Thursday night, as he gave his post-game press conference, Marvin Lewis looked about as sad and dejected as I've seen him during his six-year stint as the Bengals' head coach. Cincinnati had just lost their ninth game of the season, and had sent one of their best players, Chad Javon Ocho Cinco home earlier in the day because the Pro Bowl wideout couldn't -- or, more likely, wouldn't -- stop sleeping during a team meeting.

Unless Lewis gets "Scott Linehan-ed" (fired midseason), or less likely, pulls a "Bobby Petrino" (quits with a month to go), he's still got to coach the Bengals up for five more weeks. It's a daunting task considering that virtually everybody in the building checked out for the year sometime around Halloween.

Yet Lewis trudges on.