[synner6x3]

Posted about 10 hours ago
28 Comments 57 Recommendations E-mail
Marinelli: 'You can't go 0-16 and expect to keep your job'

Associated Press


ALLEN PARK, Mich. -- The Detroit Lions fired coach Rod Marinelli on Monday, a day after the team became the first in NFL history to finish with an 0-16 record.

"You can't go 0-16 and expect to keep your job," Marinelli said at a morning news conference.

The Lions completed their winless season with a 31-21 loss at Green Bay on Sunday, pushing aside Tampa Bay's 1976 season of 0-14 as the league's worst.

Marinelli, though, said the team was not the worst ever in his opinion because the players didn't quit, pout or point fingers.

Lions owner William Clay Ford also dismissed defensive coordinator Joe Barry, Marinelli's son-in-law, assistant offensive line coach Mike Barry, his son-in-law's dad, and secondary coach Jimmy Lake.

Defensive line coach Joe Cullen's contract was not renewed and offensive coordinator Jim Colletto was demoted to offensive line coach.

The Lions promoted Tom Lewand to team president and Martin Mayhew to general manager.

Marinelli won only one of his last 24 games and was 10-38 in three seasons after former team president Matt Millen gave the former Buccaneers assistant his first head coaching job.

Millen was fired as team president three months ago, but the players he left behind coupled with the former Tampa Bay players Marinelli wanted created the perfect storm for a historic season of futility.

"They don't fire players, they fire coaches," Marinelli said.

Marinelli was the third coach Millen hired -- following Steve Mariucci and Marty Mornhinweg -- in what has been the NFL's worst eight-season stretch for a team since World War II.

Fans and reporters cut Marinelli some slack during a 3-13 first-year because of the Millen-created mess he inherited. Hopes rose when Detroit was 6-2 midway through last year but were quickly dashed when the team finished 7-9.

Marinelli kept his composure for the most part in public and steadfastly stood by his one-snap-at-a-time mantra and choice of work ethic over talent.

"You don't look for wishy-washy people, who give in when the press thinks you should do this or somebody is complaining about practicing in pads," Marinelli said in a 2007 interview with The Associated Press. "I have a belief. I state it very clearly. And I live it."

The Vietnam veteran said he would never quit, saying he was insulted when a reporter asked about the option.

Marinelli waited for three decades to be a head coach. He finally got his chance with a team in the middle of one of the worst stretches of futility in NFL history.

"He was put in a really difficult situation," quarterback Dan Orlovsky said.

Marinelli's relentless ways helped him make a deliberate rise through life and the coaching ranks.

His college career -- starting at Utah in 1968 and ending at California Lutheran in 1972 -- was interrupted by a one-year tour in Vietnam. He knew some would be interested to hear his perspective of how serving in the war shaped his life and career, but he politely declined.

His career started in 1973 as an assistant coach at his alma mater, Rosemead High School, where the football field is named after him.

Marinelli went on to work on the staffs at Utah State, California, Arizona State and Southern California before Tony Dungy gave him a shot in 1996 to work in the NFL as defensive line coach in Tampa Bay.

A decade later, Detroit was desperately looking for a coach to turn around the laughingstock of the league. Millen hired Marinelli after an extensive search.

Now, the Lions are looking for another coach to take on the monumental task of turning them into a winner.