Lions remain on track for getting faster on offense, defense

BY NICHOLAS J. COTSONIKA • FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER • June 13, 2008

It was the kind of question that has led to trouble for Jon Kitna in the past.


After the Lions finished their last practice of the off-season Thursday, a reporter asked the quarterback if he had confidence this group of players could take the next step.

"Yeah," Kitna said.

"Simple as that?" the reporter pressed.

"Yeah," Kitna said.

Awkward pause.

"Well," Kitna continued, "I mean, you know, I guess I should say, 'No, we'll win three games this year,' something like that."

Laughter.

Kitna has often said that the Lions will be disappointed if they don't win 10 games, because that means they probably won't make the playoffs, and he has often gotten grief about it.

What is he supposed to say, then? That he doesn't have confidence?

This time he kept it simple and cracked a little joke.

The Lions feel good about themselves, as they usually do this time of year. They have one week of off-season conditioning left before their summer break.

But the bigger tests come when they report to training camp July 23 and open the season Sept. 7 at Atlanta.

"You've got to have confidence to play in this league," wide receiver Mike Furrey said. "We have the confidence. We've had it for the past two years. The question is: Are we going to be able to put it together?"

In his third off-season as Lions coach, Rod Marinelli has more of the type of team he wants in many ways. He has praised the players for being lean and fast. He has drilled them on the basic things he wants.

"I think it put us in a position where the players have a good base of what is expected of them," left tackle Jeff Backus said. "We all understand the scheme and why we're doing things the way we are. It's going to give us a good base going into training camp."

On defense, the addition of veterans who know the Tampa Two system has had a noticeable effect, tackle Cory Redding said.

"Everybody's moving quicker, because those guys are bringing their knowledge from playing in the system," Redding said. "When they get out there and run it right and run it fast, the other guys behind them see how it's supposed to be run."

On offense, there have been more dramatic changes with Jim Colletto replacing Mike Martz as coordinator.

Kitna has concentrated on the mechanics of running the offense, which gives him more control at the line of scrimmage. The linemen and backs have worked on the new zone running scheme. Everyone has worked to master a smaller number of plays.

Wide receiver Roy Williams said the Lions had only 30 or 40 passing plays and maybe 10 running plays. They had more than 200 plays in their game plans last year.

"I'll tell you what: With the plays that we've got in, we're going to be real good at them," Williams said.

"We all know it," Furrey said. "We all know what's going on. We've had eight weeks now to just basically fine-tune it. Now we've got five weeks to go home and get ready to come back physically. We won't have any excuses coming into the season. We need to show up and play some football, and that's it."

Overall, there is a different feeling around team headquarters. The edginess Martz brought is gone. Some players who didn't buy in are out.

"The atmosphere is awesome," Backus said. "I think Rod has done a tremendous job of doing it his way and getting what he wants out of us and making changes when changes need to be made. I'm excited to see what happens this season."