Some six months ago, former Boston College standout Gosder Cherilus was considered one of the best offensive tackles in the NFL draft. The Lions would eventually take him with the 17th overall pick, the fifth offensive lineman to go off the board after Jake Long (1st), Ryan Clady (12th), Chris Williams (14th) and Branden Albert (15th). Detroit didn't waste anytime getting Cherilus on the field; he's played in all five games, starting three of them. I suppose there isn't much time to learn by watching when the quarterback gets sacked (not to be confused with sacked) every other time he drops back to pass. (Note to Jon Kitna: there are ways to avoid taking career-shortening hits: throw the ball way, handoffs, run out the back of the end zone unprovoked, etc.)
Given that the Lions are their usual awful selves, nobody is entitled to anything. This has usually been nothing more than lip service until William Clay Ford woke up long enough to can Matt Millen, the guy responsible for setting the organization back 40 years.
Now, Kitna has been IR-ed, and Cherilus, presumably a cornerstone of the offense going forward, has been benched. And, no, head coach Rod Marinelli really doesn't want to talk about it (before he inevitably does just that):
"I don't think there's a right of entitlement," Marinelli said. "I don't care what draft status is. Do you understand what that means, draft status? I look at a team.One question: what's draft status mean?
"Some of you guys sit up in the bleachers all day eating popcorn looking down. I'm in the middle of the arena, in a team meeting, and if I'm 0-5 or 5-0 I look at those men with the same consistent message. The guy who's playing well is gonna play. That respects our game. Do you understand what respect of this game means?"
Look, I applaud Marinelli for not playing favorites, but is asking why a rookie first-round pick got benched such a preposterous notion? Marinelli did go onto say: "And the way you hurt high draft picks in the past here: 'Hey, it's yours. C'mon, yours. You can mess up all you want. You can gain weight. You can do anything you want and you're going to still play,' That insults this game now. That insults it."
I fully support the idea that giving people jobs based on labels is a bad idea. But it's probably also worth pointing out that it's one thing to award a top-10 pick the starting wide receiver job, it's something else entirely to over-draft a guy by four or five rounds and then make him a starter.
But, yeah, in general, I take your point, Rod. Although it won't make Dan Orlovsky any less sore come Monday morning after another sack-tastic Sunday afternoon.
