I stated yesterday that the giant Honolulu Blue and Silver Elephant in the Lions’ locker room is the job security of head coach Jim Schwartz heading into next season. And even though he (Schwartz) said he wasn’t going to talk about his feelings on being brought back next season, I certainly would.
But I’m also not alone.
In recent days Lions players have come to the defense of their embattled head coach which isn’t out of the ordinary, in fact it’s pretty much expected.
The player’s defense of Jim Schwartz was also seen yesterday when Reggie Bush stated the the team’s lack of discipline hurt them this season but it’s a problem that doesn’t rest on the shoulders of the coaching staff.
“It could be from penalties or it could be from turnovers or it could be from how we finished the games in fourth quarters,” the running back said. “It’s not one specific play or moment in a game. It’s the total game. It’s how we play.”
“It’s not a coaches thing. It’s a players’ thing. We can do a better job all across the board,” Bush said. “As far as an offense standpoint, turn the ball over and that’s the discipline issue, and that’s something we have to correct because obviously, as you see, it’ll lose you games.”
Wide receiver Nate Burleson also shared Bush’s sentiments agreeing that the team’s lack of discipline needs to be remedied by the players.
“When you look at the games and look at the losses,” he said, “you can almost always point out a few physical errors that we made, whether it is turning over the ball, making the big play on defense in there, special teams breakdown.
“Those are physical errors on guys with the jerseys on. So I’m not going to sit there and say coaching needs to be better or Jim needs to do a better job. It’s plain and simple. It’s plays we need to make as a team and we haven’t made those plays. So people are going to find someone to blame, and if they want to blame somebody, blame me, blame us. I’m good with that.”
Now I can agree to some extent that fixing discipline problems on the team begin with the players, especially the player captains. However when it becomes a consistent problem week in and week out that entirely falls on the coaching staff.
Players – in most cases – aren’t going to bench themselves. Player captains aren’t going to bench their teammates. At this point in the season the team’s discipline problems are on the coaching staff. It seems like Bush is doing more beating around the bush (no pun intended) than actually telling the straight truth on what he actually thinks.