If a league-sponsored network is going to succeed, it can’t be a house organ. And while, if we really ruminated on it, we could come up with a few puff pieces done by NFL Network in its five-plus years of existence, the channel and its analysts are overwhelmingly candid when discussing potentially dicey issues.
Earlier this afternoon, Mike Martz and Steve Mariucci provided another example of that when they shot it straight regarding the Cowboys video board.
The two ex-coaches, featured on a conference call to hype the newly-formed NFL Head Coaches Show, which will air on Monday nights, were asked by Sam Farmer of the L.A. Times what they’d be saying if they were in the meeting that aimed at neutralizing the Great Punt Blocker in the Sky.
“It’s a no-brainer,” said Mariucci, who previously coached the 49ers and the Lions. “Move it up. I don’t know when they set that standard that [anything over the field had to be at least] 85 feet, maybe back in the ’30s? They need to find a way to move that up. It’s that simple. To spend over a billion dollars to have this problem is . . . amazing.”
Martz, who coached the Rams before working as offensive coordinator in Detroit and San Fran, then chimed in by saying, “It’s a distraction to the game and shouldn’t be tolerated. The game wasn’t created to kick and throw around obstacles. It just has to be fixed.”
Given his candor on the conference call, Martz is going to be pretty good viewing.
Fired by the 49ers from his offensive coordinator’s position after last season, Martz acknowledged that Niners QB Shaun Hill “digests things much better than he appeared to in practice” and that “[Hill] appeared kind of tentative at times but the more he played, the more of a fan and believer he made of me.”
As for Alex Smith, who was passed over for the starter’s job in favor of Hill, Martz said, “I’d like to see him get another opportunity to start. The biggest issue with the Niners is all [his] history there is not real good history. He probably, ultimately, needs to go to another team. He deserves another opportunity. He can play but it would help him be in another environment. He needs to go find another team and start over again.”
Martz, after being fired three times in three years, is starting over again with a very different team. It might be a role in which he flourishes.
Ok….Moe and Larry spoke about it………Whats Curly got to say?
NFL Network made me stop watching ESPN. They do great work. I didn’t realize that there were more than 3 teams until I shut off ESPN.
Word has it that Martz is a loud-mouth-know-it-all-type — doesn’t that mean he should be over at ESPN?
Funny how two guys who achieved so little in their respective careers can be so opinionated
Is this what all of the Michael Vick and Brett Favres felt like when they had multiple stories over and over that really said the same thing? Of course it needs to be moved up, anyone can tell you that. But the blame is not on Jerry its on the out of date rule. The NFL should have to pay for it to be raised since it was their rule that caused it.
I was just about to comment on how proud I was of Florio for the positive outlook of this article……and then I realized that Curran wrote it.
Mike clearly would have wondered whether the negative comments toward the Cowboys were actaully a way of throwing themselves back out on the market for teams looking for head coaches next year.
Shaun hill being a starting quarterback is a joke.
RegardING Martz’s comments about Alex Smith… I wonder if McDaniels would be tempted to make Smith his latest QB project?
The blame absolutely falls on Jerry Jones shoulders. If he isn’t smart enough to realize that the dayum thing is too low, that it is nothing but a distraction and is only good for playing video games on, the franchise should be taken away from him and sold to the highest bidder!
That being said, can I borrow 10 bucks from someone? That is about all the cowpokes will be worth after this debacle is overwith!
Martz and Mooch and pray for hooch.
“The game wasn’t created to kick and throw around obstacles. It just has to be fixed.”
This is the perfect line to diffuse the cowboys fanboys who throw out any excuse. Good on you, Martz.
@ Twiz:
Read my initial post, since Jerry Jones actually raised it 10ft higher than the rules dictate, he broke no rule, therefor is not required to fix it. The flaw in the rule, created by the NFL, is the reason for the issue.
The fact that we are all talking about it, and how it put the Cowboys back on their partner ESPN’s main talking points, begs the question as to if this was all a big plan. Since the Cowboys aren’t superbowl contenders, again I’m one of those realistc Cowboy fans, he needed something to get him his attention and it has obviously worked.
well said AAA82!!
They are absolutely right.
Who cares if the rules say what they say. The board is clearly in the playing area and needs to be moved or JJ will continued to be embarrassed.
WTF?! They thought putting the Jumbo Block Screen would be okay 90 feet away from the field? Really? The same distance between the bases in Major League Baseball?
What am I missing? I would think a long pass might hit the damn thing.
Really?
even on a bad day, favre will hit it.
this whole thing is ridiculous. move the damn board up already. it won’t cost jerry anything extra, the board is already equipped to be moved up and he already said it will be moved up for the U2 concert in october:
“Jones reportedly planned to temporarily raise the board by 25 feet to accommodate sightlines for a scheduled U2 concert in October.” (http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=4416217)
this is a non-story, and is only helping to build the hype for this monstrosity of the stadium, where fans in the stadium will be watching the “live” game on the huge screen (instead of the field) because they won’t be able to avoid looking at it…
Mike Martz looks like he eats his boogers.
I don’t know why. He just looks like the kind of guy who spends a lot of time digging out snacks with his index finger and sometimes his thumb.
First, anyone who doesn’t think the NFL Network is an independent entity hasn’t been paying attention. They do the bidding of the league’s front office, no doubt about it.
Who cares what Martz and Mooch are thinking about this issue. It will be resolved before the first game but Jerry Jones comes off looking like a dumb ass, as if hiring Fatso for a head coach didn’t prove that already.
44-6
The Cowboys always seem to be at odds with the NFL about these things. In the old Texas stadium, they had the floor designed so that it was raised in the middle of the field. The raise was very significant in that it made the center of the field (where the QB is throwing the ball from) a good foot and a half higher then on the sides of the field. The raise in elevation wasn’t obvious to the naked eye, and it created a situation where opposing QB’s were throwing a ton of passes that were too high in the flats and along the sidelines.
You guessed it, those errant passes were about a foot and a half too high. Thus, the Cowboys had tons of interceptions falling into the hands of guys like Deon Sanders and Larry Brown. The TV guys kept claiming that it was the result of great play by the Cowboy’s secondary. The reality though was that everyone who paid attention knew that it was nothing but the result of an unfair advantage.
Thanks to thunderdog for pointing out that it wasn’t Jerry Jones who was responsible for that. But it’s still an unfair advantage. And for those who think that was simply the case of crowning the field to allow for drainage, think again. The typical crown on an old football field is measure in a few inches, not in feet. In addition, when giving tours of the old stadium, the tour guides point it out, even chuckling about how it cause QB’s like Brett Favre and Steve Young to throw so many picks.
In this case though, they are clearly trying to gain an unfair advantage once again. Probably by making it so that punters cannot kick the ball high into the air, which will allow their kick returners to have a serious advantage on the field. Especially since their own kickers would be well practiced on how to avoid that obstacle, just like their QB’s were drilled on how to throw low on the old field.
And knowing is half the battle,
–Z
“The game wasn’t created to kick and throw around obstacles.”
Uhh Skycam, field goal cameras?
“Who cares if the rules say what they say.”
Smart guy.
Penalize the home team for interference every time a ball hits the screen; Jerry will move it.
What is it about NFL uniforms that have green on them attracting the dumbest fans in the world?
I might as well be crying that Lombardi had a heating system installed below the Lambeau Field turf to keep it thawed and wet so he could turn it off and the field would freeze solid in cold weather. Which is exactly what happened in the Ice Bowl, by the way.
http://www.packers.com/gameday/1967/12-31/
Officially, the field’s $80,000 heating system failed due to cold. Unofficially, some say, Lombardi turned it off.
Packers fans several times during the contest leaned over the front row to unplug the Cowboys’ heated benches.
And that’s straight from the Packers’ official website.
Sticking it to lowbrow slappies like you for two years.
– Vox Veritas
ZNorseman,
You’re joking right?
ALL stadiums with artificial turf have that exact same rise in the middle. It’s what helps rain move away from the center of the field and drain out onto the sidelines, since artificial turf doesn’t soak it up like a sponge/natural turf.
Furthermore, Texas Stadium was built in 1971, way way way before Larry Brown and Deion Sanders. If it were really true that this foot and a half height difference was a secret advantage, it would have come out long before Deion and Larry Brown.
@killachap
As I said, if Jerry Jones is not smart enough to realize the rule is outdated, that punters are better now than when the rule was made, he shouldn’t be the owner of a professional sports team. Hell, he shouldn’t even be allowed to sponsor a pop warner team!
You bring up that ppl are talking about the cowboys, that the scoreboard debacle got attn and such. Look at it a different way. If it takes stupid planning to get someone to talk about your team (or lack thereof), there is really something majorly wrong!
Being a MN fan, I would much rather see (although wrongly IMO) what a disaster Farve is going to be this year than to have them talking about a stupid video screen!
Jerry Jones needs to cough up the money to get the video game screen raised, remove the Mitsu logo or whatever it takes. If he can afford a 1.2BILLION dollar stadium, than the couple million it is gonna take to fix it is nothing but pocket change to him!
puff piece on NFLtv.. can you say Mike Perreira..let me justify the inconsistant..but consistanlty awful officiating.. dont they know peoples lives depend on this..
well the pokes should have guarded the doggone plugs. bud grant made his players tough it out without heat. cowboys being unnerved by unplugging reminds me of rick adelman screaming at the trailblazers during nba finals to ignore bill laimbeer’s trash talk. deal with it.
and the unplugging incident does not explain the cowboys effort in the 1966 championship game.
hell al davis bugged the visitors’ locker room at alameda…
i hear some teams have even videotaped signals…
I thought this might have been meant as:
“Martz, Mooch get candid; regard Cowboys video board”
But I guess no one has high esteem for the board.
(Way to edit.)