Lions coach Jim Schwartz has said there’s no excuse for players who commit dumb penalties. And now Schwartz says there will be no playing time for them.
Schwartz is addressing the rash of penalties that occur beyond the scope of the game play. “It will continue to be addressed and players that do those things won’t play,” Schwartz said Monday, according to Anwar Richardson of MLive.com.
The problem appears to be that the players lack discipline. Center and offensive captain Dominic Raoila confirmed that, three times, after Sunday night’s loss. “We’re undisciplined. Undisciplined. Undisciplined,” Raiola said.
Schwartz disagrees, perhaps because he’s supposed to be the dean of discipline in Detroit.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with discipline,” Schwartz said. “I think we’ve been much improved when it comes to our pre-snap penalties. We had one [major penalty] in the opener, we addressed it and we went a pretty long time without them.
“The other thing is we don’t have a player who has gotten more than one of these. We had Gosder [Cherilus], we had Suh, we had the three guys this week. There hasn’t been repeat offenders, but as a team, we’ve had five this year. That’s way too many.”
So who’s to blame? It’s a chicken-and-the-egg, dog-chasing-his-tail question. Undisciplined players don’t simply become undisciplined in the heat of the moment. They show signs of it, and the coach needs to get rid of it.
And by threatening undisciplined players with a lack of playing time, Schwartz is attempting t0 implement discipline, even though he doesn’t want to call it discipline because that would expose his failure to previously apply discipline.
These Georgetown guys give me a headache.