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M&M boys Lions' braintrust made the right move by taking HarringtonPosted: Saturday April 20, 2002 6:33 PM
ALLEN PARK, Mich. -- The Detroit Lions and Matt Millen got it right with Joey Harrington. Maybe in spite of themselves. I don't know about you, but in the moments just after making the selection, I didn't think the Lions second-year president and CEO looked much like a man who was thrilled to have landed the draft's consensus No. 2 quarterback with the third overall pick. Instead, Millen sounded like a guy who took one for the team. But he did it for the right reasons. And he did it after he tried hard not to. It didn't take a degree in reading between the lines to tell that it was going against Millen's instincts in choosing to basically erase the year's worth of work that the franchise already had invested in quarterback Mike McMahon, the team's 2001 fifth-round pick. To in essence start over at the game's most important position. But taking Harrington also was in keeping with Millen's deeply held conviction that in order to rise to the league's upper echelon, you need a special player at quarterback, or at the very least a special year from your quarterback.
The consensus of the Lions personnel department and front office -- especially in the view of head coach Marty Mornhinweg -- was that Harrington rather than McMahon gives Detroit the best chance to tap into one of those two scenarios. And from the perspective of today, it's hard to knock that conclusion. Millen was blunt when asked if he had been a Harrington man "all the way?" "No," Millen shot back. "But I am now." For better or for worse. Millen may not have boarded the Harrington bandwagon until the last possible moment. By at least one account, there was real debate in the Lions war room. According to Harrington, Detroit was preparing to pick Texas cornerback Quentin Jammer -- the team's presumed selection all along -- as late as five mintues before Harrington received the call. "I was unbelievably surprised," Harrington said via conference call. "Honestly, I'd been told five minutes earlier that they were going in another direction. ... Talking with my agent, the Lions organization said they were actually on the phone with Quentin Jammer's agent working on the deal. So I was just about to sit down with my mom and dad and watch the Lions pick somebody else." Millen and Mornhinweg both dispute that version of events, saying that no such conversation took place with Jammer's agent. Still, plenty went on in Detroit's war room. Here's at least part of the story. All along, Millen's first option was to trade down a few spots, picking up extra picks to fill some of the Lions' many holes. But by his own acknowledgement, Millen had almost no trade options while the Lions were on the clock. "Not as many as you'd think," Millen said glumly. "There was not much there." One team that was willing to listen was No. 6 Dallas. According to a Dallas source, the Lions wanted the Cowboys to give up their second-round pick to swap places and move up to the No. 3 hole. With about six minutes to go in their 15-minute draft window, the Lions called Dallas and pitched the deal.
No dice, said the Cowboys. But Dallas was struggling with the decision of whether to offer the Lions their third-rounder in order to get up to No. 3 and select Jammer, their top-rated choice. Dallas' debate was this: Is Jammer, who plays a higher value position in cornerback, worth substantially more than the option of sitting at No. 6 and taking Oklahoma safety Roy Williams, who wound up being the Cowboys' eventual choice at No. 8? The Cowboys' decision was made for them when Millen made it clear he wouldn't move for anything less than a second. Dallas was convinced that Millen was fishing for a deal, and the talks quickly ended. Minutes later, Harrington was the pick. If Millen made the selection despite his obvious confliction, at least give him credit for opting for the player who was most coveted by his head coach. Having made Mornhinweg his first key hire, Millen's name and reputation is intertwined with the coach's success. For all we know, his fate in the Motor City may be as well. Thus, he owes Mornhinweg as much support as possible, and the greatest possible chance to make his program work. Drafting Harrington proved that, wisely or not, he was willing to lean Mornhinweg's way. "Probably the easier pick would have been to go with the corner [Jammer]," Millen admitted. "But I know this, we have to have stability at the quarterback position. Have to. There hasn't been that here since, fill in the blank. But we're going to have it. That is one position that's going to be strong. And that pick there, along with Mike McMahon, will make sure we have not one but two good quarterbacks." If anything, taking Harrington also ensures that the Mornhinweg era likely has another two years before it faces true accountability. The head coach bought himself an extra year because it's rare that a team grooming a young quarterback holds the head coach responsible for losing in that passer's rookie year. By choosing Harrington, Millen did leave himself open to some understandable criticism in one respect. The pick gave the appearance that the Lions were either abandoning a key tenet of their rebuilding plan, or never had one to begin one. After preaching all spring that his team could win with McMahon at quarterback, and that improving his defensive team speed was job one, Millen found himself reversing field in order to not miss out on a potential franchise player. And Harrington does nothing to address Detroit's still-obvious need for a No. 1 cornerback like Jammer to match up with the star receivers and quarterbacks in the NFC North? Randy Moss and the Vikings, Chicago with its bevy of tall and talented receivers, and Green Bay with the ever-dangerous Brett Favre all get the edge against Detroit's mediocre secondary. That Millen grappled with such divergent intentions Saturday is just another example of how first-round quarterbacks are always valued differently than their draft-day counterparts. You know what they say. Until you get one, you're always looking for one. The Harrington decision also left Millen fielding questions about whether the Lions filled a need with the pick, and thus are doing their level best to win now. To fans who suffered through last year's 2-14 debacle, it's an understandable assumption. "We said from the beginning, the whole purpose of this was you have to have your plan together," Millen said, hedging at times. "We all know you're not going to win [without a quarterback]. You may flash, but that position is the most important. No question about it. "So part of the plan from the beginning is we've got to get somebody who can solidify that thing. Preferably if you can get two, you get two. And we still don't know the answer. We're betting on the come on both of these kids. But we think we have a pretty good feel for where it's at. We've still got some holes, but we think we filled one of them." Whether they filled the right one remains to be seen. That's what we begin finding out from this day on. But from this vantage point, Millen and the Lions made the tough choice they had to make. In spite of themselves, or not. Don Banks covers pro football for CNNSI.com.
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Joey Harrington had no idea that the Lions would draft him with the third pick. 
