The Harrington Family Foundation

ALLEN PARK -- The Detroit Lions quarterbacks haven't exactly been lighting up the scoreboard in the preseason. What isn't quite as obvious, though, is the growing responsibility given to starter Joey Harrington.

Lions head coach Steve Mariucci would prefer to see his offense get into the end zone a few more times, but he's been quite pleased with Harrington's new-found control of the offense.

"There are some things we're asking of the quarterbacks. We're allowing him to alter plays a little bit," Mariucci said Sunday, a day after Detroit's second preseason defeat, 21-13 loss to the Cleveland Browns. "We're giving him options at the line of scrimmage and they're all handling that pretty darn well. There are a variety of options we give the quarterback.

"Most teams have it, it's just a matter of how much you want to do it."

Mariucci believes Harrington, who is going into his fourth season of the West Coast offense, is equipped to handle the additional workload.

"Why are we giving him more? We think he can handle more and we think the team can handle more," Mariucci said. "We don't have rookies all over the place who are just trying to figure out where to line up. We can take another step or two. Are we the (Indianapolis) Colts and having (quarterback Peyton Manning) call every play at the line of scrimmage? Of course not. But, we are adding to what the quarterback is responsible for."

This season, Harrington has the freedom to make decisions in a wide range of ways. He can either alter the pass routes of the existing play, flip a play from right to left (or vice versa), change a check-with-me play (from pass-to-run or run-to-pass) or, most importantly, call a completely different play at the line of scrimmage.

"He has that authority and it's going pretty well," said Mariucci, who has been happy with Harrington's overall progress.

"We've expected Joey to lift his game every year. Whether a veteran quarterback (backup Jeff Garcia) is here or not, he should lift his game every year as he grows and he's doing that," Mariucci said. "Whether you say it's because a veteran is pushing him or because his supporting cast is better or because it's his fourth year and not his third, I think it all adds up for him to be more efficient and productive."

Another new element of Detroit's offense is that they're going to emphasize going downfield more, though Garcia got a little greedy with that against the Browns and it cost him. During his first series, Garcia fired a bomb downfield to Charles Rogers that was easily intercepted by Cleveland's deep safety.

"You list a couple of 'shots' (plays downfield) that you want," Mariucci said, referring to the game plan's 15 scripted plays to start a game. "They can happen anytime, anywhere, whether it's after a return or a turnover or if you get the urge. Well, that was a 'shot' play down the field. It didn't unfold like it needed to. I don't think he saw the deep safety back there and he put it up to Charles and it wasn't going to happen. Had he seen the safety, he checks it down to the back in the flat and we live for another play."

Despite Garcia's interceptions -- he's had three in two preseason games -- Mariucci has not lost faith in Garcia's ability to enter a game at any time and be effective.

"I'm confident that Jeff can do the job," Mariucci said. "He's played inconsistently in these preseason games but he's practiced pretty darn well for the most part. We needed to get him some snaps with (the starters) and we did it and we continue on. Nothing's changed. Joey's better and our backup is better."