The Harrington Family Foundation

Tuesday, April 27, 2004
By Tom Kowalski

ALLEN PARK -- Going into his third season as an NFL quarterback, Joey Harrington has quickly become the grizzled old veteran of the Detroit Lions offense.

"Think about it," Lions head coach Steve Mariucci said. "When you talk about the skilled positions on offense, he's the veteran now."

Detroit's recent draft, which was hailed as the best in the league by nearly every media outlet, landed two of the country's most talented offensive players: Texas wide receiver Roy Williams and Virginia Tech running back Kevin Jones.

Also, NFL.com conducted a fan poll about which team had the best draft. Among the 82,561 votes, the Lions received the most at 34.9 percent. The next closest team was the San Diego Chargers at 10.9 percent.

In addition to Williams and Jones, the Lions will have three key second-year players in wide receiver Charles Rogers, tight end Casey FitzSimmons and running back Artose Pinner.

"(Harrington) has people who are younger than he is and they're going to look to him for veteran leadership, questions and answers and he'll be the coach on the field," Mariucci said. "It's going to be a young bunch. Even our offensive line is young. Damien Woody's only 26 years old."

Being young is one thing. Being young, talented and under contract is another.

"They're all under contract for a long time and they're going to grow up together and that's interesting to me. We'll get better every week, every month, every year," Mariucci said.

Two key offensive linemen, right tackle Stockar McDougle and center Dominic Raiola, are entering the final years of their contracts. The Lions, though, have purposely saved enough money under the salary cap to sign both players to extensions.

"We'll begin talking soon. We wanted to wait until after the draft to get that started," said Lions chief operating officer Tom Lewand.

The Lions will open a three-day minicamp on Friday at their practice facility and there's one aspect Mariucci can't wait to see: Harrington actually throwing passes to receivers and running backs who will also be in the games.

"That would be nice," Mariucci said.

Last year at this time, the Lions were banged up with Rogers (blisters), Mikhael Ricks (knee), Az Hakim (hip), Shawn Bryson (knee) and Pinner (ankle) all sidelined.

Mariucci believes Harrington's development last year was limited because he never got a chance to develop chemistry with his receivers, particularly Rogers, in training camp because of injuries.

"Right now, we're very healthy," Mariucci said. "We've got to stay healthy."

The Lions agreed to terms with 17 undrafted free agents: David Pearson, C, Michigan; Matt McCoy, T, Ferris State; Ken Heatley, CB, Bethune Cookman; Scott Genord, LB, Fullerton Junior College; Andrew Battle, LB, Indiana (Pa.); Clifford Johnson, S, Morgan State; Patrick Kabongo, DT, Nebraska; Brandon Hall, G, Troy; Andrew Schull, DE, Kansas State; Ahmad Childress, DT, Alabama; Greg Walker, G, Clemson; Matt Brandt, TE, Miami (Ohio); George Wilson, WR, Arkansas; Jason Fife, QB, Oregon; Keith Belton, FB, Syracuse; Chris Snyder, K, Montana; Curtis Ansel, P, Kansas.