Same as always in the NFL

An NFL team is not unlike an army. Each franchise has a larger budget than the GNP of France. They select and draft their soldiers from among the cream of the crop. They train their warriors using devices and drills meant to wring every ounce of potential from their bones.

Then, on game day, they hand those soldiers over to Marty Mornhinweg.

So it's not exactly like the army.

Trusting the likes of the Detroit Lion's head coach dejure with this investment is like putting Nick Nolte behind the wheel of a school bus.

An example: With the Lions ahead of the Vikings early in the game, Marty faces a third and short at the Minnesota 40. With the resources available to him, with the battery of game film and situational drills run since the preseason at his disposal he calls the play. A dive up the middle. The Vikings, of course, have stacked the line with around three tons of man in the event such a play is called. The snap, the handoff, and a micrometer is necessary to measure the movement.

Morningwheig looks again at the situation and makes another battlefield decision. He will gamble and go for it on fourth down. He consults his lieutenants and sends the play in to his quarterback. With the Vikings again putting 11 men within five yards of the line of scrimmage, Marty opts for a time-honored classic. A sweep wide.

A play such as that requires that the entire offensive line carries and holds their blocks long enough for the back to pick a hole and move forward through it. Of course, even a winless team like the Vikings can defend such a play provided they are smart enough to bring their defensive backs up once they see the run. They do, the play is snuffed, and the Lions trot off the field with big bushy tails between their legs.

If you've seen more than ten games in your lifetime you have wondered to yourself how this keeps happening. How this cycle repeats itself as only Old Faithful can. How an owner can sink half of a billion dollars into a team and put that financial faith into the hands of the same cast and crew making the same mistakes year in and out.

Earlier this year, Johnnie Cochran threatened to sue the NFL to force it into hiring African-Americans for front office and on-field positions of power. I'm not nearly as picky. I want the NFL to look past the Marty Schottenheimers and Dick Vermeils of the world. I want them to scour the little colleges and the assistants that never ever applied for the positions. If it means taking Bill Parcell's and Jimmy Johnson's number off the Rolodex, so be it.

After all, a great man once said, "If we do not learn from history's mistakes, we are bound to repeat them."

What great man, you ask? I think it was one of Bill Walsh's assistants. Might have been Paul Holmgren.