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During a “Chalk Talk” session held for fans at an event in Tahoe, Nevada, 49ers offensive coordinator Mike Martz didn’t discuss only the strategies for making the O’s run circles around the X’s.
He also shared some thoughts about the Detroit Lions, the team that fired him after the 2007 season.
“In Detroit we were not a good football team,” Martz said. “We were last in the NFL on defense and when you have to throw the football to win, that’s not a good thing. We weren’t good enough on the offensive line to protect [quarterback Jon Kitna] and throw the ball like we did. When I was with the Rams, we were. The number of hits on the quarterback when I was with the Rams near the end of my time there was about the middle of the pack. In the early goings, it was actually very low and we were ranked near the best in the league.”
Okay, fine. A team needs to have blocking to be effective on offense. Then why did the Lions choose receiver Calvin Johnson with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2007 draft instead of left tackle Joe Thomas?
Sure, Martz doesn’t have final say in such matters. But we’d love to know whether he wanted Johnson or Thomas.
Or maybe whether he advocated for help on that defense that he believes was/is so crappy.
April 6th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
How does Martz explain the one game in the middle of the season (you’d think I remembered who they played since it was the only game) where they ran the ball as much or moreso than they did pass it? They were effective then, weren’t they (although it was against a poor team as I recall)? And how many of those sacks were because Kitna doesn’t know how to get rid of the ball? Martz is just trying to cover his own butt because it was his system and it’s outdated. The “greatest show on turf” was a fad and nothing more. If it were such a reliable system every team in the league would be trying to copy it. Much like the west coast offense, Tampa 2 defense, etc., were introduced and are now widely used.
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Rating: 2.4 / 5 with 5 rating(s)
April 6th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
according to stories coming out of allen park before the draft, martz was the one who pushed for Johnson. He left sticky notes around for him to be drafted….
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
April 6th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
And yet he never got around to establishing the run to take the pressure off of his linemen and QB.
What a comment, “we weren’t very good.” What gave it away, the 7-9 record?
What does that make him getting fired from a team that isn’t any good?
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
April 6th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Martz ego is almost as big as his head
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Rating: 4.25 / 5 with 4 rating(s)
April 6th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
This can’t look good for a future employer, right? I mean, crapping on your former team isn’t exactly smiled upon, right?
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Rating: 4.35 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
April 6th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
“MARTZ SAYS THAT THE LIONS WEREN’T GOOD”
Wow, Martz got something right.
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Rating: 3.5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
April 6th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Martz is bitter because he was fired from Detroit, a bad football team. Martz is using all of it as motivation to be very successful and get another shot at a head coaching gig someday. Luckily for him, bad mouthing the Lions isn’t exactly frowned upon in league circles, or planet earth for that matter.
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
April 6th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
For as much as I don’t like Mike Martz, we do have to keep in mind he worked for a Matt Millen run franchise.
Mike will win this arguement everytime based on that fact alone.
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Rating: 4.5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
April 6th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Face it. Martz was right. For a team with a head coach that’s upposed to be focusing on defense (hence the reason Martz was actually hired), they weren’t good. The reason his offenses were so good in St.Louis because he had Marshall Faulk. We could call an offense with Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, Marshall Faulk, and Orlando Pace and put up 25 points a game. But still, in Detroit they were middle of the pack. Defense? Dead last. Is he an offensive genius? I don’t believe so, but it’s not like he’s terrible.
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Rating: 3.5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
April 6th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
It was Martz’s wacky pass-first, second, and last that often got our DEFENSE in a hole. Yes, the defense wasn’t great, but it has to be hard to come back after giving up a touchdown drive and then having to go right back on the field in your own territory two plays later after an interception. Aside from the blowout loss to the Eagles, that was the pattern in all of our big losses. A bigger commitment to the run, alone, would likely have been enough to win the Arizona game and at least stay in the Redskins game if not win that one too.
The Lions’ offensive line is the most underrated position group in the NFL; they have improved there tenfold in the past couple of years, but Martz’s predictable offense (yes, his offense is EXTREMELY predictable. maybe not which individual plays he calls, like Mooch and his 3rd and long draws, but the overall tendencies) and CONSTANT 7-step drops made them look much worse than they actually are.
To me, the most telling thing about Martz’s offense, other than the Arizona game, was when I watched the NFL Network’s short-cut replay of the second Vikings game: it was clear that Kitna was dropping back to the same exact spot every single play, while Minnesota dealt with the Lions’ pass rush which gave them fits earlier in the season by never having Jackson drop back to the same spot twice in a row. Ironically, given his reputation, it’s Martz’s predictability that causes him and his QBs the most problems.
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Rating: 4.65 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
April 6th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Martz is insane.
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Rating: 3.5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
April 6th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Hey Mike hate to break it to you but the 49ers aren’t exactley the cream of the crop either. So what can you expect to be any different with them? I mean honestly comparing the Lions and 49ers is like apples to oranges except its more like turds to turds
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Rating: 4 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
April 7th, 2008 at 12:09 am
Martz’s system is not old or outdated, you act like it’s the Run N Shoot.
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Rating: 2 / 5 with 4 rating(s)
April 7th, 2008 at 2:59 am
As a Rams fan, I can’t say I’m happy with Martz in Frisco. He’s a quirkyb guy, but if Nolan can keep him in check, Martz is going to get that offense up and running…
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Rating: 4 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
April 7th, 2008 at 5:51 am
Look how fast everyone is to call Martz a fraud! Respect accompanies accomplishment, so I can see why so many are so critical of Martz lately. But the man was having to work with DETROIT, a team so bad Barry Sanders would rather quit on then go on to set all the major NFL rushing marks. Everybody knows Detroit has had the worst front office in professional sports for the last couple decades.
Say what you want about Martz “the person”. Maybe he is a stubborn egomaniac. The man knows Offense, and will again be successful in the League, count on it. Nobody should doubt him just because he couldn’t turn Detroit into a winner, that’s impossible…
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Rating: 3.4 / 5 with 5 rating(s)
April 7th, 2008 at 5:58 am
It’s nothing new to tell your new girl how horrible your old girl was. Fact is, Martz was driving the bus in respect to playcalling and his pass/run ratio was so lopsided it drive him out of town. He acts as if adding a 40 year old Isaac Bruce is gonna solve the problem that he has a QB who is, thus far, a bust. He has plenty of work cut out for him. Having a better Defense to compliment the Offense doesn’t give him free reign to throw the ball 80% of the time again this year. Frank Gore and Mike Nolan will meet him at the bike rack if he does.
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Rating: 3.5 / 5 with 4 rating(s)
April 7th, 2008 at 9:04 am
Martz would’ve been fine in Detroit. You could see early on that he had issues with Marinelli and probably a few others. I wouldn’t be surprised if Millen hired him hoping to take some heat off of him and the staff. I think Martz is a pompous knob, but he does have the smarts to build a good offense. Whether that will happen in SF remains to be seen. People are making too much of these comments. He was right, the Lions are a mess and have been a joke ever since Barry Sanders left and Matt Millen arrived. All the Calvin Johnsons in the world aren’t going to help you when you ship off your running game and your QB spends most of the day examining the underside of the Ford Field rooftop.
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
April 7th, 2008 at 9:08 am
Martz cost us (the Rams) a Super Bowl and dominated drafts that gutted our team with poor choices and caused discontentment in the front office. Anyone who takes this guy seriously (49ers fans) is just showing how desperate they are. Mike Nolan or the 49ers front office will can this guy within two years and nobody in the Bay Area will miss him.
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Rating: 4 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
April 7th, 2008 at 9:15 am
“We weren’t good enough on the offensive line to protect [quarterback Jon Kitna] and throw the ball like we did. When I was with the Rams, we were. The number of hits on the quarterback when I was with the Rams near the end of my time there was about the middle of the pack. In the early goings, it was actually very low and we were ranked near the best in the league.”
It’s amazing how Martz can crap all over himself. For him to say that the Rams were good early on, but got worse as they went on, well, could it be because he was the one that was doing the drafting? Under Vermeil the line was very good, but by the end of his (Martz’s) time they were middle of the pack? Gosh, Mike. Could it be that you suck as a head coach, but actually look good as an offensive coordinator if someone else gives you the players (with not much input over personnel)? In Detroit he had Millen…say no more.
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
April 7th, 2008 at 9:19 am
Martz is a putz….. I am suprised he left Detroit where there are no expectations for success…….
The O line is abysmal, that is not a news flash.
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
April 7th, 2008 at 9:33 am
Also in the headlines: Martz says gas prices are high
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Rating: 4 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
April 7th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Martz was horrible as an OC in Detroit. Refusing to run on 2nd or 3rd and short, preferring dump-off passes to actually running the ball, never going deep to your two best weapons on offense to stretch the field and pull the LBs off the line, etc.
Look at the talent brought into Detroit on offense and it was almost all because Martz asked for it. He wanted McDonald, O’Sullivann, any number of bad TEs, he’s the reason they got rid of Schlesinger (one of the three good FBs left in the league at the time)… the list goes on. Just about any request Martz made in terms of offensive talent acquisitions he was given, and he clearly made these commens in the hopes that people back in Detroit wouldn’t hear about it and call him on it.
Have fun, niners. You’ll see what you got when he ignores Frank Gore on 3rd and 1 and decides to run a seven-step-drop instead. And that will be hammered home constantly throughout the season… because you’re going to see it happen all year.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
April 8th, 2008 at 8:58 am
I am a 49ers fan and I hate Mike Martz. I was angry when the Yorks hired him. Martz will not properly utilize our best talent or use the running game enough. But do you people realize just how horrible Jim Hostler was? Martz was a desperation hire. I would say that he’ll drive our team into the ground but its already there.
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