Detroit Lions Draft Busts Since 2001, No. 3: Joey Harrington

I always thought he should’ve been able to learn behind another qb and learn the system similar to Carsen Palmers 1st year. Too bad Millen had to toss him in right away. Wonder how he would’ve fared. He played very well at Oregon.

I liked Joey a lot, and I honestly put his failure squarely on Millen. Mooch wanted to groom him behind another starter, ease him into it, but Millen forced him to play based on his contract. I feel that had Joey been able to develop a sense of the game in the pocket, and learn how to avoid some of those sacks, that he would have never developed happy feat and the whole “throw it up and pray” mentality that became his downfall.

On a side note, I thought it was pretty cool to see Prince Amukamara ask Mooch in his interview if he missed coaching. I thought it was even cooler when Mooch said that every now and then he gets the itch.

I think mayhew wanted Jammer as well.

30 whacks

I remember watching Joey as a freshmen against MSU and thinking he is gooding to be a solid NFL QB. But he never really had a shot once Millen drafted him, and forced Harrington on Mornhinweg. He skill set never translated to the WCO. Than Mooch comes in twos seasons later. And he did not want Harrington either. Just another Millen pick that was not mentally strong to play in the NFL. Seems to be his theme.

He will forever be associated with the number 3. Drafted 3rd, wore 3, and was 3rd biggest mi**en bust. My greatest memory of Joey is from 08. Final home game and the Saints were in town and a lot of the fans were chanting “We want Joey” because at the time he seemed like a better option than Culpepper.

He lacked the maturity and emotional stability to be a leader in the NFL.

Did you guys forget how terribly inaccurate he was? And he didnt have a good deep ball either. Maybe the distance but it ALWAYS seemed to be overthrown. And as far as intangibles that is crucial for a QB… he had none, ZERO. Heart palpitations before you go against Tampa Bay? He lost everyone in the Locker Room after that. No leadership skills. I had no problem with the “Wine and Piano” side to Joey, who cares. But there needed to be a switch that he should have turned on when leading men on the football field. It wasnt there. His accuracy issues were a red flag back when he was at Oregon also.

Millen and company failed him as bout as bad as any organizatoon could fail it’s QB. Is Joey a bust yeah thats pretty obvious and personally I have no problem with him as a person. I def think Mooch had it right again he needed to learn on the sidelines and mature behind a vetran QB. In the end it was never going to work. I give Mooch credit for voicing his opinion I really was excited when he came to detroit. Under another GM he could have been sucessful. The combo of Mooch and Harrington failed beacuse of Millen. Mooch develops QBs thats what he has always done but the dumbass in the office wouldn’t let him do his job. Bottom line I’m not making excuses for Joeys failures as a player but if Mooch had been given a chance to properly develop him as a player…You never know what could have happened. When I think Joey I always wonder could he have been? I think of the time he Destroyed us in a Dolphins uniform. I also remember the Saints game when the entire crowd was chanting his name, You know he was laughing on the sideline. Rogers has to be #1 I think because he played so little atleast Williams was on the field.

I can’t believe you are blaming her for the ineptitude of our “Doddering Uncle Matt”

When you spend a top 5 pick on a player they must make a big impact on your team.

Sure, some of these guys have struggled because of the situation that they are put into. We can lay that blame onto the front office and coaches. Millen did a horrible job in selecting coaches. Even when he got a decent coach like Mooch, he meddled in the coaches decisions so much that he destroyed their ability to build and improve a team. Most of the coaches that Millen hired were able to find success both before and after being in Detroit. Albeit, that success was often as a position coach or a coordinator. But part of Millen’s job was to evaluate if a guy is ready to be a head coach. If he kept giving head coaching jobs to assistant coaches that weren’t ready for prime time, that is on Millen too.

Joey Harrington definitely got put into a bad situation. But he also had a “soft” streak as well. I know some people don’t think so, but I do. He was like a scared rabbit in the pocket. I realize that some of that was because he had a bad offensive line. But some of it was just because he was a chicken too.

In 2002 Harrington took eight sacks and in 2003 he took nine. Those are extremely low sack numbers. That is because Harrington refused to show any moxie and make a play. Harrington would simply move out of the pocket almost immediately after the snap because he wanted to be able to throw the ball away at the first sign of pressure. That made the job of blocking for him more difficult since he was constantly moving the pocket. This resulted in some horrible QB rating numbers (59.9, 63.9) and an inability to move the chains for first downs.

Finally in his third season the coaches told Harrington that he had to try and stand in the pocket and make more plays. Harrington’s sack numbers soared to 36, which is still not all that bad compared to what we would experience later with Mike Martz as offensive coordinator. As a result, Harrington improved his QB rating about 15 points to 77.5 which is just bad instead of absolutely horrible.

By the time Joey had reached this point he had lost the trust of his teammates. He did not show a willingness to play tough on the field. He looked like a deer in the headlights for three straight seasons. Marriucci had made comments about Joey needing to man up and make some plays. Even the players were starting to make some comments that Harrington was not a leader, he would keep himself at arms distance from the other players on the team. When you married that with Harrington’s preference to play piano and drink expensive wine, he was interpreted as being “too good” to socialize with the plebian rabble on the rest of the team.

You can make as many excuses for Joey as you want, but he played a very significant role in his own failure. He simply did not have the right mindset to be an NFL quarterback and he was unwilling to change his standoffish, upper crust attitude to something that allowed him to relate better with his teammates. Joey continued to have this same problem with Miami and Atlanta. Sure, in public Joey seemed amiable enough, but in the locker room? Not so much.

That is not on Millen, except that Millen was too stupid to see Harrington was a primadonna from the beginning. Don’t get me wrong, Harrington was not the type of diva that loudly proclaimed himself divine. He was the type that quietly kept himself apart and made subtle actions to place everybody else below him.

Harrington should have become a jazz pianist because he certainly was not an NFL quarterback.