Tuesday Notes: Kitna Apologizes to Coaches

Sean Yuille — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:00:05 -0000

The latest on "bag-gate" pretty much has sealed Tatum Bell's fate. Victor DeGrate's mother said that her son had nothing to do with the incident and had his backpack with him at home in Texas when Rudi Johnson's bags were stolen. It appears that Bell's story was 100% B.S., meaning he will be lucky to ever get signed by an NFL team again.
Jon Kitna apologized to the coaches he got in the face of during the first half of Sunday's game against the Falcons. Kitna called a timeout twice and proceeded to start yelling at a few coaches. It really looked like he was out of line, so it's good that he smoothed things over with those he yelled at.
According to Rod Marinelli, Paris Lenon should be okay and probably will practice on Wednesday. Dan Campbell is apparently getting more tests. His hamstring injury hasn't gone away and it doesn't seem like it's going to anytime soon. As far as I can tell, there has been no word on the status of Ernie Sims, who was carted off the field at halftime with an ankle injury.
Dominic Raiola thinks the Lions may have been overconfident heading into the Falcons game. That's hard to believe considering it is the Lions, but they were coming off of a 4-0 preseason and were expected to beat Atlanta. If this does humble the locker room as Raiola hopes, then hopefully this team will wake up and realize that they actually have to play some good football to win games.
Herman Moore is going to be the honorary captain for Sunday's game against Green Bay.
Prior to the game on Sunday the Lions will be hosting a pre-game tailgate from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The tailgate will be held on Brush Street and will include the following things: a live broadcast from 97.1 FM The Ticket, the Lions' mascot (Roary), a D.J., an autograph signing with Greg Landry from 11 a.m. to noon, and other things to keep people entertained. Food will be available as well, but you have to buy it.
The Lions spent yesterday reviewing film from the Atlanta game and will return to the practice field tomorrow. I bet that was a fun film session.
Guard Matt Butler was released from the practice squad by the Lions. To fill the void created, center Ben Claxton was signed to the practice squad.
A reporter was trying to get Rod Marinelli to answer a question about if he would publicly blame players for the loss to the Falcons during yesterday's weekly press conference, and Marinelli was having none of that.

There was a brief exchange where the reporter and Marinelli went back and forth, and from reading the transcript the questions sounded pretty stupid. Marinelli was asked who he would blame for the loss and answered back with a remark about whether he was talking to the team or the media. The reporter then tried to get Marinelli to relay what he told the team, and you can guess what Marinelli's reaction was.
On ESPN there is a page of coach approval ratings, and unsurprisingly Rod Marinelli came in third to last with a dismal 16%. Imagine how lopsided the poll would be if there was a page for owner or GM approval ratings.
Following up on yesterday's story about Tom Brady, he is going to have season-ending surgery to fix a torn ACL and has been placed on the injured reserve.
I've decided to scrap the idea of doing a weekly recap of all the NFL action. I realized that it would take too much time, especially since I'm also recapping Pride of Detroit's fantasy football league each week. I will do a weekly recap of how teams in the NFC North did, so expect that to be posted later today.

SB Nation - Matt Butler

Tuesday Notes: Kitna Apologizes to Coaches