Martz backs out of coordinator job with Lions

~ The former Rams head coach said money was the primary factor, and he now plans to take the year off.

ST. LOUIS -- Mike Martz backed out of the Detroit Lions' offensive coordinator position on Thursday, and the ex-St. Louis Rams coach appears content to sit out next season.

"Obviously, I took the job," Martz said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "It just didn't work out with the money.

"There's a bottom-line figure my agent has, and I didn't want to have the details, so we just move on."

Martz, 54, said he felt he and new Lions coach Rod Marinelli would have been a very good fit and that would have been his main reason for taking the job. He also thinks Marinelli is a coaching star in the making.

"My visit with Rod was exceptional," Martz said. "I think he's going to be a superstar. Everybody's got talent, nice facilities and all those kinds of things, but who you work with is critical and that was a big plus."

Martz's agent, Bob LaMonte, did not immediately return a telephone message.

Martz has been unemployed since the Rams fired him on Jan. 2, the day after St. Louis finished a 6-10 season. He sat out the last 11 games recovering from endocarditis, a bacterial infection of a heart valve, but was cleared to return to duty the day before his six seasons as Rams head coach ended.

Martz also interviewed for head coaching openings in New Orleans and Oakland, but emphasized he'd be perfectly happy taking a year off. The coach has sold his home in St. Louis County, saying it was "time to downsize anyway," and will relocate to a second home in San Diego in the next week or two.

During his year away from football, he plans to travel with his wife, Julie.

"There's a wrong impression that I'm desperate for a job," Martz said. "I'm not pursuing anything.

"This Detroit thing got real interesting because I like Rod so much, but at this point in my life I'm going to be very choosy, very selective."

But he emphasized his desire to return to the NFL. Martz led the Rams to the playoffs in four of his five full seasons, including a Super Bowl after the 2001 season, and helped the franchise win its only Super Bowl as the offensive coordinator in 1999.

"I have no desire to retire," Martz said. "But to have a year when you have your health, it's a blessing."

Martz wasn't expecting to be called about the Lions opening, saying it "came out of left field."