Watch the sideline of almost any football game and look for the coach who is the most animated and passionate.
It's probably the special-teams coach.
That appears to be the case with Joe Marciano, the Lions' new special-teams coordinator. Nobody had the crowd of season-ticket holders more fired up earlier this week at the team's "town hall" meeting than Marciano.
"I want to help us kickoff and kick ass," Marciano said, drawing a big roar moments after being introduced for the first time.
He got several other favorable reactions throughout the night, not just for what he said but how he said it and the energy he exuded.
"Fast, furious and finish," Marciano said in describing what he wants from his special-teams players.
"When you talk about special teams, you think the punter, the kicker, the snapper, the returner, all the guys that control the ball," Marciano added. "My thrill in coaching special teams is the other guys.
"The 'who's nuts' guys. The guys that are coming in from college, molding those guys into a unit, they're the kind of guys I like to coach. They could be all minimum-wage guys, I don't care. That's the beauty of coaching special teams."
Marciano, 61, is replacing Joe Bonamego, another fiery coach who left the Lions to take the head-coaching job at his alma mater, Central Michigan.
Marciano has nearly three decades of experience coaching special-teams units in the NFL, including the New Orleans Saints from 1986-95, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 1996-2001 and the Houston Texans from 2002-13. He also spent part of last season with the Minnesota Vikings.
"I had several other opportunities, didn't feel like it was right and decided not to go back to work," Marciano said.
But when Lions coach Jim Caldwell, who had worked on the same staff with Marciano for a year in Tampa Bay, called him in February, the reaction was different.
Marciano said he had "no doubt" about coming to Detroit to join a team that won 11 games and went to the playoffs last season.
He inherits a unit that includes veteran kicker Matt Prater, punter Sam Martin, long-time holder Don Muhlbach and return specialist Jeremy Ross.
"I don't think we have to worry about our kicker, our punter, our snapper, but we'll make the returner position very competitive," Marciano said.
Ross emerged two years ago as a quality return man, but his numbers took a dip last season. He went from a 16.2-yard average on punt returns to 8.9 and from 29.3 yards on kick returns to 25.4. Ross also returned one punt and one kick for touchdowns in 2013 but had no returns for scores in 2014.
Marciano called Ross a "strong, tough and fearless" player, but clearly something was missing a year ago.
"We've got to have guys that block to get him going," Marciano said. "That's the key. There's very few returners that can do it without blocking. Those guys are special. Guys (who) can make plays with very limited blocking, they're hard to find, unless you get them in the draft, Tom."
The last comment was a subtle request to team president Tom Lewand, which drew laughter from the crowd.
Passionate, humorous and even a little bold. That's the Lions' new special-teams coordinator.
EXTRA POINTS
--- Linebacker Brandon Copeland, who drew a lot of attention after running a 4.52 40-yard dash at the recent veteran combine, reportedly reached a contract agreement with the Lions. Copeland, an undrafted player coming out of the University of Pennsylvania in 2013, spent time with the Baltimore Ravens and Tennessee Titans but hasn't played in a regular-season game.
--- Quarterback Matthew Stafford's much-anticipated wedding day is almost here. Stafford and longtime girlfriend Kelly Hall, whom he met in college at Georgia, will be married Saturday.
--- The Lions are scheduled to report for the first phase of their off-season program beginning on April 20.
--- The Lions confirmed Friday morning that they've signed Josh Wilson, a 5-foot-9, 188-pound cornerback, to a one-year contract.
Wilson, 30, was a second-round pick by the Seattle Seahawks in 2007 coming out of Maryland. He has missed only 10 games during his eight-year NFL career.
