 COACHING, BY TOM RIVERS (Nov 8) |
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A CLOSER LOOK. Developing a
Super Bowl team does not happen over night. In the early part of the curve, the head coach
is putting a staff together, and he may make a mistake or two initially which has to be
corrected. He may make a mistake or two in regards to his personnel, he may ride the wrong
horse thinking he sees a potential which in not born out over time. He needs to weed out
players who don't buy into his system or his way of doing things. When the system is in place, which I think is where the Rams are today, the player and coaches still need to learn on Sunday. They need to learn all the little things that separate the team which merely competes from the team that wins it all. I see the 1999 Rams doing a lot of the little things they need to do to be great. I see great effort, I see a team with a good plan, and I see coaches who adjust well during the game. A TOUGH DAY IN DETROIT. We have a pretty good Rams team, and our expectations went through the roof when we started the season with what has turned out to be a pretty weak schedule. We probably lost this last two weeks to divison champions. We lost close games on the road in loud stadiums. There have been a lot of good teams who lost to the Lions in the Silverdome through the years, however the great ones get out of there with a win albeit a close won. Noise is the worst in the league. Larry Pecatello, Bobby Ross's defensive coach, is a great coach and he learned from what Jeff Fisher had done the week before. Warner wasn't great but he played well enough to win. He can be the Ram's QB when the Rams have a great team. He played under great pressure today and his receiver were not getting very open downfield at least until the Lions suffered some injuries. He also suffered from some drops. So we have a great young QB who is learning, has great poise, and will continue to get better. He is getting great coaching as are most of our other players. Bobby Ross's personality is a lot like DV. Very intense, a perfectionist, and he will fire any player who won't play hard all the time. Both coaches hire real good teachers to work with their players. You knew both teams would have good plans and all the players would show up and play their butts off. No fan had to ask for a refund for this one---the game was as good as advertised. 84 guys on two rosters playing their butts off for 60 minutes. It is easy when you lose to go back and blame a player or players who were involved in a bonehead plays; however, I tend to side with Teddy Roosevelt, who said it ain't that easy to be the "man in the arena". Our offensive line like all offensive lines plays better when playing under conditions which allow them to clearly hear the snap count. Some may have had to go off of defensive movement when it got loud. When you do that you lose your edge. One thing about the great game of football---the other guy is a big strong guy and he has a job that pays pretty well and he is much more interested in keeping his job that he is in helping you keep yours. Early easy wins against weak team hurt you some, because you get to think your are better than you really are. Yet before the season begin, I would gladly have accepted that level of play. We are young enough team with a relatively inexperienced QB---we are still pretty early on the learning curve. Our talent level is pretty good---but we have a team that is just starting to learn to win. No team has ever gone to the super bowl with a young team and a first year starting QB. These guys need some nicks. That is part of the learning process. The Falcons last year had a QB who had made most of his rookie mistakes years before. It was hard for a coordinator to get ahead of him and stay there. He had seen too much football. Our guy is seeing a lot of things for the first time, but it's not taking Martz long to help him catch up. That is true of a lot of player not just our QB. We may need a player or two, but for the most case our improvement will come from learning from games like today. TIME MANAGEMENT. Time management in a loud stadium with a first year QB is tough. You may tell him to take time outs if he gets confused or sees audible situations and it is too late to make a call. So then when you get to two minutes and you have used all of your time outs it looks like bad coaching. In my opinion, with a young QB, you might just have to take the criticism for poor clock management to help him out of some tough situations earlier in the game. This clock management in the Silverdome is a lot tougher than in the local high school stadium on Friday night---you have to cut your young QBs some slack. COACHING. Both the Rams and Lions have great players. All pro players play hard want to keep their job and all would love to get a Super Bowl Ring. When two great competitors get together one wins and one loses. But players and coaches tend to overlook errors when they win by 25 points and are never behind. Lose a couple of close ones at the end and you have everybody's attention in the Monday film review. The Head Coach has the staff's attention and the staff has the players' attention. We make one more play on pass defense and Dick's a genius. When the receiver come downfield a player has to cover him. McCleon wasn't in man coverage---it looked to me like a soft three deep. He had the deep coverage and the rule all players hear from the time they start playing football is stay as deep as the deepest. At some point in any down zone or man all player find themselves man to man---they are man to man with a player in their zone. When you have the deep 1/3 you have help in the post, but no help deep. Poor execution by a player, but nothing wrong with the call. You might say he should have been coached better, but he got beat by a change of pace move. The receiver came into his zone running about 80 % of full speed, giving the defender the false confience that he is and could stay deep as the deepest. Great coaches will insist that the players learn from mistakes like they made Sunday. That is part of the learning curve. I bet we go all year and never see another corner beat on a change of pace move by a receiver in the final two minutes. If he does, he will be playing the route from over the top Players and coaches all learn from experience. Dick's football team is in my opinion in 1999 extremely well coached. But these coaches can only do so much for the players in the meeting room and on the practice field. Player still have to go out on Sunday and make mistakes, feel the pain of their mistakes, correct those mistakes, and go on the field the following week slightly better players than they were the week before. Talk to any great football coach (and Dick has plenty on his staff) and he will tell you what he can teach and he can't teach. The things he can't teach you have to draft for, trade for, or hire on the free agent market. When we win the World Championship, we won't have a perfect team, but we will be a little closer to perfect than we are today. And we will still have fans who think they can coach the team better. |
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