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TESTS. In order to prepare
for the playoffs the Rams need 4 or 5 games where every player and every coach has his
butt on the line for 60 minutes, because that is the kind of preparation you need to win
the world championship. The Rams need a good test, one where the game is on the line
during the last two minutes, where each play by every player is important. The Titans will
be our toughest test. The Rams are the better team, but there is an old axiom---"the best team does not always win, it's the team that plays the best." Each week you and I see this axiom played out. It was 1972, since we have seen an undefeated team in the National Football League. Each year we see a Super Bowl Champ who had one or two losses during the year and in almost all cased those losses, came against inferior opponents. Good or even great teams lose once in a while, because they become over-confident and temporarily lose the edge that has made them so effective. Case in point---you remember how easily the 1996 Broncos went through the regular season? Who would have believed an expansion team which made the play-offs by the skin of their teeth, could ever come to mile-high and kick butt and take names. Just last season, the Rams beat the Jets easily, and the Falcons had their butt handed to them by the same Jet team. Both games are examples of "the team the played the best beating the better team." Would anybody argue that the 1998 Rams where better than the 1998 Falcons? Also, beware of good teams coming off an open date. Good teams almost never lose at home after and open date weekend and the Rams are playing a good team. You have no idea what a week off does for players and coaches in what is a terribly grueling schedule. They will be well rested, the little bumps and bruises that players learn to live with will be gone. And their coaches will have had one extra week to concentrate on the Rams. The Titans players and coaches are excited about being 5-1 and know that this game is as big for them as it is for the Rams---and they have spent the last week planning for the Rams, while the Rams have been planning for the Browns. Playing Sunday afternoons between the white lines is one tough way to earn a paycheck. That's why I want to be there to see this one in person. We have one great advantage---our Head Coach has thought of all of these things and many more; he is as a detailed a coach as there is in football at any level. You can bet he will address all the issues in his control. By the way, I have already checked the Philadelphia to Nashville flights, getting to Nashville is easy, but getting seats to watch this war will only be harder, it will also be more much more expensive. THE GREAT COACHES. Head NFL Coaches---an interesting dynamic. There are some splendid assistants who never became very effective head coaches. Some were great teachers and great strategists, but when sattled with the multiple responsibilities of being a head football coach in the National Football League. They lost focus on what they did best and never quite got a handle on how to make the team work as a whole. Two, in my opinion, worked for Dick Vermiel. Four men, who coached defense in the National Football league as good as it has every been coached were Marion Campbell, Bud Carson, Buddy Ryan and Bill Armsbarger. My life's experience allowed me to know all four and to watch all four teach players, put together game plans, and make adjustments during the " heat of battle" on Sunday afternoon. These guys were the very best---they were all men's men, and players loved and respected them. If you played defense for one of these guys, you had an advantage going in to each game, knowing that you had a great game plan. When as a player you needed a game time adjustment, you knew your defensive coaches could and would adjust as fast as the brightest offensive coordinator in the business. You also knew that every defensive player bought into the team concept. None of the four were very effective head football coaches, but when Vermiel needed a defensive coach, he recognized the genius of Marion Campbell and Bud Carson. The 1997 Ram fans and about 7 years of Eagle fans got to witness defensive football played each week about as well as it has ever been played. |
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DIFFERENT COACHING CHALLENGES---THEN &
NOW,