Making sense of Green's block, timid strategies, more

Houston's Travis Johnson may not have happy with Trent Green's block last Sunday, but it was within the letter of the NFL's law. Aaron M. Sprecher/Icon SMI

MAILBAG Dr. Z will answer select user questions each week in his NFL mailbag. Your name: Your e-mail address: Your home town: Enter your question:

Not only are the mailbaggers going through normal channels to get their voices heard, they're leaking through the cracks and finding their way into my own interoffice mail at the majestic Time & Life Building. A few, having evaded all security personnel, are even climbing through the windows of my own private, personal mailbox out near the yard where we saw that gigantic snapping turtle. That's the result of the stir generated by 1) Packers-Bears and Cowboys-Bills, and 2) the Trent Green-Travis Johnson incident.

OK, what do we address first? How about the feedback from the piece I wrote this week about gutless coaching? And I lead with a gentleman who lets me have it right between the eyes, POW!

Mike of Camarillo, Calif. -- "I'd like to see how 'cowardly' you would be saying these things to the coaches, instead of hiding behind a keyboard and laptop ... tough guy."

Let's get things straight. "Gutless coaching" means failing to take a chance, playing it safe and thereby hurting the team's chances to win. It does not mean that the person himself is a coward, only that the strategy is. I agree with you that my choice of language wasn't too great, but in each case it was the blindness of passion that drove me. How about "timid" instead of gutless coaching?

And in the red corner, weighing in at 225, is Steve of Colorado Springs. "Thank you for saying what no one else in the media has the guts to say, coaches can lack toughness (or can choke) as well as the players."

OK, boys, break when I tell you to. Let's have a good, clean fight.

From Ben of Washington, D.C. After the Bears stopped the Packers' running game in the second half, Brian Urlacher was asked what did it and he said switching to a Cover 2. Why is that?

Beats me. I always thought that you could run better against a Cover 2. To me it just seemed as if they crowded the box a little more. The Packers responded by running play after play into the heart of the defense, giving themselves no chance.

Pat of Port Washington, Wis., and I thank you, asks a bunch of questions, well, two actually. Are head coaches the ones who are skilled at halftime adjustments, or does that job fall to coordinators? Depends on the organization. It could go either way. Many times the coach could say something like, "I want more play action this half," and it would be up to the coordinator to implement the idea. No. 2: Why did ex-Cowboys QB Don Meredith retire after the Ice Bowl game with the Packers? He didn't. He retired after the next season, in which they lost to the Browns in the first round of the postseason. He was 31. It caught people by surprise. Tom Landry said, "I tried to talk him out of it, but if his heart isn't in it, he shouldn't come back." There were rumors that he had a shot at a lucrative TV gig, but the ABC Monday night thing didn't come until a few years later.

Bryce of Portland, Ore., can't understand why coaches get so, uh, timid at the end. Because they're afraid of losing quickly, rather than slowly.

Dave of Durham, N.C., agrees with my take on the Bills' demise in the last minutes. He says he, too, was seeing it through fingers over his eyes, "afraid to watch yet unable to look away." He adds that he, too, was disappointed with Ron Jaworski's analysis. All in good time, Dave. Only five more months until the official Web site Announcers Ratings Column goes in.

Dave of Memphis wrote the following: "You sportswriters can't have it both ways, saying the Bills weren't aggressive enough on defense, then saying they were too aggressive (passing late in the game that led to the INT, rather than kicking the FG)." There are two things wrong with that rather ugly sentence. 1) I never wrote a criticism of their offensive philosophy. I thought they had to pass in that spot, to give them a chance, and 2) The expression, "You sportswriters." We're all individuals, see, different personalities in other words, each singing our little song. How would you like it if I answered ... "You Fans," or "You Memphistos," or whatever they call people from Memphis?

Let's cut back to the cut block. Bruce of New Bedford, Mass., thinks Green's block at knee level was a nasty piece of work, even if the other guy did come on in an unsightly fashion. Ralph of Phoenix, citing my line that I never saw a QB flagged for one of those flop blocks on a reverse, asks, "What about Matt Hasselbeck, Super Bowl XL, after his pass was intercepted by the Steelers?" Here's the rule, as explained to me by Mike Pereira, Supervisor of Officials. You can't cut a guy on a change of possession play, which means kickoff or punt return. At other times you can cut him from in front, except for a few situations that are too complicated to go into here. Which makes Green's hit legal and Hasselbeck's illegal, because it came on a change of possession, i.e., interception.

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