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Is there method to Tuna's madness?
Posted: Wednesday January 13, 1999 04:53 PM
Got a comment or question for Dr. Z? Click here. I felt like Poe's Man of the Crowd. The loner, the weirdo, hat pushed down and scarf pulled tightly across his face, he threads his way through the gay multitudes, malignancy written all over his snarling countenance. That was me, as I worked my way to the Jets' postgame locker room Sunday. With the cheers still ringing and 50,000 Joey Buttafuoco clones still pounding each other senseless in the stands, my brain was overcome by a single dark thought: Why? Why did the braintrust that runs this team risk the season for one foolish show of ego? Never mind that Vinny Testaverde had executed the game plan beautifully and Curtis Martin had looked indestructible and the offensive line had shown some real punch, as the Jets beat a quality outfit by 10 points. Never mind all that. My one obsessive focus was on a single play that perhaps defines the mentality of this team. Fourth quarter, Jets up by seven. They had just put together a long, time-consuming drive and now they were sitting on the Jacksonville 14-yard line, getting ready to run the Jags out of timeouts (Jacksonville had just called its second one with 2:31 left) and kick the field goal that would put the game away and give everyone an early start on beating the traffic home. The call was a pass, off play-action, to fullback Keith Byars, slanting into the end zone from the left side. Jumbo Elliott, the left tackle, blocked down to his inside, leaving the offside guard, the right guard, Matt O'Dwyer, to pull and try to get to Bryce Paup, playing Elliott's outside shoulder. It's a long way to travel and an almost impossible block to execute if Paup is rushing, but I guess the play was designed for Paup to follow the run fake and bury himself inside. Paup, the former All-Pro rush-linebacker who was practically invisible Sunday, put on a rush. Uh-oh. O'Dwyer couldn't slow him down. He reached Testaverde just as the ball was released, without much velocity on it. Byars had gotten inside Chris Hudson, the free safety, but the other safetyman, Donovin Darius, swooped down from the blind side and intercepted the pass in the end zone. The Jets got lucky because Darius, a rookie with visions of an end zone-to-end zone touchdown dancing in his head, tried to run the ball out and got tackled on the goal line -- the officials spotted it on the one. Big break for the Jets. Curtains for the Jags. The play became a mere note, but not to myself and Edgar Allen Poe and the few fellow gloom-seekers wringing their hands in the stands. This is what the Jags could have -- actually should have -- had: The ball on their own 20 with one time out and 2:24 left and the wind at their backs, needing a TD to send the game into overtime. This is what the Jets should have had if they hadn't gotten greedy: A 10-point lead with around 1:55 left, after the last Jacksonville timeout and the two-minute warning, figuring they'd make the short field goal. I remember once having an interesting conversation with Tom Landry about the strategy of playing with a lead in a game's final moments. He said that what you have to do is look at the worst possible scenario and make sure to avoid it. The worst possible scenario for the Jets at that point was a turnover, and they committed it. Now don't get me wrong. I've always been a staunch advocate of a bold play that can close out a game. I loved it when the Falcons threw the bomb at the end of their regular-season victory over San Francisco, and ended the game -- when everyone was figuring that they'd run the clock. But this was without the field-goal option, which, in the case of the Jets, was also a game-ender. What the Jets did was pure madness, a foolish show of ego, or bravado, or something. So when I reached their locker room, I was curious to see if anyone agreed with me, or whether I was simply making too much of an insignificant play. Bill Parcells ' press conference was a great mooing mob of reporters with notebooks, and TV guys with their bright lights and mini-cams, and radio guys with their mikes, and forests of tape recorders. Question followed question and still no mention of the play that had bugged me. Finally I asked about it and drew some strange looks -- Joe Negative amidst the celebration of one of the team's greatest triumphs. "We were trying to score," Parcells said (laughter). "A field goal's a score." "I'm aware of that." (more laughter, and we move on to more serious topics) I saw Parcells in the locker room afterward, minus the mob. So what was the deal, anyway? "Look, the play was open," he said. "We had a touchdown if that guy doesn't get in Vinny's face. Our whole idea was to be aggressive, to go after then from start to finish." Finally I found a member of the Jets whom I'd known for years. No, I can't tell you who it is. I don't want to jeopardize his or his family's future. We talked off the record. "Crazy," he said. "A crazy call." "You kick your field goal and end the game and everyone goes home and has a nice dinner," I said. "Tell me about it," he said. "But you're not a genius if you do it by the book. Score a TD and you're a genius." I thought about all this in the days that followed, as I looked ahead to Jets-Denver. Maybe there's something deeper involved here, and I was too dense to see it, and Parcells, who ranks with Vince Lombardi as one of the greatest coaches ever in his ability to push the correct emotional buttons, was sacrificing a game situation for the chance to get his team in the correct mindset for the Broncos. Or maybe I'm reading too much into this and it was just a dumb call. That's a lot of maybes. But I can't help but think that if the Jets open the game against Denver, which has a functional but not overpowering defense, the same way they did against Jacksonville, and make the Broncos play from behind, and perhaps scare them a little, they could get the win and reach Supe XXXIII. I know I wouldn't want to have to prepare a defensive game plan for the Jets' attack. For one thing, it's hard to type. The book said to run on Jacksonville, which has been soft on occasion and had a lot of troops injured. But on their opening drive, which ended in seven points, they threw on their first two plays, and four of seven overall. And then they came back and pounded, oh boy did they pound, with Martin carrying the ball 36 times. I keep looking for new things in the Jets' offense, and every week I find them. The most recent stuff seems to be a lot of plays that start with a bunch formation, three men in one area, breaking out into various routes, the kind of thing Joe Gibbs used to bedevil people with. I see more and more use of a very valuable, and seldom-mentioned, member of their offensive unit, tight end Kyle Brady. As a pass-catcher he's adequate, nothing more. But at 6'6", 275 (seven pounds over his program weight), he's a terrific blocker. Some tight ends block from a set, or down position. Brady is very sturdy in that department. I still remember a game against Arizona in which he had defensive end Simeon Rice on his back all afternoon. Then there's the wham-block, in which the guy cruises behind the line and then turns up and helps clear the hole. If you can remember the old single-wing, just think of the role of the blocking back. Brady is getting better at that. When Byars missed a few games with his broken arm, Brady became the whammer, and he's been so effective that it's remained in the game plan. Then there's a whole assortment of blocks on the fringes, or the edges, often originating from motion. That requires timing and intelligence in making the correct decision, as to blockee. Again, the loss of Byars put the burden on Brady, and he has come through. Now Byars is back and there's even more blocking firepower. It's a healthy offense, and the key players are peaking at just the right time. Can it match the Denver arsenal? Maybe not. The Broncos are very special. I like the 3-4 as a base defense against Terrell Davis' running. I'm figuring the corner vs. wideout matchups will have Otis Smith on the burner, Rod Smith, and 5'8" Ray Mickens on 6'5" Ed McCaffrey, the possession receiver -- OK, I'm figuring it because that's the way Mickens told me they'd line up when I talked to him Sunday. Don't want to give you the impression I'm a genius or something. "Everyone's worried about the size thing," Mickens said, "but for 95 yards of the field that doesn't matter. I can use my quickness and instincts. The only place it counts is in the last five yards, when they're looking to throw the fade over you. No one's scored on one against me yet this year." Bill Belichick will play some double zone, and I see some kind of linebacker-DB scheme for Shannon Sharpe. If I were the Jets I wouldn't forget fullback Howard Griffith coming out of the backfield. Everyone else seems to. It appears that he always gets one or two per game against non-coverage. En fin: I like the Broncos on big game experience, which is a cop-out, I know. Let's say I like them on fewer turnovers and penalties, plus home field noise, etc. Final score, Denver 31, Jets 24. The more I think of the Minnesota-Atlanta match-up the more I'm leaning to the Falcons. Jamal Anderson's running, Chris Chandler's ability to hit the big ones against a pair of corners who like to peek in the backfield and look for picks, or against a zone which can spring holes. I'm leaning, but not all the way. Randall Cunningham will take a seven-step drop and let it fly. Bombs away. Will the Falcons' front four make him throw early? Maybe at times, but not consistently. Vikes' O-line is too good. Blitzes? Possibly here and there, but you can't leave your DBs in too much one-on-one against those monsters. High-scoring contest. Vikings win it, 37-31. Got a comment or question for Dr. Z? Click here.
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