Greene heads for Sacker's Paradise
Paul Zimmerman has been covering the
NFL for Sports Illustrated since 1979. His exclusive online
column appears each
Thursday.
Posted: Thu August 28,
1997
Here's what I'd like to see this
season:
I'd like to see Kevin Greene get 11 or more sacks. It's a
key number for him. It
obsesses him. What's so special about 11 sacks? That would put him
at 133
1/2, career—one ahead of Lawrence Taylor for lifetime sacks
by a
linebacker.
Greene and I used to talk about it last year, when he was
Carolina's left-side rushing linebacker. He made no bones
about it: This is a record that haunts him because he wants
it so
much.
Sometimes Greene was on the field when he shouldn't have
been. He told me he took a major blow to the head early in
the season. After that hit, Greene said, every once in a
while his eyes would lose focus and he'd be playing by
feel. He didn't talk
about it much. He didn't really care. All that mattered to him
was getting to 133
1/2.
"Don't mess around with head injuries," I said to
Greene. "Take a game
off."
"Can't afford to," he replied. "Got to keep
those sacks
up."
Well, he ended up leading the league with 14 1/2 sacks.
Then he got into that money thing with the Panthers, and
now he's a 49er, playing that Elephant position, rushing
from the weak side, the open side. Sacker's
paradise.
How do the Niners do it? They're always flirting with the
upper reaches of the salary cap, yet they always get the
guy they want—Rod Woodson in July, Deion Sanders three
years ago and now Greene. Everyone knows that his six-year,
$13 million contract is
a joke. Greene will be 41 six years from now; he'll never
play it out. The point is, he'll only count $350,000
against the cap this season. (Please don't ask me to
explain the intricacies of this number juggling. I flunked
economics in
school.)
Very few teams will pay an aging superstar for what he's
done in the past. A lot of older stars, such as Buffalo's
Bruce Smith, have trouble understanding this. But these
days, the money goes to guys on the way up—just look at
the packages unproven
draft choices are
getting.
But the Niners are the exception to the rule. They see a
guy they want, a player someone else can't afford, and they
grab him. Then their economists go to work looking for ways
around the salary
cap.
Well, good for Greene. He's been a great player. He
deserves whatever he can
get.
And I hope he gets his
sacks.
HERE'S ANOTHER THING I'd like to see in '97: I'd like to
see all those coaches who keep talking about
"establishing the run" actually
do
it.
That's all I hear during the
week—We have got to establish the
run. Then comes Sunday, and the first time they're in
second-and-six, here come the wideouts. Yes, they'll do
some finesse running out of the multiple-wideout sets, but
that really doesn't establish
much.
First-and-10, run the ball. Second-and-six, run it again.
Third-and-three, run it one more time. That's called
committing yourself to the running game. Most coaches now
consider third-and-three a
passing
down.
Take the Jets, for example. Bill Parcells back-burnered
offensive coordinator Ron Erhardt, one of the NFL's best
coaches of the running game. Erhardt was replaced by
Charlie Weis, who brings along a wide-open attack that will
feature multiple
receivers.
And Jim Fassel, a passing-game coach his whole career, has
replaced the Giants' thumping attack. He'll rely on skill
people like Tiki Barber, a small running back, and Ike
Hilliard, a big-play
wideout.
The running game in the NFL has been in decline ever since
offensive linemen started weighing 330. "It's hard for
them to get down low and really use proper drive-block
techniques," former Niner coach Bill Walsh says.
"It's mostly straight-ahead zone
blocking today. The runner just finds a
crease.
"The intricate timing of the old running game is lost.
I'm convinced that linemen can function better without
those gigantic bellies hanging over their pants, but
everyone glorifies that
now."
During the preseason, Sports Illustrated asked coaches the
following question:
What's the best way to defeat the zone
blitz? Almost everyone said:
Run the ball at
it.
I'm
waiting.
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