The whole
truth
Paul Zimmerman has covered the NFL for Sports Illustrated
since 1979. His exclusive online column appears each
Friday.
Posted: Fri December 5,
1997
Is the vox populi the voice of truth? Are there times when
the fans have a better read on a team than the coach does?
When they holler for the backup quarterback, is it just
frustration that's driving them or could they possibly be
right, and the guy
who represents zip in the way of an investment is really a
better player than the one the club mortgaged the franchise
to
get?
Some things make you wonder. Washington fans knew from the
go that Gus Frerotte was the man and Heath Shuler was a
bust. But there were a couple of years of hand-wringing
until Norv Turner finally figured this out for himself. In
New York, they called
for Danny Kanell from Day One, but it took Giants coach Jim
Fassel half a season before he agreed with them. And these
are two of the best quarterback coaches in the
business.
In Philly the fans begged Ray Rhodes to give Bobby Hoying a
chance. Ditto in Arizona, where fans begged Vince Tobin to
go with Jake Plummer. Hoying and Plummer were No. 3 on the
depth charts, behind a gang of nondescripts. Babies, green
as grass.
What do the fans
know? Right now those two are the brightest young stars in the
league. You wonder where these teams would be if the
coaches would have seen in training camp what it took them
a good part of the season to find
out.
Oh sure, there were crowd favorites who flopped—Alex Van
Pelt in Buffalo, Eric Zeier in Baltimore—but we'll toss a
few more names at you, guys the fans tuned into before the
coaches did: Glenn Foley over Neil O'Donnell on the Jets.
Warren Moon over John
Friesz in Seattle. Maybe the coaches should try to figure
out what it is, exactly, that the fans are seeing—and
they're
missing.
A few more random
thoughts:
Did you ever notice how some phrases become blue-plate
specials in the NFL and then disappear? This year it's
step it
up, as in "He'll have to step it up" or "step
up his game."
Smash-mouth
football. There's one that's been with us for a couple of seasons
and I hate it. Say that 20 years ago and people would give
you funny looks.
What movie did he get that one
from?
Then there was the season when no one fumbled. Players
always
put the ball on the
ground, as if there was some kind of deliberate placement
involved. I know who originated that one: It was Don Shula.
Thankfully, Shoes got off that kick just about the time it
was catching on everywhere
else.
About that Thanksgiving
doubleheader:
"Let's have a pool on how many times John Madden says
'turkey,' " my wife said.
I guessed 50, she said 100. By halftime I'd lost my bet. I
mean, hey guys, enough
already.
Best Thanksgiving Day line I
heard, from a lady friend of my wife's: "Who the hell are
the Tennessee
Oilers?"
One thing bugs me about how the networks set up these
doubleheaders—and it's even worse during the playoffs.
That is, the way they flirt with two games overlapping. The
kickoffs are spaced three-and-a-half hours apart. An
overtime in the first one means
that you'll probably miss the start of the second. So last
season I talked to the league's TV and broadcasting guy and
said, "Why don't you play it safe and just make them
four hours apart and avoid the chance of an
overlap?"
"Hasn't happened yet," he
said.
"Doesn't mean it can't in the
future."
"Hasn't happened
yet."
Johnny one-note. That was the official position and he was
sticking to it. What are you gonna
do?
I'll tell you
this, when playoff time comes around, if Bill Carollo or Jerry
Markbreit is working the first game, we're in trouble.
They're
the slowest refs in the
business. Eight of the 11 non-overtime games Carollo has worked
have gone over three hours. Markbreit's record is nine of
13, and a 10th hit 3:00 on the nose.
Who's the
fastest? My favorite ref of all, Johnny Grier, with only two of 10
over three hours. Give a big assist to his umpire, Jim
Quirk, who's an absolute speed demon at getting the ball
spotted and ready for play.
Yes, I keep a record of things like
this.
Another thing that's fascinated
me: who's the heaviest player in the
NFL? I'm talking about real weight, not the number that's
listed on the roster, which only tells part of the story.
I'd say Packers defensive tackle Gilbert Brown. I'd bet
anything he's over the big four-double zero. I saw one
bench shot of him sitting next
to Reggie White, who goes 304. Gilbert looked twice as
wide. In the Vikings' game I saw him standing alongside
Minnesota tackle Korey Stringer and guard David Dixon, who
carry program weights of 353 and 352, respectively. He
dwarfed
them.
I've seen Brown in the locker room. Everyone did a
double-take as he walked by. The guy has that freak-show
waddle, but did you catch Dan Dierdorf during that Monday
night telecast? "That's a real man, a man's man."
Sorry, Dan, that's just a guy who's
grotesquely fat, so fat that he can't play a full series
without relief, so fat that his legs simply can't support
the weight—he's always bothered by some kind of ankle or
knee
injury.
He's got the true Sumo look. I remember once seeing a bout
featuring Konishiki, the 610-pounder. He got into a
defensive lineman's four-point stance and rose up and
delivered what we used to call a forearm-shiver and knocked
his guy out of the ring.
Pure football technique, and it got me thinking:
What would happen if you signed up a Sumo wrestler and put
him in as your nose
tackle? Who would ever run the ball on you inside?
I could think of only one guy freaky enough to actually
mess with an idea like this: Raiders boss Al Davis, who
once had a seven-foot-tall defensive tackle, Richard Sligh.
So I called Al and asked him about the Sumo
idea.
"I've toyed with it," he said. "It wouldn't
work for two reasons: No. 1, these guys have no stamina.
Sumo bouts are over in less than a minute. And No. 2, you
couldn't pay them enough. They make more doing what they're
doing without getting the hell
beat out of
them."
OK, it was a weird idea. And
speaking of weird ideas, here are the
forecasts:
Tampa Bay over Green
Bay, but bear in mind, every time I've picked against the Pack
this year I've lost. I'm still not convinced that Green Bay
can beat a fired up, young, repeat,
young (this is December, remember) team on the road. Yep, the
Packers won in Minnesota last weekend, but the Vikes were
going with a crippled
QB.
Denver can beat Pittsburgh in Three Rivers, and that's the
way I had it earlier in the week, but
I'm pulling a switch and going with the
Steelers. Early clinching buried the Niners last Sunday, and Denver
has clinched, too, albeit only a playoff spot. It takes a
little of the edge
off.
Niners to bounce back against
Minnesota.
Rams to upset the
Saints in New Orleans. Notice the way St. Louis picked up the
tempo once Lawrence Phillips departed?
Philly over the
Giants via the QB vs. QB matchup. New York can't open it up and
the Eagles have climbed to a new level with Hoying. Finally
the
Cowboys, who are still contending in a division that simply
refuses to open any ground on them,
to run up the score
against a
Carolina team that's just a whisper of what it was last
year.
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