Let's get one thing clear right from the start: I like Mike Martz. I think he possesses one of the NFL's most gifted offensive minds ever. I appreciate his go-for-the-jugular style, and I don't buy into the notion that his pride cost St. Louis a second Super Bowl title in three years.
Yes, he was outcoached by New England's Bill Belichick in the Super Bowl, but hey, that's football. Stuff like that happens. Just ask Don Shula about that Super Bowl III thing.
So I'm not a Martz-basher. I just think at times he's too confident in his own beliefs -- and in his own team -- for his own good. Sunday in Denver was one of those times.
By now, you know the Martz gambit of which I speak: The Rams, trailing 16-13 but with all the game's momentum, face a fourth-and-1 from the Broncos' 9 in the final minute-plus of the third quarter. The book says you kick the chip-shot field goal, take the tie, and win the game later. The important thing is to reward your team for fighting back to even in a game it once trailed 16-3.
(Here's where you can insert your own tired or convoluted line about how Martz ignores the book because he thinks he wrote it.) The end result was that the Rams went for the first down, didn't make it, and wound up losing 23-16. Afterward, Martz was quoted as saying: "I just felt like we needed the [six] points. This was a play that we've always executed, one of those 100 percent deals. But I guess it's not 100 percent anymore."
Martz has no regrets
ST. LOUIS (AP) -- St. Louis head coach Mike Martz refused to second-guess himself after some questionable play calling in the Rams' opening loss at Denver.
The Rams, favored to reach the Super Bowl for the third time in four years, failed to convert on a fourth-and-2 play from the Denver 10 late in the third quarter that would have tied the score.
Kurt Warner's pass to fullback Chris Hetherington was incomplete and the Rams never challenged again before losing 20-17 to the Broncos on Sunday.
"That's not something that, 'Oh boy, gee, I think I'll go for it,"' Martz said Monday. "I just felt like it was right, I didn't bat an eye. "We're just not going to be afraid to do those things. I trust they'll work out."
Martz is not worried about his team after the loss.
"We played one game," Martz said. "We played one game. I guess it's over for us. Shoot."
Martz is smart enough to know that there aren't any 100 percent plays in the NFL. Something can always go wrong when you need 11 guys on the same page to have success. His comments, of course, will keep the Martz haters loaded with ammo for weeks. Proof once again that he let his ego get in the way of his team's best interests.
In this case, I partially agree. I don't think it was his ego that doomed the Rams against the Broncos. Martz's unyielding confidence in his own play calling and his players' execution backfired on him. Sometimes, even if he is loath to admit it, the safe way is the smart way, Mike.
Sometimes you play for the tie. And then figure out where to go from there. Sometimes you expect the worst-case scenario, not the best, and give your team two chances to win instead of one.
Martz probably won't change his ways, and his players love him for it. He'll probably continue to fly in the face of the book whenever he feels like it. He said as much Sunday: "We will be aggressive in our approach. Some may question it, but that's how I'm going to approach it."
We've come to expect nothing less from Martz. But we've also come to see that at times, that approach has cost him points, as well as produced them.
You want to hear one of the more surprising things in the wake of the Dwayne Rudd debacle in Cleveland? Rudd, whom I covered for the first three years of his career in Minnesota, is one of the quietest, most undemonstrative football players I have ever encountered. Off the field, at least.
An interview with Rudd was always a challenge, because you had to lean into him and pray your tape recorder picked up his soft, whisper-like voice. He was rarely quotable and hardly ever animated in conversation.
But on the field, Rudd is capable of an amazing transformation. This is not the first time Rudd's showy, over-the-top antics have landed him in hot water with his own team. Late in the Vikings' storybook 1998 season, Minnesota head coach Dennis Green admonished Rudd after he showboated on a 94-yard fumble recovery for a touchdown in a Sunday-night blowout of the Bears.
Rudd, yards ahead of his nearest Chicago pursuer, stopped just before he got to the goal line, waited for a couple of Bears to get close, then slide-stepped his way into the end zone. Chicago's players -- most notably offensive tackle James "Big Cat" Williams -- were livid with Rudd and vowed to get even. Rudd was fined by the league and given a lesson on respecting the game and one's opponents by Green.
Here's another irony: Rudd, the Vikings' first-round pick in 1997 out of Alabama, is known for being a quality individual and a good teammate. Winning matters greatly to him, and he's not a me-first, show-me-the-money type of player.
That said, his brain-dead performance at the end of the Browns-Chiefs game was inexcusable. I wouldn't want to be Rudd in Cleveland this week for all the money in the world. He may never live this one down.
At the risk of sounding like a shill for the NFL, the league that spends millions on self-promotion should probably take it down a notch or two in terms of its advertising budget. I mean, what could the NFL possibly pay for that would cast it in a better light than Sunday's games?
Three overtime contests? Five games where teams overcame double-digit deficits to win? The fiasco finish in Cleveland? The expansion Houston Texans riding herd on those hated Cowboys? All in Week 1? Who's writing this stuff?
Forget all the TV ratings and survey results that the league uses to prove its own popularity. Better than anything could, Sunday again proved why the NFL is America's game. It's compelling theater, with unpredictable outcomes and a never-ending supply of story lines. Pass the remote.
