Power of Caring
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Da Coach loves da job

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Posted: Monday October 11, 1999 04:53 PM

Week 5 Awards | Top 10 Teams | 10 Things I Think I Think

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NEW ORLEANS -- I've heard a few times from people I trust around the league that this could be it for Mike Ditka , that he might hang up the old artificial hips after the season and go to the bar at Iron Mike's for good come the Millennium.

So in his office Saturday morning, I asked him about his immediate future. What he said will please everyone with an Illinois address, and most with a Louisiana one.

" George Halas coached, I think, 'till he was 73,'' Ditka told me. "I think that's great. I turn 60 next week. I've got three years left on my contract after this year, and I want to finish it out. And then I'd like to keep going.''

"Until, what, 73 ? You couldn't do that,'' I said.

"Why not? I love it. I love coaching. I love this place. I love this owner. Now, you understand that as coaches it's not always our choice. Coaches don't get to choose how long they stay most of the time. But I'll just say this: As long as they want me here, I'll be here.''

Ditka's in his element here. He coaches. He smokes cigars. He golfs. He lords. When he fights with offensive coordinator Danny Abramowicz on the sidelines over bad play-calling, as he did last week in Chicago, the natives love it. And judging by the yawning gaps of upper-deck empty seats for a game against the Falcons, their archrivals, at the Dome on Sunday, I'd say the Saints need him.

But Ditka's not in the savior business. If you'd seen the man who stepped up to the podium to address the media after the 20-17 loss to Atlanta, you'd have seen a man. Not some cartoon superhero as he's often painted, but a man who can't make Billy Joe Tolliver into Joe Willie Namath . Ditka looked almost vulnerable, standing there. He looked clueless about what to do to turn a bad team into a good one.

The fans aren't mad at him, personally, for the team's 1-3 start. But I've not heard a home crowd as angry as the one I heard in the Superdome yesterday in a long time. Imagine thousands of fans screaming " You suck! '' in something close to unison to every Saints player who walked beneath the walkways carrying the crowd to the parking lot. And if the Saints continue to play Ricky Williams (19 carries for 53 yards Sunday) as if he were a useless appendage, as they have in the first month, it's only a matter of time before Ditka becomes Coach Scorned.

Week 5 Awards  

OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK : St. Louis QB Kurt Warner , for his incredible five-touchdown game in the Rams' 42-20 win over San Francisco. I looked at the stats on the Internet late in the first quarter and saw: Warner 9-9, 177 yards, 3 TDs. Is there no end to this phenom's run of great play? Incredible. I just might have to make this guy player of the week every week.

DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK : San Diego LB Junior Seau , who continued to show why he deserves every plaudit he ever gets in a 20-10 win at Detroit. Entering the game, he fretted about playing Bobby Ross and staff that helped make him a big star in San Diego. "Every day this week, every time I went to bed, I told my wife, I said, 'Honey, they're coming.' She thought I was psycho. They're coming! Who's coming? It was Bobby Ross and the boys! They're going to come and get me. They think that a misdirection is going to get me; they think that a screen play is going to get me. They're going to run away and get me frustrated at them running away, and then they're going to come back and get me.'' On his watch, Seau managed 12 tackles and two sacks, and he terrorized poor Detroit QB Charlie Batch into playing a nervous game.

SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYER OF THE WEEK : Fetch Monster , the little Saints' dog who goes out and fetches the tee after kickoffs at the Superdome. The dog went nine for nine in tee-fetching, edging Gary Anderson , the Vikings kicker who was only 5-for-5 at his job yesterday.

COACH OF THE WEEK : Kansas City coach Gunther Cunningham , who avoided making a bunch of different halftime adjustments against the Patriots and instead did what these Chiefs have to do to win because they are not blessed with a great quarterback: run the ball up the defense's rear end. K.C. made very minor adjustments in its blocking schemes at the half. They came out and went 76 yards on 14 plays before Donnell Bennett scored on a one-yard run. Eleven of those plays were runs for a total of 52 yards. "It's all about attitude,'' said Bennett. "We just went out with that attitude that no one would stop us.''

GOAT OF THE WEEK : Atlanta CB Ray Buchanan . Now I acknowledge that his second-half interception gave the Falcons the momentum to score the game-tying field goal at New Orleans. But that doesn't make up for his first half. First of all, I think he should have been suspended for his thuggery against Baltimore wideout Patrick Johnson a week ago. Maybe the Falcons wish he had been banned after his first half at the Superdome. His third-down pass-interference on Eddie Kennison kept the Saints' first scoring drive alive, and he made an iffy defensive attempt on Kennison's 90-yard touchdown reception from Billy Joe Hobert on their second scoring drive. Instead of knocking the ball away from Kennison, which he surely could have done, Buchanan tried for the go-for-broke pick, failed, and watched Kennison trot the final 50 yards for the touchdown. Kennison had a career game on Buchanan in the first half alone: four catches, 148 yards.

The Top 10  

Now for my MMQB Week 5 top 10, er, top 11:

1. Vacant. There is no best team in football.
2. Buffalo (4-1). Doug Flutie is too good for words.
3. Miami (3-1). Maybe Jimmy should rattle Dan Marino's cage every week.
4. St. Louis (4-0). I am shocked to write this. But I must. Rams rule .
5. New England (4-1). A chippy off the right upright shouldn't kill what anyone thinks of this team.
5. Indianapolis (2-2). As I said on CNN's NFL Preview Sunday, we are witnessing the birth of the game's next great team.
6. Green Bay (3-1).
7. Minnesota (2-3). I'm dumb, and I'm slow. I still can't believe what we're seeing.
8. Jacksonville (3-1).
9. Tampa Bay (2-3).
10. Washington (3-1).
11. Tennessee (4-1).

The 10 Things I Think I Think This Week  

1. I think Jake Plummer just might have Kordell Stewart Disease. Though he rebounded a bit yesterday against the Giants, the horrendous first-month performance of Plummer (three touchdowns, 12 picks) smells like the 1998 egg laid by the Pittsburgh QB. Both got too famous too fast. Stewart had three national commercials after a promising 1997, then was the league's 26th-rated passer last year and bawled on the sidelines when he was pulled in a December game at Tampa. Plummer was in Superstars , the Quarterback Challenge , posed for multiple magazine covers, listened to everyone tell him how great he is -- and now admits that until he wins a Super Bowl, he'll never do more work on his fame than on his game in an off-season.

2a. I think I would like to apologize to my neighbors on the 29th floor of the Westin Canal Place for my Saturday evening war-whooping on Brian Daubach 's three-run jack. I lose all objectivity when my little-engine-that-could-Red-Sox are rallying against big, bad Cleveland. Good thing I was flying Sunday night and didn't see that 23-run onslaught. Might have gotten arrested for disturbing the peace.

2b. I think, speaking of apologies, I owe one to referee Bob McElwee , my Goat of the Week last week on an instant replay review for failing to call a pass in the end zone a Denver touchdown against the Jets. I am told by the league office that McElwee cannot change the call when the dispute is over a player being pushed out of bounds. That situation is not one of those that an official can review. So now, officially, I change my Goat of the Week last week to the powers-that-be in the NFL who decided that being pushed out of bounds isn't subject to review on instant replay.

3a. I think Mike Shanahan isn't too unhappy about my colleague Mike Silver smoking out some of the white-flag-wavers in his locker room. Plus, Shanahan was able to make a nice us-versus-them story of the SI cover this week, and it paid off in a 16-13 win at Oakland.

3b. I think Brian Griese should play every snap the rest of the year for the Broncos.

4. I think the wackiest thing I read last week was Gunther Cunningham's ripping of the San Diego press corps because they're not giving him enough stuff to read about the Chargers on the Internet. "You can't get any information out of San Diego,'' Cunningham said. "When you have a media outlet like San Diego, you might as well go to Tijuana. San Diego stinks.'' I love it! Coach rips the media because they won't spy for him! It's a beautiful dotcom society we live in!

5. I think my buddy Vinny DiTrani of The [Bergen County, N.J.] Record has the best observation on the state of quarterbacking in the NFL today, something I thought of while watching the Billy Joe Hoberttolliver-Tony Graziani battle in the Superdome on Sunday. "When I was growing up, the NFL had 14 teams, and there were about 12 good quarterbacks. Now there are 31 teams. And there are still about 12 good quarterbacks.''

6. I think the Falcons wish they had that trade for Reggie Kelly back. You remember that deal, don't you? Draft day, middle of the second round, Atlanta loves the 6' 3", 250-pound Kelly. So the Falcons trade their first-round pick in 2000 for Kelly, thinking maybe that it'd be a pick somewhere in the twenties. And now the Falcons are 1-4, dying a slow death, and could have a top-10 pick with three possible quarterbacks of the future -- Purdue's Drew Brees , Louisville's Chris Redman and Marshall's Chad Pennington -- looming high in the first round. By the way, Ken Oxendine , Dan Reeves doesn't like fumbling. If you want a job in this league for long, you might want to think about hanging onto the ball.

7. I think Ashley Ambrose is playing a great left corner for the Saints.

8. I think the expectations of players about making the Pro Football Hall of Fame are way out of whack, and the media just fuels this. Last week, someone mentioned to me, " Andre Reed just caught his 900th ball. Guess he's a sure Hall of Famer.'' There are no numbers, in my opinion, that make you an automatic Hall of Famer. I mean, if you have rotten numbers, that hurts you, obviously. But just because you play in an era when the ball's in the air all the time and you catch a huge number of balls, that doesn't make you automatic for the Hall. Yesterday, I saw Terance Mathis catch his 500th ball. The guy could easily end up with 650 or 700 catches. But he'll never be in one conversation about Hall of Fame induction. Why is 900 such an automatic number for Hall entry among receivers? Art Monk 's over 900, and I have major reservations about his credentials to stand alongside the greats of the game. Now, as one of the 36 selectors for the Hall, I'm not saying Reed won't make it. But the receiver numbers are going to be so inflated by 2005, or whenever he is eligible, that 900 catches might not even put him in the top five.

9. I think Jim Fassel is getting pretty close to being on the endangered species list in New Jersey.

10. I think I like the opinion of the guy sitting across the aisle from me on the flight from New Orleans to Newark last night. He was a hundred pages or so into Dutch , the Ronald Reagan fictional biography, or whatever it is they're calling that thing. "How do you like it?'' I asked the professorial fellow. "Bunch of crap,'' he said. "The writer invents himself. Then he puts himself next to Reagan at different points in his life. How do you get paid to write a guy's biography, then not write the biography?'' And I said: How do you get a decade to do it, on top of all that? Wish we all could have jobs like that.

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