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Jimmy rides off into a grim sunset
Posted: Wednesday January 19, 2000 12:32 PM
This Week's Awards | The Top 10 Teams
| Click here to send a question to Peter King's NFL Mailbag. INDIANAPOLIS -- It's Monday morning. Has Kurt Warner thrown an incomplete pass yet? Aaah, I'm just putting off the inevitable. Jimmy Johnson left professional football Sunday afternoon, driving to his place in the Keys with
It seems heretical to think that the team Johnson leaves to owner Wayne Huizenga today is no better than the squad Shula left behind four years ago. Heretical, but just about true. The Dolphins do have better young players imported by Johnson today -- Sam Madison, Patrick Surtain, J.J. Johnson, Jason Taylor -- than in 1996. But they don't have a quarterback. And their final two seasons under Johnson ended with 35- and 55-point playoff losses that totally embarrassed a proud franchise. And now they don't have a successful head coach: Dave Wannstedt had an unsuccessful tenure with the Bears in his only previous coaching experience. And when Johnson is floating somewhere between Islamorada and Cuba by midweek, fishing for little green bottles (his joke; he loves a cooler full of Heineken on his boat "Three Rings''), I know he'll think this: I should have made the hard decision on Dan Marino sooner . So now the Dolphins move on, presumably without Marino. (Though Marino glumly said after Saturday's game, "I still feel I can win games in this league,'' and apparently still wants to play.) Where do they stand post-Jimmy and post-Marino? Right now, I'd say Indianapolis is the clear-cut best team in the AFC East. No one would argue that. The Jets are getting healthier, and they already have Miami's number, even while playing hurt, having won four straight games against the Dolphins. Hard to tell where Miami stands after that, but let's assume the team picks up a quarterback in the offseason. The best available is Jeff Blake, but he'll cost $5.5-million-plus a year. I'll give them Jim Miller, in the $4 million range, to battle it out with Damon Huard. To me, Miami, New England and Buffalo are left to battle it out for the division's third-best team after that -- unless, of course, the Jets' off-field troubles this winter consign New York to a lower place in the standings. Johnson will say that he's proud of the work he's done, that the Dolphins are one of three teams to make the playoffs each of the last three years. All that means to me is that the Dolphins have been one of the best 12 teams in football three years running but never one of the top five or six. After a season that started with Super Bowl hopes and ended in shame in Jacksonville, the Dolphins are a low-rung wild card team with no quarterback and a hole at coach. As far as legacies go, the one Johnson leaves in Miami is pretty empty. OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Jacksonville RB Fred Taylor, whose 135 yards in the 62-7 rout of the Dolphins -- including a 90-yard touchdown run -- proves that, when he's healthy, there isn't a better all-around back, outside of Marshall Faulk, in the game today. Maybe the Dolphins were a half-step slow all day Saturday, but I find it pretty awesome that Taylor could run the final 65 yards faster than any Dolphin on the field, including some pretty quick defensive backs. DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK: St. Louis CB Dexter McCleon, whose interception and lightning-quick consistent breaks on the ball helped the Rams negate the aerial fury that is the Minnesota Vikings. Funny, I remember McCleon boasting to me about shutting down Jerry Rice in one of Rice's last games at 3Com, and then Rice dismissing McCleon's boasts as the rants of a youngster. But the McCleon I saw yesterday will be a player who will be in Pro Bowls before he calls it quits. COACH OF THE WEEK: I'd love to give this to Tennessee defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, because his Titans prepared and played so well in their 19-16 upset of the Colts. But this week, fired Buffalo special teams coach Bruce DeHaven gets my vote. One of the best assistant coaches in the game gets bounced for an awful mistake by his team (The Music City Miracle), and I think: Somehow I have to show this man there are people in the world who think he's a heck of a coach who had a nightmare minute. Paying tribute to him in this space is my way. GOAT OF THE WEEK: Washington long-snapper Dan Turk. It was a gimme. I'm not saying Brett Conway would have made a 51-yarder in the muck of Tampa Bay to win the game, but at least give the man a chance. That snap will dog Turk to his grave. 1. St. Louis (14-3). Wow. 2. Jacksonville (15-2). Double wow. 3. Tennessee (15-3). Love that defense. Just love it. And how strong is Jevon Kearse? I thought he was just fast. But he's got a really pop to him. 4. Indianapolis (13-4). Peyton Manning can be pretty mortal when you slug him in the mouth. 5. Tampa Bay (12-5). Watching the Bucs play defense is as fun as watching most teams play offense. 6. Minnesota (11-7). What can they say? It's the Rams' year. 7. Washington (11-7). Memo to Daniel Snyder: If you give Jerry Jones one inch of room, he'll take Norv Turner . Just warning you. I know things. 8. New York Jets (8-8). Keep hearing Bill Parcells really doesn't want to coach. Woody Johnson, meet Al Groh. 9. Buffalo (11-6). Hey Bills: Why don't you fire three special-teams slackers, not your special-teams coach? 10. Oakland (8-8). Speaking of bad firings, give me a break on Willie Shaw. Good man. Very good coach. The 10 Things I Think I Think This Week 1. I think there was no fun left in the game for Jimmy Johnson. The little things got to him -- the press, the criticism, the hours -- and he found he liked doing other things more. He love pillaging the stock market. Just loved it. Johnson has a deal on the table from ABC to do Monday nights or from CBS, but I'm not sure he'll do either one. The way he bolted out of the Dolphins training facility Sunday in Davie, Fla. -- not even pausing to talk to long-time Dolphins aides -- shows that he wants to get very far away from the NFL right now. As a good source of mine on Johnson said last week: "Jimmy will be so far away from the Dolphins offices 48 hours after his final game that Wayne Huizenga will have to send a helicopter to get him. He can't wait to get out.'' 2. I think with all due respect to my 49 peers who, with me, vote for the AP All-Pro Team, I must make two points: 3. I think the St. Louis offense is to NFL history what the 1985 Bear defense was. 4. I think my weekend in central Indiana started to get very good on Friday night, when I saw the Lakers-Pacers game at Conseco Fieldhouse downtown. What a place -- it's one of the nicest and most fan-friendly sports venues I've ever been in. Good game, too, with Indy beating LA. Shaq stunk. Kobe was exciting. The game made me forget the events leading to it: the severe claustrophobia I got flying a 19-seat Chatauqua Airlines (yes, Virginia, there is a Chatauqua Airlines) crate from Nashville to Indianapolis Thursday night, followed by my experience at the frozen press Port-O-Let outside the Colts training facility Friday, because the indoor toilets were off-limits to the press. It's a pretty luxurious life you're missing out there. 5. I think ESPN's millisecond-by-millisecond dissection of the Music City Miracle play from the Buffalo-Tennessee game last weekend, by my buddy Ed Werder , was one of the great TV features of recent times. His best point: Not only was Frank Wycheck not supposed to be the thrower on the play, but Wycheck didn't have time to grip the ball on the laces. He actually threw a spiral with his fingers gripping only the cold leather on a "K" ball, the not-broken-in ball that kickers and punters have spent the season cursing. 6. I think this about Any Given Sunday : 7. I think Troy Aikman has a tough job on his hands. He has to not only convince the public he wasn't the driving force behind the firings of Barry Switzer and Chan Gailey, but also he has to convince them he's not hiring the new coach either. Aikman has been 17th, eighth and 14th in the last three years in the NFL quarterback rating standings. 8. I think I have a new favorite radio station. I heard it in Nashville last week. It is something called Lightning 100, and it has the best progressive mix of music I've heard all season. One block had Counting Crows, Simple Minds, Fiona Apple, Tori Amos and U2. Darn. No Puffy. No Britney Spears. 9. I think my respected peers on the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection committee made a mistake by not including Phil Simms on their final 15 candidates for selection. 10. I think I have no idea who Jerry Jones, owner, is going to hire, unless it is Jerry Jones, coach. Click here to send a question to Peter
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