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Only the good die young
Week 9 Awards | Factoid
... Click here to send a question to Peter King's NFL Mailbag. TAMPA, Fla. -- I was tempted to write this Monday morning about the Bucs rising slowly in the NFC Central, or about the sudden crises facing the formerly unbeatable Rams. But the top of this football column is not a football column. I ask you to read it anyway. Because whether you knew Steve Schoenfeld or didn't, there are lessons here about living and working well. Steve, a good friend of mine and a CBS SportsLine correspondent covering the NFL, was killed last Tuesday night by a hit-and-run driver in Tempe, Ariz., while crossing the street. I still can't believe that last sentence just flowed from my fingers. When people die young, there is a tendency to deify them. I will not do that here. Steve was a worker bee. I admire that in a man. He was egoless, too. He would not want a bunch of fawning stuff about what an intrepid seeker of truth he was.
Steve, 45, was Sports Illustrated's NFL correspondent in Phoenix in the '90s before leaving for the Web site last spring. In his correspondent's role each Sunday, he'd file some notes to me about the Cardinals, nuggets which I'd sometimes use in my "Inside the NFL" column. In addition, he was part of an elite group of a half-dozen writers who filed league notes to me every week during the season trying to keep me current on NFL affairs. To say he was conscientious would be like saying Vince Lombardi could coach a little. Every Monday morning I'd be sure to get a message like this on my home machine: "Peter, Steve. I filed my notes. Are they OK? Can you use more? I'll be at the Cardinals today. Seeyoubye." A couple of years ago I called Steve one summer day to ask about some Cardinals free agent story and got his machine. The next morning, before 9 a.m., he called. "I'm on vacation," he said, "but I checked out what you called about and there's nothing to it." I asked him where he was. Vancouver, he told me. "Are you crazy?" I asked. "It's 6 in the morning out there." He said he knew. But he said he wanted to make sure I got what I needed. His point: He knew I wasn't on vacation, and he knew I didn't give a heck if he was, really. He knew I needed to know something, and that was good enough for him. That was the thing about Steve. NFL information was currency to him. Steve liked to sidle up to me at games and ask if I'd heard the latest about something or other. In Week 3, in the Sun Devil Stadium press box, he approached with a very serious look. "You hear what ESPN's reporting? They're saying [Vince] Tobin's gone if the Cardinals lose today. You hear anything about that?" I said I hadn't, and I said I thought it was bogus, because the team's owner Bill Bidwill wasn't going to fire his head coach after three games, with all the injuries the Cardinals had. The Cardinals weren't going to comment on the report, but that wasn't good enough for Steve. He set out to find Bob Ferguson, the Cards' GM, who sits on the roof of the press box during the games. A half hour later, Steve had the look of of western Pennsylvania hunter who'd just bagged an eight-point buck. "Look," he said. "Fergy denies everything." In his hand was a hand-written statement from Ferguson denying the ESPN story, calling it "absolutely not true" and "irresponsible." He'd gotten Ferguson not only to deny it, but to issue a statement, and sat there while Ferguson wrote the thing out himself. Steve scurried to post the scoop on SportsLine. Hey, it wasn't the biggest story of the year, or even the week, but it was the most important thing in Steve's journalistic world that moment, and it was his story, over the 150 other hacks in the press box that evening in Sun Devil Stadium. Sun Devil Stadium. Right down the street from where a driver mowed him down and drove away without stopping. "Schoney came up to the roof," Ferguson told me the other day, still in shock over his death. "And you know me. I'm not very approachable during games. I don't want to see anybody. But he told me about the story, and I told him it was ridiculous. He had to have something on it. Just had to. So I wrote something out, signed it, and gave it to him. "That was Steve. You guys all work pretty hard, I suppose. But Steve, I'm surprised he was married. I'm surprised he slept. He called my house so many times that my kids got to know him. He'd call three, four times a weekend. It got to the point where the kids would roll their eyes, answer the phone and yell, 'Dad! Schoney!' But his work ethic was so great you just had to admire him. To me, he was the Energizer Bunny of the Pro Football Writers of America." There was a service in Phoenix for Steve last Friday. A downtown theater was packed; more than 750 people came. Ferguson. Bidwill. Tobin. Jerry Jones, in one of the class gestures of the year, handed his plane to his PR man, Rich Dalrymple, to ferry a contingent of writers from Dallas. Writers from Baltimore, Houston, Seattle and San Francisco came. We had a moment of silence for Steve in the press box here before the Vikings-Bucs game Sunday. A few of my pals got emotional. I did, too. And I'm sure they did at Sun Devil, before the Saints-Cards game. Two of the wet eyes, no doubt, belonged to Arizona's new head coach Dave McGinnis, who had to stop his Wednesday press conference when the subject of Steve came up. "I don't mind ever getting emotional," he said, voice cracking, "for a good man." Give me a minute before I finish this column, will you? Week 9 AwardsOFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Tampa Bay RB Warrick Dunn. With apologies to Giants QB Kerry Collins, who played a superb game in awful conditions at the Meadowlands, and to Jags QB Mark Brunell, who went 20-of-24 to beat the dying Cowboys, you just had to see Bucs 41, Vikes 13 to see what a great job Dunn did. Eleven carries, 89 yards, with a 23-yard touchdown catch from Shaun King. He plays the game so hard for such a little man, throwing his body around with abandon and knifing through holes so effectively. "Dunn's amazing," said Tampa Bay's George Hegamin, a former Cowboys tackle. "He's 5-9, 100 pounds soaking wet with a brick in his back pocket, and he goes out there and plays like a quiet killer, like Emmitt Smith." DEFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Cincinnati LB Takeo Spikes. A great player on a bad team has it tough, but Spikes continues to show why he belongs in the same league with Ray Lewis, Sam Cowart and Junior Seau in a terrible game in Cleveland. With five tackles and an assist, plus getting constant pressure on the Browns quarterbacks and holding Cleveland -- which desperately wanted to unleash Travis Prentice -- to 54 yards rushing, Spikes put in a great day. SPECIAL TEAMS PLAYER OF THE WEEK: Tampa Bay K Martin Gramatica, for the second consecutive week. Last week, he earned it for four long field goals. This week, as the Bucs built a 28-10 lead, he contributed mightily to a huge field-position advantage. His first kickoffs went five yards deep, three yards deep, three yards deep and one yard deep. The Vikings returned them, respectively, to the 19, 17, 18 and 24, led, respectively, to a lost fumble, a field goal, a touchdown and an interception returned for a touchdown by Derrick Brooks. Gramatica kicked in a 47-yard field goal, which would have been good from 67, and later a 26-yard chippy for good measure. COACH OF THE WEEK: Miami's Dave Wannstedt. He had a lot going against him, like Zach Thomas standing on the sidelines, like having to rebound from blowing a 23-point lead six days earlier. And it wasn't pretty, but the Dolphins toughed out an eight-point win at home against Green Bay. Factoid of the Week That May Interest Only MeBrett Favre needs three touchdown passes to pass Boomer Esiason (247) at 10th place on the NFL's all-time list. The 10 Things I Think I Think1. I think officiating czar Jerry Seeman had better go nuts on these game refs again about what "indisputable evidence" is, in the wake of a horrible replay reversal in the Vikings-Bucs game. You must have seen it by now: Daunte Culpepper starts his arm going forward, appears to stop it and/or bring the ball down as Warren Sapp strips him of it; Sapp picks it up and returns it to the Vikings' 10. The Vikes appeal. Referee Phil Luckett (can this guy get out of bed without controversy?), after watching the replay a few times, announces: "After further review, the quarterback's arm was going forward. It's an incomplete pass." NO. AFTER FURTHER REVIEW, IT APPEARED AS IF THE QUARTERBACK'S ARM MIGHT HAVE BEEN GOING FORWARD, PHIL. The referee has to be 100 percent certain of a call in order to change it, and from the replays in the press box (the same replays Luckett saw), there's just no way Luckett could have been positive. The replay system was put back into football to correct obviously wrong calls. Which this wasn't. A ridiculous call, and a huge call in this game. Instead of the Bucs being on the verge of a 21-3 lead, Minnesota came back and scored to make the score 14-10, Tampa Bay. It's calls like that, Jerry Seeman, that put teams in and out of the playoffs, that give teams home-field through the playoffs or force them into a playoff game on the road. Lucky for Luckett, he didn't cost the Bucs a crucial win. I like how Sapp let it go after the game, though. "Phil Luckett's the judge, jury and executioner," he said, "and we have to move on from it." 2. I think, or at least I am beginning to think, that Monday night's Titans-Skins game is a Super Bowl XXXV preview. Washington might be the best team going right now -- sixth offensively, sixth defensively -- and Tennessee's darn close. 3. I think one of the problems the Bucs have been struggling to overcome, and they showed signs of doing it Sunday, is the lack of offensive flow. I think you have to attribute some of that to how the offensive staff was put together. When Bucs hierarchy forced Mike Shula out as offensive coordinator, Tony Dungy hired right-winger Les Steckel as his replacement. Steckel was allowed to import his offense -- with different schemes and terminology -- but inherited all the offensive assistants. So basically he had to coach the coaches before coaching the players. I have to think that had an effect on how poorly they played on offense in their four-game losing streak. 4a. I think I love Dennis Green's guts on fourth down. 4b. I think Randy Moss, one-handed, is better than 80 percent of the receivers in this league two-handed. A one-armed Moss would be a first-round draft choice. That one arm, however, would best not be used contacting official Lloyd McPeters, which Moss did to get ejected late in the game Sunday while protesting the lack of a pass interference call on the Bucs in the end zone. "I just touched his arm and said, 'Did you see that pass-interference?'" Moss said later. "And he just snapped on me. I did not grab him, shake him, nothing. It was like two friends touching." Somehow, I get the feeling this touch will cost Moss a couple of dollars. c. I think Minnesota's corners will end up killing the Vikings come January. 5. I think the more I watch Peyton Manning -- three more perfectly thrown TD passes Sunday against outmanned Detroit -- the more I know I'm watching one of the top five quarterbacks of all time in his gestation period. 6. I think there aren't a whole bunch of pro football front-office men who believe Virginia Tech quarterback Michael Vick will stay in school next fall. Though Vick has said he would return for Tech's 2001 season, one veteran NFL scout who has been to Virginia Tech this year told me: "You hear the great underclassmen say that every year about this time, to take the media and public pressure off. Most people in our business thinks he's coming out." Vick probably would be a top-three pick and would almost certainly be the first quarterback taken if he came out, ahead of Purdue's Drew Brees, because Vick's arm and mobility are superior. Vick makes plays with his legs that no other quarterback, college or pro, can make. He isn't polished, though, so there will be growing pains if he does come out early. I say he goes to San Diego. 7. I think Kerry Collins will win me over with a few more days like the one he had against Philadelphia (22-of-37, 253 yards, one TD, no picks) in the strong winds at Giants Stadium. 8. I think this are my non-football thoughts of the week: a. I did see Game 5, four rows from the top of Shea Stadium. Not to be irreverent, but when you're in outer space, it's tough to follow the thing. Good series, though. John Lynch tells me he had great seats in the adidas box at Yankees Stadium for Game 1. b. I appreciate six different NFLers this week telling me how much they like my Montclair (N.J.) High School field hockey coverage. "That's the news I really care about Monday mornings," Chiefs personnel czar Billy Kuharich told me. Well, here goes, Billy: Behind the hot stick of soph left wing Alexis Barbalinardo, we clinched the Northeast Jersey Field Hockey League Division I title with two wins -- 4-1 against second-place Old Tappan and 3-0 against Westwood. The latter was a tad emotional, it being senior right wing and tri-captain Laura King's final regular-season home game. The 10 seniors got flowers and parental hugs after the game in a little ceremony on the field. "You're the greatest, Laur," I told her, and I meant that for more than her 10 goals and 10 assists this fall. She, and those kids, are the best. We're 13-2-1 headed into our final regular-season game Wednesday, and our postseason starts Friday, when Wayne Valley invades Watchung Field in a first-round New Jersey Group IV Section I playoff game. Memo to the office: I won't be traveling until Friday night this week. c. Coffeenerdness: The plumbing was out at the drive-thru Starbucks Saturday night, forcing a nightcap of hotel coffee. Brutal. Just brutal. Made up for it Sunday morning with two lattes. 9. I think you can't fool us, Mike Piazza. That was you, with the shorn goatee and the ski cap pulled over your forehead, on the Eagles sidelines Sunday. 10. I think the more Jeff Garcia plays, the more I laugh at the NFL
scouting
process.
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