'Skins owner should avoid hiring Cowher
If Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder and his team are lucky, Bill Cowher will stay retired.
Don't bet on that, of course. As human slot machines go, Snyder has the loosest payouts in the NFL when gambling on big-name coaches. Snyder's history as an owner is loaded with one splashy hire after another, from Marty Schottenheimer to Steve Spurrier to Joe Gibbs, who ended his four-year run with Snyder on Tuesday by resigning.
Snyder can't help himself from going after big names. He doesn't have the patience to actually do some research on who would be a good coach or, more important, why. Moreover, Cowher, who has said publicly several times this football season he's going to wait another year before getting back into coaching, may not stop himself from chasing the cash. When Cowher was with Pittsburgh, he was willing to extend his contract for another year or two if Pittsburgh had ponied up $7 million a year for the right.
Smartly, the Steelers passed.
Before you Chin defenders start blabbering, realize this assessment isn't a shot at Cowher. It's a shot at the star system that guys like Snyder, Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank and, even before them, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones created in the coaching ranks.
Frankly, it just doesn't work. When Washington bid adieu to Gibbs he walked away from the final year of his contract because of family concerns Snyder had received little return on the huge investment he made in Gibbs ($5.5 million per year) and what had become the highest paid coaching staff in the NFL. Gibbs was OK, compiling a 31-36 record, but a long way from the three-time Super Bowl-winning coach he was in the 1980s and early '90s.
Gibbs did a nice job over the final month of the season as well, keeping his team from falling apart after the tragic death of safety Sean Taylor. A four-game winning streak to get to the playoffs was a compelling story line. Washington also has a bright future with developing quarterback Jason Campbell around. The defense is solid, although a little old.
In short, what Gibbs did best in Washington was lay a very expensive but solid foundation. The last thing Snyder needs to do is rip up that foundation by bringing in Cowher or whatever other high-end coach he can find. They don't need Cowher to come in screaming and spitting literally and figuratively with his 3-4 defense and ball-control offense.
Why not? Because it doesn't work. Football is a sport where long-term success is built on putting in a systematic approach, not by changing the approach every few years.
The problem with that concept is that Snyder doesn't have patience. He can't help but to meddle. He is an extraordinarily emotional owner in all the ways that made George Steinbrenner a bad owner when he first bought the New York Yankees. In 10 years of running the team, Snyder hasn't learned. Instead, he fancies himself as some quick-study businessman who can modify the wheel.
How else do you explain an owner who once, while talking to the agent of a prospective draft pick, had the gall to say, "I have him rated as a fourth-round pick on my draft board."
Dan, are you serious? You actually think you can scout players, too?
There are countless other stories about Snyder's manic decisions. Getting rid of Schottenheimer after one season to hire Spurrier is one of the best ones. Perhaps no story proves the point better than how Snyder acts when he's at NFL owners meetings. Whenever they are held, Snyder usually is the first guy to bolt from the room, yammering away on his cell phone as he waves his hands in some emotional fit. He re-enters the meetings only to leave again with the next vibration of his phone.
Snyder can't sit still and watch the many owners who know better. Like the Rooneys, the Maras or Bob Kraft.
Right now, Snyder needs to take a patient approach. He has a solid assistant head coach in Gregg Williams. Williams' stint as a head coach in Buffalo was nothing special. Then again, neither was Bill Belichick's run in Cleveland. Not that Williams has Belichick's brilliance, but Williams has Belichick's hunger, particularly the burning hunger that comes from initial rejection and humiliation.
The type of humiliation that drove Don Shula from Baltimore, where he lost the most important Super Bowl ever to the New York Jets, to Miami, where he drove a team to perfection in only his third season.
Bottom line, here is a fact that few people understand about the NFL: Through the 80-plus year history of the league, only one man has guided two different franchises to a championship. That was Weeb Ewbank, who did it with Baltimore and the New York Jets.
A few have gotten two different teams to a Super Bowl: Dick Vermeil, Bill Parcells, Dan Reeves and Mike Holmgren. But even Holmgren, who's as good a planner and coach as you'll find, took six seasons of trial and error to get back to the title game with Seattle.
Truth is that chasing coaches with Super Bowl pedigrees guarantees nothing. The longer you do it, the more expensive, and dangerous, it gets.
Copyright 2008 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Marquee corners, underrated safeties power Packers' pass defense
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) -- It starts with Al Harris and Charles Woodson, a pair of veteran cornerbacks so good at anticipating a receiver's next move that even their coaches and teammates sometimes are left shaking their heads.
Behind them is strong safety Atari Bigby, a heavy hitter who has made major strides in his pass defense in his first season as a starter -- so much so that he was named the NFC defensive player of the month for his four interceptions in December.
Free safety Nick Collins sometimes gets overlooked. But not by his coaches, who appreciate his communication skills and sometimes have a hard time finding his mistakes when they're grading game film.
It all adds up to a formidable secondary that could help propel the Green Bay Packers to the Super Bowl, but must first pass a test from Seattle's pass-first offense in a divisional playoff game at Lambeau Field on Saturday.
"They have a veteran quarterback and veteran receivers," Bigby said. "Not as fast, but they're quick and they know how to get open -- something like the guys down there in St. Louis. Guys know how to get open, they run great routes. So we're going to have a challenge back there."
That challenge might have gotten tougher as of Wednesday. Seahawks wide receiver Deion Branch practiced for the first time since hurting his calf two weeks ago.
"This is a good defense, and they're playing with a lot of confidence and they're playing well," Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck said. "So the more guys that can play, the better."
The main goal of the Packers' secondary is throwing off the timing between an opposing quarterback and his receivers.
"Our objective as a secondary is to jam, disrupt receivers -- get them off the pattern that they want to be on, kind of make it where the quarterback doesn't know where they're going to be," Packers secondary coach Kurt Schottenheimer said.
Their pass defense isn't perfect by any means. The Packers still haven't really settled on a No. 3 cornerback and sometimes lose track of tight ends.
But oh, that starting cornerback tandem.
Backup quarterback Aaron Rodgers faces Harris and Woodson in practice, and can't imagine there's a better pair in the league.
"It seems like they cheat sometimes because they're so instinctual," Rodgers said. "They can read a guy's (body) language when he's breaking down -- when he's stopping, when he's going, when he's breaking out, when he's breaking in. These guys are incredible."
And very different. Harris plays aggressive bump-and-run coverage, locking down the other team's best receiver at the line of scrimmage.
"Al is clearly, clearly in your face all the time and jamming, disrupting and so forth and feels the top of routes extremely well," Schottenheimer said. "If they run a comeback, he feels it well. If they run an out and up, a couple of weeks ago, he played it. I mean, how did you know it was an out and up, know what I mean? Again, he just felt it."
The biggest play of Harris' career came against the Seahawks in a playoff game four years ago, when he intercepted a pass from Hasselbeck and ran it back for a touchdown in overtime after the quarterback, now notoriously, declared that the Seahawks "want the ball, and we're going to score" after the coin flip.
Harris downplayed it this week, calling it a "lucky play." But Seahawks coach Mike Holmgren said it's just an example of how dangerous Harris can be.
"He's an outstanding player," Holmgren said. "You don't fool him too often."
Woodson, in contrast, is a little more devious than Harris. He sometimes plays off his man in hopes of tricking a quarterback to throw his way.
Woodson nabbed a pass from Rodgers in practice the other day, after the quarterback was sure that Woodson had lost track of his receiver. Afterward, Rodgers asked Woodson how he made the play.
"He said, 'I saw the route combination coming, and I knew the guy was going to stop, and I just hoped that you would come back to him,"' Rodgers said. "And sure enough, I did. I thought I knew where Charles was and I came back to him, threw it right to him. He does his own thing sometimes, and 95 percent of the time, it's the right thing to do."
So if those corners are so good, will the Seahawks pick on the Packers' safeties?
"I hope so," Schottenheimer said. "I hope they try to do that, because we like the way these guys play. I don't know who in the heck would evaluate that these guys are a weak link."
Bigby took over the starting job in training camp, unseating last year's starter, Marquand Manuel. He's a big hitter with good range, and has greatly improved his ability to read plays and end up in the right place at the right time.
"When it's run, he's coming 100 miles an hour forward," Schottenheimer said. "When it's pass, he's playing pass. He's got a chance to be a special player."
Collins, meanwhile, always seems to be in the right place.
"Hell, there's times it's difficult to find a play that you want to give him a minus on," Schottenheimer said. "Very, very consistent."
After a good season, Bigby said the secondary is ready for the stakes to increase.
"We feel pretty confident, as we've felt throughout the whole season," Bigby said. "But it's the playoffs, and it's the best team on that day."
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Shanahan: this season worse than '99 because this team is better
ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- Mike Shanahan 's offensive genius and defensive shuffling didn't pay their usual dividends in Denver this season.
The Broncos (6-9), who retooled last spring with designs on contending for a Super Bowl, are wrapping up their first losing season since 1999, when John Elway retired after consecutive championships and Terrell Davis suffered a devastating knee injury.
"Oh, it's the hardest season I've had since I've been coaching, there's no question about that," Shanahan declared Wednesday as the Broncos began preparing for their season finale against Minnesota.
What makes this harder than eight years ago, when the two-time defending Super Bowl champs went 6-10 in Shanahan's only other losing season during his 13-year tenure?
"Because we're a better football team this year than we were in '99," Shanahan said.
They sure didn't show it, and now all they have to play for Sunday is pride.
The Vikings (8-7) are one of three NFC teams fighting for a wild-card berth, but the Broncos cringe at the notion they're playing the spoiler, a role the San Francisco 49ers embraced in last year's season finale when they denied Denver a trip to the playoffs.
"I don't approach it that way," receiver Brandon Marshall said. "When you think about getting the chance to mess up the playoffs for someone else it means you are a loser. I'm not a loser. I never look forward to that kind of game.
"We want to end the year on a good note. I want to win every game. I want to win this one. I want to have some momentum to take into next season."
Safety John Lynch said the motivation is never about denying the opponent anything other than victory.
"We are professionals. We get an opportunity to play in an NFL football game. I think any time you have that opportunity you owe it to yourself, you owe it to your organization, you owe it to the people paying money to watch you play to go play as hard as you can and I think as a matter of pride and then also building for the future," Lynch said.
"Sometimes you can discount a game like this as a throwaway game," Lynch added. "But you never know when that journey is going to start and any game can be that turnaround game. And then Coach Shanahan has stated it very clear that guys are playing for their jobs here. So if all those other things don't motivate you, that should motivate you."
This is what it's come down to for Denver, which started out with high hopes and a 2-0 record behind Javon Walker's two 100-yard games.
But Walker has had one knee surgery, missed two months and caught just five passes since then.
The key offseason offensive addition, tailback Travis Henry, also has been a disappointment. He's been banged up most of the year and spent much of the season -- successfully -- fighting the NFL over a yearlong suspension for a failed drug test.
The Broncos' run game was also affected by the season-ending injuries of linemen Ben Hamilton and Tom Nalen as well as trips to injured reserve by tight ends Stephen Alexander and Nate Jackson, who joined the sidelined Rod Smith, who was unable to return from offseason hip surgery.
Quarterback Jay Cutler had an up-and-down second season, admittedly wearing out toward the end, but he had a reliable receiver in Marshall, who has 92 catches.
The Broncos' real troubles have come on defense, where they lost top draft pick Jarvis Moss to a leg injury midway through the season and where the revolving door of linemen began spinning in training camp when Ebenezer Ekuban was hurt, Gerard Warren was traded and Kenard Lang was waived.
Aging safeties Lynch and Nick Ferguson have had tough, injury-marred seasons, Ferguson losing his starting job and Lynch pondering whether to retire or return for a 16th NFL season in 2008.
Even Champ Bailey didn't meet his high standards but he did earn his annual trip to the Pro Bowl.
The Broncos also have had their troubles on special teams despite the ballyhooed arrival of coach Scott O'Brien. Punter Todd Sauerbrun was waived for off-field misbehavior and replacement Paul Ernster was sent packing Wednesday after a pitiful performance that included a 17-yard punt Monday night at San Diego.
"Me," Shanahan cracked when asked who'd be doing the punting this week. "I could average 30."
Actually, he's bringing in a half dozen out-of-work punters for a look-see Thursday and hopes to sign one of them so Jason Elam won't have to work overtime Sunday.
Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press
Rookie QB Troy Smith to start against Seahawks, coach confirms
OWINGS MILLS, Md. (AP) -- Rookie quarterback Troy Smith will make his first start Sunday when the Baltimore Ravens visit the Seattle Seahawks.
With Kyle Boller missing his second consecutive day of practice due to lingering effects from a concussion, including headaches and sensitivity to light, Ravens coach Brian Billick confirmed Thursday Smith will take his place.
With Kyle, it would be problematic for him on Sunday, so, hopefully, he will be available to back up," Billick said. "Missing two days of practice would make it tough. We're certainly not going to put him at risk."
Billick acknowledged that Smith, last year's Heisman Trophy winner at Ohio State, may also the season finale against the Pittsburgh Steelers due to Boller's injury.
"Concussions are very unpredictable," Billick said.
Smith will be the third quarterback to start for the Ravens this season. Steve McNair started six of the first nine games, but struggled with injuries and ineffectiveness and was placed on injured reserve on Dec. 3.
Smith rushed for a touchdown in his NFL debut against Indianapolis on Dec. 9, and directed a game-tying drive in regulation in a 22-16 overtime loss to the Miami Dolphins on Sunday.
"He's a very strong personality," Billick said. "If things get ugly with him, he'll be all right through whatever happens. He's a very strong-willed young man."
If Boller is unavailable to be the backup, then the Ravens would likely promote undrafted rookie Cullen Finnerty from the practice squad. Wide receiver Mark Clayton is a potential emergency option.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Spying just the latest entry in long Patriots, Jets rivalry
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) -- The Patriots and Jets are at it again.
The AFC East rivals meet Sunday for the first time since the NFL penalized New England $750,000 and a first-round draft pick for illegal sideline videotaping. But the animosity between them didn't start with Spygate, and it won't end when the two coaches -- former friends and colleagues -- meet at midfield for the perfunctory postgame handshake.
I hate it when people say, 'Well, this one is really going to mean something.' Like the other 13 (games) didn't mean anything?" Patriots quarterback Tom Brady said Wednesday. "We put everything into it that we can every week, so I hope that we go out there and play the best game of the year."
But for a team that has rarely been challenged this season, winning its first 13 games and approaching some of the NFL's most hallowed records, the game against the Jets offers something extra. The spying scandal did more than punish the Patriots and coach Bill Belichick; it also tarnished the three Super Bowl titles they've already won.
New England has already shown it can blow out opponents. Add in a little bit of revenge and the results could be historic -- oddsmakers originally established the Patriots as a 27-point favorite, a record for an NFL game that doesn't involve replacement players. The line has gone down a bit since.
"It's a passionate rivalry, and you enjoy the games. There's a lot of intensity on both sides and that's what you expect going into it," Mangini said. "All the external things are things you can't focus on and can't look at because there's so much other work to do that's going to affect the outcome."
The rivalry between the Patriots and Jets might not be as old as Boston and New York, but Belichick was asked about a brawl between them in the 1970s.
"In the '70s?" he said with a smile. "Let's talk about that. I bet everybody's interested in that, something that happened 40 years ago."
He's right: Why bother with the old stuff when there's been plenty of coach-swapping and draft pick forfeiture in the last decade to make the case for a serious grudge?
And Belichick has been in the middle of a lot of it.
He was the coach-in-waiting when Bill Parcells tried to finagle his way out of his contract to leave the Patriots for the Jets right after -- and perhaps even before -- the 1997 Super Bowl. Running back Curtis Martin followed him to New York as a free agent a year later.
Belichick squirmed in the spotlights when he bailed out after one day as the H.C. of the N.Y.J., then surfaced as the Patriots' new coach. For the second time, the commissioner got involved and draft picks were paid as compensation for the coach poaching.
Parcells tried to tamp down the animosity by proclaiming "this kind of border war between the Patriots and Jets needed to come to a halt."
But it was years before he and Belichick were hanging out together again, leaving reporters to analyze every postgame handshake and every pregame news conference where they conspicuously forgot to mention the other by name. (Parcells declined to be interviewed for this story through a spokesman at ESPN, where he works as an analyst.)
Now, it's Belichick and Mangini who aren't returning each other's calls.
Mangini joined the Patriots along with Belichick in 2000 and was the defensive coordinator in New England for his final year there before he left to take the top job with the Jets in 2006. Belichick reportedly was bothered that Mangini tried to bring Patriots assistants with him, and the Patriots filed tampering charges against the Jets during receiver Deion Branch's holdout.
The Jets have brought in several former Patriots players, including Bobby Hamilton, Matt Chatham, Tim Dwight, Hank Poteat.
Still, Mangini speaks highly of Belichick.
"I've got a lot of respect for him and he's done a lot for me and my career and nothing has changed from the first time that we played them," Mangini said.
Asked if he thought there would even be a postgame handshake, Mangini said, "I don't expect to do anything outside the norm that I do every game with every head coach that I play against."
The two had a quick embrace last year after the Patriots beat the Jets 37-16 in the playoffs, though the moment was sort of spoiled when Belichick shoved a Boston Globe photographer aside in the process.
"The handshakes and the high-fives and all that," Belichick said dismissively. "Right now my attention is on the New York Jets, and that's really all I'm thinking about, is how I can prepare our team to the best of my ability to prepare for the game and play it on Sunday. ... High-fives, I really haven't thought too much about that."
Pressed on whether there was any personal aspect to the game, Belichick turned serious.
"It's the next game. It's a division game," he said. "Everything that's in the past is in the past. Everything that's in the future doesn't really matter. Right now it's a one-game season (and) we're focused on the New York Jets. That's all I'm focused on. And I'm happy to talk about that, and that's really about the extent of it."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved
Dolphins place LB Thomas on IR
MIAMI (Ticker) - The Miami Dolphins on Tuesday placed linebacker Zach Thomas and safety Cameron Worrell on injured reserve, effectively ending their respective seasons.
Thomas missed his fifth straight game because of a migraines on Sunday, and watched as the winless Dolphins fell, 40-13, to the New York Jets.
The 34-year-old suffered a concussion in September and missed two games. After returning to play in the Dolphins' next three games, he was in an automobile accident which left him with recurring migraines.
I'm disappointed with the decision to place me on injured reserve," Thomas said. "I expected to come back this season and still think I can. However, I respect the team's decision and look forward to playing next year."
A seven-time Pro Bowl selection, Thomas has recorded 52 tackles and one sack this season. For his career, he has 982 total tackles, more than any linebacker in the Hall of Fame.
Worrell tore his ACL in Sunday's loss and becomes the fourth Miami safety to go on injured reserve this season. A four-year veteran, Worrell recorded 56 tackles in 12 games this season.
In corresponding moves, the Dolphins signed linebacker Kelvin Smith off their practice squad and waived wide receiver Kerry Reed.
Copyright 2007 PA SportsTicker. All Rights Reserved
Packers-Cowboys clash merely the latest in 4 decades of big games
IRVING, Texas (AP) -- With their five Super Bowl trophies and the "America's Team" label they treat like a birthright, it's easy to forget the Dallas Cowboys were once nothing more than wannabes who kept getting turned away by Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers.
To call their early meetings a rivalry wouldn't be fair to the Packers. They were the kings of the NFL and Tom Landry's Cowboys were just another team aiming for the crown.
Drama arrived in 1967 with championship games played on the very first day of the year and the very, very frigid finale. Both games were decided by one play in the final half-minute. Green Bay came through both times, then went on to beat the AFL champions in the first two Super Bowls.
"So the Cowboys were only two plays away from it being the Landry Trophy instead of the Lombardi Trophy," said Herb Adderley, a Hall of Fame defensive back on those Packers teams who later played in two Super Bowls for the Cowboys.
Yeah, that's enough to call it a rivalry. Especially when you add in what happened in the 1990s, when Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael Irvin led Dallas to three Landry, er, Lombardi Trophies, repeatedly denying Green Bay's Brett Favre and crew a chance to reclaim their franchise's glory.
Payback time is what I called it," Hall of Fame defensive tackle Bob Lilly said, laughing.
The Dallas-Green Bay rivalry moves into a third generation Thursday night, when Favre and the 10-1 Packers visit Texas Stadium to face Tony Romo and the 10-1 Cowboys.
The winner moves a game up in the race for home-field advantage in the playoffs and gets the tiebreaker, making it a two-game lead with four to play. What it really means is that this game could determine whether the NFC championship -- which could be yet another high-stakes Dallas-Green Bay game -- is played at Texas Stadium or Lambeau Field.
"It's certainly the most significant game at this stadium since the last time we played Green Bay and Brett Favre in the (1995) NFC championship game," Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said.
Favre is 0-8 at Texas Stadium, having lost every regular season and postseason matchup from 1993-95, then again in '96, when the Packers were headed to their first Super Bowl title since the late '60s. He lost one more in '99 and hasn't been back since.
"Troy and I talk about that every time he does one of our games," Favre said. "Most of the times we lost down there it was in the playoffs. Good thing was, they went on to win the Super Bowl in all those. We hope that that's different this year. I know they're playing as well as they were back then."
Romo is a big reason for Dallas' latest success, and his story adds to the intrigue of this matchup.
A Wisconsin native, he grew up during Favre's prime. No matter how much Romo has denied this week that he patterned himself after Favre -- "Honestly, I was a basketball fan," he said -- just watch them for a few series Thursday night and decide for yourself.
(Well, you can watch if you have NFL Network. But that's another story.)
Romo may have given his allegiance away last year when he did his Favre imitation for NBC. It was way too good for someone who claims to be a casual observer.
"Anybody that can get the Brett Favre walk down like he can (has) spent a lot of time watching him, studying up," tight end Jason Witten said.
During his youth in Packerland, Romo probably learned all about the history of the Dallas-Green Bay series. It goes something like this:
Lombardi and Landry had been assistant coaches together on the New York Giants, each leaving to run these teams. The Packers won the first three meetings, but the margin was whittled down each time. They also played every preseason, so Green Bay knew Dallas was an up-and-coming club when they met at the Cotton Bowl on Jan. 1, 1967, with the NFL title on the line.
"All of us who were privileged to work for coach Lombardi, or play for coach Lombardi, had an immense respect for coach Landry, because we saw early how much respect coach Lombardi had for coach Landry," Packers Hall of Fame quarterback Bart Starr said. "We knew going in what a great team we were facing, and they were."
Green Bay led 14-0 before Dallas quarterback Don Meredith hit the field, but it was tied at the end of one quarter. With 28 seconds left, the Packers led 34-27, but Meredith had the Cowboys inside the 1. Instead of a tying touchdown, he threw an interception in the end zone.
"The first year, we probably had too much respect and awe for Green Bay," Lilly said. "The second year, we felt like we were a better team. But by the end of the game, we were hoping to get away alive."
That's what it was like playing in the Ice Bowl.
The wind chill at kickoff was an unbelievable minus-48, leaving stories of frostbite that guys still felt today.
"Every time I get cold I start to shiver, and the first thing I think of is the Ice Bowl. It was just a bad experience," Adderley said.
The Packers probably don't hurt as much because they won 21-17 on a 1-yard sneak by Starr with 13 seconds left. It was supposed to be a handoff, but he decided to keep it himself because he feared a running back might slip on the frozen field.
Had Starr not scored, the clock would have run out.
The ground was as hard as this desktop I'm touching right now," Starr said. "The scoreboard was casting a shadow on the field for much of the game, making it even harder."
Adderley discovered just how deep those near-misses hurt when he was traded to the Cowboys two years later.
"Right on the bulletin board in the locker room it said, `The Packers owe us blood, sweat, tears and money,"' Adderley recalled. "It was a genuine hatred for the Packers. ... I used to wear my Green Bay championship rings and that upset people in Dallas, so I stopped. They never wanted to hear about the Packers or Lombardi. Never."
As the times and the teams have changed, so have the emotions.
Jerry Kramer, who threw the game-winning block in the Ice Bowl, said there's now a mutual admiration society among the old guys.
"I'm excited about the rivalry," Kramer said, "but I'm probably more excited that we got a football team again."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.
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