Everyone's favorite human milkdud is back

[Yomar]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43608-2002Aug4.html

Progress, or Passing Fancy?

By Michael Wilbon

Monday, August 5, 2002; Page D01

With two minutes left in the game, Steve Spurrier was calling pass plays as if his team was down 10 and needed two scores to win.

Except the Redskins were up 24.

The San Francisco 49ers might as well have been Vanderbilt.

The days immediately after the first preseason game of a new coach in search of a quarterback, receivers and interior linemen while installing a radical system are supposed to yield plenty of stuff to poke at, second-guess, and be skeptical about.

Spurrier and the Redskins left the skeptics -- and count me among them -- nothing to play with.

He said he has quarterbacks who can run his system, and he feels his system of pitch-and-catch -- let's call it the East Coast offense -- can work in the NFL. And nothing that happened late Saturday night and into Sunday morning (local time) would contradict that. People named Darnerien McCants, Bryan Johnson, Kenny Watson, Ladell Betts, Robert Gillespie and Chris Doering were running up and down the field as if they were playing Arena League football. Actually, they looked like the San Diego Chargers of Air Coryell. Spurrier started the game throwin' and ended it throwin'.

Spurrier even provided his own reality check when he said in postgame remarks, "We were probably a little more into it than the 49ers. We had more to prove than they did. It's just an exhibition game."

It's doubtful that will stop the natives here from sneaking a peek at round-trip fares to San Diego the last week in January. The MSNBC Sports homepage headline "Hail to Steve" might be a bit much, but the man is doing exactly what he said he would. He didn't tighten up, he didn't bring to the pros some watered down and therefore safer version of the offense he ran at Florida.

For years now, the Redskins' second-biggest sin -- the first, of course, is not winning -- is not having an identity. Smart as Norv Turner is about offensive X's and O's, it was hard to get a handle on exactly what he believed in. The personnel didn't always seem to fit the philosophy, which seemed to be always evolving. And last year, my goodness, the players simply rejected the rather extreme and harsh identity Marty Schottenheimer chose for the team. And then Schottenheimer had to change his philosophy after a disastrous month, having already lost the team.

That isn't going to be a problem for Spurrier. He knows who he is, knows exactly how he wants things run, and there's nothing Milquetoast about it. He's going to put constant pressure on the defense by playing pitch-and-catch with every player who can get open anywhere and everywhere on the field, and God help whoever is in single coverage.

And the players just love it.

If you want the real significance of the 38-7 victory over the 49ers, it's that the players -- and some of them were skeptical, too -- boarded the flight home thinking, "We've got some stuff here."

Sage Rosenfels grew increasingly comfortable in the offense, from first snap to last. Danny Wuerffel looked like he hasn't looked -- which is to say, fabulous -- since he won the Heisman Trophy in 1996. (Patrick Ramsey might want to call his agent and get into camp ASAP, since the 911 call for offense has been put on hold.) There were precious few penalties (something the disciplinarian Schottenheimer couldn't accomplish last preseason). The offensive line, even though we have no idea who is playing guard most of the time, gave both quarterbacks plenty of time to throw and there were lanes for the runners for the few plays calling for something as mundane as a handoff.

Okay, enough gushing. Here's why a certain cranky old man should just leave the bandwagon parked where it is for a while and why people should throttle back on the euphoria.

The 49ers couldn't have cared less about O's with Spurrier's X's. The 49ers won 12 games last year and have 20 of 22 starters back from that team, plus an MVP candidate in Terrell Owens who has promised to reverse all his negative energy and be a force for the team. The 49ers had no interest whatsoever in playing all-out defensively, in blitzing and stunting with the team's regular players. In college, few teams had the personnel, even in the speed-rich Southeastern Conference, to blitz Spurrier's quarterbacks. In the pros, the great teams can blitz an immobile quarterback like Wuerffel until his tongue is hanging out. Also, it's much easier to lob those passes in the flat against third-string and fourth-string cornerbacks and linebackers than it is against Pro Bowl-caliber defenders who can take it back the other way. (By the way, what exactly is Stephen Davis supposed to do on this squad?)

And keep in mind, while the Redskins won't score 38 points against good defensive teams such as the Eagles, Cowboys, Giants and 49ers, they don't have to. The defense is so loaded and so supremely confident in what Marvin Lewis is doing that 17 points and a minimum of turnovers should be enough to be competitive in every game.

As impressive as the offense was, 49ers quarterback Jeff Garcia told ESPN's Suzy Kolber that the defense leading the way "is going to have to be the thing for [the Redskins], especially early on until their offense catches up."

All in all, it was as spectacular a debut as was possible, right down to the real burgundy-and-gold uniforms with the spears on the helmet. Too bad the Redskins won't wear a home version to replace that cranberry color they've been wearing for way too long.

Funny how things change in a year. By this time last year, Schottenheimer had lost half the team and was well on his way to losing another one-fourth. Every time he brought in an ex-Chiefs player, the news was treated as if he'd signed an ex-convict. Spurrier, on the other hand, had Reidel Anthony, Jacquez Green, Doering, Wuerffel and Shane Matthews in uniform, plus his own son in the booth, and there was nary a whisper of criticism from anybody in or outside the organization. Mike Patrick, calling the game for ESPN, said he nearly called the Redskins the "Florida Redskins" at one point. For so many reasons, all of which appear good at the moment, that would have been appropriate.

© 2002 The Washington Post Company

[fansince62]

better than his friday piece berating nichlaus & tiger woods....