WP:Spurrier at the Crossroads

[TK]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50589-2003Nov1.html

washingtonpost.com

Spurrier at the Crossroads

A Win in Dallas Gets Season Back on Track, but a Loss . . .

By Mark Maske

Washington Post Staff Writer

Sunday, November 2, 2003; Page E07

It has been an eventful, tumultuous and sometimes strange two weeks since Coach Steve Spurrier walked off the field at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park, N.Y., stewing about his Washington Redskins' 24-7 loss to the Buffalo Bills that left his club with three straight losses and a record of 3-4.

Spurrier questioned his players' effort level immediately after the game, then backtracked a bit the next day. He spent a few days on crutches after arthroscopic knee surgery. He watched players go (including backup quarterback Rob Johnson) and players come (including defensive tackle Darrell Russell), and watched some players do both (offensive lineman Brad Bedell was released, re-signed, then released again since the Redskins last played a game). He was rebuffed by his football "son," quarterback Danny Wuerffel. He received the input of coaching consultants Joe Bugel and Foge Fazio. He vowed to return to his coaching roots and become more demanding of his players, and he dismissed persistent reports that he was feuding with team owner Daniel Snyder and contemplating a return to college coaching after this season. He spent a Saturday evening at Snyder's house, eating dinner and watching college football on TV.

And he tried to fix the Redskins.

Was all of that activity just running in place, or will a different Spurrier and a different Redskins team emerge from the bye week? The answer becomes evident today at Texas Stadium when the Redskins face the Dallas Cowboys, the surprise leaders of the NFC East with a 5-2 record forged through the masterful coaching of Bill Parcells. It has the feel of the Redskins' last stand for this season, and it could be a defining moment for their $5 million-per-season coach.

"We'll find out a lot this Sunday," former Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann said late last week.

The Redskins reach the halfway point of their season, and Spurrier reaches the halfway point of his stated three-season window for getting the team turned around or telling Snyder that he'd be better off finding a new coach. Spurrier, whose contract runs through the 2006 season, has a 10-13 record in his 11/2 seasons with the Redskins. The club was outscored, 52-10, by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Bills in its last six quarters. Now comes Spurrier's first matchup with Parcells, the master of the almost-immediate turnaround whose teams win through discipline and attention to details -- elements that the Redskins admit they have lacked since Snyder spent the offseason stocking Spurrier's offense.

"This is not 0-7," Spurrier said during a bye-week interview. "This is 3-4. . . . [but] I don't think I've ever had to punt 10 times in a game before, like we had to the last game. We believe we're a better team than last year. But until we play like it, it's just hypothetical thinking. We need to perform, starting with the Dallas game."

Spurrier has been a favorite topic for everyone in the football world from the moment he decided to leave the University of Florida, where he amassed 122 victories in 12 seasons and, with his swaggering style and blunt outspokenness, established himself as one of the college game's most polarizing figures. Even now, experienced NFL observers are divided about whether he still can succeed with the Redskins.

"I think he can still make it work, I really do," said Ron Wolf, the architect of two Super Bowl teams as the general manager of the Green Bay Packers who now is retired and living in Annapolis. "He's very good at what he does. When I was in the business, I know he was as good as anybody. I haven't changed my opinion of him. People can say it's a different game [from college to the NFL], but it isn't. It's the same game. It's about blocking and tackling and running and throwing. There's just a certain amount of time that it takes to develop and find out who you want to keep and who you need to get rid of. I'm not talking just about players, but about your coaching staff and people in your organization and things like that. After two years, you should pretty well know who you are, what you want to be, who you want around and who you don't."

Former Minnesota Vikings coach Dennis Green said he, too, expects Spurrier to thrive in 2004.

"What's probably hurt Steve as much as anything is not having been an assistant coach in the NFL," Green said. "About the only guy I can think of who has done well under those circumstances is Jimmy Johnson. Most have had a few years to understand and see how things go. That was a great help to me. A lot of the decisions they seem to make in Washington, they have to undo and remake again. . . . They're probably a year away. I think next year they can contend to be in the playoffs."

But Theismann maintained that Spurrier cannot get things turned around without a makeover of his coaching.

"His system of football does not include running the football," Theismann said. "His system is not about pass protection . . . . He will not survive as an offensive coordinator, as a head coach, without a change in philosophy in what he does. The question is, will he? . . . If you're committing as many mistakes and silly penalties as they are, it tells me they lack leadership somewhere and lack discipline somewhere else. . . . They have to achieve some sense of balance, run and pass. When you look at his history, his balance is achieved by pass first and run later on. That has to change at this level."

Spurrier said any criticism that he, his coaching staff and his players receive at this point is justified. When Snyder and Vinny Cerrato, the Redskins' vice president of football operations, got Spurrier's approval to solicit input from Bugel and Fazio, Spurrier said his assistant coaches had no right to be offended, given the way the team is playing.

But Spurrier also made a fundamental decision during the bye week. He said that, after becoming "NFL-ized" in recent weeks, after listening to critics who said that he had to run the ball more, protect quarterback Patrick Ramsey differently, stop having Ramsey audible at the line of scrimmage so much and generally overhaul his offensive system, he would go back to coaching his way. He decided, essentially, that he's going to throw his best pitch and if it gets hit, it gets hit. The decision seemed to put some bounce back in Spurrier's step after weeks of looking increasingly downtrodden.

And yes, he maintained, his way can work in the NFL. He says he's not talking about abandoning the run and turning pass rushers loose on Ramsey, but he is talking about putting the onus on Ramsey to get the proper play called at the line and aggressively throwing the ball down the field on a regular basis.

"I'm frustrated that when we go back there, Patrick drops back there and he's getting hit too much," Spurrier said. "We're not throwing it downfield as well as I think we're capable. You know, we've just been handicapped. Protection is running backs, tight ends and offensive line. It's all of them. We've got to do a better job. . . . Football is very simple to the fans: If you throw the ball and throw a nice completion downfield, that's good. If the quarterback gets bumped and hit while you've got a guy open downfield and they intercept it, then that's a bad call. You're only as good as the play call and the execution of your players. If the play goes bad, it was a bad call -- even though it might have been a pretty good call. That's just the way it is, and we accept it and move on."

Bugel, the offensive line coach for two Super Bowl-winning teams under former Redskins coach Joe Gibbs, studied game tapes to help the club determine if there were any fundamental flaws in the team's pass-protection schemes. Former NFL quarterback Ron Jaworski said he watched game tapes on his own last week and determined that wasn't the case.

"There is nothing wrong with the protection schemes of the Washington Redskins," said Jaworski, adding that the burden is on key players like offensive tackles Chris Samuels and Jon Jansen to perform better. " . . . I am not ready to write off Steve Spurrier and the Washington Redskins. Any time you make a decision to go with a young quarterback, there are going to be some ups and downs. First of all, they have to find a balance in their run-throw, and in where they throw the ball -- some long, some short, some in that intermediate zone."

Parcells said he does not see any fatal flaws in Spurrier's system, either. "I think what he's trying to do is sound," he said. "I think it's fine."

Parcells added: "I don't know Steve well but I did think when he came into the NFL he would do well because he has in every other place. I didn't have any doubt. But there are a lot of parts to an organization. Everything has to be in sync. We're not playing solitaire here. You have to have all the right pieces and be lucky in your talent acquisition and be lucky in your injuries and the development of your players. Sometimes it takes a little while, but we're in the instant-gratification business now. Generally speaking, that's impossible to do in football."

Some observers say they fear that Spurrier is in danger of losing the trust of his players, particularly if the Redskins lose Sunday. Many players spent the past two weeks insisting that they continue to back the coaching staff.

"We have to heal ourselves," linebacker LaVar Arrington said. "Nothing that somebody says, I hope and I pray, will come between us and make us feel like we're non-disciplined players, we're not in this together, we don't trust Coach Spurrier, we don't trust [defensive coordinator George] Edwards, we don't trust management and ownership or whatever. Nothing is going to come between us. We can cut all that right now. If you ask me, I can guarantee I'm going to stand beside every person that's in that building because, you know what, that's the only way the team is going to go anywhere. That's the only way this team is going to do anything. That's the only way this team is going to heal itself from feeling the way we feel after we lose a game. That's the bottom line."

Spurrier takes a 1-7 record against NFC East foes into Sunday's game. The lone triumph came against the Parcells-less Cowboys in last season's finale. A victory today puts the Redskins within a game of first place. A defeat puts their season in jeopardy of unraveling completely.

"You can have guys pulling together, or guys splitting apart," cornerback Champ Bailey said. "Hopefully we pull together. It will be all downhill from here if we don't."

© 2003 The Washington Post Company

[bubba9497]

if Joey T wasn't a former Skin, I believe wouldn't be as harsh

[jimster]

I like LaVar's comments - I hope they're feeling more like a team now and go from there