Many of us in the sportswriting business were predicting a few weeks back that Vikings coach Dennis Green would catch more flak this season than Dennis Miller.
But where are all those critics now?
|  | | Dennis Green watches his Vikings beat the Lions 31-24 at the Silverdome last Sunday. |
I'll tell you where. Green has us face-first on the ground, holding us
down and twisting our arms off. And it's starting to hurt.
OK, Denny, that's enough. We give up. We're crying "UNCLE!"
You win.
You're right.
You're insufferably smug. You're incredibly paranoid. But you're right.
You were right about Daunte Culpepper. You were right about your offensive
line. You were right about your defense. You were right about your team.
Your Vikings are 4-0, you have a brand new $3-million-a-year contract
extension and you have our sincerest apologies for ever doubting you.
Even your owner has become convinced. Just months after everyone had you at
the head of the NFL firing line for your poor personnel decisions and consistent playoff failures, Red McCombs has extended your absolute authority over the organization through 2004.
Now we all know that McCombs, a former car salesman, is prone to hyperbole.
But your amazing ability to land on your feet in nine years at Minnesota
makes us believers when he says, "I'm convinced that Dennis is the best
football man in the NFL. I say this because he has great skills as a coach
and an administrator."
As recently as July, experts from coast-to-coast were questioning whether
you were capable of doing either job.
As a coach, you had an 81-47 record and seven playoff appearances in eight
years, but you also had an unsightly 3-7 record in postseason games,
including a bungled Super Bowl opportunity in 1998 when you had the best
team in the NFL.
As an administrator, your moves since taking control of the team have been universally panned. You selected Culpepper over Jevon Kearse with the 11th pick in the 1999 draft even though you had an immediate need at defensive end on a contending team. You failed to re-sign Pro Bowl offensive linemen Randall McDaniel and Jeff Christy this year, letting them go to NFC Central rival Tampa Bay. And you sent Jeff George and Randall Cunningham packing during the offseason and annointed Culpepper as your starting quarterback
even though he had virtually no NFL experience.
But instead of calamitous, those moves now look clairvoyant. Culpepper is a
bona fide sensation, the offense hasn't fallen off, the defense is improved
and you're coaching one of the three unbeaten teams in the NFL. Once again,
Denny, you've shown that you're tougher to knock off your feet than Evander
Holyfield.
So what happened? How did you manage to fool us again?
It's simple, really. You're one of the rare people in the NFL who is not
afraid of change. As a coach and an administrator, you manage change very
well, which is important in this era of free agency, where teams turn over up
to a quarter of their roster every year.
That's especially true at quarterback, where you have a new one every year.
Normally, quarterback instability is a bad sign, but you've never flinched in
going from Rich Gannon to Jim McMahon to Warren Moon to Brad Johnson to
Cunningham to George to Culpepper. You called every one of them "my guy"
and kept right on winning.
The confidence you showed in Culpepper is proving to be a stroke of genius.
He's completing 61.5 percent of his passes, his 87.9 passer rating is better
than the other five second-year quarterbacks starting in the NFL and he's
rushed for 198 yards, second in the league among quarterbacks.
Sure, new offensive coordinator Sherm Lewis has made your long-ball offense
more quarterback-friendly by keeping tight ends in for pass protection and
calling for more short, patient, ball-control passes. And it should be noted
that Culpepper is aided immeasurably by his supporting cast, which includes a
1,000-yard rusher (Robert Smith) and two 1,000-yard receivers (Randy Moss and
Chris Carter). But when Lewis finally turned Culpepper loose last week
against the Lions, the result was eight catches for 168 yards and three
touchdowns for Moss.
It also helps that your offensive line hasn't had a dropoff despite losing
those two perennial Pro Bowlers. Center Matt Birk and the left guard tag-team
of Corbin Lacina and Chris Liwienski even give you something you didn't have
with McDaniel and Christy -- wall-to-wall 300-pounders on the line.
|
“ |
I guess Denny knew what he was doing. Maybe a lot of other people didn't know, but Denny's been around a long time and he's a smart football coach. ” |
|
|
— Bobby Ross, Lions head coach |
Some of those who thought you should have taken Kearse did so because they
questioned Culpepper's ability to run a complex offense. Indeed, Culpepper
looked awful in his one appearance as a rookie. But while his size (6-foot-4,
263 pounds) and ability to throw with precision and touch weren't totally
unexpected, his poise has been a surprise. To everyone but you, Denny.
"This is what we were hoping would happen," you said. "We were real
confident with Randall Cunningham a couple of years ago and we were confident
with Jeff George even last year. There were some doubts in people's minds,
and we were just as confident in Daunte."
There were also doubts about your defense, especially after you spent your
first three draft picks on defensive linemen who didn't appear to be
NFL-ready. But that linebacker shuffle you made with Kailee Wong and Ed McDaniel, your unshakable confidence in wide receiver-turned-cornerback
Robert Tate and the 11th-hour signing of cornerback Cris Dishman have improved the defense from 27th in the NFL last year to 13th this year. New defensive coordinator Emmitt Thomas' well-timed blitzes are getting home and
creating havoc for your opponents.
There are warning signs that everything isn't perfect in your world, Denny.
Your defense has played mostly one-dimensional offenses, opponents are
averaging a league-high 5.2 yards per rush against you, John Randle doesn't
have a sack yet, and your schedule has difficult stretches in October (Tampa
Bay twice) and December (Rams, Colts).
But how can we doubt you at this point? Every year you lose quality players
to the salary cap, and every year you continue to win. Your track record is
quirky, yet emminently successful.
You inspire uncommon loyalty among your troops and they're always highly
motivated. That chance you took on Moss in 1998 was the draft-day steal of
the decade, and the selection of Culpepper is looking pretty good now, too.
"I guess Denny knew what he was doing," Lions coach Bobby Ross said.
"Maybe a lot of other people didn't know, but Denny's been around a long
time and he's a smart football coach."
It's getting very hard to argue with that point.
Niners' new gold rush under Mariucci
If Dennis Green is the coach of the year so far in the NFL, then the 49ers'
Steve Mariucci is 1A.
| |  | |
| Garner |
San Francisco was left for dead last season after quarterback Steve Young
sustained another concussion, this one career-ending. The 49ers had the
NFL's worst pass defense, no apparent quarterback successor to Young and lost
11 of their last 12 games.
But Mariucci never panicked and the youthful 49ers are now showing signs of
life despite two offseasons of massive salary-cap purges. After opening the
season with three losses, the 49ers have beaten the Cowboys and Cardinals the
last two weeks.
They're not a good team yet, but they've become a dangerous team because
they're playing hard and they're putting up points. Although they've been
overshadowed in their own division by the Rams, who have scored 30 or more
points an NFL-record 11 games in a row, the 49ers have quietly scored 20 or
more points in 10 straight games.
Quarterback Jeff Garcia, who barely held off newcomer Rick Mirer in training camp, is fifth in passer rating in the NFL. He has five touchdown
passes and no interceptions behind excellent protection in the last two games.
Halfback Charlie Garner has rushed for 278 yards in those two games, and the
wide receiver group of Terrell Owens, Jerry Rice, J.J. Stokes and Tai Streets
has emerged as the NFL's deepest. The defense, which uses up to seven rookies
in certain formations, has even improved.
"When you have six or seven rookies on the field at once and can play
competitively, that's a pretty good coaching job," said general manager Bill
Walsh, who knows a thing or two about coaching.
McNabb maturing as the man in Philly
Patience is considered a weakness, not a virtue, among Philadelphia sports
fans, but the Eagles are reaping the benefits of coach Andy Reid's patient
hand with Donovan McNabb.
The second-year quarterback has had some rocky moments this season, but
back-to-back strong starts have given the skeptics a glimpse at what the
final product will look like.
In a victory over the Saints two weeks ago, McNabb passed for a career-high
222 yards and two touchdowns. Last week, in only his 11th NFL start, McNabb
led a 38-10 victory over the Falcons by completing 30 of 44 passes for 311
yards and two touchdowns. More importantly, he threw to 10 different
receivers, a sign that his decision-making in Reid's West Coast offense is
improving.
There will undoubtedly be ups and downs in McNabb's development, but his
latest surge came after an abysmal performance in a 6-3 loss to the Packers.
The coaches didn't reduce the playbook after that game, but they did simplify
the formations. McNabb hasn't been the same since.
"He will do nothing but get better as this thing moves on," said Reid, a
former Packers assistant coach who witnessed Brett Favre go through a similar
growth cycle. "He's a competitor. He'll work on his game. Sometimes he's
trying to make too much happen. I've seen that before. He'll learn and he's
going to get better."
Smith makes room for Coleman
Marco Coleman is finding out in Washington what Clyde Simmons once learned
in Philadelphia.
| |  | |
| Coleman |
Sacks come a lot easier when you play defensive end opposite one of the
all-time greats.
Coleman, who moved from the right side to the left this year to make way
for free agent Bruce Smith, already has 8½ sacks in the Redskins' five
games. That's 1½ more than he's ever had in a season during his nine-year
NFL career.
Smith is the second-leading sacker in NFL history, trailing only Reggie White.
Eagles fans will recall that Simmons led the NFL with 19 sacks in 1992, then
fell off to five the next year after White departed for Green Bay.
Tom Oates of the Wisconsin State Journal writes a weekly NFC column every Thursday for ESPN.com.
| |
ALSO SEE
Inside the Playbook: Buccaneers at Vikings
Game Plans: Bucs vs. Vikings
Mort Report: Moss not making most of gift
Garber: Bucs try to right the ship
PFW: Tampa Bay's Lynch-pin
Clayton: First ... And 10
VIDEO
  Dennis Green talks with NFL Countdown's Mike Tirico about the emergence of Daunte Culpepper. RealVideo: 28.8 |
