Patriot Quarterback Grogan Has the Bullets and Free-Hand to Fire

The play’s the thing, of course, not the identity of the man who selects it from the carefully prepared game plan. Yet, it says something about the nature of the National Football League in 1985 that, for 27 teams, the selection will be made by the head coach or one of his assistants this weekend. And, by inference, it suggests either that Steve Grogan is very smart or Raymond Berry is very foolish.

Grogan is the quarterback, Berry the head coach of the only team bucking the trend in an increasingly trendy league. Their team, the New England Patriots, will play the Jets on Sunday for the best record in the American Conference and sole possession of first place in the East Division. Considering that the Patriots have won all five games in which Grogan has started and exercised the personal computer under his helmet as well as his arm, they may be on to something.

A decade ago, when Grogan’s mind was relatively uncluttered and his knees unscarred, it was more the norm than the exception that a pro quarterback call his own game. Recall the fuss raised in Dallas when Roger Staubach challenged Tom Landry to let him do what his peers were doing elsewhere. After all, Terry Bradshaw was guiding the Pittsburgh Steelers with some degree of success, and Bradshaw never had won awards for his scholarship. The challenge, it should be noted, failed and since then more and more teams have adapted the Cowboys’ reliance on a sideline braintrust.

Perhaps no team carries this system to a greater extreme than the San Francisco 49ers, whose coach, Bill Walsh, goes to the trouble of detailing his offense’s first series before the day of a game. Meticulous planning has replaced spontaneity and immediate feedback as a method of operation. “Part of the reason,” Grogan said, “is that football has become more sophisticated.”

Ah, but there’s more, according to the quarterback. “The pressure on the coaches to be successful is greater than ever,” he said recently following the Patriots’ practice in Foxboro, Mass. “It’s their future that’s being decided on the field. I think they’d rather make the calls themselves than leave it up to some wise-guy quarterback.”

You had to listen for the laugh in Grogan’s throat. The man is more wise than wise guy at 32 and in his 11th NFL season. Still, it took a very secure, or suicidal, coach to let Grogan not only throw the ball but run the offense in the wake of quarterback Tony Eason’s injury in the sixth game of the season.

Only twice in his career, under Ron Erhardt in 1979 and 1980, had Grogan called his own plays. “I hadn’t even done that in high school or college,” he said. “But my dad was a coach and I studied the game.”

All professional quarterbacks are expected to be students, to log hours in the film room, to understand tendencies and to read the movements of key players in a defensive system. Yet, at the start of the season, only the Raiders and the Steelers were taking maximum advantage of that knowledge. The Raiders’ staff resorted to calling plays for Marc Wilson after he replaced the more experienced Jim Plunkett. When Mark Malone went out, the Steelers also revised their thinking.

It’s not that Berry had a grand vision when he sent Grogan into the Buffalo game for the ailing Eason, who was taking his directions from the sidelines. “He suggested I call my own plays,” Grogan recalled, “because I hadn’t been taking that many snaps in practice and he said he thought it would be better if I ran plays I felt comfortable with.”

Comfortably, the Patriots defeated the Bills, to even their record at 3-3. The following week Grogan told Berry and quarterback coach Les Steckel whatever they decided for the Jets’ game was all right with him. They decided to let Grogan administer the game plan as he saw fit.

“We give him the bullets,” said Berry.