Pro Football / Bob Oates : Shula May Be Coaching Another Team in 1987

Don Shula, who has coached the Miami Dolphins for 17 years, is contemplating a move to another team next year. Some of those close to him seem pretty sure he’ll go.

He isn’t talking about it. Nobody is, for the record, and no prospective employers have surfaced. But once the word gets out, they’ll be standing in line, no doubt, to talk to the game’s most successful coach.

They’ll stand quietly, of course. There are National Football League rules against tampering. In addition, Commissioner Pete Rozelle has always opposed sideways jumps--within the NFL--by head coaches.

Asked if Rozelle would try to stop this one, Shula said Tuesday: “He couldn’t. My contract with the Dolphins is up this season.”

At 56, after 23 years as a pro coach at Baltimore and Miami, Shula has a history of saying no to other offers. He could say yes, this time, his friends believe, for two reasons:

--Owner Joe Robbie, who couldn’t be reached, has apparently made no move to sign him for 1987. They have never been pals, and last week Robbie indicated that he will evaluate Shula after the season. Later, he said he hadn’t meant it quite that way, but Shula said flatly that he had been insulted.

--Except for Dan Marino, the Dolphins are lacking in assets these days. They have been held together recently by the force of Shula’s personality. That wears on a man.

Shula jumped once before, leaving Baltimore in 1969 when Colt owner Carroll Rosenbloom neglected to sign him to a 1970 contract.

There will be another coaching change at Buffalo next year, the writers there predict. Their view of Hank Bullough is that his 2-10 record as interim coach of the Bills last season more or less defines him. This year he has started 1-5 with Jim Kelly.

Since 1970, Bullough has been recognized as one of the game’s great assistant coaches. He has served two teams that made it to the Super Bowl. But as a head coach, his critics say, he’s in trouble--particularly at Buffalo, where it has been hard for anyone to win for owner Ralph Wilson. Even Chuck Knox was only 38-38 in the five years he spent there after leaving the Rams.

Kelly seemed to be criticizing Bullough after the Bills’ 27-14 defeat here Sunday, when, standing on a chair outside his team’s locker room, with seemingly half the microphones of south Florida poking him in the face, he was asked if Buffalo’s conservative game plan that day had dismayed him.

“I don’t know how to answer that,” he said. “As a quarterback I want to say some things, but I can’t because I don’t want to be the kind that says something about other players or coaches.”

Pressed to be more specific, Kelly, who would like nothing better than one of Marino’s pass-pocked game plans, said: “I’m not going to get myself in trouble.”

Of the unbeaten Denver Broncos’ three leaders--Coach Dan Reeves, quarterback John Elway and defensive coach Joel Collier--the man who gets the least recognition, understandably, is Collier.

But Mike Hickey, director of player personnel for the New York Jets, thinks Denver’s defensive chief is the key to the Broncos’ success.

“Collier has had a great defense there every year since the 1960s,” Hickey said. “Think of it--the 1960s.”

Remarkably, after starting at Denver under Lou Saban in 1967, Collier has run the defense for every coach since. He even brought in one of the five, Red Miller, who was 42-25 at Denver and took the Broncos to the 1978 Super Bowl.

“When they start voting assistant coaches into the Hall of Fame, Collier should be first,” Hickey said.

The subject came up the other day because the Jets will be playing Denver Monday night in the Meadowlands. The Broncos this year are 6-0 and two games ahead of the field in the once-competitive AFC West. The Jets (5-1) are two up in the formerly competitive AFC East.

The Jets beat New England Sunday with backup quarterback Pat Ryan, 31-24, but may need their starter, Ken O’Brien, to win Monday.

O’Brien hasn’t been seen since Oct. 5, when he returned to the field on his injured knee to rally the Jets past Buffalo in the fourth quarter, 14-13.

“Sooner or later, all the quarterbacks get hurt,” said Hickey, the Jet scout who found O’Brien at a Division II school, UC Davis.

Hickey’s recommendation--a UC Davis passer as the first draft choice for New York in the year of the quarterback, the year of Marino--stands as the nerviest of 1983.

Asked how he could reach down to Division II and be so sure of O’Brien, Hickey said:

“When you’re scouting quarterbacks, the level of the competition they’re used to--whether it’s Milton or Stanford--isn’t as important as how they play the game.

“You have to think about three things when you’re looking at quarterbacks:

--”They either have the arm strength or they don’t, whether they’re playing for SC or Pomona.

--”They have field vision or they don’t.

--”Finally, if their team falls behind, do they quit or go out and catch up? O’Brien’s achievement in coming from behind to beat the University of the Pacific was as significant as Joe Montana’s coming from behind for Notre Dame.”

Hickey never had any doubts about O’Brien as an NFL player. “Outside of Al Toon and Freeman McNeil, Kenny was the surest pick we’ve had here.”