Pro Football : Buddy Ryan Got Training Camp Started the Easy Way, in June

Buddy Ryan, the creator of the National Football League’s defense of the decade, has come up with another innovation, a training-camp plan that may spread to other teams next summer.

Starting his second season as coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, Ryan:

--Brought his team into Philadelphia for three weeks of light practice.

--Then became the last NFL coach to open a traditional training camp this month, finally putting the Eagles to work last Thursday, only nine days before their first exhibition game.

Before Ryan’s players slipped into pads and helmets for the first time this summer, some of the lads in other NFL training camps had been beating on one another for three weeks.

“The idea in June was to put in our whole offense and defense--which we did,” Ryan said the other day from the Eagles’ base at West Chester, Pa.

“It was a volunteer camp, but 80 of our 81 players came. We just wore shorts and shoes and concentrated on mental things--three weeks of concentrated work. It was a great learning experience.

“I’ve always agreed with (former Minnesota Viking coach) Bud Grant that an NFL training camp is a very unnatural setup for the guys who have to be there, and should be as short as you can make it.”

Eagle players apparently didn’t complain seriously about losing three weeks of their six-month holiday.

“They had every night and weekends off,” Ryan said. “It was a Monday-to-Friday job for them--class work mornings, and field work after lunch. Physically, it was a hell of a lot easier than training camp.”

Even so, Ryan fears, the NFL Players Assn. could forbid it next year, although Eagle player rep John Spagnola endorsed the June camp this year.

“We traded a few days off for a shot (at the title),” said Spagnola, a veteran tight end.

The question remains: Would players prefer a little extra light work in June to a full load of heavy work in July?

Wait till next June. If the Eagles are ready, Ryan will be there.

An important new NFL rule got its first test last weekend as the San Francisco 49ers opened the exhibition season at Canton, Ohio, where enforcement was found wanting.

After 49er quarterback Joe Montana had thrown a pass in the second quarter, he was hit by a blitzer for the Kansas City Chiefs, linebacker Bruce Holmes, who plowed into him without reducing speed.

The film shows that Holmes took two steps after the ball was gone, and lunged at Montana with his third step.

Although the new rule calls for a roughing penalty if the pass rusher doesn’t pull up after one step before making contact with the passer, the officials somehow let Holmes get by with a cheap shot that could have ended Montana’s season.

“I suspect it will take awhile to get enforcement,” Buddy Ryan said.

Some football people think the rule is too complex, that it should be both simpler and tighter.

They say the pass rusher should be penalized if he fails to pull up after the pass is gone, regardless of whether he takes one step, two or none, before making contact.

That would be easier to enforce. It might even save the careers of a few passers.

Quarterbacks Jim Everett of the Rams and Rusty Hilger of the Raiders will get a lot of the attention in their home exhibition openers this week.

In both stadiums, the opponents will be superb defensive teams.

It will be the Seattle Seahawks against Everett at Anaheim Stadium tonight at 7:30, followed by the San Francisco 49ers against Hilger at the Coliseum Saturday at 7 p.m.

Because Everett and Hilger both need game experience, does it follow that they should be putting in four quarters apiece this week?

“No, and there’s a good reason why you can’t do that,” Raider executive Al LoCasale said. “There are times in these early-season games when you have to look at your No. 3 offensive line. And you don’t want your No. 1 passer working behind the No. 3 line.”

Jim Plunkett could share Raider quarterback duties with Hilger eventually, but not this week.

“He’s on the physically-unable-to-perform list, but only temporarily,” said LoCasale, who will join Jim Hill in announcing the game for tape-delay TV. “Nobody is writing Plunkett out.”

Man for man, the Rams are underpaid at almost every position by comparison with other players in the league, NFL agents say.

But you’d never know it when they line up to play. Week in and out, the Rams perform with the energy and enthusiasm of the highest-paid players.

This, of course, is because of Coach John Robinson. And so when it was first team vs. first team in London Sunday, the Rams outperformed the Denver Broncos.

The decisive plays as usual were made by Ram running back Eric Dickerson, who was the difference when the starting players were on the field.

Los Angeles sports fans have been riding him for seeking a larger salary. But if Ram opponents were in charge of the NFL pay scale, Dickerson would head the list.

American football in Europe is called just that over there, although sometimes it gets a one-word synonym, gridiron.

“And it’s gaining in popularity every year,” said NFL executive Bill Granholm, who is Commissioner Pete Rozelle’s liaison with American football in Europe.

The reception for the Rams and Denver in London Sunday didn’t surprise Granholm.

“They’re expecting the biggest crowds yet for American football’s third annual European championships at Helsinki (Aug. 17-23),” he said.

The final four are England, Italy, West Germany and favored Finland.

Granholm, who will be there, said: “Finland would be a heavier favorite if it hadn’t lost its best player to the Minnesota Vikings.”

He is Matti Lindholm, a 6-foot, 2-inch, 230-pound Swedish linebacker who this year became the first European non-kicker to sign with the NFL.

“Matti is very aggressive and not as far behind as you might think,” said Minnesota’s linebacker coach, Monte Kiffin. “There’s no question it’s a big challenge for him, but he is very smart.”

A Minnesota scout found Lindholm. Other teams in the NFL are scouting Europe now, too.

Gridiron II: In Australia as well, American football is making progress, according to the commissioner there, Randall Trudgen.

In Los Angeles this week for a series of conferences, Trudgen said: “We have 44 teams now and plans for a summertime, nighttime national league starting in 1989.”

Football, so-called, is also played four other ways in Australia, which has soccer and two kinds of rugby and a game that combines some of the elements of both but is neither: Australian rules football. All still have more support there than American football.

“But we’re adapting rapidly to gridiron,” said Trudgen, who has hired former Ram coach Ray Malavasi to coach the Australian national team that will tour Europe this fall, playing, among others, the Helsinki winner.

The Australian commissioner said the Super Bowl is one of the two top-rated TV games in his country each year.

“The Australian-rules grand final is first,” he said. “The Super Bowl is next.”

American football is also played in Asia. Is it about to take over the world?

Probably not. For those who never played the American game in their youth, it’s a hard sport to understand.

More significantly, foreign fans don’t seem to identify readily with athletes who are hidden behind big helmets and face masks.

The welcome for NFL football in London Sunday suggests that it’s getting bigger each year in Europe, but it hasn’t knocked out soccer yet, or even cricket.