Wyche Turns Out to Be a Keeper : Bengals’ 10-3 Record Justifies Decision to Retain Coach

The upset of the year in the NFL is that Sam Wyche is still coaching the Cincinnati Bengals.

When the 1987 season ended with the Bengals on the bottom of the AFC Central, Wyche’s chances of hanging on were somewhere between zero and 10%. He had a year to go on a 5-year contract, but so what?

It wasn’t just the Bengals’ 4-11 record that had Wyche in trouble. Bengal fans might have forgiven him for that, considering that he had led the team to a 10-6 record and second place the previous year.

What really shoved Wyche, 43, to the brink of unemployment was the manner in which some of those games were lost, especially the one against the San Francisco 49ers. A classic flub by the Bengals presented the 49ers with one last play, and when Joe Montana passed 25 yards to Jerry Rice for a touchdown and a 27-26 San Francisco victory, Wyche bore the brunt of the blame.

The Bengals had held a 26-20 lead and the ball with 6 seconds to play. There was no way they could lose, but they managed. On fourth down, Wyche called a sweep by former Charger running back James Brooks that was designed to run out the clock. But Brooks was downed in such a hurry that 2 seconds remained, and that was all the 49ers needed.

Public outcry was so great that Wyche’s eventual ouster seemed almost inevitable. Many Bengal fans wanted it to happen then and there.

Somehow, though, Wyche rode out the storm, and now the goat of the year has become a candidate for coach of the year. General Manager Paul Brown stuck with him despite heavy pressure, and as great a coach as Brown was with the Bengals and the Cleveland Browns, the decision ranks with the wisest of his career.

Instead of having to start over with a new staff, the Bengals regrouped and picked up where they had left off in 1986. They are fresh from a 35-21 victory over Buffalo (just the second loss for the Bills) and will carry a 10-3 record into Sunday’s game against the Chargers in Cincinnati.

Wyche talked about the bad old days of 1987 in a telephone interview.

“I was on the line, no question about it,” he said. “The coach is going to catch it whether it’s his fault or not. A lot of great coaches have been fired, and I’m not one of them. I’m not a great coach, and I haven’t been fired.

“Everybody with a 6-pack of beer was on my case, but Paul Brown could see through the situation. He’s been a big supporter of mine. When we were down, he was the first one to come in and lend support.”

According to quarterback Boomer Esiason, the NFL’s leading passer, the players also had something to do with saving Wyche’s job.

“Right around Thanksgiving,” Esiason said, “I made a request that if everybody in town was bent on getting rid of Sam, they should get rid of me. That’s how strongly I felt in Sam’s behalf.

“Cris Collinsworth (Bengal wide receiver) and I took it upon ourselves to go on TV and radio and go to bat for Sam. We appeared on different stations and told the fans, ‘This year is an aberration. It’s not Sam’s fault, so please get off his back.’

“We had to calm the people down. It was unbelievable. They wanted to lynch both Sam and me. Everybody was going crazy. It was a matter of trying to cool things down, getting everybody to relax and sit on it for 4 months and come back prepared and ready to go.”

Esiason isn’t sure how big a role he and Collinsworth played.

“Whether that influenced Paul Brown to keep Sam, I don’t know,” Esiason said. “But when Sam stayed, I don’t think anybody on the ballclub was surprised.

“Whatever crystal ball Paul and his son, Mike (the team’s assistant general manager), looked into, it was the right one. They turned a dismal season into a great one. Everybody in the city is wearing black and orange (the Bengals’ colors) these days. Everybody on the team is a hero again.”

Despite the furor it created, Wyche wouldn’t say that the 49er disaster was a particularly low point in his career.

“I wasn’t really down about that game,” he said. “We were playing an outstanding team, and if we hadn’t stood up to them, I would have felt a lot worse. We played them as tough as anybody could have played them.”

In defending his strategy at the time, Wyche said, “I miscalculated 2 seconds. I don’t blame anyone but me. We decided to pitch to Brooks on our last play, figuring it would eat up the last few seconds. We had thought about a punt and about taking a safety, but we were afraid of something going wrong with either one.”

A grateful Rice said, “I can’t believe they ran the ball. I thought for sure they would punt. And I can’t figure out their coverage on our play. The guy (cornerback Eric Thomas) was covering me all by himself. At least you might expect them to give him some help.”

Thomas said he “expected help,” but none was forthcoming.

There were reports after the game that Esiason criticized Wyche for the call. Looking back, Esiason denied this.

“I still believe Sam called the right play,” Esiason said. “The play usually takes about 12 seconds to run, and we needed only 6. The key to what happened was that somebody missed a block. That left Brooks a sitting duck.

“Then, when the defense went on the field, some of them weren’t paying attention to what had to be done. That wasn’t Sam’s fault, either.”

Wyche’s other coaching misadventures last year were less glaring, but they were bad enough to worsen his falling-out with the fans.

Against the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Bengals were trailing, 23-20, when Esiason completed a pass to the Steelers’ 20-yard line with 10 seconds left. Instead of having Esiason throw the ball away to stop the clock, Wyche sent in the field-goal unit, and time expired before Jim Breech could get off the tying kick.

Against the New York Jets, with the score 20-20, Wyche called for a 46-yard field-goal attempt in a driving rain with 2:17 remaining. Breech’s kick was wide, but the officials ruled that the ball hadn’t been snapped before the 2-minute warning. So Breech had to try again, and this time, Barry Bennett blocked the kick, and Jet teammate Rich Miano scooped up the ball and ran 67 yards for the deciding touchdown.

After that, Esiason said, “The field goal called back looked like a break, and it wasn’t. It’s a microcosm of our season.”

Wyche, understandably taking it more personally, said, “My insides are slowly eroding.”

Along the way, the Bengals also blew a 29-14 lead in the last 6 minutes against the Houston Oilers. The principal culprits that day were Barney Bussey, who set up the first of two late Houston touchdowns by fumbling a kickoff, and Greg Horne, who set up the other with a 19-yard punt.

“It’s a lot more fun this year,” Wyche said.

Asked if he now felt vindicated, Wyche said, “I’m happy for the guys. When you lose, the coach is going to catch it no matter what. Whether he’s to blame is irrelevant.

“I never lost confidence in my staff, and I never lost confidence in my players.”

Wyche insisted that reports of a rift between him and the outspoken Esiason had been false.

“There was never a rift,” Wyche said. “One writer put the story out, and I guess everybody believed it.

“Boomer is an outstanding quarterback, and this year he’s making better decisions on the football field. He has as strong an arm as anybody else; he’s a tall guy (6-4), so he has a good line of sight; he can scramble, and the team believes in him. He’s a take-charge guy, which is great. I’ve never had any problems with him.”

Esiason didn’t exactly back up that testimony, although he hastened to say that all was well now.

“We’ve only had two run-ins in my 5 years here,” Esiason said. “One was when he pulled me out of a game against Houston, and the other was about some comments made during the strike (last year) that we both have regrets about.

“That’s water under the bridge now. I know I can only be as good as I am at my position because of his knowledge of that position. He doubles as assistant quarterback coach, and he’s the best quarterback coach in the NFL. But I realize he’s the head coach, and I’m a player, so that’s cut and dried.

“When anybody says we don’t get along, that’s fiction.”

Wyche’s expertise as a coach of quarterbacks comes from 7 years of experience as a backup in the pros, including 1968-70 with the Bengals.

“I’ve been lucky to have been associated with the right people,” he said. “It’s especially comforting to know Paul Brown is down the hall.

“He’ll say that maybe this play might work or that maybe that guy might help, but he has never second-guessed us. He’s a great man.”