In Need of Something Special : Chargers Suffering Through Transitions in the Kicking Game
In 1969, Coach George Allen convinced Rams owner Dan Reeves that he needed a full-time assistant coach to handle all aspects of kickoffs, punts, field goals and extra points. It was not an easy sell.
Reeves didn’t think a special teams coach would be busy enough.
“He’ll be the busiest and the most useful guy on the staff,” Allen argued.
And so, Dick Vermeil became the first full-time special teams coach in the National Football League. Now, of course, everybody has one.
“I wanted someone who was detailed,” Allen said. “I wanted him to know things like the snap time of every center in football. I wanted him to know things that nobody had ever done research on.”
Vermeil, who later guided the Philadelphia Eagles into the 1981 Super Bowl, turned out to be perfect for the job. After his time with the Eagles, appropriately enough, he became a pro football analyst for CBS-TV. When Vermeil left the Rams in 1970, Allen replaced him with Marv Levy, now coach of the Buffalo Bills.
Which brings us, through the back door, to one of several crises facing the Chargers. In last Sunday’s season-opening loss to the Raiders at the Coliseum, mistakes committed by the Chargers’ special teams led to 26 Raider points. Not coincidentally, that’s the same number of points the Chargers lost by: 40-14.
The Chargers’ special teams appeared to pay precious little attention to detail. They had 12 men on the field on one play, blocked illegally on another. They muffed kickoffs. They fielded a punt inside their own 10. They allowed a long punt runback. They gave up a safety. And their own punting (27.2 net average for six tries) was atrocious.
None of which was terribly surprising. The Chargers had allowed this sort of thing to happen throughout the preseason. They had a new head coach, Dan Henning, who was engrossed in the task of trying to teach a new Charger quarterback, Jim McMahon, an offense McMahon had never run.
Henning had brought in a special teams coach, Joe Madden, who had been out of football for two years and who hadn’t coached special teams since 1984, when he worked for Monte Clark in Detroit. Henning and Madden decided on a new kicker, a new punter, a new kick returner and a new punt returner.
Worse for the Chargers from a special teams perspective, their roster included seven rookies, 18 new players and a total of 30 who hadn’t been among their 47 before 1988.
“I always tried to have at least eight guys,” Allen said. Guys who had been with him for a while. Guys who knew what he wanted in special teams situations. Guys who were special teams “lifers.”
The closest thing the Chargers have to anybody like that is former Denver linebacker Ken Woodard. The Chargers signed Woodard in August of 1988 even though he had a bad knee. They liked the fact that he had been the Broncos’ most valuable special teams player in 1983 and 1984.
And it was a Woodard hit Sunday that forced Raider punt returner Tim Brown to fumble and lose the ball. Later, another Woodard tackle knocked Brown out of the game with a knee injury. Regrettably, Brown will probably miss the rest of the year. But there was nothing dirty about Woodard’s play.
“We had about four or five guys who were used to playing side by side in Denver,” Woodard says. “We had a communication thing going. It was like we were going on an air raid. Knowing what the guy next to you is doing kind of helps. You’ve got to know what your buddy’s doing.”
In Denver they called Woodard and his commandos the “special forces.” In Washington, when he coached there, Allen set aside a separate meeting room for special teams players. “If you weren’t on the special teams, you weren’t allowed in that room,” he says.
The point: Treat special team players in a special way, and they will respond in kind.
Woodard missed the first nine games of last season but still finished fifth on the Chargers with 69 “hits.” A hit was the unit of measure used by Wayne Sevier, last year’s special teams coach, to recognize a tackle or other outstanding play. Only two of the Chargers’ top four “hit” men last year--linebacker Gary Plummer and running back Tim Spencer--remain.
When Steve Ortmayer, the Charger director of football operations, hired Henning last February, he stressed the importance of continuity. Henning taught the same offense the Chargers had used in 1988. Henning and Ortmayer agreed to retain defensive coordinator Ron Lynn as much for the sake of continuity as for Lynn’s immense abilities.
But when Sevier announced he was leaving to return to the Redskins, there was little talk of continuity. Nobody disputed Sevier’s talents and his attention to detail. But the Chargers didn’t make Sevier a counter-offer he couldn’t refuse. Instead, Henning opted for Madden, who had assisted him in Atlanta in 1985 and 1986 before going into what Madden describes as “entrepreneurial endeavors outside of football” the past two years.
Welcome back to the real world of the NFL, Joe. And while you’re at it, say it ain’t gonna be so for 15 more weeks.
“We’re not that bad,” Madden says of the Raider game. “We’re not as bad as we looked, you know. We’re not that poor. I mean we’re not (that bad) by any stretch of the imagination. How good we are I don’t know. I can’t tell you that yet. But we’re a whole lot better than what I’ve seen.”
Vermeil used to sleep in his office during the week so he’d have more time to prepare for the next opponent. And Levy’s fanaticism about the importance of special teams at the expense of other areas still comes into question on occasion. Maybe it is time for Madden to set up a cot.
When a visitor entered Madden’s office briefly Tuesday, the first thing Madden did was apologize for the clutter. There were various papers and videocassette tapes scattered across his desk.
“We’re in transition,” Madden insisted. “And sometimes transition is difficult. We’ve all been through it before, and we’ve just got to fight through this thing.”
In defense of Madden, he can’t block, and he can’t tackles unless the Chargers activate him. At age 54, that is unlikely. Henning defended Madden this week, saying, “Joe Madden can’t punt the ball and he can’t be the cover guy. He’s busting his . . . . I think he’s doing a good job.”
Madden and Henning insist the Chargers devote enough practice time to special teams. Madden says during training camp that allotment amounted to the first 20 minutes of every practice. He says that hasn’t changed since the season began.
“We’ll continue to emphasize the heck out of special teams,” he says. “And if more time is needed . . . “
Allen suggests more time is needed. “My teams had at least 25 minutes a day and sometimes more on special teams,” he says. And, he adds, that doesn’t count the time spent after practice working with individuals such as punters, kickers and return men.
Even more important, Allen says, was how his teams spent practice their time on special teams. “Every head coach talks about special teams,” he says, “But it takes a lot of guts and discipline to stick with it. And that is needed, because special teams is the most disorganized part of practice.”
When Lewis Colbert punted poorly against the Raiders the Chargers brought in three free agents Tuesday (a day off for the players) for tryouts. The only recognizable name was Rick Tuten, who was in the Chargers’ camp last summer. This year the Redskins released him shortly after they acquired Ralf Mojsiejenko from the Chargers.
Tuten’s version of his Tuesday workout did not flatter Madden.
“I think I kind of didn’t understand exactly what he wanted at first,” Tuten said. “I thought he wanted me to kick out of bounds. They had told me on the phone to work on punting it out of bounds. So my first two punts were kind of low line drives right to the boundary line.
“And then he kind of got on me, like, ‘C’mon, don’t be nervous.’ I was doing what I thought they wanted. So after that I just kicked it and didn’t really know what he wanted. He’d say kick it to the right so I’d kick it way to the right, out of bounds. But I guess he didn’t mean that far right.
“I don’t know. I guess our wires were crossed.”
When the Chargers traded Mojsiejenko to Washington for a middle-round draft choice, they said they weren’t happy with Mojsiejenko’s alleged inability to angle the ball to the sideline in certain situations. It was just one of many recent explanations that didn’t make a lot of sense.
In the past two weeks the Chargers have practiced a player (Darryl Usher) who was unsigned. They have sent a player (Sam Seale) to the trainer for treatment, although the player said there was nothing wrong with him. And Henning still hasn’t gotten his story completely straight on whether he benched McMahon in the third period against the Raiders because of A) ineffectiveness, B) fear of injury or C) the rib injury McMahon already had suffered.
In that climate of disinformation, Madden offered this explanation Tuesday for the Mojsiejenko trade: “There was nothing wrong with Mojo. We just had two punters at that particular time who were punting extremely well. Well, let’s put it this way, I didn’t think either of them had an outstanding camp as far as the games were concerned.”
Allen was in Washington, D.C., Monday and couldn’t help but notice Mojsiejenko’s four punts against the Giants that included a 55-yarder. “That was not a George Allen-type trade,” Allen said. “I know the Redskins are pleased with him. There may be something there (in San Diego) I don’t know. So it’s kind of hard for me to criticize. But I never traded good special teams players.”
And he never underestimated their importance. His teams would prepare three game plans each week: One for special teams, one for offense and one for defense. In order of importance, he says, they were: 1. Special teams, 2. Defense and 3. Offense.
“If you executed on special teams and defense, your offense would get the field position it needed,” Allen says. “Look at Jim McMahon. He’s used to having a good defense and field position. Now all at once . . .
“You have to have field position otherwise a quarterback will lose his confidence.”