PRO FOOTBALL : Redskins Have Up Tempo Down Pat

For the Washington Redskins, Sunday’s 41-10 victory over the Detroit Lions was good practice for the Super Bowl game, which they will play Jan. 26 against the Buffalo Bills in Minneapolis.

The NFL’s most successful active coach, Joe Gibbs of Washington, who is on his way to his fourth Super Bowl in 10 years, made that comment Monday when he returned to work at Redskin Park.

“The Lions really pick up the tempo with their run-and-shoot, and the Bills do the same with (quarterback) Jim Kelly,” Gibbs said. “The problem is that a fast-tempo game wears down defensive players. I think that’s one big reason why the Lions and Bills have won so many games.

“Think of it this way: Against an offensive team that runs off a lot of plays in a hurry, the defensive team is always attacking, always moving forward. The offensive players are always backing up--protecting the passer. They’re sort of taking it easy.

“So it was good experience for us (to play Detroit). Our players will know what it’s like in the second half (of the Super Bowl) when Kelly is trying to wear us out.”

Mystery men: The Minneapolis matchup is Kelly vs. the Redskins--the most unpredictable NFL player vs. the most unpredictable NFL team.

“When he comes at you in the no-huddle, you can only react,” Gibbs said. “There isn’t much time to think.”

Kelly’s unpredictable moves are seemingly spontaneous. There doesn’t seem to be much design or pattern to what he does.

Gibbs’ unpredictable moves, however, are calculated.

The Redskins, for example, will probably have only four or five running plays in their Minneapolis game plan, and for most of the afternoon they will use only two--a power run and a counter play.

But these will be so well disguised--by tight-end shifting and wide receivers in motion--that no defender will be able to count on what’s coming: a bomb from quarterback Mark Rypien to receiver Art Monk or an apparent power play that turns into a counter play at the last moment, with running back Earnest Byner going through the line.

The Redskins are favored because their offense is the NFL’s most highly polished, most consistently effective and most mysterious.

“Our game plan is just to mix things up,” Gibbs said.

A lot of ones: The surprising development of Sunday’s doubleheader, in which Buffalo and Washington won the conference championship games, was the performance of the Buffalo defense, which defeated the Denver Broncos, 10-7.

All season, the Bills’ offense has seemed to be carrying the defense. But with the Super Bowl imminent, the Buffalo defensive team appears to have locked in.

“That shouldn’t surprise you when you notice all their ones and Hawaii guys,” Gibbs said, meaning first-round draft picks and Pro Bowl selections.

Until recently, however, the Bills as a defensive team hadn’t played up to their individual promise. Individually, outside linebackers Cornelius Bennett and Darryl Talley and inside linebackers Shane Conlan and Carlton Bailey have been continuously more impressive than the sum of the parts.

Oilers are better: The one curious aspect of the low-scoring Buffalo-Denver game is that both teams went into it with the same defensive philosophy.

Both defenses attacked aggressively from the start with various blitzes that hamstrung quarterbacks Kelly and John Elway.

“Somebody told me that,” Gibbs said before he saw the tapes. “It’s hard to believe they’d gamble that way in a championship game.”

It might have proved that if you are smart about it, you can beat a three-wide receiver offense with a blitzing scheme, even if the one running back is Thurman Thomas.

The run-and-shoot, with four wide receivers, is something else.

“They’ll destroy you if you blitz the run-and-shoot very often,” Redskin defensive coach Richie Petitbon said.

Denver’s defensive players, rather contemptuous of Buffalo’s offense, learned to fear run-and-shoot football in their two appearances this season against the Houston Oilers.

“The run-and-shoot killed us,” Bronco cornerback Tyrone Braxton said after the Denver-Buffalo game, remembering the Houston games. “The no-huddle (isn’t) the run-and-shoot.”

No defense for it: Gibbs seems happy enough to have caught Detroit’s explosive team in quarterback Erik Kramer’s first year--when the Lions aren’t quite the threat they figure to be with more experience in the run-and-shoot.

“You can’t draw up a defense for that formation,” the Redskin coach said. “If you put five people up front (four linemen and a linebacker) they’re bound to make yards rushing. If you put six up to stop the run, you’re one-on-one with all those receivers, and that isn’t good. All you can do against the run-and-shoot is mix things up, and send in a blitzer once in a while.”

At the opportune moment Sunday--with the Lions driving--Petitbon sent one, stopped Kramer, and turned the game irrevocably toward the Redskins.

They didn’t beat the young Lion quarterback with their breathtaking 10-0 start. They didn’t even faze him. For most of the next two quarters, Kramer out-gained--and outplayed--the Redskins.

He was beaten by three other things:

--A false-start penalty that took Barry Sanders out of Detroit’s goal-line offense.

--Rypien’s passing.

--One timely blitz.

Home-run passer: Washington quarterback Rypien might be getting ready to be Super Bowl MVP.

The standard answer by any Washington receiver today, explaining any big catch, is, “Mark threw a great pass.”

Quarterbacks who do that consistently, who throw the kind of big, accurate passes Rypien has delivered this season--Sunday’s among them--attract attention for the same reason that home run hitters become prominent.

Other athletes stand in awe of those who can do it with one swing or one throw.

Accordingly, Rypien, a wholly different type from Joe Montana, seems to be on his way to Montana’s kind of national recognition.

“The league, you see, is still learning about (Rypien),” Gibbs said. “He kind of misleads them. He isn’t a pretty athlete. He’s kind of big and clumsy--but he’s very hard to sack, and that’s the key to him. Some quarterbacks are, and some aren’t, but you don’t often sack Rypien.

“He’s also kind of a genius. He has that great arm, he’s tough, but the main thing is that he’s so bright. Intelligent people walk a fine line in football. If you’re too smart, you’re bored. Mark right comes up to that line, without crossing it.

“At quarterback meetings, he’s on the edge of his seat. Ask someone else a question, he’s answering it under his breath.”

The thing that has endeared Rypien to the Redskins--the quality of his that kept him here for five mistake-plagued years until he got the hang of the game this fall--is, they say, his toughness.

“Quarterback toughness is different from any other kind,” Gibbs said. “In addition to all the usual things, it means you can’t worry about anything that goes wrong.

“This is a game in which everything is always going wrong. And even though it’s hard to forget a thing like an interception, the great quarterbacks do forget, immediately, and go on to the next play. Mark goes right on.”