It’s as Simple as These Five Easy Rules

Football is not nuclear physics. Despite the best efforts of the experts to convince you it is an abstruse science, there are very few secrets to the game. The great Vince Lombardi, the sport’s foremost pedagogue, once allowed, “It’s all blocking and tackling--everything else is bullsmoke.”

Accordingly, I am moved to dispense with a few pieces of advice to the squads and coaches who will soon take the field in the final furor of the NFL season, the championship playoffs and Super Bowl.

As usual, I am dealing from an unassailable position--complete ignorance. I have never racked up a blackboard with X ‘s and O ‘s, never promised a 4.3-second halfback a new Seville, never prowled a sideline with a headset over my ears. I don’t know a Y-back from a rotating defense, but I know what I’ve been looking at for lo, these many years and I would like to give the surviving coaches in this final four tournament the benefit of my vast wisdom on the subject. Herewith, for their edification, are Murray’s Rules on How to Play to Win. You may want to frame them.

1. Never bother punting the ball out of bounds on the opponents’ one-yard line or “the coffin corner.”

(This is a vastly overrated advantage. You may remember USC did this to UCLA in their game this season--and the next thing they knew, the Bruins had completed a 90-yard touchdown pass. The Philadelphia Eagles kicked the Dallas Cowboys to their goal line last week--and the next thing you knew, the Cowboys were scoring from there. Happens all the time. The reality is, the defense has 99 yards of open field to defend, the offense has that much expanse to work with. It’s like a guy coming out of a sand trap with plenty of green to work with. It is much easier to defend from your 15-yard line, where there is congestion and overcrowding, than from their one-yard-line, which is as wide open as Yellowstone Park. The receiving team in the coffin-corner punt is almost never held in this situation. They almost always make a first down or three, and they often score. “Good field position” can often be your two-yard line if your quarterback is resourceful enough. The moral: Punt the ball into the end zone. You are as well off on their 20 as their two.)

2. Never plunge into the line for a touchdown on first and goal on the one.

(You have about two tons of hostile, homicidal humanity bunched in front of you, and your chances of penetrating that mass of muscle are minimal. What you should do on first down is call a wide play, a pass out in the flat, a fake plunge into the line and a rollout by the quarterback. Nine chances out of 10, you will be able to dance into the end zone untouched by human hands. None of this carries much weight with coaches. Dedicated to the proposition that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, they will opt for the line smash every time. The great Bill Walsh, even, did this in the 1989 Super Bowl when he had a first down on Cincinnati’s goal line and he tried unsuccessful line smashes, then settled for a fourth-down chip-shot field goal, which was missed. That was the only thing that kept the 49er-Bengal game close that year. A more imaginative call in that situation and the 49ers romp. The third down is too late, usually, to call the wide play.)

3. Never punt the ball away on fourth and one or fourth and two at or barely inside midfield.

(This is a corollary to Rule 1. If you punt the ball into the end zone, you have gained only 20-some yards. If you punt it out on the one- or two-yard line, well, see Rule 1. A championship team should always be able to make a yard at midfield or the opponents’ 48-yard line. If this seems contradictory to Rule 2, it isn’t. The defense cannot afford to bunch up at midfield with 60 yards to protect, while they can bunch up on the one with only 11 yards--including the end zone--to protect. Go for it.)

4. Never go into the “nickel” or “dime” or “prevent” defense and three-man rush in the last two minutes of the game. Get the passer.

(Time and again, we have seen two teams struggle to a 10-7 or 7-7 score for 58 minutes, utilizing a pass rush, blitzes and assorted storm defenses--then go into a shell, and in about a minute and 45 seconds, three or more touchdowns are rolled up against defenses that have come to resemble cattle in a thunderstorm. Remember Murray’s Law: Any quarterback who is playing for the Super Bowl is a superior deliverer of the ball, and if you let him stand there for five or 10 seconds, he will complete a pass through a keyhole to a one-armed paperhanger. The great John Unitas said he felt he had 3.5 seconds to get rid of the ball--anything over that and he would hit a running squirrel in either eye for you. Football coaches only use the peel-back defense in close games. When they have a big or comfortable lead in the late stages, they come with a ferocious pass rush. Perhaps you noticed Philadelphia doing this to New Orleans’ Bobby Hebert in the waning minutes of their game. Not only did Hebert not get a completion, he got tackled for a safety. This lesson appears lost on our better minds in the coaches’ ranks who favor the three-man tentative rush--really a two-man “rush,” the third man is kind of a traffic cop in this formation. Remember the immortal words of Red Sanders: “No man is able to complete a pass flat on his back.”)

5. Remember, in any obvious pass situation, the quarterback is able to help himself to 10, 15 or even 20 yards.

(The minute a dangerous quarterback cocks his arm, the defense stops like a horse that has seen a rattlesnake. Even a slow, clumsy quarterback can get a first down. Steve Young, more dangerous carrying a ball than throwing it, could become the Galloping Ghost. Pull the ball down when you see daylight. Remember, you’re the open man much of the time.)

Well, that’s the extent of my sound advice to the great game. It won’t do much good. The coaches will be looking at me pityingly, telling me, “You just don’t understand.” They will be right. I don’t understand them. But bet on the team that heeds our advice. But not much.

If you need me, I will be telling Placido Domingo how to sing “Carmen.” I’m what the fight mob calls a “good game cornerman.” After all, who else would have told the captain of the Titanic, “Go for it!”?