Commentary : Learning to Live With Mad Genius

Does Buddy Ryan have the Houston Oilers over a barrel or what? For the next three weeks, or as long as the Oilers stay alive in the NFL playoffs, he’s the 900-pound elephant who can sit wherever he wants.

With Ryan coordinating Houston’s defense, the Oilers have an 11-game winning streak, the NFL’s longest season-ending streak in 21 years. With Ryan calling the defensive signals, the Oilers have become a team that’s able to win outside, in the cold, against NFC teams. With Ryan, the Oilers are what the Raiders used to be: talented, nasty, bodacious, cantankerous, effective and probably even just a little bit feared.

Without the Budman, the Oilers are ... well, you know, soft. Just another pretty, indoor, AFC team capable of blowing a 35-3 lead in the playoffs and incapable of beating anybody with real muscle.

The Oilers are as dependent on Ryan as the Chiefs are on Joe Montana, as the Cowboys are on Emmitt Smith. Which is why there’s little if anything the Oilers can do about the fact that Ryan is a complete fool, as evidenced by his punching offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride on the sideline Sunday night in the Astrodome.

Yes, you can be a great coach and a complete fool. The two are not mutually exclusive as anybody who has ever watched Bob Knight can attest.

Ryan is a great coach, maybe the best defensive coach in the history of pro football. Ryan is also a bully who has been getting away with this behavior all his 59 years. Even so, he (with the help of linebacker extraordinaire Wilber Marshall) has made the Oilers the most compelling NFL story this postseason.

The AFC is positively chock-full of playoff intrigue, while the only reason the NFC isn’t already a done deal is that nobody knows how Emmitt Smith’s separated right shoulder will respond after two weeks off. The big question about the Oilers is whether the team will be collectively ready for the psychiatrist’s couch after two weeks off.

All in all, it’s tough for the NFL to have a better story line to start the playoffs. Or for that matter, to end the regular season.

Where are all you people who moaned and whined about how bad the NFL was this season? All we had Sunday was three overtime games, one of the best games of this or any other season between the Cowboys and Giants, the Dolphins and Jets unable to secure playoff berths by losing to teams with nothing at stake, a 59-year-old man punching his fellow assistant on the sideline, and a guy who should have been in the infirmary winning the game and his third-straight rushing title.

As it turns out, every team in the NFL showed improvement as the year went on, except the Redskins, Colts and Rams. This is not the crowd you want to run with. The Saints, Bears, Falcons and Dolphins fell off the table but at least they were in contention into Week 15.

Meanwhile, the Patriots, Seahawks (and to a lesser extent, the Buccaneers) established themselves as legitimate competitors for next season.

Two teams in the NFC can get to the Super Bowl, the Cowboys and 49ers. The Giants blew their shot Sunday when a division championship and home-field advantage gave way to a wild card and a Jan. 16 trip to either Dallas or San Francisco.

The Giants would love for Green Bay, the lower seed, to upset Detroit and force New York to travel to Candlestick, where the Giants have won before (See NFC title game, 1991).

Three teams in the AFC can get to the Super Bowl -- the Bills, Chiefs and Oilers. Bills-Oilers The Sequel in Rich Stadium on Jan. 23 would be completely irresistible, maybe more drama-packed than a Cowboys-Niners rematch.

As much as I’d love to see Joe Montana vs. the 49ers in the Super Bowl, what we’re probably looking at is either a Texas shootout or the Bills as “Jason,” the team that won’t die. Regardless, as long as we get the Cowboys or Niners, the Bills, Oilers or Chiefs, there would seem to be enough excitement to go around on the final Sunday, Jan. 30.

By that time, should the Oilers still be alive, Ryan will probably have a drill where the players practice hoisting him onto their shoulders and walking off the field. This is precisely what happened when the Bears won the Super Bowl in 1986. They carried him off the field. This was about 10 weeks after Ryan nearly came to blows with the head coach, Mike Ditka.

Ryan, in the 1985 mega-thriller between the Dolphins and undefeated Bears in the Orange Bowl, assigned a second-year linebacker named Wilber Marshall to cover Miami wideout Nat Moore. Ditka, after unsuccessfully trying to get Ryan to replace Marshall with a cornerback, had one final solution for his stubborn defensive coordinator.

“Buddy,” Ditka said that Monday night on the sideline, “let’s settle this out back.” Maybe Ryan isn’t a complete fool after all, because he backed down, knowing Ditka would have knocked his head off. But Ryan ultimately did enough things his way and the Bears won.

Two weeks ago in Pittsburgh after a gigantic road victory -- the kind the Oilers were almost incapable of pulling off before Buddy -- one offensive player shrugged his shoulders when asked about Ryan. “Look, the guy is a great coach,” he said. “He’s also the craziest SOB I’ve ever been around. But with the results he has, you have to let him be.”

And that’s probably what the Oilers, players and coaches and club officials will do; let Buddy be, and keep their guard up.