Ready for His Close-Up

By T.J. SIMERS

Aug. 27, 1998 12 AM PT

It’s a little-known piece of movie lore, but years ago when filming was about to take place for the nuclear horror flick, “The Day After,” producers elected not to build an expensive back-lot set depicting a wasteland.

Instead they waited until early January, put up another stoplight or two to make it look like a major city, and then shot downtown Kansas City after the Chiefs were eliminated from the playoffs.

Production delays can be so costly in Hollywood, so the nice thing about this ghost town opportunity was that filmmakers were guaranteed a picture of hick-town desolation because the playoffs had begun a day earlier, and Marty Schottenheimer was coaching the Chiefs.

Poor Marty. Years ago Ernest Borgnine won an Academy Award playing another “Marty,” a wretched soul who couldn’t get a girl. Maybe he eventually did, maybe he had a kid, named him Marty, put him up for adoption and now he’s the wretched soul in Kansas City who can’t get the Lombardi Trophy.

Only seven coaches in the history of professional football with more than 100 career victories have a better winning percentage than poor Marty’s .644 mark, and of those coaches presently employed, only Dan Reeves has more wins than Marty’s 138.

Only three coaches in the history of professional football with more than 100 career victories have a worse winning percentage in postseason games than Schottenheimer’s .313 mark. No one may symbolize playoff disaster better than poor Marty, who has been victimized by “the Drive” and “the Fumble” in Cleveland and two belly-flops in Kansas City, going 13-3 and losing the opening playoff games.

Having witnessed every crushing blow in poor Marty’s career, including the postgame news conferences that followed, there can only be admiration for such resiliency.

Poor Marty always bounces back to be pummeled again, the expectations rising to grand heights with each regular-season victory, and then suddenly quashed, the following Monday morning radio talk shows sounding like muffled chatter at a city’s funeral.

Poor Marty can’t get to the Super Bowl, let alone entertain the thought of winning one, leaving the folk in Kansas City to spend another winter playing checkers.

“The facts are there,” says poor Marty. In another life he would have made a great punching bag for Joe Louis. “Until such time we achieve our objective, the world championship, I can’t debate people over that issue.”

But this year Mark McGwire catches Roger Maris, Susan Lucci wins her Emmy and poor Marty wins Super Bowl XXXIII in Miami.

On one condition: The lightweights from San Francisco must represent the NFC in the Super Bowl, giving poor Marty’s team every chance for success.

You ask, of course, “Mr. Football Expert, why Kansas City when you know poor Marty can’t advance in the playoffs?”

It’s time, like it was a year ago for John Elway, like it was four years ago for Steve Young, 13 years ago for Walter Payton.

Poor Marty might be the NFL’s leading resident sad sack, but he’s also the league’s most stand-up guy, never making excuses, never losing the enthusiasm, never asking that the pins stop being poked into the voodoo doll.

When Denver, the second-place finisher behind Kansas City in the AFC West, played in this past Super Bowl, poor Marty sat by himself in his family room watching the game on TV.

“My wife couldn’t watch,” he says. “Her frustration and level of disappointment were different than mine. Me, I was pulling for the Denver Broncos; I wanted an AFC team to win. Every time a big play happened, I went into the next room and told my wife what was happening.

“I was thrilled that an AFC team won. I have great respect for that organization, and beating us and beating Pittsburgh on the road says a hell of a lot about that organization and that football team.

“Am I sitting there hurt and disappointed? Let me tell you, the only thing that kills you is not getting the opportunity. Not going to the playoffs is the most disappointing thing, and in [my 14 years in the game] that’s happened only twice.”

Picture poor Marty sitting alone in his home in front of his TV, and it’s a picture of classy determination, plotting next year’s turnaround.

“There’s only one [disappointment] that I ever found myself dwelling on and that was the first one, ‘the Drive,’ ” he said of Elway’s 98-yard march to tie the score in the 1987 AFC championship game. “It’s like your first love who jilts you; it stays with you forever. The fact of the matter was we had the game in our control, and we failed to make plays, and that one bothered me.

“But our approach has always been the same, a single objective to win the world championship. Coming off a season where I took over a 1-7 team to finish 4-4, I told our team we had one objective, to win it all, and you can imagine the number of people in that room who thought I was smoking something.

“That’s our measure of success--a world championship. Without it, I’m not saying you’re a victim, but whatever you’ve achieved, it’s not enough.”

After last year’s draining 14-10 loss in Arrowhead Stadium to the Broncos, poor Marty sat solid before the media and proclaimed there would be no self-pity.

It’s simply time that at one of these postgame playoff news conferences that poor Marty sit there drenched in champagne, the classy gladiator finally earning his day after a lifetime of devastating blows.

To reach that conclusion, poor Marty must remain as good as ever, as willing as ever to make the changes to better the Chiefs’ chances.

“Our history in Kansas City, our inability to get where we want to go, has been our lack of points on offense,” he says. “Before the 1997 season began, we started the process of acquiring people that we viewed as playmakers. Look at our roster in ’98 relative to what it was in ’96 at the skill positions and it’s dramatically different.”

The Chiefs have Elvis Grbac at quarterback, somebody Denver Coach Mike Shanahan thinks will be the next great quarterback in the game. The Chiefs have the explosive Andre Rison at wide receiver, and a tight end in Tony Gonzalez who might catch 100 passes this season.

“We’ve already proven that the best scoring defense in the NFL and the best giveaway and takeaway ratio don’t amount to much if you don’t score more than 10 points a game in the postseason,” poor Marty says.

But poor Marty set himself up for disaster once again, making no apparent move to find a running back, and this one’s going to be tough to overcome. The Chiefs probably will field the No. 1 defense in the league, bolstered by the acquisitions of Leslie O’Neal and Chester McGlockton, but Marcus Allen is gone and the team will be relying on converted fullback Donnell Bennett as a tailback.

“The question absolutely has merit,” poor Marty said. “We have no established guy at running back. If you could assure me that Donnell Bennett will be healthy all season, then I would tell you I have no concerns, but there’s no depth behind him.”

So the Chiefs remain vulnerable to last-minute disaster, although one local columnist there has already been writing about the prospect of the Chiefs going undefeated this season. Living in the sticks like that can make someone go stir crazy.

It’s time for poor Marty to win it all, but it would help if everything goes the way Mr. Football Expert sees it. Kansas City wins the AFC West, New England wins the AFC East, Jacksonville the AFC Central and Denver, Seattle and Tennessee advance as wild cards.

Elway finishes his career with an ironic twist in Kansas City with poor Marty hugging him at midfield and making Elway swear he won’t change his mind and come back. And the Chiefs go on to beat the Jaguars in the AFC championship game.

That’s the easy part. Getting the 49ers to the Super Bowl to guarantee poor Marty the Lombardi Trophy requires all kinds of luck. The 49ers win the NFC home-field advantage just by showing up against the likes of New Orleans, Atlanta and St. Louis, and then hope everyone in the NFC Central beats the heck out of each other.

San Francisco gets an early-round playoff game against Washington, which is no good but edges Dallas for the NFC East crown, while Green Bay beats Minnesota in a tiebreaker for the Central title, but loses in a playoff game to the Vikings after Tampa Bay and Detroit have been eliminated as wild cards. Remember, everyday ordinary people aren’t expected to know this stuff. The 49ers beat the Vikings in the NFC title game--don’t really know how--setting up a Super Bowl matchup between legendary San Francisco Coach Steve Mariucci and Marty Schottenheimer.

“My feeling is, if we’re good enough, we’ll win it,” poor Marty said. “You ultimately get what you earned--I’m old-fashioned in that regard. There’s no birthright that says you will acquire it over time, or because you’ve been close. It’s up to us to go get it.”

No, it’s just time.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Marty Schottenheimer’s year-by-year record:

YEAR: 1984

TEAM: Cleveland

W-L-T: 4-4-0

PCT.: .500

PLAYOFF RESULTS: None

YEAR: 1985

TEAM: Cleveland

W-L-T: 8-8-0

PCT.: .500

PLAYOFF RESULTS: lost to Miami, 24-21, in conference playoff game

YEAR: 1986

TEAM: Cleveland

W-L-T: 12-4-0

PCT.: .750

PLAYOFF RESULTS: defeated N.Y. Jets, 23-20 (2 OT) in conference playoffs; lost to Denver, 23-20 (OT), in AFC championship game.

YEAR: 1987

TEAM: Cleveland

W-L-T: 10-5-0

PCT.: .667

PLAYOFF RESULTS: defeated Indianapolis, 38-21, in conference playoffs; lost to Denver 38-33 in AFC championship game.

YEAR: 1988

TEAM: Cleveland

W-L-T: 10-6-0

PCT.: .625

PLAYOFF RESULTS: lost to Houston, 24-23, in AFC wild-card game.

YEAR: 1989

TEAM: Kansas City

W-L-T: 8-7-1

PCT.: .531

PLAYOFF RESULTS: None

YEAR: 1990

TEAM: Kansas City

W-L-T: 11-5-0

PCT.: .688

PLAYOFF RESULTS: lost to Miami, 17-16, in playoff game.

YEAR: 1991

TEAM: Kansas City

W-L-T: 10-6-0

PCT.: .625

PLAYOFF RESULTS: defeated Raiders, 10-6, in first-round playoff game; lost to Buffalo, 37-14, in conference playoff game.

YEAR: 1992

TEAM: Kansas City

W-L-T: 10-6-0

PCT.: .625

PLAYOFF RESULTS: lost to San Diego, 17-0, in first-round playoff game.

YEAR: 1993

TEAM: Kansas City

W-L-T: 11-5-0

PCT.: .688

PLAYOFF RESULTS: defeated Pittsburgh, 27-24 (OT), in first-round playoff game; defeated Houston, 28-20, in conference playoff game; lost to Buffalo, 30-13, in AFC championship game.

YEAR: 1994

TEAM: Kansas City

W-L-T: 9-7-0

PCT.: .563

PLAYOFF RESULTS: lost to Miami, 27-17, in first-round playoff game.

YEAR: 1995

TEAM: Kansas City

W-L-T: 13-3-0

PCT.: .813

PLAYOFF RESULTS: lost to Indianapolis, 10-7, in conference playoff game.

YEAR: 1996

TEAM: Kansas City