The Game Has Passed Them By

The perils of the age of specialization seem to have entrapped Jimmy Johnson and Norv Turner, who respectively coach the Miami Dolphins and Washington Redskins.

Together, they were all but unbeatable several years ago at Dallas, where Turner was Johnson’s offensive coordinator when the Cowboys won consecutive Super Bowls and threatened to make it a habit.

At Miami, however, football has been a struggle for Johnson precisely because of offensive breakdowns. And at Washington, Turner, whose understanding of offense is vast and thorough, has yet to show that he has what it takes to coach an NFL team.

What it takes is what Johnson has: forceful leadership plus the organizational know-how to handle 14 assistant coaches and 53 players.

But in the complex world that is pro football, there is another need today: offensive know-how. At Denver and San Francisco, the coaches, Mike Stranahan and Steve Mariucci, are offensive experts. In his Dallas days, Johnson hired one, Turner, whose West Coast-type offense is similar to those of Stranahan and Mariucci.

At Miami, neither Johnson himself nor the offensive coordinators he has brought in have given him what he had with Turner when they were together in Dallas. At Washington, meanwhile, a well-designed offense hasn’t been enough for Turner. And all that is why, in the NFL, winning is such an elusive goal.

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The Minnesota Vikings overwhelmed Green Bay in a matchup of unbeaten teams the other night with the kind of leadership that Johnson and Turner once gave Dallas.

Brian Billick, offensive coordinator of the Vikings, wrote the book on the West Coast offense in partnership with former San Francisco coach Bill Walsh.

Dennis Green, in his seven years as coach of the Vikings, has never had a losing season. He has never won the Super Bowl, either, but that is largely because his team has been struck so often by the kind of injuries that are crippling Green Bay this fall.

As assistant coaches in San Francisco, Green and Billick learned the West Coast, which achieves ball control with short, timed passes that are thrown quickly and crisply.

But as Walsh once said, “The long pass is built into each of our plays. The passer looks for it but doesn’t throw it unless it’s there.”

Through most of the game in Green Bay, for Minnesota, it was there. As the Vikings moved out to 37-10 before winning, 37-24, they scored on pass plays that covered 56, 52, 24 and 44 yards. Randall Cunningham did the throwing, twice to the leader for rookie of the year, Randy Moss.

In Miami, meanwhile, Johnson keeps talking about running the ball, which in the 1970s was the way to go. In the 1990s, the big winners, including 5-0 Minnesota and 5-0 Denver, are throwing it.

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The Jacksonville Jaguars (4-0), the other undefeated pro team, are more like Johnson’s Dolphins (3-1), whom they play Monday night at Jacksonville.

Although these are opponents who both have the capacity to throw big passes--Miami with Dan Marino, and Jacksonville with Mark Brunell--they are led by coaches who have so far shown that they prefer ground-game football.

In fact, some of his friends suggest that Jacksonville Coach Tom Coughlin is a throwback to Vince Lombardi, the 1960s Green Bay coach who won five NFL titles and the first two Super Bowls with a conservative offense .

If Coughlin and Lombardi are similar, we may in time have an answer to the question of whether Lombardi could win 1990s titles.

But the more immediate question is whether Johnson can win big games the way he wants to, with a running team.

To date, his new offense hasn’t been scoring the way his old one did in Dallas, where he thought he had a running team with Emmitt Smith.

Actually in those days, with Turner calling the plays, Dallas won with Troy Aikman’s first-half passes, many of them thrown on first down, leaving Smith to hold the lead with second-half runs. That team was a passing team. It’s a passing era.