Martz Is Moving Up in Class

Ram fans, remembering that the New Orleans Saints knocked them out of the division championship last year, are wondering: Will an undefeated season begin to unravel when the Saints come to town today?

New Orleans fans, noting that the Rams, en route to a 34-14 rout, executed an onside kickoff with a 31-7 lead over the New York Jets last Sunday, are asking: What will those guys think of next?

Although no authentic answers are imminent, television’s talkers are worried sick that the Rams are beginning to pour it on. One of them, Howie Long, described the third-quarter onside kick as “bush league.” The other second-guessers on the Fox stage, Terry Bradshaw among them, agreed that it was “uncalled for.”

They all ignored the reality that improbable comebacks have been a storied part of life in pro football for many years. Just last year, on a memorable Monday night, the Jets were taking a 30-7 drubbing in the fourth quarter when, abruptly, they began a 33-point comeback that beat Miami, 40-37.

When Ram Coach Mike Martz ordered that onside kick Sunday, he was merely telling the Jets, “You think you’re going to come back on me?”

Ram Tricks

For reasons uncertain, Martz isn’t getting the attention he’s earned for the last three years as the NFL’s venturesome, creative leader. The league’s other coaches all play it safe. Martz attacks. It’s only a coincidence that in the trick-or-treat month, October, Martz, in the Jet game, was always playing tricks and getting treats. Three examples:

* To break open a 7-7 struggle in the last three minutes of the first half, he called an unusual option play, which was good for 56 yards and a touchdown.

The play began when wide receiver Az-Zahir Hakim moved into the backfield, took a handoff and swept wide for 12 yards, then pitched out to halfback Trung Canidate to get the rest of the easy yardage.

* As the Rams stretched away to 31-7 in the third quarter, Martz positioned quarterback Kurt Warner far left as a wide receiver before lining up Canidate as a shotgun passer in an otherwise empty backfield. Faking the pass, Canidate sprinted 12 yards to a touchdown.

* An instant later, the Rams worked their onside kickoff, ending all hope for the Jets. As a third-quarter call, it was legitimate. Contrary to Howie Long et al , nothing that a winning pro club does in the first three quarters--no pass, no trick play--can be construed as pouring it on.

Complete Coach

It’s time to recognize Martz as a candidate for a theoretical eminence that only three hall of famers, Vince Lombardi, Paul Brown and Bill Walsh, have previously reached.

I see him approaching greatness. In their time, Lombardi, Brown and Walsh were, first, original offensive thinkers, as Martz is. But more than that, they excelled in all of the other important aspects of their game--personnel acquisition, defensive understanding, overall organization, and the education and development of individual athletes. So far, so has Martz.

Though he hasn’t had a chance to stand the test of time, Martz has shown promise as a personnel scout by acquiring unusual star-caliber talent as represented by running back Marshall Faulk, defensive back Aeneas Williams and Canidate--to name three Rams any other coach could have had this year.

Defensively, Martz has bewildered the NFL with a new team he put together in six months. He showed, first, the vision and force of will to fire eight defensive starters, and then, with the help of a talent department headed by club President Jay Zygmunt, to install eight new starters along with the right new defensive system and, apparently, the right new defensive leader, Lovie Smith.

Partial Parity

The NFL is jammed this season with some pretty good once-or twice-beaten contenders: San Francisco, Oakland, San Diego, Green Bay, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Miami, New Orleans, Philadelphia, the New York Giants. There are even some talented three-time losers: Baltimore, Minnesota, Denver, Atlanta, Tennessee, Tampa Bay, the Jets.

Far above them all stands the one undefeated team, the 6-0 Rams, who won the Super Bowl two years ago with Martz’s unique offense and who missed the final round last year only after quarterback Warner was twice injured. In the playoffs, Warner was crippled with a concussion.

And, surely, injuries are all that stand between the Rams and another Super Bowl appearance. In this era of parity-inducing salary caps and free agency, the creation of this Ram team has been an extraordinary if not well understood achievement.

Looking for explanations, some critics noted last week that Warner and Faulk play most of their games indoors, where the entire club’s rare speed--a Martz priority--seems to overwhelm all comers.

But in contrast, they played the Jet game on outdoor turf, minus Faulk, and won easily. As usual, one factor made much of the difference: play selection. The Rams call more passes on first down than any team since Walsh’s 49ers.

What’s more, their three conspicuous trick plays weren’t the only ones Martz called that afternoon. Nearly every Martz play is a trick play.

Packers Could

The Green Bay Packers have the personnel to do what the Rams do. With a sound quarterback in Brett Favre, they are, at the least, better than the Minnesota Vikings, who nonetheless took them apart Sunday, 35-13.

The final score to the contrary, this was a game that was won in the first quarter, when the Packers came out overconfident and the Vikings came out confused.

With three splendid chances to rock Minnesota in the first quarter--in which Viking fumbles and errant Viking kicking enabled Green Bay, on its first three series, to operate at the Minnesota 49, the Minnesota 16 and the Minnesota 25--the Packers tried to run the ball. They’re proud of their new runner, Ahman Green, who, on his critical carries that day, was stuffed. So in the second quarter, it was still 0-0.

With an aggressive passer like Favre on your team, why would you try to run with Ahman Green?

For years, Favre has ranked with any passer you can name when you let him throw on first down--the very down when, as the Rams keep demonstrating, defensive players have trouble operating aggressively against pass plays because they must ever be alert for runs and passes both.

It’s a copout for the Packers to complain that they were jinxed again in Minnesota. They had their chances to put Minnesota away. They beat themselves.

Fouts Wrong

The TV announcers are part of the problem in the NFL’s continuing effort to interest the country in clean, brilliantly played football.

When Howie Long sees a pour-it-on bogeyman in the third quarter of a sensible, sensational Ram approach to a game, he is a contributor. When Monday night announcer Dan Fouts refuses to see late hits, he’s a contributor, as he was the other night.

After a referee had flagged a defensive player for an unnecessary assault on a quarterback, Fouts hollered: “That’s a terrible call.”

It wasn’t. The late hit reminded viewers of several others that should have been called in NFL games that weekend but weren’t.

The problem with Fouts’ announcement, besides being incorrect, was that it planted a seed that will sprout in referees’ e-mails into the foreseeable future.

In the contact game that football is, it’s hard enough, as things are, for an official to throw a flag for too much contact. Like Fouts, most of the officials are old pros whose instinct is to “let the boys play.” That policy, however, just gets quarterbacks maimed. This year it’s different. The NFL campaign to protect quarterbacks from crippling hits has been, to date, a success. Few if any pocket passers are down.

Steeler Trick

You will discover in one of the season’s more interesting Monday games whether the Pittsburgh Steelers are prepared to join the Rams as a wide-open offensive team.

The surprise 4-1 leaders of the AFC Central, the Steelers will be home to the 2-3 but loaded Tennessee Titans in Pittsburgh’s new stadium Monday night, and although Pittsburgh Coach Bill Cowher has been as conservative over the years as Tennessee’s Jeff Fisher, there was a change in Cowher’s attitude last Sunday

Finding himself in a losing cause at Tampa Bay on a day that ended happily for him, 17-10, Cowher won by calling a trick play: the halfback option.

Steeler running back Jerome Bettis opened up the Buccaneers with a surprise pass, producing a 32-yard touchdown in the 7-3 first half, then could suddenly run in the second half, when he gained all but 25 of his 143 total yards and scored the other touchdown.

The halfback option, which gives a running back an opportunity to either pass or run the ball, would succeed for most offensive teams much of the time.

One strength of the halfback option is that it doesn’t require precision passing. As a rule, the intended receiver is either open or he isn’t. If he is, anybody’s throw will get reasonably close to him, generally close enough to catch. If he’s covered, a running lane will probably be open.

Five-time NFL champion Lombardi made the halfback option one of two staples in his famous mid-century offense at both New York and Green Bay.

Like Martz in the late 1990s, Lombardi, when a Giant assistant at New York, was an offensive coordinator. His other big play became known as the Green Bay sweep.

In a different era, in game after game, Lombardi’s Packers moved up and down the field to touchdowns on not much besides these two plays and an occasional third-and-one pass by his quarterback, Bart Starr.

In today’s NFL, most teams could doubtless be similarly successful, at least at times, with the halfback option--yet all but one of them would rather just line up and run the ball. All but two, perhaps. Maybe Cowher will open up again Monday night.