Spurrier Era Takes Flight

Did you see the separation Steve Spurrier got Saturday?

Did you check out his elevation?

Not even Donte Stallworth, the new New Orleans Saint who allegedly runs a 4.23-second 40, could keep up with Spurrier, who was spotted by ESPN cameras in a helicopter lifting off from the Washington Redskins’ training base and headed for a draft-day party with fans.

During the middle of the first round!

The NFL became a very different place when Spurrier signed on to coach the Redskins. And as the surreal scene of Spurrier chop-chop-chopping his way into the distance filled the television screen, sending ESPN’s draft analysts into spasms of apoplexy, five words immediately came to mind:

What took him so long?

Think about it: Like most of us, Spurrier had already spent more than five hours of a perfectly good Saturday cooped up indoors, staring at an endless procession of names, numbers and decimal points. Chances are he also probably had his fill of Ron Jaworski.

Why not take the team copter out for a spin, clear the head a little?

Besides, there were still four more teams on the board before the Redskins’ first selection (that could take another hour, easy) ... and Spurrier was leaving good people behind to man the war room ... and isn’t the ability to delegate a prime fundamental of great leadership?

Also, it was a lot of fun watching Mel Kiper react as if Spurrier had just spit on his left-tackles-with-tremendous-upside chart.

Reporting from the getaway scene, chopper fading into the background, Sal Paolantonio sent it back to the studio thusly: “A very odd moment, to say the least, here, Boomer.”

Boomer was momentarily speechless.

“Did I ... did I ... did I see that right, Sal?” Chris Berman finally spluttered as he turned to Jimmy Johnson. “I mean, what are we doing?”

Johnson, who used to scarf nachos and play with his pet dog Buttercup during Cowboy draft days of yore and still managed to land Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith, shook his head and laughed and said, “I guess Steve kind of wrote down a list of guys that he might like to have and gave it to [team owner Daniel] Snyder.”

Berman couldn’t stop spluttering:

“Mel ... that was ... wow!”

Kiper seemed to have another word in mind, but didn’t appear to be in the mood to elaborate.

“You know me,” Kiper said, and yes we certainly do. “You’re asking the wrong person. This is no time for partying. That’s after the draft.”

On the other hand, Spurrier could be a revolutionary genius. Consider the Redskins’ last two drafts, conducted with somewhat dissimilar decorum.

Last year, under Marty Schottenheimer, it was all old-school, by-the-book and no scribbling in the margins. The Redskins entered training camp with Jeff George as their starting quarterback.

Saturday, Spurrier took an extra long coffee break, winged on over to FedEx Field to jam with 7,000 Redskin fans, circled back, sauntered back in and used the last pick of the first round to select Tulane quarterback Patrick Ramsey, who drew raves from ESPN’s draft panel.

“The kind of guy you’d want your wife to marry, that’s how good he is,” Merrill Hoge quipped.

You make the call: George or Ramsey?

Party on, Steve!

Already, Spurrier is shaping up as the best thing to happen to the NFL since the XFL. When Spurrier looks at an NFL stadium, he sees an entertainment stage, not an altar. When it comes to stocking his roster, Spurrier prefers the old college way--mailing kids copies of the glossy Florida Gator media guide and waiting for them to knock on his door.

The NFL draft? Spurrier can take it or--as we have just seen, quite vividly--he can leave it. He is smart enough to know it is not splitting the atom. Heck, he will tell you, it’s not even the bowl championship series.

It’s a two-day guessing game with a television contract, that’s what it is. But if ESPN is going to devote so much time to it, and ship half of Bristol, Conn., to Madison Square Garden to cover it, everyone involved had better have the proper game face on.

When Dallas used up its allotted 15 minutes before doing something with its first-round pick, ESPN’s crew reacted as if the Cowboys were a franchise in the throes of utter chaos. And when Minnesota, on deck, failed to jump up immediately to make their pick and take advantage of the Cowboys’ hesitation, the Vikings were portrayed as hopeless chokers in the clutch. As if that had never been suggested before.

When ESPN sent someone to interrogate Jerry Jones about this all-time draft-day gaffe, the Cowboy owner advised everyone to settle down.

The Cowboys pushed the clock to the limit in order to complete a deal with Kansas City, trading down two slots and gaining a third-round pick from the Chiefs. Jones said he heard Johnson fretting on the air about “time’s off the clock,” but pointed out that the worst-case scenario really wasn’t so bad: Dallas would have forfeited the sixth pick to the Vikings, who would have chosen North Carolina defensive tackle Ryan Sims, and then the Cowboys would have drafted next, using the seventh pick to select whom they eventually selected with the eighth pick, Oklahoma safety Roy Williams.

Minnesota didn’t get off the hook so easily.

“Minnesota could have jumped in there and took the player [Sims] Kansas City wanted,” Johnson said. “They could have moved right up there and got their card in and taken Sims. And that would have killed the Kansas City trade. You’ve got to be ready!”

Berman, realizing the mood might have turned a tad too serious, mused that “the Vikings have to re-evaluate their team speed at the guy sitting at the phone.”

Either that or rent a helicopter.