Armchair Quarterbacks, Arise

I remember seeing a survey a few years ago that ranked jobs from the most respected to least. Doctors and firefighters were around the top, teachers were below them, politicians were way down the list. There was no mention of sportswriters, but I figured they’d rank somewhere between fortune tellers and guys who wash your windows at intersections.

It would have been interesting to see where NFL offensive coordinators would be listed, because those guys have to fight for every shred of respect they get. There are only 32 of them, and they’re paid extremely well -- in most cases more than head coaches made during much of the 1990s -- but there are so many negatives to the job, they almost outweigh the plusses.

We’ve seen the sideline eruptions -- Rich Gannon chewing out Raider offensive coordinator Marc Trestman at Denver, Terrell Owens ranting at the 49ers’ Greg Knapp at Minnesota -- but it’s what we don’t see that has to make some offensive coordinators dread showing up at the office each morning.

“It’s a job that’s impossible to do based on other people’s standards,” said Baltimore Coach Brian Billick, branded a “genius” in his days as offensive coordinator of the Vikings. “Particularly the offensive coordinator, because every fan, every media guy, thinks they know this game. When you make roughly 1,000-plus calls a year, that’s a lot of second-guessing. ‘You should have screened when you ran. You should have gone deep when you went short. You should have thrown to this guy; you should have thrown to that guy.’ ”

Defensive coordinators don’t hear all that chatter. Yes, they get an earful when their defenses aren’t stopping opposing offenses. But most outsiders can’t fake it enough to go on and on about the nuances of a zone blitz or the virtues of a two-gapping scheme.

“I know my wife never sits in the stands and hears, ‘Hey, why’s the defense in two-deep?’ ” said Mike Heimerdinger, offensive coordinator for the Tennessee Titans. “The only time you ever hear a fan complain about a defense is when they’re in the prevent, and that’s probably because TV announcers are always talking about how they hate the prevent.”

It’s when their team is on offense that fans break out the imaginary chalkboards.

“If I call a run, half the stadium thinks I should be passing,” Heimerdinger said. “If we throw an incomplete pass, people think I’m an idiot.”

And those are just on run-of-the-mill plays. In crunch time, Joe Fan becomes Joe Gibbs.

“We have about 10 seconds to make a decision on fourth and one,” Heimerdinger said. “It’s not like a play just flew by my head in those 10 seconds and I grabbed it and said, ‘Let’s just run this.’ Just for that one play, it took about 30 or 35 minutes of film work the week before.”

Heimerdinger, who has two Super Bowl rings from his days as an assistant coach with Denver, loves his job and isn’t deeply affected by fan criticism. But he can’t listen to talk radio during the season. He did that once and got so angry he wound up calling the show’s host and berating him on the air. Now, he just listens to his country CDs on the way to work.

Bob Bratkowski, Cincinnati’s offensive coordinator, can’t avoid the outside criticism by simply turning off the car radio. Win or lose -- and in Cincinnati it’s almost always the latter -- Bratkowski has a few nasty messages from anonymous callers waiting for him every Monday morning.

“I wish I had star-69 so I could call them back,” Bratkowski said. “I’d love to hear their reaction. It would be my personal satisfaction.... My assumption is they either lost money or their fantasy football player didn’t have a big game.”

He isn’t kidding about that last part. Fantasy football has dramatically shaped how millions of fans view the game -- and how they view offensive coordinators. For lots of people, not only do their teams have to score, they have to score the right way.

“I remember in ’98 when I was in Minnesota and we scored more points than any team in the history of this game,” Billick said. “People were very complimentary....[But] once, we played New Orleans and we scored on just about every single possession. The last one was a little flare pass to the fullback and he went in untouched. The next day I did a radio show and some guy on the radio just was ripping me. ‘Terrible play-caller. Doesn’t know what he’s doing. The last call you made was stupid.’ I finally said, ‘OK, wait a minute, time out. The last call was a flare pass to the fullback, he went in untouched, what’s your problem with that?’ ” He said, ‘Well, I’ve got Cris Carter in my fantasy league and you cost me the weekend.’ ”

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No matter how calm they appear, NFL team owners and executives are extremely concerned about the Maurice Clarett case. There was serious discussion about the situation at the one-day league meeting in Washington last month, and for good reason. College football -- the league’s free farm system -- eventually could be irreparably damaged if second-year players start bolting for the pros. Just look what it did to college basketball. (Incidentally, one of Clarett’s best friends is LeBron James.)

But Clarett wouldn’t be the first player to make himself eligible for the draft only two years removed from high school. Defensive tackle Eric Swann was drafted sixth overall by Arizona in 1991 even though he had been out of high school in Lillington, N.C., for only two years.

Swann, who had not enrolled in college, was discovered playing semipro football for the Bay State Titans. He paid his bills by lugging pipe for an electric company and running errands for a restaurant.

The NFL will argue Swann was drafted two years before the collective bargaining agreement was signed. But the league could come to regret the precedent he set.

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For only the second time since the 1970 merger, three quarterbacks are coming off games in which they had 145-plus passer ratings. Indianapolis’ Peyton Manning had a perfect 158.3 rating, followed by Minnesota’s Gus Frerotte (157.2) and Tennessee’s Steve McNair (148.2).

The only other time three quarterbacks did that was Week 9 last season, when the feat was accomplished by Tampa Bay’s Brad Johnson (148.3), New England’s Tom Brady (147.6) and Cincinnati’s Jon Kitna (146.8).

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What Rush Limbaugh said was despicable, but just as bad was the way ESPN stuffed its hands in its pockets, turned its head and whistled happily along until the whole thing became unmanageable. More than two days passed before Limbaugh was allowed to resign. He should have been fired before the commercial break.

Not all critiques of the situation have been on the mark, though. On Sporting News Radio, Tampa Bay’s Warren Sapp took aim Thursday at Limbaugh, ESPN and in-studio analysts Tom Jackson and Michael Irvin, who didn’t step in and react to the loudmouth’s remarks about Donovan McNabb. Sapp then said this: “Do we not have anybody that understands that there’s way more scrubs in this game that are Anglos than there are black ones that are being pumped up?”

Rush couldn’t have said it better himself.

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The Chicago Bears have sold naming rights to just about everything -- including one of this nation’s most treasured traditions.

Before they played a down in their new stadium Monday, players removed their helmets, placed their hands over their hearts, and stood proudly for the “Boeing National Anthem.”

How could the Bears do that? Sorry. I forgot. How could the “Bank One Corp. presents ... the Chicago Bears” do that?

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If the ability to win close games is what separates good teams from average ones, the Washington Redskins are making real headway. They are 3-1, having won three games by a combined eight points. Coach Steve Spurrier was 3-3 in games decided by a touchdown or less last season, and Norv Turner lost eight of nine of those hair-splitters as a Redskin rookie coach in 1994.

Sure, close games build character, but Washington players wouldn’t mind a change of pace.

“I hate that we play like that,” said cornerback Champ Bailey, chosen the NFC’s defensive player of the week after collecting seven tackles, an interception and a forced fumble in a 20-17 victory over New England on Sunday.

“But,” he added, “we give [the fans] something good to watch.”

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Carson Palmer has been Cincinnati’s emergency third quarterback in all four games this season and hasn’t taken a snap. That’s according to plan. The Bengals don’t want to force him into action too early the way they did David Klingler and Akili Smith, who had a combined record of 7-34 as starters.

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Since his three-interception, zero-touchdown performance in Denver’s opener at Cincinnati, Bronco quarterback Jake Plummer is 48 for 68 for 568 yards with seven touchdowns and no interceptions.

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Without Emmitt Smith, the Dallas Cowboys are 2-1 and rank first in the league in offense (388.7 yards) and fourth in rushing (152.7). With Smith in the lineup last season, the Cowboys ranked 30th in offense (273.4) and 19th in rushing (109.6).

Arizona’s rushing game has dropped from 15th last season (113.4) to 28th this season (76.3) -- although part of that is because the Cardinals have fallen behind so quickly and have had to resort to the pass.

In light of all that, Smith’s comment to Sports Illustrated this summer that he felt like “a diamond surrounded by trash” in Dallas last season sounds even more whiny.

Mommas, don’t let your Cowboys grow up to be babies.