TASTE COMMENTARY
Never Mind the Sack Dance
At last, pro football as it was meant to be.
BY GEOFFREY NORMAN
Friday, January 16, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST
URL:http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110004564
Heading into the weekend, the Old-Fashioned Football Fan has reason to be glad; even to rejoice. Both conference championship games will be played outside, in cold weather, on real dirt and grass; and the four teams still in the hunt recall the old football virtues and traditions of toughness and teamwork. The football divas who have dominated the public character of the National Football League in recent years--both coaches and players--have pretty much gone home. Most of them until next year, a few for good.
What the Old-Fashioned Football Fan values above all is team football. He never really saw the need to put names on the backs of jerseys. You knew teams by the colors they wore. Individuals had numbers. The evolution of the "look at me" performer--who could be counted on for a sack dance or an end-zone celebration even when his team was down by three touchdowns--strikes the Old-Fashioned Football Fan as poisonous to the whole ethos of the game.
During the recent regular season, the exhibitionist compulsion resulted in one receiver making a cellphone call from the end zone after catching a touchdown pass. Joe Horn of the New Orleans Saints thus one-upped Terrell Owens of the San Francisco 49ers, who had carried a marking pen into the end zone in his sock so he could autograph the ball after making a touchdown catch.
Messrs. Owens and Horn will be sitting at home this weekend, as will Randy Moss of the Vikings, probably the best of the wideouts on those days when he goes all out. Mr. Moss famously told an interviewer that he sometimes dogs it when he knows the ball isn't coming his way. The Old-Fashioned Football Fan didn't have to be told; he has eyes. The prima-donna wideout, by the way, is an especially galling specimen to the Old-Fashioned Football Fan, who believes that anyone playing that position should, by rule, have to cover kickoffs and punts.
There will be some notable pass-catching talent on the field this weekend--Marvin Harrison of the Indianapolis Colts, for example--but the four teams still standing seem to carry remarkably few stars on their rosters. The team with the best record of the four--the New England Patriots--sent only two starters to the pro-bowl, the NFL's all-star game.
This seems to suit their coach, Bill Belichick, a sober, hard-working, meat-and-potatoes sort of guy. Mr. Belichick is the antithesis of the diva coach--think of Steve Spurrier, until a few days ago the Washington Redskins' preening would-be savior. Mr. Belichick wears his blue collar on his sleeve, so to speak, and has earned the hard-working label like few others.
Back in the early 1990s, Mr. Belichick labored for an owner who was desperate for a championship. When Mr. Belichick didn't deliver one, he was fired. The owner moved the team to Baltimore, in effect firing the city of Cleveland and its fans. Mr. Belichick, meanwhile, went back to breaking rocks as a defensive coordinator for the New York Jets. When the next chance at a head coaching job came along, in New England, he was ready. He may be charisma impaired--you could mistake him for the equipment man--but he can purely coach. Mr. Spurrier came in cocky and left sulky. Mr. Belichick is looking at a second Super Bowl in three years.
But first he has to get by the Indianapolis Colts, who are coached by Tony Dungy. Like Mr. Belichick, Mr. Dungy made his bones as a defensive coordinator. He built the unit at Tampa that won last year's Super Bowl, but he needs another year or two to get Indianapolis to that point. So for now he is winning with a hot offense--with Peyton Manning at quarterback: humble, smart and given, as his name suggests, to WASP-like good manners.
In their pregame interviews, Messrs. Dungy and Belichick will doubtless run a close competition to see who can give the blander answer in the flatter monotone. In a flamboyance smackdown between the two men there will not only be no winner; there won't be a runner-up either. And if Andy Reid of the Philadelphia Eagles gets into the fracas, there will be no win, place or show.
Mr. Reid's team will be playing the Cinderella unit of these playoffs--the Carolina Panthers, a team that went 1-15 two seasons ago. The turnaround has been accomplished under another coach, John Fox, who made the jump from defensive coordinator. Like the others, Mr. Fox is phlegmatic in interviews and fundamental on the field. The Panthers win close, with defense and a running game, the old-fashioned way. Of those teams left standing, they have the least celebrated quarterback--Jake Delhomme.
Quarterbacks, of course, are always in the spotlight, though recent Super Bowls have been won by some who could fairly be called journeymen: Trent Dilfer, for instance, leading Baltimore three years ago. The quarterbacks in these playoffs--including the overachieving Mr. Delhomme--are all more distinguished than that. Tom Brady of New England has won a Super Bowl, and Mr. Manning shared the Most Valuable Player award this year with Tennessee's Steve McNair, another quarterback and the Old-Fashioned Football Fan's kind of player. And then there is Donovan McNabb of the Eagles, who made a believer of the Old-Fashioned Football Fan last weekend.
Mr. McNabb, of course, was at the center of a furious little controversy early in the season when Rush Limbaugh called him overrated and went on to say that he got a pass from the media because he was black. Mr. McNabb carried the Eagles last weekend, but then everyone knew he could run and throw. What distinguishes the great quarterbacks is their ability to handle pressure; to stay cool in the clutch. That is why the Old-Fashioned Football Fan is still so high on Johnny Unitas, Joe Montana and John Elway. It was never the arm. It was the heart. When Mr. McNabb completed a pass last week on fourth down with 26 yards to go, late in the fourth quarter, to keep the Eagles moving and in the game, he made it into that club.
If the Old-Fashioned Football Fan had to pick finalists, he would probably settle on New England and Philadelphia, a couple of teams that could not be less gaudy. But these are, after all, serious times. Not grim, necessarily. But certainly serious, with Orange Alerts and Reserve call-ups. The kind of times when you realize how childish it is to push the "football is war" metaphor.
It isn't a war, of course; just a game. But a game that the Old-Fashioned Football Fan likes to see respected by the men who play it and coach it. This year, he likes what he sees.
Mr. Norman is a contributing editor of National Geographic Adventure. |
