A Message to NFL Coaches: Keep It Simple

It’s that time of year again. Championship playoffs, Super Bowl. America’s mid-winter tribal rite. The modern version of Christians-lions, throwing virgins off the rims of volcanoes.

Football is a very simple game. The late Vince Lombardi said it was just blocking and tackling. All the rest was PR, showbiz.

But, coaches like to make it complicated, mysterious. There was a time in this country when bankers communicated in code. To keep the riffraff out. Football coaches do somewhat the same thing. They ennoble a playground game with a nomenclature that would do justice to rocket science. A locker-room blackboard looks like a formula for heavy water or the theory of relativity.

In spite of this, there are certain verities, predictabilities about a Super Bowl. You cut through the verbiage and what you have is the same game Walter Camp and Amos Alonzo Stagg used to play. Here, stripped of the ribbons and wrappings, are a few certitudes about the grand new game:

--The Super Bowl--Will be the year’s most one-sided game, the football version of Germany vs. Poland. The scores of the last 5 Super Bowls were 42-10, 39-20, 46-10, 38-16, 38-9. It’s pulling wings off butterflies.

The reason? One conference or the other sends a team that is not its best. Denver or New England or Miami lucks out. They get there. They don’t belong there.

--Strategy I--Look for one team to get the ball on the other’s 1-yard line, first and goal to go, and then smash into the line 2 or 3 successive times, like a bull into a concrete barn.

They will ignore the fact that they are facing 11 massed 300-pound troglodytes and handing the ball to a 190-pound guy 5 yards or more behind the line of scrimmage.

They will also ignore the fact that, if they tried a wide play on first down, they could go into the end zone walking.

If you broach the coach on the subject later, he will look at you pityingly and growl, “Anybody should be able to make 1 yard!” As Hitler said at Stalingrad.

--Strategy II--Look for a team that has had trouble moving the ball all day against a resolute pass rush to move down the field with ridiculous ease in the last 2 minutes, when the other team starts to play 10 cornerbacks and one overweight, over-tired pass rusher. This is called the prevent defense and was first used by Gen. Custer.

--Strategy III--The teams will meet in round-the-clock strategy sessions, the coaches will draw up elaborate game plans, the staffs will look at more film than Darryl Zanuck, study the matchups at the line of scrimmage, the pass routes, the zone defenses.

And then the game will be decided by a 5-foot 3-inch kicker who not only isn’t a football player, he isn’t even a U.S. citizen. When he joined the team he didn’t know a touchdown from a first down. He really came to this country to sell rugs. If he doesn’t win the game, it’ll be decided by a pass that bounces off three helmets on the way to the game-winning reception.

--Strategy IV--Look for a team with fourth and 1 on the enemy 34-yard line to pass up a first down try because it will give the other guys good field position if they miss. They will then punt the ball into the end zone and net exactly 14 yards on the exchange.

The announcers will take a lot of understanding, too. You will have to listen to what they say but at the same time know what it means. As in:

--Possession receiver--Can’t run.

--Big-play guy--Can’t catch.

--Team player--Can’t run or catch, so they let him block.

--Good field position--Anywhere you have the ball.

--Bad field position--Anywhere you don’t have the ball.

--Terrible field position--The Chicago Bears’ 2-yard line with or without the ball.

--Clutch player--Doesn’t understand the situation.

--Clubhouse lawyer--Guy who wants to get paid what he’s worth.

--Potential--Usually finishes 7-7 with 2 ties. On its way to becoming a disappointment.

--Finesse team--Too small.

--Ball-control team--Too slow.

--Physical team--Too big. Wins fights, not games.

--Taking what the defense gives you--Defeat.

--Fly pattern--Everybody out for a long one!

--Zone defense--Strategy employed by team with slow cornerbacks or dumb safeties. Or both.

--Genius--Coach with the best quarterback.

--Dumb coach--Anyone who takes the Tampa Bay job.

So, just remember, on Super Sunday, bet the spread whatever it is. Just remember it’s only a game, it will be won by the team that is a) bigger, b) faster, c) smarter, d) richer, or e) all four, probably the one from the old established NFC.

Just keep in mind the immortal words of Wilson Mizner or somebody (not Grantland Rice) who said, and I quote: “The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. But that’s the way to bet.”