MVN - Most Valuable Network

The Great Pumpkin

Third-year St. Louis Rams coach Scott Linehan has come in for a lot of criticism during his tenure with the team. As an offensive coordinator, he established a legacy of success with both the Minnesota Vikings and the Miami Dolphins. His accomplishments with those teams served as the basis for his hiring as the Rams’ head coach in a close decision over the somewhat erratic Cam Cameron. Linehan brought with him the expectation of a return to offensive success in 2006 and a rise to the top of the NFC West.

As we know now, such was not to be.

After an up-and-down season in 2006 marked by a five-game losing streak and a three-game winning streak, expectations remained high among many Rams fans. Linehan had improved the team’s record from 6-10 to 8-8, and the ghost of the, shall I say, enigmatic Mike Martz had been expunged from the atmosphere at the Ed. Things were definitely looking up.

Then the disaster of the 2007 season struck. Not only did the team descend to second-pick-in-the-entire-draft status, but Linehan turned into a major pumpkin. The question became was this a one-season phenomenon, or was the real Linehan revealed?

The ancient poet Horace said that adversity reveals a general’s true nature; good fortune conceals it. If so, the Rams are in trouble. Linehan demonstrated a complete inability to cope with repeated defeats in 2008 and, more importantly, to devise ways to overcome them. The team was rudderless, the players were openly angry and critical, and even fellow coaches, particularly Jim Haslett, were sniping at Linehan. Incomprehensible play-calling on offense, vague news conferences laden with jargon and cliches, and a sullen and withdrawn mood made Linehan appear that he had completely lost control of the situation.

As Jim Mora, Sr. might have put it, “Leadership? Leadership? What leadership?

But now, according to a columnist who tends to be very kind to Linehan and to the front office, the Coach is changing for the better. As evidence of this, Bernie Miklasz reports that Linehan “willingly ceded authority” over the draft to Devaney (wanna bet?), and that HE “shook up his coaching staff” (wanna bet again?). Bernie actually uses the fact “that Devaney has been a soothing, stabilizing influence on Linehan” to support his argument that the Rams’ coach is now a more effective leader. Really? If that’s the case, let’s cut out the middleman and make Devaney the head coach!

Much is also being made of the fact that Linehan is more relaxed these days. Unfortunately, that has come from the fact that he has less active involvement with the team now than before, which, on second thought, may not be a bad thing. Devaney is handling all personnel matters (it was he who most likely got rid of social moron Dominique Byrd), Saunders has complete authority over the offense, and Linehan, probably prompted by a survival instinct, doesn’t even go near Haslett’s defense, except to be photographed walking off the practice field with Chris Long. All this for the same salary, BTW.

Does any of this make Linehan a better leader on Sunday?

So, what’s a head coach to do?

Well, Bernie thinks that it’s really great that Scott is trying “to cultivate an improved relationship with the media.” Yawn. He also likes the fact that Linny took an INDIRECT (really aggressive, huh?) swipe at Halsett by offering Gregg Williams the defensive secondary coach’s job. Wow, I’m convinced now. What’s next, Bernie? Is Linehan taking over the cheerleaders? Bloggers over at stlouisramsx.com are already referring to him as the HC (Head Cheerleader).

Rather than becoming a bold, assertive leader, Scott Linehan is in danger of being the next Mr. Irrelevant.

In fairness, Bernie hedges his bets by saying that how the Rams perform this season will be the final determinant of Linehan’s effectiveness. Indeed. He has to say that because he hasn’t found anything significant yet to support his thesis that Linehan is changing into a real leader.

One of the main principles in my field is that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior.

That tells me that Scott Linehan won’t become a Vince Lombardi.

He’ll continue being the Great Pumpkin.

And Rams ownership will be serving (Great) Pumpkin pie at the end of the year.

“Spygate” ends with a whimper

Talk about shooting a dead horse.

Matt Walsh, that mysterious Patriots video guy, has finally turned over all his tapes of the Patriots’ illegal signal-stealing from 2000 to 2002. According to SI.com, the eight tapes include footage of six games against a total of five opponents: the Dolphins, Bills, Browns, Chargers, and Steelers. That Steelers game was the 2002 AFC championship game.

But something important is missing from that list: the tape of the Rams’ final walkthrough on the day before Super Bowl XXXVI. This was the only tape that really mattered anymore. The Patriots had already admitted to the offenses listed above. Walsh has only proven what we already knew anyway. The Pats may be mildly punished now that these tapes have been turned over, although it is unlikely, since the NFL and various team officials keep repeating that this whole incident is a nonissue.

The point is, the alleged Super Bowl cheating will never be proven now. Walsh does not have that tape. His lawyer’s stance is that Walsh never claimed to have such a tape, and it’s our fault for assuming that he did. Spygate is over.

All we know for sure now is that Matt Walsh is an opportunistic, greedy, and thoroughly reprehensible man. Maybe he didn’t claim to have the SB tapes, but he never said he didn’t have them, either. With speculation rampant that Walsh would dethrone the hated Pats, many Rams fans had been looking to him to salvage their memories of that terrible upset in 2002. Walsh took advantage of his undeserved celebrity to tease the sports world. He cut a deal with the NFL and the Patriots that protects him from future litigation, pays his legal expenses for him, and provides him with an expenses-paid trip to New York (he currently is in Hawaii, where he has become a pro golfer). All for the sake of proof he never had to begin with.

I was never a proponent of the idea that the Super Bowl title should be taken away from the Patriots, even if that tape was found. The Rams, even at an unfair disadvantage, could have won that game if Mike Martz had not lost his head and refused to use his Hall-of-Fame caliber running back. But this is an absolutely outrageous way for Spygate to end. I don’t care that Matt Walsh did not specifically say he had proof. In the face of overwhelming speculation, he remained silent. What were we supposed to think? Walsh has conned the entire NFL and all of its fans, and he’s going to get away with it without having to pay a single penny.

It’s just not right.

One Fan’s Reaction to Leonard Little’s Agony

Certainly any NFL fan is familiar with Leonard Little, the dynamic defensive end of the St. Louis Rams. Drafted in 1998, from 2001 to 2006 this former middle linebacker at Tennessee was a terror, racking up 73 1/2 sacks in regular season play and at least another 5 sacks in the playoffs. He was an All-Pro in 2003 and was chosen for the Pro Bowl that year. A toe injury that eventually required surgery limited his playing time in 2007, but both he and the Rams are expecting a big comeback from him in 2008, especially with the addition of number one draft pick Chris Long as a pass rushing threat at right end.

Despite his illustrious record on the field with the Rams, it’s a wonder that he is with the team at all. You see, there is more to write about Little than football.

Bryan Burwell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch recently wrote a column about Little’s struggles off the football field. He followed up that column with another one a week later that focused mainly on Burwell’s thoughts about Little and the public reaction to what Little had done. I would like to add my own thoughts to the discussion.

Just in case you don’t know or don’t remember what happened, let me briefly summarize. After a birthday party in his honor on October 19, 1998, Little, in Burwell’s words, “got into his SUV after a night of drinking and partying, broadsided the car of a suburban housewife and mother, ended her life, ruined her family’s life and sent himself reeling into his own decade-long private hell on Earth.” Quite a statement. And as if that weren’t enough, Little was arrested again in 2004 for drunk driving and speeding, seeming to tell people by his actions that he was unaffected by the tragedy that occurred six years earlier and that he certainly had not learned any lessons from it, least of all the need to moderate his drinking and not drink and drive. However, a jury acquitted him on the DUI charge, finding him guilty only of speeding. The explanation for the acquittal centered around the fact that two officers on the scene gave conflicting views of the arresting officer’s observation that Little was drunk.

The Rams organization was heavily criticized for not releasing or at least trading Little after the first incident, for which he did some jail time, had to perform community service, and was suspended by the NFL for eight games. Public opinion, as one might expect, was also extremely sympathetic to the victim’s family and pilloried Little in the media and on the street every chance it got. The outcry against him only intensified after the second incident. Further fueling the flames of public antipathy was the perception that Little has received special treatment from the legal system because he is a football player.

Burwell’s columns caused me to think about two widely separate occurrences in my own life that, each in their own way, relate to Little’s situation. The first one happened in 1971, when I was stationed at an Air Force base in northeastern Mississippi. I was living in a small house that I rented from a cotton and soybean farmer, who lived with his wife and son next door. The son, nicknamed Junior, was about 18 at the time and a thoroughly likeable young man, even though he was a big Saints and Archie Manning fan. To make a little extra money, Junior got a job driving a school bus to and from the town’s lone elementary school. One afternoon, a few students on his bus got off at their usual stop. Instead of going to the side of the street like the rest, one of the students walked in front of the bus. Junior never saw the child and put the bus into first gear. The child was killed.

I saw Junior later that same day. His parents told me what had happened and that Junior was inconsolable. Indeed he was. Crushed might be the better word. As I think about the whole thing now, more than thirty-five years later, a chill runs up my spine. Junior remained inconsolable for the rest of the two years that I was there. I never found out what happened to him. I worry that the demon of this event has lived with him all his life. I think that this is what Leonard Little has been feeling.

The second occurrence was of a more personal nature. My previous wife, a woman to whom I was married for 23 years, suffered from alcoholism. Now, let me say that, both from training and personal belief, I regard alcoholism as a disease, not something an individual chooses to do. There isn’t enough space here to explain why, so just go with me on that. She drank and drove, usually to the local package store and back home, always while I was working. I eventually took her car keys from her after she had promised several times to never do it again. Ironically, while she struggled against alcoholism almost all of her adult life, her drinking accelerated after our son was killed in a single car accident after he had been drinking at a party. She died in 2002 directly as a result of long-term alcohol abuse. That, I believe, is a fate that Leonard Little also struggles against.

So, you see, I can’t look at the Little case dispassionately, as if he was just another football player mired in legal and personal problems. Just as I felt for Junior, and for the family of the child who was accidentally killed, and for my wife of so many years, I feel for Leonard Little. What he did was wrong, and tragic, and stupid, but I believe that he is a victim in all of this as well. I don’t know if Little suffers from alcoholism as such, but he seems at the very least to have a problem with drinking. Alcohol affects exactly those parts of the brain that mediate skills like judgment, planning, and foresight. It’s easy for me to understand why someone who has been drinking thinks that he can drive safely home.

I truly hope that Leonard Little has turned the corner and is sincere both in his contrition and his efforts to overcome his problems with alcohol. Right now I believe he is. But his challenge will be to sustain his positive momentum. As I learned from watching my wife’s struggles, it will be a battle that he will fight every day for the rest of his life.

And he will never be alone. His personal demon will see to that.

Devaney’s Draft Has Focus

Billy Devaney’s first, and perhaps Scott Linehan’s last, draft with the St. Louis Rams had one quality above all others: focus.

While the merits of each individual selection are still being debated, some more than others, it’s undeniable to me that the Rams had a plan going into the draft and that they worked that plan throughout the weekend. For better or worse, that plan will have a direct bearing on the team’s fortunes in 2008.

The strategy that the Rams’ brass employed had several elements, as follows: fill specific position needs, increase team speed, add players who have demonstrated character and a sense of commitment, and create competition at several positions to bring out the most in each player. Let’s look at each element.

1) Fill specific position needs: Going into the draft, it was clear that the Rams needed immediate help at DE and WR, and that the depth on the offensive line had to be improved. With the always-uncertain status of Fakhir Brown, it made sense to acquire another CB. Other depth needs, such as at LB, safety, and FB, were also there to be addressed. A less obvious but equally important set of deficiencies on special teams also required attention.

Chris Long was clearly the best available DE in the draft and his acquisition provides a big boost to the defensive line. His versatility will allow Jim Haslett to be very creative with the position and to achieve the primary aim of exerting more pressure on opposing QB’s. Donnie Avery and Keenan Burton bring speed and youth to an undermanned and aging WR corps, and they provide a challenge to Dante Hall in the return game. While each has his shortcomings, which the coaching staff will earn their pay to address, they add a vertical dimension to the attack that was conspicuously absent last year (remember all those 4-yard out patterns?) Greco and Scheuning are excellent picks for the offensive line. Two maulers, they add depth and have the ability to boost the running game. Justin King adds speed and depth to the CB position, although he needs time to refine his man-coverage skills. Whatever the opinion of others, the Rams felt that WR was a higher priority than LB, so the somewhat overrated Dan Connor was not drafted in the second round. The depth issue at LB was addressed in the seventh round with the selections of Chamberlain and Voroba, although I suspect that, if either of them does in fact make the final roster, it will be as a special teams player. Both are highly regarded for their tackling, and Voroba was seen by some observers as a possible mid-round choice.

2) Increase team speed: The Rams last year were about as slow-footed a bunch as I have ever had the displeasure of watching. Plays took forever to develop, and opponents stacked the box with impunity, daring the Rams to try to run past them. Avery, Burton, and King, a former WR, have speed to burn, and each is capable of returning kicks as well as adding quickness to his position. Their acquisition adds a new dimension of excitement that has been missing since the heyday of the GSOT.

3) Added character and commitment: None of the new Rams has, to my knowledge, any character issues. I have not seen a single reference to an arrest, an upcoming hearing or trial, or any problems with substance abuse. This is a welcome change from the days of selecting people like Claude Terrell, Dominique Byrd, and Claude Wroten, and one that I attribute to the presence of Billy Devaney. It can’t be the influence of Linehan, since he chose Wroten and Byrd in the draft two years ago. Linehan has now eagerly jumped on the company character bandwagon, but I wonder that, if left to his own devices in the last year of his contract, he would have seen nothing but imagined talent, ignoring character issues, in order to try to save his job. Each Ram draftee has a history of commitment to football, an example that I hope will rub off on players like Wroten.

4) Creating competition: The addition of Avery and Burton puts the pressure on Hagans, Looker, Stanley, Caldwell, and Williams, to step up or be gone. Greco will push everyone except Pace, especially, I hope, Barron, who more than anyone else on the team needs a well-placed boot. He and Scheuning will put particular pressure on Dustin Fry, the C/G who by his own admission, “just couldn’t get it” all last year. I’m counting on King to pressure journeyman David Macklin right off the team. Macklin is a journeyman at best, and that is an insult to journeymen. Having watched him with the Cardinals, I nicknamed him “Bonfire,” for obvious reasons. Chamberlain and Voroba hopefully will add some aggressiveness to special teams coverage units.

I don’t know how these draft picks will work out. No one does. I do know that now is the time for the position coaches to start earning their money and for the Rams players to step up. Personally, I’m happy that, at least for this year, the Rams’ draft seemed to have direction and purpose.