| | ATLANTA -- Dick Vermeil has a grand opportunity to ride into a
beautiful sunset, his wife Carol and his extended family at his side. His legacy as a coach is complete, unassailable at last, and he would leave as that rarest of men -- old enough to know when he made mistakes, young enough to correct them, and skilled enough to reap the rewards of that flexibility.
|  | | Kurt Warner's rise symbolized the up-and-down nature of this year's NFL. |
In other words, he is free to retire now, without anyone begrudging him his decision.
That makes him a 50/50 shot to stay, because in the modern NFL, nothing is as it seems, and everything you see is either false, about to be false, or true posing as false.
The St. Louis Rams are world champions, and rightfully so. They
conspired with the Tennessee Titans to give us 40 minutes of the worst
football you ever saw, and 20 minutes of the best football there can ever
be. Anyone who wants to make Hooterville jokes or banjo noises now does so
in peril of his or her reputation.
The game, though, followed the season -- it was like nothing you've
ever seen. And barring some catastrophic change either in the rules, the
salary cap or human nature, it's going to be this way for awhile.
For one, the Rams. From 4-12 to Leonardo DiCaprio? How can that be? Is
it really just a matter of signing a quarterback to a long contract,
watching him blow out his knee, and then grabbing the first quarterback you
can snatch out of The Netherlands? That's just too weird.
For two, the Titans. Is Steve McNair really the wave of the future, or
a singular hyperkinetic talent who can make you throw a brick through your
TV set one moment and then run to Circuit City to get a 35-incher to
replace it by halftime? And is this any way to spend your Sundays?
For three, the coaching follies. With the indisputable fact that only
the certifiably loony and inexhaustibly ambitious would coach an NFL team
with an eye toward career security now, the surprise is not that Bill
Belichick scenarios occur, but that there won't be more in the immediate
future. And that doesn't even begin address the matter of other designated
successors, like Mike Martz in St. Louis, or Dave Wannstedt in Miami.
There's about to be blood on the moon here, and as the saying goes, nothin'
says lovin' like a public catfight.
For four, the death of several dynasties. The ascension of the Titans
and Rams puts them in immediate danger of being supplanted by even more
brazen upstarts. Hand to God, we heard someone trying to make a serious,
no-fooling case for the Baltimore Ravens the other night, based on two
factors:
1. A young and superb defense;
2. And too much available beer.
But we do know that the 49ers, Cowboys and Vikings, among others, have just arrived
at the Hard Times Resort and Penal Colony, a division of Hyatt Hotels, and
look like they are negotiating for an extended stay. And out of the
smithereens of the old rises the new -- although Lord help us all if Super
Bowl XXXV gives us Cardinals-Browns, because then we're going to start
hunting for Arnold Rothstein to make the scene complete. There is, after
all, a fine line between parity and parody.
For five, the Commish On His Heels: Paul Tagliabue was not confronted
by any particularly difficult issues in his State Of Me address on Friday,
but there is growing owner dissatisfaction over the $8.6 million fund
assembled for top league officials without discussion of the whole
membership. Al Davis, the Dark Prince Of Oakland, brought this up several
weeks ago to much derision, but as is often the case when Al speaks of his
partners and enemies, there is apparently some fire to go with the smoke.
We know this because the owners had a meeting without Tags to discuss the
matter, and if you can get enough owners mad at you for whatever reason, it
doesn't take them long to find other reasons to be dissatisfied. His term
has years to run, and he does have that glorious television deal to wave at
the owners when they get uppity, but owners don't have that old unswerving
loyalty to the king they once did. Unless, of course, they are the king.
For six, there is the matter of Atlanta's place in the Super Bowl
rotation. By all accounts, the week just ended was a barely mitigated
disaster all around for a city that likes to think of itself as the obvious
choice of the modern big event. From shivering Titans in an unheated tent,
to Vermeil demanding to know why his team couldn't ride buses to the
Georgia Dome on Saturday because of weather that wouldn't cause a St.
Louisian to even put on shoes, to weathermen who predicted locusts and
rivers of blood every day without any of either actually materializing --
well, put it this way: Atlanta now stands proudly in the rotation next to
Detroit, Indianapolis, Saskatoon and Tashkent.
For all this, Dick Vermeil might want to stay? And we thought he was
burned out 18 years ago.
Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Examiner is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. | |
ALSO SEE
ESPN.com's complete Super Bowl coverage
Frozen Moment: The most Super of stops
Warner, Vermeil look ahead on morning after
Garber: Warner saves his best for last
Murphy: Super view from the La-Z-Boy
Somber silence engulfs Titans
Jones still the last Ram standing
Warner scripts another amazing tale
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