|
| |
Sunday, January 21
Extra preparation time can cut both ways
By Wayne Drehs
ESPN.com
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Overwhelmed by dealing with the endless details that accompany an appearance in the Super Bowl, Jim Fassel said that this week has been undoubtedly his most hectic in 30 years of coaching.
In fact, it was seen as a relief on Wednesday when he finally cleared his desk of the interview requests, hotel reservations, ticket inquiries and team itinerary and returned to doing what he likes best -- coaching football.
|  | | Jim Fassel felt the heat after the Giants lost to the Rams and Lions. |
"It's been hard, very hard," he said. "The league wants to know what time you're going to do this and somebody else wants to know what time you're going to do that. I had to shove everything off my desk to start looking at tape. And that was a relief to me. It's just been crazy with all the questions. It's been a logistical challenge."
And yet, if it was last year, Fassel's workload would have been even more compressed. A year ago, the NFL scheduled just one week between the conference championships and the Super Bowl, meaning the game would have been today.
It was just the fifth time since Super Bowl I in 1967 (1970, 1983, 1991 and 1994 were the other years) that teams were left with one week to prepare. Last year, the one-week break was necessitated by a later-than-usual start to the regular season (the week after Labor Day, rather than Labor Day weekend). Some say it keeps the players in their regular routine -- and thus produces a better game.
It worked, as Tennessee came within one yard of sending the game into overtime as time expired. Super Bowl XXV, played with a one-week layoff, was just as exciting. The game wasn't decided until the final seconds when Buffalo kicker Scott Norwood missed a 47-yard field goal as time expired, clinching a 20-19 win for the Giants.
Still, the general consensus was that the two-week layoff was more conducive for the Super Bowl and thus the league this season returned to its traditional postseason schedule.
"Try to get your family from California to the game, with flights, hotels, rental cars, all that stuff," said Giants cornerback Jason Sehorn. "Nobody on the outside realizes there's a lot of junk that goes into all this. I guess if it was one week, you'd have to delegate those things to someone else, but it wouldn't be easy."
New Kansas City coach Dick Vermeil, who led the Rams in Super Bowl XXXIV, is also a supporter of the two-week plan.
"It allows the teams to heal from a season's worth of bumps and bruises," he said. "It's the game of the year and you should be allowed to be as ready as possible for it."
Last year, both Vermeil and Tennessee coach Jeff Fisher left their assistant coaches at home until Tuesday, so they could concentrate on the game plan without any distractions. Due to the shortened schedule, the NFL allowed such a move.
"We felt we would keep them on their normal routine," Vermeil said. "We like how we do things, and if we can do that without breaking any rules, we'd like to do it."
With a two-week layoff this year, Fassel consulted with several coaches who have won a Super Bowl, including Bill Walsh, Mike Holmgren and Mike Shanahan, for advice in putting together his schedule.
|
One Week To Prepare
|
|
Game
|
Result
|
|
XXXIV
|
Rams 23, Titans16
|
|
XXVIII
|
Cowboys 30, Bills 13
|
|
XXV
|
Giants 20, Bills 19
|
|
XVII
|
'Skins 27, Dolphins 17
|
|
IV
|
Chiefs 23, Vikings 7
|
What he came up with was a plan that called for three practices in New York, where he installed just about the entire game plan. Practice time in Tampa will be used for fine-tuning.
"Philosophically, if you think you can change a bunch because you have an extra week before the Super Bowl, that's crazy," Fassel said. "Once we get down there we know there will be all the distractions and sometimes you may not get the mental concentration. So it's more of a review. The biggest trick is to make sure they don't get flat or bored."
Such was the case in Super Bowl XXIII, when Walsh, then coach of the 49ers, installed his game plan during the first week. Holmgren, an assistant on Walsh's staff, remembers how restless the players were during team meetings once they reached Miami.
"I was talking about coverage and before I'd show a play, one of the guys behind me would say exactly what I was going to say," Holmgren said. "He'd go, 'Cover 9, watch out, blah, blah, blah.' Pretty soon I'm going through it and the lights come on.
"It's Joe Montana, and he goes, 'Mike, it's OK. We've seen this. We're OK.' It was his way of saying, 'We're there. Relax.' And that can happen to every team that has two weeks to prepare."
|
“ |
Philosophically, if you think you can change a bunch because you have an extra week before the Super Bowl, that's crazy. Once we get down there we know there will be all the distractions and sometimes you may not get the mental concentration. So it's more of a review. The biggest trick is to make sure they don't get flat or bored. ” |
|
|
— Giants coach Jim Fassel |
That was part of the reason that when Holmgren was the head coach for Green Bay in Super Bowl XXXI, he held back some of the game plan until week two. The Packers won that game, 35-31.
"I thought it was important to challenge their minds too. You can't go in and OK, here's the script we ran last week. That doesn't work. Not when you're dealing with a veteran team and they're sharp. And they want to be challenged. So that's the thin line that you're dealing with all the time."
The approach of Baltimore coach Brian Billick, who boldly put his team's postseason schedule (from the Wild Card week to the Super Bowl) on an overhead during a Dec. 4 team meeting, is similar to Fassel's. Billick gave the Ravens three days off, then installed the majority of the game plan during Friday, Saturday and Sunday practices.
"We'll approach it as though it's a week's preparation and have ourselves ready to play on Sunday," Billick said. "There will obviously be a little bit of tweaking when we get down to Tampa."
Billick said he was grateful to have the extra week since his team was both mentally and physically drained from its three playoff wins. The Giants only had to win two postseason games to reach the Super Bowl.
"The bye week is key for us right now," Billick said. "We are a tired football team."
Just don't tell that to Ravens defensive tackle Tony Siragusa, who doesn't really care when the game's going to be played.
"There's no time to be tired," Siragusa said. "If you can't get up for this game, you ain't got a pulse. It's the chance of a lifetime."
Wayne Drehs is a staff writer at ESPN.com.
| |
