More than two hours after the game is over–the so-called meaningless exhibition game–Jimmy Johnson and Dave Wannstedt are still sitting in Pro Player Stadium, hashing and rehashing, laughing, having a beer, enjoying themselves and their jobs. It has been a long time.
They have just watched their Miami Dolphins lose to Mike Ditka’s New Orleans Saints, but they have seen their fifth-round gamble of a draft choice, Cecil “the Diesel” Collins, outrush Ditka’s whole draft gamble, Heisman Trophy winner Ricky Williams. Johnson and Wannstedt aren’t gloating. Collins is more of a risk than Randy Moss was for the Minnesota Vikings because he is on probation for unauthorized entry into the apartments of two women, transgressions that cut his college career to only 100 carries and put him one arrest from a four-year prison sentence. He also has failed three tests for marijuana use, which already has cost him a month in jail and a future full of periodic tests.
But these are the good old days for Johnson and Wannstedt, who have coached together for 11 seasons in three places and have been reunited for the first time since 1992, when they won a Super Bowl with the Dallas Cowboys.
Johnson wanted to quit the Dolphins after last season when his mother died and he didn’t get away for the visitation because he had a game to coach. Owner Wayne Huizenga asked what it would take to make him stay and Johnson suggested hiring Wannstedt as assistant head coach to relieve the burden Johnson felt as coach and general manager. Wannstedt had been fired by the Bears and planned to sit out this season, which made no sense to a career coach-aholic who spent the two weeks after he was fired in his Bears’ office working the phones as if nothing had changed.
Together, they are rejuvenated, and everything is the same. Initially, Johnson, 56, envisioned Wannstedt, 47, assuming some of his coaching duties so he could spend more time with family and general managing. But Johnson is quick to point out this is not a co-head coach arrangement.
“As far as my responsibility and what I’m doing, nothing changes from a year ago,” Johnson said. “It’s very clear. I’m the head coach. Dave was an assistant for me at Oklahoma State and the University of Miami and at Dallas, and he’s an assistant for me again. He’s kind of a bonus.”
Instead of each working eight-hour shifts, both work 16-hour days and nights. Because Wannstedt is not a coordinator or coaching a position, the job is unique in its lack of definition, but the two men are so close there is virtually no chance of miscommunication or misunderstanding. Meeting times, pregame warmups and football philosophy are exactly the same as Wannstedt implemented in Chicago. Wannstedt wanders among meetings during the week and spent the first half in the press box with defensive coordinator George Hill and offensive coordinator Kippy Brown and the second half on the sidelines with Johnson wearing a headset that connects all four men.
“I’m just an extension of what he wants,” Wannstedt said. “Anything I can do to help.”
“Dave can look across a room, read Jimmy’s face, know what he’s thinking,” said Wannstedt’s wife, Jan.
Because it is Wannstedt’s nature to get along with people no matter what, this could be the perfect marriage. Wannstedt even helped Johnson complete that long-awaited detail, standing up for Johnson as best man on July 17 when Jimmy married girlfriend Rhonda Rookmaker at his home in the Florida Keys.
“He can trust me, and the people know that,” Wannstedt said. “Jimmy knows I have no ulterior motive and the assistant coaches have been so receptive.”
Players see a better, smoother operation so far.
“I detect no jealousy or anything like that,” said linebacker Robert Jones, who was a rookie in Dallas during Wannstedt’s final year as Johnson’s defensive coordinator. “I just feel like he’s another brain put into the system to make our team better.”
Defensive end Trace Armstrong, traded by Wannstedt after the 1994 playoff season in Chicago, calls their reunion “friendly and open.” He sees Wannstedt’s influence on Johnson as similar to the buffer role Wannstedt played in Dallas.
“Jimmy is so much more mellow,” Armstrong said. “Maybe it had something to do with his personal life at the end of the season, but there are times in practices when something happens and I’m waiting for the glass to start breaking and it doesn’t happen. I hope it all works out the way Jimmy envisions it, obviously.”
The mesh of personalities raises the question of whether Johnson and Wannstedt have reached a point of needing each other to succeed, like Rodgers and Hammerstein, Bonnie and Clyde, or Ditka and Buddy Ryan without the animosity.
“No,” they say, almost in unison.
“I won a Super Bowl without him,” Johnson reminds. “I don’t know if there’s a need, but without question, it’s helpful.”
“I hope he coaches 10 more years,” Wannstedt said. “And I plan on being a head coach again. And it’s going to happen; it’s just a matter of where and when. The best thing we have going on is when we’re together, we enjoy being together. And that can make working conditions awfully good. We’re our own guys. As similar as we are, there are a lot of differences too.”
Harvey Greene, the Dolphins’ vice president of media relations, marvels at Wannstedt’s accessibility and congeniality.
“I call him Al Gore,” Greene said. “I send him to the receptions Clinton can’t make.”
Reporters who can’t get Johnson gladly settle for Wannstedt. Greene said he couldn’t believe a Chicago radio station requesting Wannstedt and, while on hold, Greene heard the announcers suspecting Wannstedt was such a dumb personnel evaluator he would have made Barry Sanders a receiver.
There are other assistant head coaches in the NFL, but all of them have specific areas of responsibility. Wannstedt’s assistant head coach in Chicago was offensive line coach Tony Wise, a friend and confidant now with Carolina. Johnson wanted Wise to make it a trio of former Cowboys in Miami, and because Wise didn’t wait for a Miami opening to develop, Johnson no longer speaks to him, as if there were a breech of sacred loyalty. Wannstedt is one of the few people really close to Johnson.
“You need people around you that you trust and can keep you rolling through tough times,” Wannstedt said.
Even though Wannstedt was fired by the Bears, Johnson has lost no faith in his friend.
“There’s a lot more to having a successful organization than just one person,” Johnson said. “I know Dave is very talented, and in the right situation with the right supporting cast, he would be successful.”
At the moment, the Dolphins believe they are in the right situation and in Wannstedt, Johnson has the right supporting cast. But for the moment, Jimmy and Dave are in trouble. They have talked so long after their first game together again that everybody else has left the stadium and they are locked in. They don’t seem to mind.
