Brian Billick is being dragged into the AFC championship game kicking and screaming. The coach of the Baltimore Ravens has become a defensive genius, much to his surprise, if not chagrin.
His Ravens set the NFL record for fewest points allowed. Two years ago, as offensive coordinator of the Minnesota Vikings, Billick directed the team that set the NFL record for most points scored. They got into the NFC championship game.
Billick said then: “The league continues to move toward offensive football as the way to sell tickets and be entertaining. As much as the defensive guys hate to hear it, people don’t want to pay $45, $50, $60 to watch a 10-7 ballgame.”
Now he takes his Ravens into Oakland, where 10 points might be enough to get him into a Super Bowl. He feels as out of place as Madonna in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
“That is who we are. Get used to it,” Billick said. “That is our personality. I’m going to quit trying to explain it.”
The diversity looks good on Billick’s resume, but it’s killing him inside. He wrote a book with Bill Walsh and it wasn’t about defense. He wants to scheme and plot and draw up fancy plays on his computer. He uses power-point presentations of game plans and envisions the day when virtual-reality technology will allow coaches to provide players with gamelike situations the way a flight simulator trains pilots. His far-out approach and rapid speaking style led players to nickname him “Stat Boy.”
“I’m kind of a computer guy myself, so a lot of times I understand what he’s saying,” Vikings receiver Cris Carter said. “I speak Billick on occasion.”
Listening to Billick talk smash-mouth defensive football is like listening to Al Gore rapping. If he goes into Oakland “carrying a spear and screaming like a banshee,” as he bragged his Ravens did in Tennessee, ushers will escort him to the end-zone seats with other loony Raiders fans.
Billick and Ray Lewis are as odd a couple as Bill and Hillary. The kinds of plays an offensive coach loves to dream up and design, the middle linebacker destroys.
It took Billick a while to decide to climb onto Lewis’ back and enjoy the ride.
He lost a 10-3 game in Washington early this season when he called a pass play at the goal line and Tony Banks’ throw was intercepted. He should have pounded rookie Jamal Lewis into the line.
He almost lost his Nov. 12 game in Tennessee when he called a pass play for Trent Dilfer that turned into an interception and an 87-yard touchdown return with the score tied 17-17. A run and a field goal would have wrapped it up. The Ravens came back to win, but only because of two botched Al Del Greco field goals.
Against the New York Jets in the season finale, Billick called for Dilfer to pass at the goal line when all he needed was for Lewis to run and Matt Stover to kick.
Field goals are like gifts from heaven for a Ravens defense that shut out four teams.
The Ravens went 0-for-October–five games without a touchdown. They won two of the games with kicking and defense, which is now their weekly game plan. They beat the Titans last week by completing five passes. They won with only six first downs. They made only one big play on offense–a 56-yard pass on a blown coverage.
“Our stats have been ugly offensively,” Dilfer acknowledged.
Billick can’t even find a believer in Walsh.
“Nobody has the philosophy where you’re going to stop teams dead cold and win on defense,” Walsh said. “That’s so dated that it’s just not possible to win on defense. You have to win on offense and defense. He is making the most of his personnel, but if he can’t throw with Dilfer and Banks, then he’ll have another quarterback next year.”
Billick sounds, well, defensive.
“There’s any number of things we need to do better,” he said. “[But] that’s the way she is right now. You can take–this is coming from `Stat Boy’ now–you can take the numbers, you can take what went before, you can take whatever predictions you want to make and throw them out the window. Because you can’t explain it.”
Billick is smart enough that he has practically turned over his team to defensive coordinator Marvin Lewis, much the way ex-Bears coach Mike Ditka did with Buddy Ryan.
Billick may have learned a lesson from that last NFC championship game. The Vikings were leading the Atlanta Falcons in the Metrodome 20-7 with 1:17 left in the half. They were at their own 18-yard line. Instead of playing conservatively, the Vikings started passing. After two incompletions, Randall Cunningham faced third-and-long, and Falcons defensive end Chuck Smith stripped him of the ball. The Falcons scored on the next play to cut their halftime deficit to 20-14 and provide the momentum for a 30-27 upset.
Billick loves his reputation as a rehabber of lost quarterback causes. He earned it through his work with Cunningham and Brad Johnson in Minnesota, and with Banks and Dilfer in Baltimore. But he is recognizing that running and defense are the best friends of any quarterback, and of most head coaches.
