Given his own experience with a highly successful team, Samuel Magad has theories on the fragile interrelationship between coaches and players.
“This being a great team,” Magad says of the Bears, “like a great symphony orchestra, the conductor can’t wreck it. But a great conductor can bring the performance to inspiring heights.”
Don’t laugh, says Magad, concertmaster of the world-renowned Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Dick Jauron and Daniel Barenboim aren’t that far apart.
“Sometimes our conductor takes blame for things, for the interpretation, for the level, for the direction it goes,” he says. “It might be true, it might not. Same as a coach.”
And same as the CSO and its famed conductor, both the Bears players and their coaches are responsible for the success or failure of each performance. But at what point do the two sides meet?
When Phillip Daniels got his hand on a Daunte Culpepper pass in last Sunday’s first quarter of the Bears’ victory over Minnesota, deflecting it into the arms of Rosevelt Colvin, was it a case of great reflexes and sure hands? Or was it the result of a beautifully drawn-up defensive scheme that was simply well-executed by players who were doing what they had been taught?
“I’ve always felt it was more the player than the coach,” Bears coach Jauron says. “But everything that happened on that play was coached. Phillip was in position, plus he kept his feet on the ground, got in the flight pattern of the ball and got his hand on it. The ball goes up and Rosey chased it down.
“They were all where they were supposed to be. That’s coaching, and Rex [Norris], Greg [Blache] and Dale [Lindsey] deserve a lot of credit. But they did not make the play. The players made the play.”
How about Mike Brown’s two pass break-ups in which he hung back, baiting Culpepper to throw to an apparently open wide receiver?
“We’ve been playing football for so long,” Brown says. “Coaches get paid to put us in situations in which we can succeed, but it’s up to us to be in the right place and play with the right technique and [understand] what the offense is trying to do. It’s 100 percent on the players.”
Secondary coach Vance Bedford breaks it down further.
“Mike Brown is a very instinctive player, he understands the game, he knows what can happen on certain formations,” Bedford says. “On that particular play earlier in the game, they were in a slot formation and he knew when one guy [runs a short route], the next guy has to go deep. So he baited the guy.
“Some people don’t realize when certain routes occur, what’s going to happen. It’s like playing chess. If this guy makes this move, what’s the very next thing that’s going to happen? And Mike Brown and Brian Urlacher and Tony Parrish, those guys can make those kind of plays for us.”
Urlacher is a good example because while he’s considered as coachable as he is talented, he is one of the few players in the league at his position who has the speed to take chances and make up for a mistake. Still, while they may be secretly pleased when Urlacher leaves his gap and ends up making the play, Bears coaches say they do not allow him any leeway in sticking to his assignments.
“When Brian gets in trouble, it’s because he’s trying to do too much,” says Blache, the defensive coordinator. “He’s smart, he listens, he’s conscientious, but he starts to try to do too much. The other day, he had his man for coverage and he peeked at the quarterback. That’s not his responsibility. All of a sudden, his man got away from him. If he hadn’t peeked, there’s no way his man gets away.
“It sounds simple when you say, `Just do what you’re supposed to do.’ It’s not. But if you do, you have a chance on every single call.”
Blache points out it doesn’t take much for a defense to be victimized on any one play and contends that if a team was actually to follow every single thing its coaches told them, unsuccessful teams would be greatly elevated.
“When you call a defense, you’re asking 11 guys to each have a responsibility and if every guy takes care of his responsibility, the percentage of success skyrockets,” he says.
“The temptation is always to go make a play because if you make a play, you’re going to get an interview, if you make a play, you’re going to be on ESPN highlights and get a big contract. If you do exactly what you’re supposed to do, so-and-so may make the play and be on ESPN, so you always have one working against the other.”
Still, Blache calls coaching “overrated,” and Jauron sticks to the notion that more often than not, he watches films and recognizes athletic ability overshadowing coaching.
“Like when Culpepper was scrambling out of the pocket, running at our bench and Brian ran him down, you can’t coach that,” Jauron says. “I mean, how do you coach that? Say, `Run fast and tackle that guy?’ He was born with that ability.
“You see it from everybody–sometimes a guy is totally wrong and falls into a great play.”
One example occurred this season when rookie running back Anthony Thomas went the wrong direction, blocked the wrong man and ended up catching a pass for a long gain.
“The announcers said `What a great screen,'” offensive line coach Bob Wylie recalls. “It wasn’t, it was a complete mistake. We were watching the film saying, `Another team breaking this down is going to think this is one of our plays and we don’t even have it.’ It was just guys making it up out there.”
Improvisation is an integral part of a running back’s job.
“All of a sudden something unexpected happens and the backs have to use their own natural running ability and instincts,” Wylie says. “You say, `Anthony, you’re supposed to be over here,’ but he runs for 60 yards the other way and you go, `That’s good Anthony, just keep on going.'”
Moreover, Jauron says a player can be coached out of a play.
“You can over-coach anybody in anything, in any form of business and definitely in ours,” he says. “For example, if a safety’s responsibility is the deep middle of the field but you made him really nervous about ever getting beat deep, he’d never make any plays underneath.
“Once in a while, you have to live with the human part of the game. Yeah, he did get beat once or twice, but he also has made all these plays, and then you have to weigh how many times he got beat to how many plays he made and was it worth it?”
Perhaps a bigger issue, however, is not whether the coaches put their players in the best position to succeed, but whether the players trust in what the coaches are saying and are motivated to succeed.
“If Coach Jauron came in here and beat the heck out of us and we went two-a-days on a bye week and full pads every day, guys wouldn’t want to play for him,” Blake Brockermeyer says. “Guys would shut it down. That’s just the way it is in this league. Most of the hard coaches that just beat up their players, generally in the long run, are probably not doing as well. Players have to believe in them.”
Colvin says all in all, it’s a 50-50 proposition.
“The coaches have to be able to develop a game plan that they feel they can go into the game and win with,” he says. “But you can’t teach instincts, you can’t teach love of the game, you can’t control the intangibles. That’s what comes into play. When you make a call, it’s the intangibles that win you the game.”
