Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 28, 1992 TAG: 9201280018
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: MINNEAPOLIS LENGTH: Medium
PETITBON'S PLANS PAID OFF BIG
Richie Petitbon wants to be a head coach in the National Football League. So, why isn't he?In the past month, eight NFL teams changed coaches. Too bad no one waited to hire until after Super Bowl XXVI.
Petitbon should need no more of a resume than the Washington Redskins' defensive performance Sunday night at the Metrodome. As was the case most of a championship season, Petitbon's defense buffaloed the Bills.
"We had a good mixture," Redskins Pro Bowl cornerback Darrell Green said of the defensive game plan. "We dogged [blitzed] a little more than we did during the year, but we had a good variety in there.
"We had everything you could think of in there. It was like a pizza with olives, onions, green peppers and everything else. We dished it out with everything we had."
Petitbon is Washington's assistant head coach for defense. Actually, he's the boss when the Redskins don't have the ball.
"What I do with the defense is every once in a while I'll walk down [the sideline] and say to Richie, `Stop 'em,' " said Redskins head coach Joe Gibbs. "That's my contribution."
Petitbon's strength is his willingness to tailor his defense not only around the Redskins' personnel, opponents' tendencies and game situations. He also has rebuilt the unit. Of the Redskins' defensive starters in Super Bowl XXVI, only Charles Mann, Wilber Marshall and Green were regulars three years ago.
"We're a specialist type of defense," Green said. "We somehow combination our guys and create different defenses for different people. Richie's done a great job over the years in saying, `Hey, we're going to make the shoe fit.' "
At Monday's day-after Super Bowl news conference, Gibbs praised Petitbon and his defensive aides - Larry Peccatiello, Emmitt Thomas and Torgy Torgeson - not only for their preparation, but also their improvisation.
When linebacker Kurt Gouveia intercepted a pass by Buffalo's Jim Kelly on the first play of the second half as fellow linebacker Andre Collins blitzed, it wasn't luck.
"We were riding to the game on the bus and Larry Peccatiello came up with this blitz," Petitbon said. "He said, `Do you think we can get this into the game plan?'
"I told him yeah and Larry said we should wait until halftime because it's similar to something we'd practiced all week and we didn't want to confuse anybody.
"We put it in at halftime, called it the first play of the second half and it turns out to be the biggest play of the game. We sent Andre up the middle, and he usually doesn't blitz up the middle.
"We hadn't practiced it at all. We put it in on the bus. True story."
The Redskins scored on the next play for a 24-0 lead, but the defense wasn't through with Kelly, who was confused even before he went down with a mild concussion.
"No one thing a defense does confuses you," said Petitbon, who has been with the Redskins for all five of their Super Bowl dates, the first as a George Allen-coached safety. "But, if you keep forcing people to try and recognize what they're seeing, somewhere down the line they'll mess up. Everything is not what it appears."
The Redskins' defensive players rave about Petitbon's cerebral game plans and his down-to-earth style of teaching.
"He's an ex-player who hasn't forgotten what it's like to be a player," said defensive tackle Eric Williams. "I'm not home answering his phones, but I think `Bone' would make a fantastic head coach.
Veteran middle linebacker Matt Millen sat out the playoffs because he's a run specialist and the Redskins' were facing receiver-filled opponents. Millen, who got Super Bowl rings earlier with the Raiders and 49ers, said he used to think that players won games, not schemes.
"I was brought into this system this year and I'm going to have to deviate from my theory," Millen said. "What we do is pure scheme defense.
"They keep changing the rules to help the passer. They're trying to turn the NFL into the NBA. That's no problem for Richie.
"He would be a great basketball coach. We play man-to-man, zone, box-and-one, the four corners. Whatever he does, it works."