THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 9, 1994 TAG: 9410090135
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: JIM DUCIBELLA
LENGTH: Long : 105 lines
Some call him the least appreciated great coach in the league. Some think he's a stop-gap measure, the perfect guy to make a bad team better before you hire someone to lead your club to the promised land.
He's Chuck Knox of the Rams. Already, his team has pulled one of the big upsets in the league this season, that 16-0 whitewash of the Chiefs a couple weeks ago.
Knox did more than his share to make that happen. In fact, he ordered one of the gutsiest maneuvers of the season, eliminating the snap count when his offense was on the field.
``One of the big things they have going for them in that stadium is the crowd noise,'' Knox said. ``It can cause your offense a lot of problems because your players cannot hear the snap count and they can't hear the audibles at the line of scrimmage.
``We decided to eliminate those problems. We went on a silent count, and I ordered our quarterback never to call an audible. We never changed one play at the line all day. The only thing our quarterback said all day at the line was, `Ready . . . set . . .' Then he stopped. After that, it was up to our center. He could snap the ball any time he wanted.''
The knock on Knox is that he's never won a Super Bowl. But there is some tangible proof that he may be the greatest mastermind of upsets in NFL history.
The Boston Globe reports that, according to Andy Iskoe of Las Vegas, who charts such things, Knox has been the underdog 130 times during his career with the Rams (twice), Bills and Seahawks - and has won 51 times. Not covered the spread, but walked away with a win. That means that 28 percent of his 184 career victories were never even supposed to happen.
CHATTING WITH . . . STEELERS HALL OF FAME RUNNING BACK FRANCO HARRIS
Q: You've been out of football since 1984. Is there anything you miss about the game?
HARRIS: As soon as my football career was over, I accepted the fact that it was over, and I'm not one to hang on. It was just time to move on, because it's not a game you can hang on to . . . I had 12 great years with the Steelers, it was fantastic, but I'll tell you what, life after football has been wonderful also.
Q: The Immaculate Reception was one of the most famous plays in NFL history. Do people ask you whether the play was legal?
HARRIS: People still ask me that, and I still can't tell them. There's no reason for me to tell people about that. Just the whole scenario of how that happened was just incredible. I mean, who would have thought that Steelers would be 11-3 that year? Everything just seemed to click. After all those years of frustration, it was just awesome . . . . People still tell me where they were when that happened.
BROWN BASHING: There's plenty of it in Cincinnati, where Bengals fans are fed up with yet another crummy team. The fact that the Bengals are $6 million under the salary cap only adds gas to the fire.
Yet Mike Brown goes on, not oblivious, but unaffected by the talk-show sniping and discontent he faces daily.
``I'm not going to kid myself on the image thing. It comes down to one issue: do you win or not,'' said Brown, son of Bengals founder Paul Brown and team vice president/general manager. ``If you win, you're a hero in your own hometown. If you don't, you become a jackass, and someone wants to pin the tail on the donkey. That's just the way it works.''
Since Paul Brown died in 1991, the Bengals are 11-42, 0-5 this season. They dropped to an all-time worst last year with an 0-10 start on their way to finishing 3-13.
Their offseason was one of the most hectic in their history. They shelled out more than $14 million for one player, first-round draft pick Dan ``Big Daddy'' Wilkinson. They signed several free agents. They missed out on several more.
Some saw Brown as a man finally loosening the strings to his considerable purse. But after releasing backup quarterback Jay Schroeder because of his $850,000 salary - although the Bengals still have more money to spend under the NFL's new salary cap than any other team - Brown was the villain again.
``It comes and goes. There have been times when we were thought highly of. And there have been times around here when we weren't,'' Brown said. ``Yet we're still the same persons.''
Brown still has the unquestioned final say, but his daughter, Bengals secretary-treasurer Katie Blackburn, is his heir apparent as veep. His son, Paul H. Brown, is negotiating contracts and scouting players. Other Bengals employees are taking more of the burden.
``This is a much more anxious, time-consuming arrangement than what we had before. There's not the stability, the continuity that we've had in the past,'' he said. ``Things are happening at a quicker rate. Yes, you go home some nights and think it's not much fun. But there are other nights you go home and feel good about it.''
AFC ATOMS: Think things can't get any worse for the Broncos? Read on. The team is right at the salary cap, and they have traded away most of their 1995 draft. In an attempt to win it all this season, they shipped their first and third picks to Atlanta for wide receiver Mike Pritchard. A year ago, they gave up a second as part of the trade with Minnesota that brought offensive tackle Gary Zimmerman. This year, they traded a fifth to San Francisco for defensive tackle Ted Washington. Next draft, they will have fourth-, sixth- and seventh-round picks. That's it. And remember, with the two expansion teams getting two picks each on every round, that fourth-rounder is going to be more like a fifth-rounder. . . . So much for home-field advantage. There were 54 games played in September - and home teams won just half. Defending conference champions Dallas and Buffalo already have lost at home, preseason AFC favorites Denver and the Raiders are 0-2 in their own stadiums. . . . Colts defensive tackle Steve Emtman's comeback is remarkable. He tore two ligaments and the patellar tendon in his right knee last Oct. 10, yet made it back in less than a year. Some experts believe he's the first player in NFL history to return to the game after suffering a such an injury. by CNB