THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 17, 1996 TAG: 9609170439
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Comment
SOURCE: BY JIM DUCIBELLA, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 82 lines
The NFL season is just three weeks old and already people are talking about firing coaches Dan Reeves of the bludgeoned New York Giants and Barry Switzer of the bad-bounce Dallas Cowboys. Reeves is only the winningest active coach in the league; Switzer's winning percentage after two-plus seasons is .714. He also wears a Super Bowl champion's ring.
Should those changes happen, guess who would have the longest coaching tenure in the NFC East? Norval ``Never Norvous'' Turner of the 2-1, tied-for-first-place Washington Redskins.
I'm beginning to see what Turner means when he mentions having a ``sense of urgency,'' in his profession, as he has 500 times since becoming coach. Mosquitos in a fly-swatter factory have longer careers than NFL coaches.
Turner's team also is getting it.
Call linebacker Marvcus Patton's day-long tirade at Giants' quarterback Dave Brown immature if you want, but it also sent a clear message that you no longer can say anything you want about the Redskins and not pay a price.
In case you missed it, Brown was quoted in the New York-area Sunday papers as saying that he loved playing the Redskins, always had great games against the Redskins, that the Redskins had come along at just the right time for the 0-2 Giants to get back on the right track.
After his four-interception performance Sunday, Giants fans want to tie Brown to the same railroad tracks on which Reeves is run out of town.
``I wished they (defensive coaches) had blitzed me more,'' Patton said. ``The closer I got to him, the more I jawed. ... He's too young and they're not good enough to talk like that.''
Patton may be, as Brown said, ``a real mouthy guy,'' but that late-game altercation he and Brown had was the first hint that Patton does anything on the field but play football. He didn't come right out and say it, but you got the feeling that from the moment he read Brown's quotes, Patton trolled the hotel, team bus and locker room wanting to know whether he was the only guy who was madder than hell and not going to take it any more.
In other words, with a sense of urgency to put a guy and his team in their place.
``I'm usually a `talk-is-cheap' guy,'' said defensive end Rich Owens, who had two of Washington's four sacks. ``But on the way to the stadium, the more I thought about what he said, the more (angry) I got. We're a professional football team. How dare he say that?''
In Turner-speak, urgency is attitude, pure and simple.
It's exerting the same effort on the first play of the game when it's 0-0 as you do on the last play when the score is tied. The Giants tried a pass on their first snap. Defensive tackle Sean Gilbert burst through the double-team, got a hand in Brown's face and forced him to throw too soon, before his receiver had turned around. Three plays later, Owens batted down Brown's pass at the line of scrimmage. Two plays after that, linebacker Ken Harvey draped himself all over Brown, whose pass was intercepted by Scott Turner.
Talk about setting a tone.
``This shows what we can do when we come out with a nasty attitude,'' Redskins guard Tre' Johnson said.
Urgency is infecting not only the big, beefy guys like Gilbert and Patton, but the little guys as well. When cornerback Tom Carter talked about his two interceptions, both in the end zone, he used the old ``s.o.u.'' line in recalling how he made himself stay focused on his assignments for those plays because either one could have given the Giants new life.
Here's how it works in reverse: On the fake-field-goal that the Redskins turned into a 30-yard touchdown pass from Gus Frerotte to Scott Galbraith, Giants safety Tito Wooten was told to watch out for the fake by about a dozen guys on the New York sideline. So certain were the Giants that Washington might try something, they spent their last two special-teams practices working on how to defend it.
Even so, Wooten ignored his assignment for the sake of rushing up the middle to try and block the kick.
The Redskins are fragile enough that this week's sense of urgency could become next week's senseless mistakes in St. Louis. The Rams, who have problems, are coming off their bye week. They've had double the usual time to iron out their weaknesses and strategize to capitalize on Washington's.
But Johnson seemed to be speaking for everyone when he issued this warning as he walked to the team bus Sunday night.
``Today was good, but you haven't seen our best yet.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
Associated Press
Dexter Nottage of the Redskins applies one of four sacks suffered by
Giants QB Dave Brown, who also threw four interceptions. by CNB