THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 29, 1997 TAG: 9701290649
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Bob Molinaro
LENGTH: 65 lines
A theme appears to be emerging for the 1997 National Football League season. Next time around, the NFL is shooting for the always popular retro look.
How else do you explain the hirings of Dick Vermeil and Mike Ditka? These two make Bob Dole look like a member of GeneratioNext.
I can't wait to see how the rest of the NFL reacts. You know how pro football works. One or two teams get an idea, and everybody copies it. Don't be surprised if Don Shula ends up coaching in New England when Bill Parcells leaves. For that matter, maybe somebody has already put in a call to Weeb Eubank.
If the league is looking for throwbacks, why stop at Vermeil and Ditka? Just wondering - did anybody consider exhuming Paul Brown?
Vermeil had been out of coaching 14 years before the St. Louis Rams snatched him from the broadcast booth. Not that Vermeil's a football fossil, but how many coaching interviews do you know of that require carbon dating?
Vermeil contends that he's kept up with the changing game by analyzing college teams on TV. If that's all it takes, Keith Jackson should be coaching the Oakland Raiders.
As for Ditka, somebody has pointed out that he's only two years older than Parcells, who, according to the hype, is the closest thing today's game has to a Lombardi.
Age isn't the only issue, though. Flexibility is. So is a willingness to change with the times.
In Chicago, Iron Mike's offensive game plan was the football equivalent of cave drawings. Now that he's starting up again in New Orleans, did somebody bother to remind him that Walter Payton has retired?
Vermeil may not have been the NFL's original ``emotional burnout'' case, but he helped give the condition its name. Losing ate him up. Then, after taking the Eagles to the Super Bowl, he couldn't cope with success. He was a mess, in other words.
Ditka didn't burn out in Chicago; he blew up. He took on fans, players, media and management before finding relative tranquility with NBC. He never looked entirely comfortable in a blazer, but it was better than a straitjacket.
Our lasting images of Ditka on the sidelines recall his unfocused rage. Is this the sort of personality that should be left in charge of a team from the Big Easy?
Ditka and New Orleans are an odd combo. Iron Mike, former leader of the Windy City Grabowskis, should not be coaching under a roof. This is like asking a teamster to drive a stretch limo.
Sunday, Ditka's new home played host to a game that held its own, a rare thing for any Super Bowl.
It was predicted by some that TV ratings would be badly hurt by the absence of the Cowboys and 49ers. The logic turned out to be as empty as the the corn-chip shelves at the local supermarket.
And while nobody on TV seemed to notice, the game ended with a refreshing reversal of form: The Packers refrained from dumping Gatorade on coach Mike Holmgren.
If memory serves, the last winning Super Bowl coach to escape a drenching was Ditka, whose Bears routed the Patriots in 1986, also in New Orleans. The next year, en route to the Super Bowl, the Giants began dousing Parcells and a custom was born.
In some ways, the Packers have helped turn back the clock on the NFL.
Maybe Vermeil and Ditka will recognize the league after all.
But will the NFL recognize them?