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Rams head coach Mike Martz is holding court with the working press during the Tuesday
media day of the most recent Super Bowl week.
He is arguably the finest offensive mind in the game, yet more questions fired his way
seem to be about the size of his ego rather than the size of his football brain.
Martz is asked about being called arrogant.
He is asked if he is bothered about being perceived as arrogant.
He is asked about his reputation as someone who doesn’t worry about insulting
other teams.
Then another question is asked about him being perceived as arrogant. Then yet another
question about this perceived arrogance. Then another. Then yet another.
This media day is being held in the cavernous New Orleans Superdome, and to hear all of
these questions, one surmises that this must be because it is the only structure in town
large enough to house Martz’s ego.
To hear the machine-gun-like, rat-a-tat-tat open fire of questions about Martz’s
so-called arrogance, one starts to wonder how that ego fits through a locker room door.
To hear the onslaught on Martz’s perceived opinion of himself, one figures he must
consider the title of head coach to be insufficient. Note to self: Find out what Martz
prefers. King? Supreme ruler of the football universe? The grand and almighty poobah of
the greatest show on earth?
Martz seems to have stepped on more toes than the world’s clumsiest dancer.
Rarely will you see someone coach a team to the best record in football en route to a
Super Bowl appearance receive more criticism along the way than Martz did last season.
He got criticized for his arrogance. He got criticized for running up the score. He got
criticized for risking injury to his stars by leaving them in blowouts too long. He got
criticized for not developing his backup quarterback and running back enough during
blowout wins. He got criticized for his seemingly flippant use of timeouts.
Just imagine what would have been written about Martz if the Rams weren’t the
dominating team they were. If the Rams had actually been mediocre, newspaper delivery boys
would have needed to wear oven mitts to handle papers containing columns torching Martz.
Christy McCollum, the wife of Rams C Mike McCollum, was pregnant throughout this past
season.
Pregnant and, in the words of her husband, "pissed off."
Her anger had nothing to do with the fact that she was having an especially difficult
pregnancy. It had everything to do with all the negative press Martz was getting.
Christy was in and out of the hospital during her pregnancy. She was on bed rest. Martz
was always sending flowers or calling to ask how she was doing.
"My wife (kept) reading in the paper about how other coaches don’t like Mike
Martz, (how) he’s like the most hated coach in football," Andy McCollum said.
"I really appreciate him looking after families, and I know my wife does. So
it’s pretty funny when she reads something bad about Mike Martz in the paper. She
always lets me know about it.
"She gets pissed off."
As any would-be father knows, it is not wise to disagree with a pregnant woman. In this
case, however, no reminder is needed for one simple reason.
Christy McCollum is right. Martz is not arrogant. Martz is not a bad guy. Martz is not
the heartless, run-up-the-score villain he has been made out to be.
Reason No. 1 Martz is not arrogant: He doesn’t mind being the butt of a joke.
Don’t be fooled, he can dish it out. When Rams QB Kurt Warner hurt his vocal cords
last season, Martz told Rams DL Jeff Zgonina — a big-time talker — that he was
hoping it was Zgonina’s vocal cords that were bruised instead of Warners.
Martz can also take it with the best of them.
"We like to kid each other," Zgonina said. "We take some good jabs at
each other, and how many head coaches can you do that with? I can see him in the hall, and
he’ll look at me and just start laughing, and he’ll say, ‘Hey, don’t
even start,’ and he’ll keep walking. And I’ll just say, ‘I’ll get
you later.’
"I’ve given some zingers."
An arrogant man would view this as insubordination. Martz views it as a chance to
foster a pleasant work environment.
"Something like that makes it so much nicer to be able to go to work and know that
a coach really cares about you," Zgonina said. "Whereas some coaches don’t
even say ‘hi’ to you in the morning."
Martz can be very self-deprecating, yet another trait not associated with an arrogant
man.
When Martz arrived at the Super Bowl in a suit and tie instead of his more common sweat
suit, he was asked if he was going for a new look.
Martz said no, and he turned his sharp wit on himself, saying, "Putting a tie on
me is like putting a diamond on a pig."
When Martz, a big Civil War buff, is asked if he uses this area of interest to make any
points in football with his players, Martz said, "I wish I could tell you that
I’m that smart and can apply that stuff."
Reason No. 2 Martz is not arrogant: He frequently tries to deflect praise for the
Rams’ success.
"All the glory that he gets, he kind of pushes it off to other players and the
team itself," Rams OG Tom Nutten said.
When asked about the fact that HIS offense has been compared to some of the great
offenses of all time by some of the biggest names in football, Martz said, "I’m
excited and very happy for those players that have been able to establish that and do
that, because I do think they are part of something special."
When asked about this past season’s Super Bowl team when it was HIS show vs. three
seasons ago when he was the offensive coordinator of a Super Bowl team, Martz said,
"It’s OUR show. It’s not MY show. It’s OUR show."
An arrogant man would have dislocated his shoulder trying to pat himself on the back in
regard to these questions. Martz made a simple handoff instead.
Reason No. 3 Martz is not arrogant: He is very comfortable delegating authority. Even
more telling is the fact that not only does he not hide this fact, he seems to revel in
letting the football world know.
For example, Martz is the main man when it comes to decisions on offense, but on
defense Lovie Smith runs the show for the Rams. After hearing Martz talk, one feels as
though Smith’s title should be changed from "defensive coordinator" to
"head coach in charge of defense."
At this year’s Super Bowl, a hot issue the first half of the week was whether the
Rams’ defense would face Tom Brady or Drew Bledsoe as the Patriots’ starting
quarterback.
When asked about the uncertainty of preparing for the New England offense, Martz said,
"Our defensive staff is still up in St. Louis. I can’t answer that until Lovie
tells me what to say."
When asked a different question about the defense, Martz said, "I just do what
Lovie tells me to do."
A similar situation exists on special teams where assistant coach Bobby April runs the
show.
"The special-teams aspect of it is the aspect that I understand the least, and
then you have great trust in whoever that individual is that it’s coached the same
way that we coach the defense and the offense," Martz said. "And Bobby has done
a terrific job of doing that."
Martz runs the offense and the overall team. His most important job on defense and
special teams has been to bring in the right coaches to run the show. An arrogant man
would never be able to relinquish that much control.
"Those kind of guys, they want to run it all," Rams DL coach Bill Kollar
said. "They want to call the offense, the defense, the special teams. He’s not
like that at all.
"Arrogance? I have no idea why (anyone) would see it."
Reason No. 4 Martz is not arrogant: He wants his superiors to get some of the credit.
Arrogant head coaches resent it when owners or front-office executives get a share of the
credit, as though that somehow takes away from their own genius.
"You’ve got to recognize Jay Zygmunt and John Shaw," said Martz, who
then got a big laugh from a media throng when he said, "those are my bosses by the
way."
Reason No. 5 Martz is not arrogant: The fleet-footed Deion Sanders never moved as
quickly as the Rams’ coach runs away from the "genius" tag some giants of
the profession have been known to embrace.
Asked if being called a genius is something he likes or if it is something he finds
embarrassing, Martz said, "Well, first of all, there’s no such animal. And
that’s very flattering, but I don’t believe that. I just don’t think that
exists. I think my intelligence is directly related to the skill level that we have on
this team, and I think they can make you look pretty smart."
In an industry in which some coaches are walleyes trying to convince the world they are
sharks, Martz is a tiger who would be perfectly content to be seen as a squirrel,
diligently working to save up enough nuts for winter.
Reason No. 6 Martz is not arrogant: He can admit a mistake. Arrogant men do this about
as often as a nun wears a thong bikini.
Of his decision to leave star QB Kurt Warner and RB Marshall Faulk in the game to the
bitter end of a 45-17 blowout win over the Packers last season, Martz defended keeping
Warner in the game but said, "Marshall shouldn’t have been in there. That’s
a bonehead mistake on my part."
A couple of weeks later, Martz was even willing to concede that his decision on Warner
left something to be desired.
"It was a risk as you look back at it," Martz said. "I know what the
intent was. Was it the smartest thing to do? Probably not."
After Giants CB Jason Sehorn said he thought the Rams have an impatient offense, Martz
said, "Who cares? Think I need to worry about what Jason Sehorn thinks? We just keep
running by Jason, that’s all I know."
Martz didn’t need to agree with Sehorn’s comment. He didn’t need to like
the comment. His response, however, seemed to go too far. He seemed like he pulled out a
bazooka to respond to a slap in the face. The response was proof of Martz’s arrogance
to his critics.
However, at the Super Bowl, Martz was asked about this, and his response seemed to show
that he had gone too far in the heat of the moment as opposed to the ranting of an
arrogant jerk.
"That was an angry and uncalled for reaction on my part to a comment made by Jason
about me, and I took it personal, and you can’t do that," Martz said. "That
wasn’t right on my part, and I apologize to Jason. I didn’t mean anything."
Reason No. 7 Martz is not arrogant: Being accused of being arrogant seems to bother
him. An arrogant man would tell his critics to take a flying leap.
(For example, college basketball coach/heat-seeking missile Bobby Knight once said that
when he dies he wants to be buried upside down so "my critics can kiss my ass.")
Although he doesn’t seem likely to get a bleeding ulcer over the criticism, Martz
does sound slightly wounded over the "arrogant" tag he receives.
"I think anytime somebody says something like that that has a negative
connotation, of course it bothers you," Martz said. "I think everybody likes to
be liked, although that’s not possible. Sure it bothers you."
Reason No. 8 Martz is not arrogant: It’s only very recently that he has enjoyed
significant success.
As a player, he was hardly everyone’s All-American.
He was a tight end for the University of California-Santa Barbara ("It’s the
only school that would give me a scholarship," he said), when the school dropped the
sport.
"It was a terrible shock," said Martz, who transferred to Fresno State.
"It made all of us very angry."
His first job as a coach put him in charge of the wide receivers and quarterbacks in
the wishbone offense at Bullard High School (Calif.). To go from coaching in the now
archaic wishbone offense to running what might be the most prolific passing offense in NFL
history has to qualify as one of the great "before" and "after"
pictures of all time.
Martz was a college assistant coach from 1974 to ‘91, when he was fired along with
the rest of the staff at Arizona State.
He had four small children, a wife and he couldn’t find a job.
"At that point you start thinking about you’ve got to support your family
now," Martz said. "Probably that was as close as I’ve come to getting out
of the profession."
His wife Julie wouldn’t hear of that, so thoughts of selling jock straps door to
door, or whatever it is that coaches who get out of the profession do, were scrapped. His
wife’s support kept Martz on the coaching path, but it couldn’t provide him with
a paying job.
"It was a tough time," Martz said. "Anybody who has been out of work and
can’t find work, you know that sometimes that can be kind of a struggle."
With no job prospects panning out for him, Martz became an unpaid volunteer for the
Rams for a year.
"(I’d) always wanted to get into the NFL, and I thought maybe this was the
opportunity to be a volunteer someplace and see if I couldn’t get in that way."
Even though Martz said his salary was zero, he still had a difficult time landing the
position with the Rams. It was March, which is a lousy time to be trying to find a job
opening in the football world.
"I kind of begged my way into it," Martz said.
He got the job, which included the less than thrilling task of doing bed check every
night. Welcome to the glamorous world of the NFL.
Though he got into the NFL, what he didn’t realize was that he was getting into
one losing situation after another. Like a thirsty man who sees nothing but a blazing sun,
mile after mile of blazing sand and mirages, Martz went years without being able to drink
from the cup of victory.
In his first seven NFL seasons, Martz’s teams never made the playoffs.
"It’s not so much wondering are you any good," Martz said.
"It’s just, is this worth it? After a while, you start to get worn down a little
bit emotionally with that. It’s hard to keep plugging away, just waiting to get a
little crack in that rock so to speak. You’ve just got to keep hammering."
This was the guy who would become the head coach of a team that would be so successful
that he would get accused of being too arrogant?
"I guess that’s a big jump," Martz said.
Reason No. 9 Martz is not arrogant: If he is a genius, Martz is not one of those
brilliant talents who is intolerant of those who cannot perform at his own sky-high level.
One of the reasons that former superstars often fail as coaches is that they are unable
to comprehend why their players can’t do the things they used to be able to
accomplish.
This is not something Martz can be accused of doing. Maybe it’s because he
wasn’t a star player. Maybe it’s because his race to coaching stardom endured so
many flat tires and blown engines before, out of nowhere, he suddenly found himself on the
lead lap of the Daytona 500.
Whatever the reason, Martz can critique and challenge his players without crushing
their spirit.
In the 2001 regular-season opener, CB Dexter McCleon had a forgettable game against the
Eagles. Some coaches might have read McCleon the riot act. Not Martz. The following
exchange took place.
Martz: "You didn’t look like yourself out there."
McCleon: "I didn’t feel like myself. I was burned out from training camp. I
was tired."
Martz: "That’s what I thought. I didn’t see the speed that I know you
have."
Sometimes the tool to use is a screwdriver instead of a sledgehammer. McCleon got the
message. The following week his game started to return to normal.
Martz then went up to him and said, "I see it coming back. I see the old
Dex."
Sometimes finesse beats dropping a nuclear bomb.
"If you screw up he gets on you, but then again he doesn’t take your
confidence away," McCleon said.
Rams FB James Hodgins had a similar experience with Martz. The year was 1999. Martz was
the Rams’ offensive coordinator at the time. Hodgins was an undrafted rookie and a
long shot to make the team.
In a preseason game Hodgins fumbled the ball three times. Somehow he made the team.
After the final cutdown day, Martz called Hodgins into his small office.
Martz told the young player, "If you hold onto the ball, you’ll be a great
player in this league, and you’ll play for 10 years. You keep fumbling the ball,
you’re not going to last."
It was a pretty short meeting, yet it was brilliant in what it accomplished. It put
Hodgins on notice that fumbling was unacceptable, a point that clearly had to be made. Yet
rather than being annoyed that Hodgins’ potential fumbling problem might mess up his
grand plans, Martz also provided hope. Rather than reduce the rookie to a scared kid
afraid to make a mistake, Martz pointed to the Holy Grail — a 10-year career. All in
two simple sentences.
"If any running back is going to make it in the NFL, you’ve got to hold onto
the ball," Hodgins said. "So that was kind of obvious. But the part that
wasn’t obvious was him telling me that I could play 10 years in the league, and
that’s why I probably focused more on that. But it’s obvious that if you
don’t hold onto the ball you’re not going to be in this league long. If you
don’t do your job right, you’re not going to be around. That’s just the
facts of the NFL."
Hodgins had been surprised he’d even made the team since he had to pass up three
other fullbacks on the depth chart as an undrafted rookie to do so.
Until Martz mentioned a 10-year career, Hodgins was just hoping to hang on as long as
he could. In just two sentences, Martz had opened up new possibilities as well as telling
him what he had to fix to get there. Other things were said in their five-minute meeting,
but these two sentences changed Hodgins’ life when a coach’s arrogance could
have wrecked it.
"I don’t know if he realizes it, but it makes a world of difference to a guy
when you tell him what he can do and his potential," Hodgins said. "And once he
said that, my confidence naturally built."
Reason No. 10 Martz is not arrogant: He does not view his players as mere chess pieces
to be sacrificed for his own greater glory. He is not an arrogant war general trying to
earn another star, talking about acceptable losses in the pursuit of some godforsaken hill
in the middle of nowhere.
Martz genuinely cares about his players.
When McCollum’s wife was going through her difficult pregnancy, Martz showed this
side of his personality.
"We thought something was wrong, so I’m running my wife to the
hospital," McCollum said. "Within an hour, he’s calling me up and saying,
‘Don’t worry about anything. You take care of what you’ve got to take care
of with your family.’ "
When Zgonina’s father was sick with pancreatic cancer, Martz once again said
family before team.
"Mike said, whatever I had to do, he was going to support me," Zgonina said.
"If I had to leave to go home to see my dad, he said, ‘There’s no problem,
you don’t even have to ask. Just tell somebody, and take as much time as you
want.’ Mike’s awesome. The best head coach I’ve ever had."
Martz told Zgonina to bring his dad to a preseason game.
"My dad … loved being on the sideline, loved being in the locker room before
the game," Zgonina said. "My dad was a big fan. It’s like one big family
with Mike.
"It helps to have a head coach that has a lot of compassion for that kind of
stuff."
Is that something you’d say about an arrogant man?
"The biggest thing to me with players is you want to treat players the way you
want to be treated — with respect and dignity and trust," Martz said.
Is that something an arrogant man would say about his players?
If Martz is not arrogant, what is he?
After all, his critics can’t all be making up this assertion out of thin air.
How about confident? Supremely confident even. It’s in the same neighborhood as
arrogance, but the address is different.
"He is very confident," McCleon said. "High confidence level that he can
outdo any coach, he can outskill, he can outthink any coach.
"I just watch his work. I know that the offensive game plan that he presents, he
has so much confidence in it that it will work no matter what the other team does, what
the other coach does. He always says it’s not about what they do, it’s about
what we do."
LB Don Davis used to play for the Buccaneers before joining the Rams last season. His
opinion on the arrogance-confidence debate has changed.
"I kind of thought he was arrogant and had that swagger," Davis said.
"When you’re on the other side, you kind of resent it. But it’s a
confidence he has, and I love it."
Maybe you think using the word "confidence" or even the phrase "supreme
confidence" instead of "arrogance is splitting hairs.
If you don’t like how that fits, try this on for size: Critics mistake
Martz’s attacking mentality for arrogance.
"I think we probably have kind of an arrogant approach to what we do," Martz
said. "We try to instill that. Not the arrogance, but just the aggressive attitude
and not-back-off-anything type of approach with these players. I think that probably comes
across as being arrogant. But this is a tough league. Highly competitive. We’re
trying to get the most out of our players, and you want them to approach it in a very
aggressive, bold and even brash fashion without being disrespectful to their opponents. I
think that being said, I think some of what we do is probably interpreted as being
arrogant."
The Rams are an attacking team under Martz. To achieve this mindset, you can’t
tell a team to attack, attack, attack, let up and then attack again next week. To think
otherwise makes as much sense to Martz & Company as the concept of being half
pregnant. You either are or you aren’t. You either attack or you retreat. On
Martz’s watch, the Rams attack.
"He’s a perfectionist." Rams LB Tommy Polley said. "He has a mean
streak in him. He wants to go out and kill everybody. I think that’s the whole
mentality of the whole team. They want to go out and win every game and play as hard as
they can and destroy the other guy."
McCollum said, "If he could, it would be 100-0 every game. He’s a real
competitive guy, and he goes after it. That’s an awesome thing to have for a
coach."
That may sound over the top, but consider the fact that Martz & Co. get criticized
for not letting up in a league in which Randy Moss has come under fire for not going all
out all the time. Pick a side folks.
"I think aggressive is a better term," Nutten said. "His drive for
success and will to win is just so high that there were instances where I think in the
media or other teams had called him out as being arrogant and rubbing it in and stuff like
that, whereas he doesn’t view it that way. For him, the score is always 0-0, and
we’re always trying to move the ball, we’re always trying to score. It’s as
simple as that.
"I know that football is a game you can’t play half-assed. Either you go 100
percent or you don’t go at all."
Rams WR coach Ken Zampese said, "You don’t run a race to beat the guy next to
you. You run a race to beat your personal-best time. And I think that mentality kind of
gets laid over everything that we go about doing."
Rams CB Aeneas Williams said, "If we’re playing the Super Bowl or playing a
playoff game, he doesn’t say, ‘Guys, we need to take it up another notch,’
because he always required that we stay at that level. He never sets the barometer based
on who we’re playing."
One suspects that if the Rams were Our Sisters of the Poor High School and built a 50-0
lead, Martz would be stressing the importance of maximum effort in the pursuit of team
growth. Such was almost the case last season when Martz’s Rams played the Carolina
Panthers in Week Nine. The Panthers may not have been Our Sisters of the Poor High School
last year, but they were as close as you’ll find in the NFL, posting a disastrous
1-15 record.
The Rams had built a 31-0 lead just before halftime, but allowed the Panthers to return
a kickoff 99 yards for a touchdown.
The Rams still held a 31-7 at halftime, but to hear Martz address his team in the
locker room during the intermission you’d have though it had blown the entire
31-point advantage.
Angry? You might say that.
"I can’t describe it," Polley said. "There were too many
bleeps."
Nutten had been injured shortly before the Panthers returned the kickoff for a
touchdown, so he was in another room when Martz tore into the team. Could Nutten still
hear Martz?
"Absolutely," Nutten said. "I’m not sure on the decibel meter, but
let’s just say everybody was listening and nobody was talking."
For all of those critics who like to complain about Martz running up the score, for all
of the second-guessers who roll their eyes at the thought of Martz worrying about a
seemingly insignificant touchdown allowed in a blowout, don’t forget that in the
Rams’ previous game against the Saints they had built a 24-6 first-half lead at home
only to lose 34-31.
"(It) just was not up to our standards," Martz said of the kickoff return the
Panthers returned for a touchdown. "I just felt that there was a bit of a letdown,
the same type of letdown that we’d experienced with New Orleans earlier. I really
felt like that was the turning point for us in the season; that we cannot go out there in
the second half and take our foot off the accelerator. If we were going to get to (the
Super Bowl) we’ve got to keep the pedal to the metal and not back off. And
that’s what we did.
"We keep the starters in there for lots of reasons. But primarily we keep them in
there until we’re sure the game is won. Once we feel confident that this game is won,
then they’ll come out."
Hmm, perhaps there is a method to the madness. There is a saying that you either move
forward or backward, because you can never stay the same. You won’t find a better
description than that of Martz’s philosophy.
"He goes for the jugular and doesn’t let up," Rams backup QB Jamie
Martin said.
When the Rams had a 31-7 lead against the Jets last season, they tried an onside kick.
Running up the score? Martz views it as never taking a big lead for granted.
"If you’ve got a chance to knock them out, you’ve got to knock them
out," Martz said.
Critics see this and cry foul, cry poor sportsmanship, cry arrogance.
His players see this and embrace him for his refreshing approach, for his willingness
to take the heat so they can try to maximize their ability.
"I think the (arrogance perception) is way off, but I know him personally,"
Rams QB Kurt Warner said. "I can see where people can misconstrue things and say that
about him. But his bottom line is, he’s out to do what’s best for this football
team. He would love everybody to love him and like him for everything he does, but his
bottom line is, he’s going to take care of us first. Some things have gone through
the media … that we’re trying to score more points and rub people’s noses
in it, but he’s not worried about that. He wants to make sure this team wins, and
that we’re at our highest level. That’s what you love about him as a coach,
because he wants to do everything he possibly can to put this team in a position to win.
He’s done a great job of that, and the guys in the organization know what he’s
all about. They know that this family here comes first to him, and that everybody outside
who’s looking in isn’t quite as important as what he’s trying to accomplish
here."
Keep in mind that Warner is not a trash-talking, autograph-refusing jerk with a chip on
his shoulder. He is a deeply religious, underdog turned superstar who has not been changed
by fame and represents all that is good about sports. So when he embraces Martz’s
willingness to put the team over the rest of the world, he is one of the game’s truly
good guys buying into the belief that maximum effort is a noble pursuit.
Mike Martz is not an arrogant man. He is the antidote to a problem in sports in which
too many athletes have one big season, sign a huge contract and then their performance
declines because they listen too much to their hype and hit cruise control instead of
stomping on the accelerator.
If people want to call Martz arrogant, the Rams are willing to live with that
perception, because the alternative is to become part of the problem rather than part of
the solution. Stop trying their best just to make everyone else happy? Not as long as
Martz is their head coach.
If people want to call Martz arrogant, maybe that is actually a compliment. Maybe he is
just arrogant enough to do the right thing instead of the popular thing.
"Anybody in the NFL has to have some sort of arrogance and some sort of macho
about him to be successful," Rams WR Torry Holt said. "We feel we are a
reflection of our head coach, so if he’s arrogant …"
… they’ll follow him down that path. The path to a full day’s work for a
full day’s pay. No matter the opponent. No matter the score. No matter what anyone
says.
If that is arrogance, the NFL could use a little more of it.
Part 9: Amazing transformation
Part 8: Commitment
Part 7: Variety is the spice of life
Part 6: The hiring game
Part 5: The glass is half full
Part 4: Difficulties of the profession
Part 3: Coping with defeat
Part 2: The player-coach relationship
Part
1: Setting the tone
Series index |
