| NEW ORLEANS — If Tom Brady’s out-of-nowhere season
seems like a story we have seen before, well, it’s probably because we have. Tom
Brady’s 2001 season seems much like Kurt Warner’s 1999 season. Obscure player
starts season on bench. Starter gets hurt. Obscure player enters starting lineup, exceeds
all expectations and ends up in the Super Bowl.
"I hadn’t really thought about it until the last couple of days when people
have asked me about it," Warner said. "The more you look at it, it is a very
similar situation. With Drew (Bledsoe) and Tom and the situation they had to deal with all
year long and with myself and Trent (Green) and what we went through, it’s a
difficult situation. To have good friends, like I know they are and Trent and I were, to
be faced with something like that is difficult. I think they’ve handled it
tremendously, and Tom has played tremendously all year long. In my year, we won it all in
1999. I’m hoping his (Brady’s) Cinderella story stops one game short. He’s
had a tremendous year, and there are a lot of similarities with both of us being
unheralded and finally being given a chance and succeeding and having great years."
The offense and defense of the Rams share speed as a common quality, but their schemes
could not be more different. Complexity is the word that best describes the offensive
scheme. Simplicity is the word that best describes the defensive scheme.
This difference is readily evident if you look at the playbook. It bulges with
offensive plays. Defensive plays don’t take up nearly as much paper.
Just how much thicker is the offensive playbook than that of the defense?
"It’s probably about three times as thick," Rams CB Dexter McCleon said.
"Our defense, we could get everything on one page if we wanted to. That offense is
something that you can’t just come in and … be very comfortable with learning
everything. It’s something that takes maybe a year or two for you to get comfortable.
But the defensive scheme you could bring a guy in here in maybe a week or two and teach
him everything just like that, and he’d be ready to go. It’s just like night and
day."
As a result, rookies have been able to contribute quite a bit to this season’s
Rams defense.
"Anytime you have a rookie that is drafted and the first day they come to minicamp
they are penciled in a starter, obviously as an older guy you have a little bit of
apprehension about that, but the system that we run here now is very simple," Rams DE
Grant Wistrom said. "There is not a whole lot to learn. You are really just allowed
to go out there and be a football player. There are very few rules, and that is why they
have had the success that they’ve had. That is why Adam Archuleta is as good as he
is. That is why Tommy Polley has had the phenomenal year that he has."
Rams QB Kurt Warner and RB Marshall Faulk, arguably the two best players in the NFL,
are so good it almost seems unfair for them to be on the same team and in the same
offense.
"It’s definitely not fair," Rams OG Adam Timmerman said. "We should
spot (opposing teams) a few points. It’s awesome to play in front of those guys. We
love blocking for Marshall or Kurt, either one. It’s amazing to see what they can do.
You don’t really appreciate it until we see it on film and watch the cuts and watch
the throws."
Rams head coach Mike Martz said, "I don’t know if anybody has ever been in
this situation. Obviously, I feel like they both should be co-MVPs of the league."
Speaking of Warner … well … actually … we haven’t written all that
much about him on ProFootballWeekly.com during our Super Bowl coverage. Given that the guy
is the best quarterback in the league in many people’s opinion, we felt this was a
situation that had to be rectified.
Thus, we give you a roundtable of opinions on the Rams’ starting quarterback.
Wistrom: "Being the NFL MVP, you’re going to be pretty poised out there. Our
offensive line provides pretty good protection, and he has a lot of weapons at his
disposal. He’s a great quarterback, and he does not get rattled easily."
Rams WR Ricky Proehl: "He is a leader on and off the football field. He is a guy
that everybody on this football team has a great deal of respect for because he has great
leadership qualities. I don’t know if there is a guy out there that I would want
more."
Rams TE Ernie Conwell: "Awesome, because you never have any doubts going into a
football game. Have you ever gone into any type of business deal? Have you ever gone into
any type of battle with a leader that you are uncertain about? That’s a very
uncomfortable feeling, and I’ve been in those situations before, and it’s so
awesome to go into a battle like this, the battle of the game of football, knowing that
your leader has got everything under control. He knows what’s going on. He’s
going to make the right decisions. He’s going to make the right reads. Somehow if he
makes a mistake, he’s going to make up for it more than enough."
Faulk: "I don’t think it has anything to do with X’s and O’s. Any
other quarterback knows just as much as him. It’s just his will and his desire to be
the best at what he does. He perseveres and makes himself what he is."
Martz: "When we look at a quarterback, we try to hold them to three things —
accuracy, first and foremost, his intelligence and then his toughness. Everything else is
just kind of icing on the cake. Kurt is off the charts in all three of those areas, but
primarily his accuracy is truly unusual. He can put the ball wherever he wants to.
There’s one throw that comes to mind in New Orleans in the Monday-night game.
(Az-Zahir) Hakim is blanketed and comes out at a high ankle corner route coming to the
sidelines, and he had room for error of about six inches, and he dropped it in there. I
don’t know how he did it. He does that. I don’t know that I’ve ever been
around or seen anybody with that type of accuracy. He’s really unusual in that
respect."
For the last word on Warner’s best qualities as a quarterback, get a comment
straight from the source.
"Probably a combination between being able to make quick decisions and being
accurate with the football," Warner said. "With the talented guys on this team,
the fact that I can accurately put the ball in their hands and allow them to do something
with it may be my biggest attribute."
For all the Tom Brady-Drew Bledsoe hype, the media may be missing out on an even bigger
key to the Patriots’ success on offense — RB Antowain Smith.
After all, the Patriots had a better NFL rank running the ball (13th) than
passing the ball (22nd) during the regular season.
Plus, one way to combat the Rams’ speed on defense is to pound the ball at them.
The quarterback gets the hype, but Smith will probably have to run the ball for the
Patriots to be successful.
"We know that, and that is very important," Smith said. "That is
something we have to be aware of. Even though they are going to have eight or nine men in
the box, sometimes you have to run the ball against it. If they bring that many people
down and you pop it, you can go a long way."
If Smith is effective, you can bet it won’t be because he does a lot of dancing
around with the ball.
"He’s not a scatback type of runner," Patriots C Damien Woody said.
"He’s a north-south-type runner. He likes to get down in there, so the faster we
can open up those holes, the better off we’ll be."
The Redskins' offensive line was once known as "the Hogs." The Rams offensive
line has a different animal in mind for themselves — elephants.
"I think it is because (elephants) are so nimble," Timmerman said. "They
have to balance on that little ball. They have great balance, great memory and
intelligence."
Martz on the trade of DE Kevin Carter and how it related to Leonard Little: "We
really felt like Leonard Little would be an unusual pass rusher, and we felt like that a
year ago. Kevin Carter was not going to be on the football team, period. That was just not
going to happen. He was not going to be on the Rams anymore. I had come to that conclusion
during the season, along with Jay Zygmunt and John Shaw. They were very supportive in
that, and from that point on, we just tried to work out the particulars." |
