Super Bowl XXXVI

Q& A with Rams offensive line coach Jim Hanifan

Feb. 1, 2002

Q: Have you talked with Don Coryell about this Rams offense? What does he think of it?

A: In 1999, he marveled at all the shifting and the motions, and he thoroughly enjoyed that. To him, boy, that’s the game — throw that football. He has a real disciple in Mike Martz. Mike, of course, grew up near the San Diego area. He watched Air Coryell as a young man, as a player and as a young coach. Obviously he wound up with one of Don’s disciples in Ernie Zampese, who took Mike under his wing. It’s interesting, now we have Ernie’s son, Kenny, on our coaching staff. Every time I look at Kenny, I think I am getting rather old.

Q: Are there many similarities between Martz and Coryell?

A: There are a lot of similarities. Both are extremely competitive, both are very intense. Mike has more interests in other things than Don. Don had a certain group of guys that he enjoyed being with, drinking some beers with. Don always enjoyed the physical conditioning — running, playing tennis, racquetball. Mike is along those same lines too. He’d rather play golf, I think. Don has never picked up a stick. Don likes to go to a golf tournament, drive around in a golf cart and have a beer and see all of his old players.

Q: What’s the key to the Rams’ offense?

A: We know we have a very gifted runner in Marshall Faulk. We use Marshall tremendously in the passing game. The key is to make sure that Marshall gets his number of balls in his hands.

Q: What makes this Rams offensive line so good?

A: I’ve probably never been around a more versatile offensive line than this one. Simply the fact that when called upon to do certain things in the running game, they’ve responded and done well. In the area of pass protection, they have been really, really good. There are teams in the league that have less sacks (than the Rams) but to me it really is irrelevant. Those teams and what they do offensively vs. what we do is like night and day. Some of my ex-players will see us play, and they’ll say "My God!" For example, Dan Dierdorf finally saw us play in a playoff game in 1999 against the Vikings, and after the game we got together for dinner and he says "My Lord, that first half you ran only two running plays, a draw and some little chicken reverse. I couldn’t play for you." I said "Get out of here." The rest of the half, that was it — two running plays and the rest were passes, boom, boom, boom throwing the ball. We scored 21 points and scored on the first two series. These guys — Pace, Tucker, Timmerman, Rod Jones, Nutten — that’s a lot of pressure on an offensive line. They never have said a word about it. They just do their thing. So this is the most versatile group I’ve ever been with. They enjoyed run-blocking in the second half of the last game when we ran the ball. All that pass-blocking — there’s a lot of pressure on that offensive line. One slip-up and the defender has the quarterback. You can block a guy 65 times, and if you allow a sack one time — that’s what you all wrote about in the first Eagles game when Hugh Douglas got a sack off Orlando (Pace). That’s all we saw in the paper. Orlando was successful on the other 64 plays in that game. But nobody talked about that.

Q: Do you think (Patriots head coach) Bill Belichick will change things on Sunday compared to your earlier meeting in Week 10?

A: I don’t know how much he can change. He’s given us just about everything he has. Yet, I’m sure he’ll come up with some blitz scheme that will be different. But it won’t be mind-boggling. No. 1, he doesn’t want to foul up his guys. If we didn’t shift so much, if we stayed in one formation, it might be different. But with us flipping and flopping all over in different personnel groupings, you try to match up with those personnel groups and then you’re trying to call blitzes, that’s really tough.

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