Coaching X's and O's
By Chris David
San Francisco captured three Super Bowl championships under head coach Bill Walsh.
Jimmy Johnson helped Dallas dominated in the early nineties, which produced two Super Bowl victories.
Pittsburgh claimed its fifth ring in Super Bowl XL when Bill Cowher led the Black and Gold to a win.
Soon after those legendary coaches stepped down, they were replaced by George Seifert, Barry Switzer and Mike Tomlin respectively. While none of those coaches garnered a lot of attention, they all managed to win a Super Bowl.
This Sunday, we could add another non-sexy hire to that group as Jim Caldwell tries to lead Indianapolis to its second championship in four years. Caldwell took the head coaching duties this offseason from Tony Dungy, who finished with an 85-27 victory in Indianapolis, which included a championship.
One question that’s often debated in all of sport -- Does coaching win championships or talent?
With all due respect to Caldwell and Dungy, neither of the two would be where they are without Peyton Manning standing behind center, which takes us to this week’s head coaching matchup.
Caldwell has been in this situation before, since he departed Tampa Bay for Indianapolis in 2002 with Dungy. His title has been assistant head coach for years and even though he’s listed as a rookie, he’s anything but.
Saints head coach Sean Payton was the offensive coordinator for the New York Giants in 2000 when the team represented the NFC in Super Bowl XXXV. The Giants only mustered up 152 offensive yards en route to a 34-7 against the Baltimore Ravens. Since Payton arrived in New Orleans in 2006, he’s led the club to a 3-1 postseason record.
As far as X’s and O’s go, the Caldwell and Payton matchup could be deemed a push.
Tossing that pair aside, the main coaching matchup is the Colts’ offensive coordinator Tom Moore versus the Saints’ defensive coordinator Gregg Williams. Better yet, we should probably include Manning in the same sentence with Moore since he’s the one calling the plays at the line of scrimmage.
The pair have begin together since Manning joined the Colts and their production on the field will most likely go down as the best ever. Moore and Manning coach together, discussing each series before it starts plus he allows Peyton to change the plays, which is done more than 50 percent of the time. It’s been said that Moore calls in three plays, two pass and one run, then Manning does the rest.
Trying to counter the MM duo will be Williams, who took over a unit in New Orleans that gave up 24.6 points per game and 339 yards per game in 2008. Under Williams, the yardage jumped to 357 YPG but the points dropped to 21.3. Williams uses an aggressive nature and that’s where he’s been successful. The number of turnovers have doubled from 23 to 46 and they pushed their sack total from 28 to 36.
Williams caught a little heat last week because some folks believe he’s telling his defensive players to try to hurt Manning. Asked if he was concerned about being penalized for roughing Manning, Williams said, "If it happens, it happens. The only thing that you'd like for me to say is that if it happens, you hope that he doesn't get back up and play again."
The N.Y. Jets tried to blitz Manning and it worked early but faltered late. Not many people have been able to outsmart Moore this year and we don’t believe Williams can do so on two weeks notice either.
Edge: Indianapolis
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