11-05-2002, 11:57 AM
All I say is, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"
From AJC.com
Who wants to can Dan now?
By Mark Bradley
Fire Dan Reeves. Do it now, this minute. Stop this monster before he takes the Falcons to the playoffs.
He has to go. Everybody knows that. He's too conservative. (Never mind that he beat Baltimore by deploying Warrick Dunn at quarterback and faking a reverse to Mike Vick, and then, barely two minutes later, by eschewing a field goal and going on fourth-and-4.) He's holding Vick back. (Never mind that Vick stands as one of the success stories of the NFL season.) Everybody knows about Reeves. He's lost it. He's yesterday's man. He's Hank Stram without the hairpiece.
So somebody better fire him before this gets completely out of hand. If the playoffs started today, the Falcons would qualify. No tiebreaker would be required, which is remarkable when you consider they were 1-3 a month ago and everyone had decided Reeves could no longer draw a proper O, let alone an efficacious X. He was too stodgy, too crotchety, too mired in an outmoded NFL of umbrella defenses and Green Bay sweeps.
Obviously Arthur Blank heard. Obviously the Home Depot man paid a few million more to have somebody impersonate Dan Reeves the rest of the season. How else to explain Sunday's doings, which included not just the aforementioned brazen bits but two flea flickers? (Neither clicked, but still!) How else to explain the Falcons winning with a coach who, as everybody well knows, has forgotten how to win?
Dan Reeves has forgotten a few things, yes. He has -- sorry, there's a cliche coming -- forgotten more about football than any of us have ever learned. He's 57, and still he's in there with his whiteboard and his black marker. What was it Reeves called the Dunn-at-quarterback-with-Vick-split-wide set? "One of those late-at-night things. You've got a new toy, you've got to tinker with it."
Truth to tell, the too-conservative rap has never fit Reeves. For all his emphasis on the fundamental, he nonetheless loves his gadgets. His mentor, the fedora'ed Tom Landry, was the same. Lest we forget, Reeves himself delivered a touchdown pass in the Ice Bowl on a halfback option. Lest we forget, the Cowboys clinched Super Bowl XXII when fullback Robert Newhouse threw to Golden Richards. The trouble with Reeves isn't that he lacks imagination; the trouble, if it can be labeled as such, is that he doesn't look imaginative.
He looks like your dad, your uncle, the nice man next door. He isn't the wild-eyed mastermind -- Mike Shanahan, Jon Gruden, Brian Billick -- in vogue in the neo-NFL. But it was instructive that Billick, who tried hard to match Reeves move for move Sunday, wound up putting his team two touchdowns behind with a telegraphed fake punt. Yes, Reeves will sometimes try stuff that doesn't work and looks really bad afterward, but on the whole you're in good hands with him on your sideline.
And what of those much-discussed "adjustments" Reeves is said never to make? He made one Sunday. The Ravens' defense rattled Vick even more than Tampa Bay's had, so Reeves countered by asking his quarterback to do less, to hand off more, to make safer throws. It's likewise said that Vick will never flourish under this coach, but clearly he has. The revelation isn't that Vick has made highlight plays of improvisational wonder -- we all expected those -- but that he has become so adroit at the basics.
Clearly somebody is coaching this team, and conventional wisdom holds that it cannot possibly be Dan Reeves. He was the guy who was going to hold the Falcons back, and how stunted can they if they've won four in a row? Somebody needs to act. Somebody needs to dump this coach before he goes 11-5 and makes the playoffs and gets asked back for next season. Somebody needs to can Dan and stop all this winning.
From AJC.com
Who wants to can Dan now?
By Mark Bradley
Fire Dan Reeves. Do it now, this minute. Stop this monster before he takes the Falcons to the playoffs.
He has to go. Everybody knows that. He's too conservative. (Never mind that he beat Baltimore by deploying Warrick Dunn at quarterback and faking a reverse to Mike Vick, and then, barely two minutes later, by eschewing a field goal and going on fourth-and-4.) He's holding Vick back. (Never mind that Vick stands as one of the success stories of the NFL season.) Everybody knows about Reeves. He's lost it. He's yesterday's man. He's Hank Stram without the hairpiece.
So somebody better fire him before this gets completely out of hand. If the playoffs started today, the Falcons would qualify. No tiebreaker would be required, which is remarkable when you consider they were 1-3 a month ago and everyone had decided Reeves could no longer draw a proper O, let alone an efficacious X. He was too stodgy, too crotchety, too mired in an outmoded NFL of umbrella defenses and Green Bay sweeps.
Obviously Arthur Blank heard. Obviously the Home Depot man paid a few million more to have somebody impersonate Dan Reeves the rest of the season. How else to explain Sunday's doings, which included not just the aforementioned brazen bits but two flea flickers? (Neither clicked, but still!) How else to explain the Falcons winning with a coach who, as everybody well knows, has forgotten how to win?
Dan Reeves has forgotten a few things, yes. He has -- sorry, there's a cliche coming -- forgotten more about football than any of us have ever learned. He's 57, and still he's in there with his whiteboard and his black marker. What was it Reeves called the Dunn-at-quarterback-with-Vick-split-wide set? "One of those late-at-night things. You've got a new toy, you've got to tinker with it."
Truth to tell, the too-conservative rap has never fit Reeves. For all his emphasis on the fundamental, he nonetheless loves his gadgets. His mentor, the fedora'ed Tom Landry, was the same. Lest we forget, Reeves himself delivered a touchdown pass in the Ice Bowl on a halfback option. Lest we forget, the Cowboys clinched Super Bowl XXII when fullback Robert Newhouse threw to Golden Richards. The trouble with Reeves isn't that he lacks imagination; the trouble, if it can be labeled as such, is that he doesn't look imaginative.
He looks like your dad, your uncle, the nice man next door. He isn't the wild-eyed mastermind -- Mike Shanahan, Jon Gruden, Brian Billick -- in vogue in the neo-NFL. But it was instructive that Billick, who tried hard to match Reeves move for move Sunday, wound up putting his team two touchdowns behind with a telegraphed fake punt. Yes, Reeves will sometimes try stuff that doesn't work and looks really bad afterward, but on the whole you're in good hands with him on your sideline.
And what of those much-discussed "adjustments" Reeves is said never to make? He made one Sunday. The Ravens' defense rattled Vick even more than Tampa Bay's had, so Reeves countered by asking his quarterback to do less, to hand off more, to make safer throws. It's likewise said that Vick will never flourish under this coach, but clearly he has. The revelation isn't that Vick has made highlight plays of improvisational wonder -- we all expected those -- but that he has become so adroit at the basics.
Clearly somebody is coaching this team, and conventional wisdom holds that it cannot possibly be Dan Reeves. He was the guy who was going to hold the Falcons back, and how stunted can they if they've won four in a row? Somebody needs to act. Somebody needs to dump this coach before he goes 11-5 and makes the playoffs and gets asked back for next season. Somebody needs to can Dan and stop all this winning.