Mystified masterminds

[BengalszoneBilly]

Mystified masterminds

By Michael Silver, Yahoo! Sports

November 9, 2007

Marvin Lewis is a defensive guru whose team, the Cincinnati Bengals, can't stop anybody. Brian Billick, Lewis' old friend and ex-boss, is an offensive expert whose Baltimore Ravens are suffering from an STD (severe touchdown deficiency) they can't seem to shake.

Talk about killing the mood: As the Bengals (2-6) and Ravens (4-4) prepare to slog it out at Baltimore's M&T Bank Stadium on Sunday afternoon – a game that looked highly appealing before the season began – it's a tough call as to which embattled head coach is more frustrated about his team's increasingly lost season.

"I hear it from everybody, all the time, about what's going wrong in Baltimore," Lewis said Thursday. "I don't pay that much attention, because Brian's a fine coach, and they'll come out of this. Besides, I've got my own problems."

Lewis was laughing when he finished that quote, in a gallows-humor sort of way. Back on Sept. 10, when Cincinnati defeated Baltimore, 27-20, in the Monday night season opener, both teams seemed like sure playoff contenders. Since then the Bengals have lost six of seven, beating only the 1-7 Jets during that span. The Ravens have dropped consecutive games, most recently Monday's embarrassing 38-7 defeat at Pittsburgh, to eclipse their entire loss total from the 2006 regular season.

Each coach is facing criticism from fans and media members – and from within his own team's locker room. And don't assume that the finger-pointing subsides when they're in front of the mirror.

"Coaches are, by nature, far more critical of themselves than anyone on the outside could possibly be," Billick said Thursday. "I constantly ask myself, 'What can I do differently?' Right now, we're not getting it done, and that accountability has to lie with me."

Billick's detractors would note that, in his ninth season as Baltimore's head coach, he has run out of others to blame. Hired after serving as Minnesota's offensive coordinator during the Vikings' record-setting 1998 season, Billick, for all his successes (including a Super Bowl championship seven seasons ago, with Lewis as his hot-shot defensive coordinator), has consistently fielded teams with substandard offensive production.

After firing coordinator Matt Cavanaugh following the 2004 season, Billick turned to his old friend Jim Fassel, the former New York Giants head coach. In October of 2006, Fassel became so frustrated with Billick's insistence upon adhering to his own offensive philosophies that the coordinator told Billick he should butt out or call his own plays. Billick chose the latter, dismissing Fassel when the Ravens were 4-2 and taking over the offense.

The move appeared to have paid off as the Ravens rolled to a 13-3 record, only to fall at home to Indy in a divisional playoff game. But now, halfway through the '07 season, the Ravens' offense is stuck in its familiar rut. Baltimore ranks 23rd in the NFL in yards per game (298.9) and 26th in scoring (16.4). Some wonder whether Billick should make another move – replacing himself with offensive coordinator Rick Neuheisel as the primary play-caller.

"If I thought for a minute that removing myself from the play-calling and passing it off to another offensive coach would be advantageous to this team, I'd do it in a New York second," Billick said. "Right now, I feel like the responsibility has to come back to me."

Nearly fired by owner Steve Bisciotti after the Ravens went 6-10 in 2005, Billick is feeling the heat once again. His critics point not only to the team's continued offensive struggles but to what they view as Billick's coddling of the Ravens' defensive stars, most notably linebacker Ray Lewis, who recently ripped his coach's play-calling on his radio show. Billick responded by soft-pedaling the criticism, prompting one former NFL head coach to scoff, "There can't be a coach in the league who looks at Brian Billick and says, 'That's the way to handle that one.'"

Billick certainly seemed to have a handle on offensive strategy back in '98, when as Denny Green's coordinator he unleashed a prolific attack that included a revived Randall Cunningham throwing to a trio of talented receivers (perennial All-Pro Cris Carter, Jake Reed and rookie sensation Randy Moss), with a star halfback (Robert Smith) and excellent offensive line to boot. Minnesota scored an NFL-record 556 points and rolled to a 15-1 regular season before losing to the Falcons in the NFC Championship game.

But once Billick got to Baltimore, no matter the quarterback (there have been eight different anointed starters during his nine seasons) or other personnel, the magic disappeared. Only once during Billick's tenure have the Ravens ranked in the top half of the league in total offense – in 2001, when they were 14th.

"For those of us who were with him in Minnesota, we're shocked by that," said Carter, now Yahoo! Sports' NFL analyst. "Most of the quarterbacks he's had look the same because the results are the same. He's never been able to get one (star) receiver, let alone three. He's had, what, nine years? I'm still amazed by that."

While Billick's critics wonder if the perception that the Ravens lack offensive talent has been a byproduct of the coach's schematic shortcomings, the opposite argument can easily be made. Though Baltimore general manager Ozzie Newsome has been unparalleled in drafting defensive studs, the Ravens haven't developed nearly as many playmakers on the other side of the ball. Depth has been an issue as well, especially this season.

"We're playing three rookies on the offensive line, our third-team tight end and a rookie fullback, and we've been changing quarterbacks (Steve McNair and Kyle Boller) back and forth because of injuries," Billick said. "If you said, 'Let's just run the same things we ran in Minnesota in '98,' you're smoking dope. You've got to do what your personnel allows you to do. Marvin's in the same situation. It'd be foolish to think he can just run the same defense he ran in 2000."

Retained by Billick in '99 after having served as fired coach Ted Marchibroda's defensive coordinator, Lewis remembers the stinging speech delivered by his new boss that triggered the Ravens' run of defensive dominance.

"We had just won a game in '99, I think it was against Atlanta or Cincinnati, and we'd given up a bunch of big plays on defense," Lewis recalled. "Brian came into the (defensive) meeting room the next day and talked to those guys about how he'd viewed them as Minnesota's coordinator when he'd played them in '98. He said, 'You're a bunch of guys with individual talent who are worried about beating your own chests, but you don't play as a team. Do you want to go to another Pro Bowl, or do you want to go to a Super Bowl?'

"Players really took it to heart, and that was the turning point. For the next 2½ years we hardly gave up anything to anyone."

Lewis' defense set an NFL record for a 16-game season by allowing just 165 points in 2000, then got even stingier en route to its 34-7 Super Bowl triumph over Fassel's Giants (whose only points came on a kickoff return). In 2003, Lewis finally got a head coaching opportunity in Cincinnati and immediately transformed the franchise's losing culture, going 8-8 his first two seasons. In '05 the Bengals improved to 11-5 and won the AFC North but suffered a disastrous divisional round playoff defeat to the Steelers in which star quarterback Carson Palmer was knocked out with a severe knee injury.

Cincinnati had another 8-8 season in '06 but was viewed as a likely playoff team in '07. Instead, the Bengals are flailing, especially on defense – they rank 31st in yards per game allowed (397.1) and are tied with Miami for the most points given up (30.5) per contest.

Last year the Bengals received ample amounts of national scorn for a spate of off-field incidents involving various players. The misbehavior has largely subsided in '07, but many critics have questioned whether Lewis is to blame for bringing in too many players with poor character. Following a defeat to the Patriots in early October, Lewis angrily blasted his players in the locker room and referred to some of them as "selfish" in his post-game remarks to reporters.

"There's a progression guys go through," he said Thursday. "At some point you need to suck it up and be a pro and stop worrying about how much money you're getting, or not getting. Maybe our foundation here wasn't as strong as I thought it was."

Last month after a defeat to the Steelers, wideout T.J. Houshmandzadeh, criticized Lewis' decision to go for a field goal near the Pittsburgh goal line late in the first half. Earlier in October, the other starting wideout, flamboyant All-Pro Chad Johnson, addressed speculation that he might be traded over the offseason, something his coach says won't happen because of Johnson's close relationship with owner Mike Brown and his family.

"I think he has a great future here," Lewis said of Johnson. "Obviously, the owner's never going to part ways with Chad. He'll be here longer than I am, believe me."

So does that mean Lewis is worried about the whispers that he'll be dismissed if things continue along this path in '07?

"No, because I know there's no truth to that," he said. "I don't know if it's a positive or a negative, but I'll be back."

So there it is: More gallows humor from a man who understands that, whatever his current struggles, coaches like him and Billick don't suddenly get stupid.

By Sunday evening, one of them will seem a tiny bit smarter in the eyes of his team's grumpy fan base. Even if the victory lacks style, you can bet either coach will take it in a New York second.

[cincy9275]

some guy get a lables because of the players they had and i think that is the case with both of these guys. great coches get the best out of what they have and these 2 are not doing so maybe the mastermind is a bit of them being overated.