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Sunday, January 22, 2006
Like Cox, Cowher keeps his team contending
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Think of the Pittsburgh Steelers as the Atlanta Braves and Bill Cowher as Bobby Cox. Some people will read that as a criticism, but such folks are simply wrong. The Steelers (like the Braves) and Cowher (like Cox) deserve nothing but the highest form of praise. In businesses where nothing is guaranteed, those entities have achieved the sort of consistency that transcends the fickle bounce of a ball.
Some see Cowher as a too-conservative coach who can’t win the big game, just as some regard Cox as a stodgy tactician whose regular-season success hasn’t yielded October superiority. But there’s a greater issue than the outcome of a single playoff game or postseason series, and it’s that these two men persist in positioning their teams to play for championships.
The measure of Cowher isn’t the absence of an ultimate victory. The measure of this man is that he keeps taking a frugal organization — the Steelers refuse to overpay any free agent, often to their short-term detriment — to the brink of a title, and now, 10 years after his first Super Bowl trip, Cowher is going again. Like Cox, Cowher has held his job longer than anyone else working in his industry. Like Cox, Cowher has won with all manner of personnel, having reached the AFC championship game with three different quarterbacks.
And the Steelers, like the Braves, realize how blessed they are. Because the NFL plays a shorter season and results therein are an even greater function of injury, Cowher hasn’t finished first every year the way Cox has, but he works for the Rooneys, who are patient in a way that nobody else in this microwave society is anymore.
The Steelers have had only two head coaches since 1969, the other being the great Chuck Noll. The Rooneys hire good men and let them work. They don’t overreact to a downturn. They stay the course. Like the Braves, the Steelers find talent in the strangest places. Their leading rusher, Willie Parker, is an undrafted free agent. Their best receiver, Hines Ward of Forest Park, was the final choice in the third round of the 1998 draft, going 18 picks after the Falcons chose the legendary Jammi German. Their quarterback is a second-year man from Miami (Ohio), and in Ben Roethlisberger the Steelers found the leader they haven’t had since Terry Bradshaw. (Who was, you’ll recall, a product of that football factory Louisiana Tech.)
As fashionable as it became to fault Cowher for losing four AFC championship games (three at home), the luxury of distance offers another take: San Diego after the 1994 season was indeed a bad loss, but in each of the three other games — to Denver in 1998, to New England in 2002 and last season — the Steelers had the lesser quarterback and probably the lesser team. Isn’t it just possible their coach got more from them in those regular seasons than they were actually worth? Isn’t it possible Cox does the same thing?
The test of a coach/manager and the measure of an organization is the capacity to sustain success, to change players but to maintain a standard. And that’s the beauty of consistency: If you keep putting yourself in position, sometimes even a slim chance can pan out. Pittsburgh entered these playoffs as the last AFC qualifier and somehow has toppled the conference’s top three seeds on the road.
Having come this far, the Steelers should beat Seattle two weeks hence, and then Cowher will have his Super Bowl, same as Cox took his World Series in 1995. (Somehow everybody forgets that one.) As iffy as it can be to compare one sport with another, the qualities shared by these admirable men are striking. Heck, they even have the same initials.
Permalink | Comments (36) | Categories: Falcons / NFL, Mark Bradley
Thrashers have come far, want to go farther
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
It used to count for something that they made it this far. In past seasons, a winning record, a playoff race, a home sellout, all in late January — those franchises oddities would be embraced like a winning lottery ticket.
Instead, all the Thrashers could talk about Saturday was that they have lost two in a row.
“We can’t afford to have another extended losing streak,� team captain Scott Mellanby said. “There’s just not enough time to make up ground again.�
The Thrashers lost to Tampa Bay 2-0 Saturday at Philips Arena. It’s the first time they have lost consecutive games in regulation in over six weeks, a remarkable string for a club that once struggled to go six shifts without walking into a punch line.
The team didn’t play awful, it just didn’t play as well as the Lightning, which didn’t get into Atlanta until 2:30 a.m. but now is looking closer to the team that won the last Stanley Cup.
The problem is that the Thrashers spent six weeks digging themselves out of a hole in the Eastern Conference, and, while that’s impressive, they have left themselves little margin for error in the playoff race. Going 13-2-3 after a 10-16-3 start doesn’t get rid of a stain, it just covers it up for a while. The question now becomes: Can the Thrashers avoid the same crash-and-burn that incinerated playoff hopes two years ago, when they managed only two wins in 21 games after a 19-14-3-1 start?
“I don’t think there’s any question the playoff race is going to stay tight like this until the end,� Lightning general manager Jay Feaster said. “[Coach] Bob [Hartley] has done an incredible job getting the team through the goaltending woes. This young guy [Kari Lehtonen] the Thrashers have is special. He gives them a chance to win every night. I don’t see any chance they’ll collapse whatsoever.�
Yes, they’ve made it this far. The Thrashers are bunched in a playoff race despite losing their No. 1 goalie (Lehtonen) for 35 games, their No. 2 goalie (Mike Dunham) for 34 games, one of their expected top goal scorers (Peter Bondra) for 22 and counting, and one of their top leaders (Bobby Holik) for nine and counting.
OK. So now what?
As Feaster said, the chances of a sudden and extreme descent seem remote. This team has too much talent, leadership and (as we speak) a healthy and talented goalie.
But the Thrashers can expect more games like Saturday’s. Almost every game remaining will come against somebody they’re battling for a playoff berth. That means tight, close-checking games. That means you can’t afford to go scoreless on four power play chances while your opponent goes 2-for-5, as Tampa Bay did Saturday. The Lightning held the Thrashers to their second-lowest shot total (20) of the season, blocking several shots with sticks and assorted body parts.
“They played well defensively,� Mellanby said. “We knew what they were going to do. We knew they would forecheck with two guys and have their defense step up and jam us. We were prepared. We had a game plan to combat that. We just didn’t execute it.�
They lost a strange game in L.A., 8-6. They lost a defensive battle at home. The last time they dropped two in a row, it was the tail end of a five-game skid. Then they woke up.
“You look at the standings, and we did what we had to do just to get back into the picture,� Mellanby said. “But at the same time, just getting back in there, with the games in hand that a few teams have on us, isn’t enough. We got ourselves to this point, and we have to keep it up.�
The bottom isn’t falling out. But when a team starts worrying about a two-game losing steak, it illustrates a couple of things. Fortunes have improved. And expectations have not yet been met.
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