Jttsaz
#40 Never Forget
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/front.htm
Not another empty promise
By Kent Somers, special for Sports Weekly
PHOENIX — Every few years, the Cardinals hold a news conference to introduce a new coach who promises to guide the franchise to prosperity. It is then that the question comes, as inevitable as the searing Arizona summer, as old as one of owner Bill Bidwill's bow ties. (Related item: Cardinals team report)
Dennis Green
By Paul Connors, AP
So, the coach is asked, what makes you think you can make a winner out of the Cardinals when no one else has?
When asked that question, Dennis Green smiled and walked over to a large poster resting on an easel.
"Has anybody been here with that, to begin with?" he asked, pointing to his 97-62 regular-season record, a .610 winning percentage that is sixth among active coaches.
Bidwill has hired a lot of coaches. Green is the sixth "permanent" one the team has had since moving to Arizona in 1988. The previous five produced just one winning season and one playoff berth.
"He knows how to do it."
Green's enthusiasm and confidence has traveled through the organization, says quarterback Josh McCown.
"The whole organization is more optimistic than I've seen it the last few years," McCown says. " When you bring a proven winner in, you expect to win games."
Green likes to refer to himself as a "turnaround" coach. He has taken over moribund programs before, in college at Northwestern and in the NFL at Minnesota, where he led the Vikings to eight playoff appearances in 10 years.
Green hates the word "rebuilding." There is no such thing in the NFL, he says, believing there is not much difference between a 4-12 team and one that is 10-6. Since taking the job, he has made it clear the goal is to make the playoffs. In 2004.
This has prompted numerous sideway glances, as if he were either delusional or a charlatan.
"When you are a turnaround guy," Green says, "you are accustomed to people giving you that look."
He is undaunted by the team's pitiful history, a dwindling fan base and a roster full of unfilled potential, or perhaps overrated talent, depending on your point of view.
Green knows his talk of the playoffs is grandiose. He has seen the rolled eyes in the audience. After all, just achieving mediocrity with the Cardinals would garner him coach of the year consideration.
"I won't spend a lot of time convincing you that we're going to win," he says. "You have to see us win."
IT DID NOT TAKE GREEN LONG to get everyone's attention. On Feb. 4, he cut last year's starting quarterback, Jeff Blake, and named McCown the starter, even though McCown has just three starts in his two NFL seasons.
Most important, he has challenged returning players to play better than they did last season when they went 4-12, prompting the firing of Dave McGinnis. Green says no saviors will be walking through the door. It is time for the returning players to perform.
"I think you want to convince them that they are good, that they're (just) not playing good," he says. "I think that's what you want to sell."
Naming McCown the starter is part of that strategy.
Months before the draft, Green eschewed the idea of taking a quarterback with the third overall pick. He raved early and often about McCown, a third-round pick out of Division I-AA Sam Houston State in 2002.
McCown looked shaky at times last year in spot duty behind Blake. But with the team going nowhere, McGinnis decided to start him in the final three games. McCown responded with a poised, determined effort against teams in playoff contention. The team rallied around him, and he led the Cardinals to a dramatic victory in the season finale against Minnesota.
But few believed Green was serious when he anointed McCown. How could the Cardinals pass on a chance to draft a franchise quarterback? How could Green have so much confidence in an unproven kid?
"I see a guy who has tremendous athletic ability," Green says. "If you want to pick the five best quarterbacks (in the NFL) and play a little hoops, he's going to probably be part of that five. If you are going to pick the four guys and get in a relay race, he's probably going to be in that four. And if you're looking for a guy who has confidence in himself and wants to be good, then he also fits into that category."
Green is confident in his evaluation skills, and he has a history of making the right call at quarterback. He went to the playoffs eight times in Minnesota with seven quarterbacks. He reasoned that a rookie, even the third overall pick, would not beat out McCown.
"I think a year from now you guys are going to be saying, 'We wonder why we kept asking him all them damn questions about this guy that threw for all this yardage and touchdowns,' " Green says.
Green knows there is risk. There will be growing pains, but he loves McCown's athletic ability and his toughness.
"There are very few things that you know," Green says, "but there are certain things that you think. I think Josh is going to be a tremendous player."
It has been a dramatic transformation for McCown. Until those three starts at the end of last year, he had played so poorly that even Rod Graves, vice president of football operations, questioned if McCown had what it took to play in the NFL. Now he is playing for a new coach who at times makes him sound like the next Brett Favre. All because he was able to start the final three games last season.
"Me and my wife talk about it all the time, (saying) 'Can you believe this?' " McCown says. "I feel very blessed that the situation worked out the way it did."
At first, even McCown seemed to have a hard time believing Green was so confident in him. But Green has displayed his faith in McCown at every opportunity, from cutting Blake to passing on a quarterback to take receiver Larry Fitzgerald with the third pick.
"If I removed myself from this situation and look at what he (Green) has done, it's different and innovative and it's a little daring," McCown says. "But if I was going to do it, I would do it the way he did it. I'd make my young quarterback feel good about himself and boost his confidence. The more he says about me, the more confident I get and the harder I work.
"I want to show him that he's made a good decision."
McCown exemplifies the message Green is trying to convey to his players. He does not care where they were drafted or how many years they have started. He owes no player anything. McCown's ascension means Green will give everyone a fair shot, regardless of name, salary and draft status.
"I think as the players see Josh rise up, they have to do the exact same thing," Green says. "He's not a franchise player. He's not a bonus baby, No. 1 pick. He's a guy that was a backup last year who is getting his opportunity under a new coaching staff, and all the other players can get that same opportunity.
"And so I think they need to look at him as an example of what be right about their own particular careers."
Still, McCown has not done it, and the young quarterback is well aware that he has yet to arrive. McCown is well aware of his tenuous place in the NFL. "As fast as you got here," he says, "you can go back to where you came from quicker."
While raving about McCown, Green has called out other players.
Leonard Davis can be the best guard in the league if he wants to work. If tight end Freddie Jones is not playing at a Pro Bowl level, he will be on the bench. Tackle Anthony Clement, defensive tackle Wendell Bryant and defensive end Calvin Pace need to improve.
Receiver Anquan Boldin, one of the few bright spots last season, likes Green's swagger.
"Hopefully, he can come in and change the mentality of the whole organization, and we can be the success story of the NFL next season," says Boldin, who set a rookie record with 101 receptions last year and made the Pro Bowl. "We need to change accepting losing to believing we can win."
GREEN WILL NEED ALL of his bravado, his motivational skills and perhaps a miracle or two to take the Cardinals to the playoffs. Last year's 4-12 record was not a fluke.
That was a team in need of talent. The Cardinals finished last in the NFL in scoring and points allowed, the first team to do so since Atlanta in 1987. The Cardinals were 0-8 on the road, losing by an average of 23.6 points.
Green is also battling history and apathy. The franchise, which has won one playoff game since 1947, has had double-digit losses in 10 of 16 seasons in Phoenix.
The team's season ticket base has dipped below 20,000, and a crowd of 40,000 is considered large these days at Sun Devil Stadium. Most are closer to 25,000. Fans have watched coaches come and go and now place the blame on the Bidwill family.
Green, however, has never been scared off by challenges. He had his eye on the Cardinals while he was out of coaching the two previous years, working for ESPN and living in Del Mar, Calif.
The situation is not hopeless, with a favorable cap situation, a core of young talent and a new stadium scheduled to open in 2006.
And, perhaps more significant, Bidwill has ceded considerable power to his son, Michael, who runs the franchise, and to Graves.
Graves and Michael Bidwill have convinced the elder Bidwill to extend the contracts of talented, young players, such as running back Marcel Shipp and tackle L.J. Shelton.
For years, Bidwill frowned on such practices, and it resulted in key players leaving via free agency after only four years with the club. That contributed to the Cardinals perpetually having the NFL's youngest team.
McGinnis deserves some credit, too, for the brighter future. He spent his first two seasons as coach digging out of a salary cap nightmare, suffering the consequences of a roster that lacked experience and talent. Bidwill had yet to enter his enlightened period.
All that is passed. The team has room under the cap, and with a new stadium, Michael Bidwill has promised to compete for free agents.
The team is paying him $10 million over four years, more than twice what any previous Cardinals coach has made.
"I was excited for us," defensive end Kyle Vanden Bosch says. "It's a guy we went out and targeted. We went out and paid the money we needed to pay to get him in here. He knows how to win."
Green's two seasons out of coaching proved to be an advantage. He knew a considerable amount about the Cardinals' personnel and front-office structure and impressed Graves and Mike Bidwill with his initial presentation.
Green's evaluation meshed with that of Graves' and Bidwill's. He thought the Cardinals had decent talent, better than the 4-12 record indicated. Green's roots are in offense, and he believes he can shape the current Cardinals to resemble the high-scoring teams he had in Minnesota.
The potential is there, with a few large asterisks. The receiving corps of Boldin, Fitzgerald and Bryant Johnson should be formidable, putting more pressure on McCown to live up to Green's expectations and get them the ball.
Shipp and Emmitt Smith should be a productive running back duo, provided the offensive line can open holes and the defense does not give up points early, forcing the team to abandon the running game.
"He (Green) has won games and scored points offensively," center Pete Kendall says. "Both of those sound great to me, after the last few years."
On defense, the Cardinals finally have a pass rusher to replace Simeon Rice, who left via free agency after the 2000 season. End Bertrand Berry, a free agent signee, had 11½ sacks last year for Denver. The Cardinals' defensive linemen had just 10 sacks last season.
Berry, however, is the only proven commodity on a line populated by high picks who have not contributed much. Bryant, the 12th overall pick in 2002, has been a disappointment. Pace, a first-round pick last year, had one sack despite starting 16 games. Vanden Bosch, a second-rounder in 2001, has missed most of two seasons with knee injuries.
Green is blunt when assessing his line. He believes Bryant should be better. And he was not happy that the team had to sign a free-agent defensive end a year after drafting Pace.
"You have to be honest with yourself," Pace says. "It would be one thing if I did have 10 sacks and I could say, 'What are you doing?' I pretty much didn't do anything to solidify myself at that position."
That is true for all but a handful of players. There is a difference of opinion about what caused the lack of production. The Bidwills and Graves thought young players failed to develop under McGinnis. But it also could be true the Bidwills and Graves have badly miscalculated the team's talent level.
Green does not think so. Since interviewing for the job, he has maintained the Cardinals are good enough to win and make the playoffs in 2004.
Feel free to roll your eyes and give him that look. He is used to it.
Not another empty promise
By Kent Somers, special for Sports Weekly
PHOENIX — Every few years, the Cardinals hold a news conference to introduce a new coach who promises to guide the franchise to prosperity. It is then that the question comes, as inevitable as the searing Arizona summer, as old as one of owner Bill Bidwill's bow ties. (Related item: Cardinals team report)
Dennis Green
By Paul Connors, AP
So, the coach is asked, what makes you think you can make a winner out of the Cardinals when no one else has?
When asked that question, Dennis Green smiled and walked over to a large poster resting on an easel.
"Has anybody been here with that, to begin with?" he asked, pointing to his 97-62 regular-season record, a .610 winning percentage that is sixth among active coaches.
Bidwill has hired a lot of coaches. Green is the sixth "permanent" one the team has had since moving to Arizona in 1988. The previous five produced just one winning season and one playoff berth.
"He knows how to do it."
Green's enthusiasm and confidence has traveled through the organization, says quarterback Josh McCown.
"The whole organization is more optimistic than I've seen it the last few years," McCown says. " When you bring a proven winner in, you expect to win games."
Green likes to refer to himself as a "turnaround" coach. He has taken over moribund programs before, in college at Northwestern and in the NFL at Minnesota, where he led the Vikings to eight playoff appearances in 10 years.
Green hates the word "rebuilding." There is no such thing in the NFL, he says, believing there is not much difference between a 4-12 team and one that is 10-6. Since taking the job, he has made it clear the goal is to make the playoffs. In 2004.
This has prompted numerous sideway glances, as if he were either delusional or a charlatan.
"When you are a turnaround guy," Green says, "you are accustomed to people giving you that look."
He is undaunted by the team's pitiful history, a dwindling fan base and a roster full of unfilled potential, or perhaps overrated talent, depending on your point of view.
Green knows his talk of the playoffs is grandiose. He has seen the rolled eyes in the audience. After all, just achieving mediocrity with the Cardinals would garner him coach of the year consideration.
"I won't spend a lot of time convincing you that we're going to win," he says. "You have to see us win."
IT DID NOT TAKE GREEN LONG to get everyone's attention. On Feb. 4, he cut last year's starting quarterback, Jeff Blake, and named McCown the starter, even though McCown has just three starts in his two NFL seasons.
Most important, he has challenged returning players to play better than they did last season when they went 4-12, prompting the firing of Dave McGinnis. Green says no saviors will be walking through the door. It is time for the returning players to perform.
"I think you want to convince them that they are good, that they're (just) not playing good," he says. "I think that's what you want to sell."
Naming McCown the starter is part of that strategy.
Months before the draft, Green eschewed the idea of taking a quarterback with the third overall pick. He raved early and often about McCown, a third-round pick out of Division I-AA Sam Houston State in 2002.
McCown looked shaky at times last year in spot duty behind Blake. But with the team going nowhere, McGinnis decided to start him in the final three games. McCown responded with a poised, determined effort against teams in playoff contention. The team rallied around him, and he led the Cardinals to a dramatic victory in the season finale against Minnesota.
But few believed Green was serious when he anointed McCown. How could the Cardinals pass on a chance to draft a franchise quarterback? How could Green have so much confidence in an unproven kid?
"I see a guy who has tremendous athletic ability," Green says. "If you want to pick the five best quarterbacks (in the NFL) and play a little hoops, he's going to probably be part of that five. If you are going to pick the four guys and get in a relay race, he's probably going to be in that four. And if you're looking for a guy who has confidence in himself and wants to be good, then he also fits into that category."
Green is confident in his evaluation skills, and he has a history of making the right call at quarterback. He went to the playoffs eight times in Minnesota with seven quarterbacks. He reasoned that a rookie, even the third overall pick, would not beat out McCown.
"I think a year from now you guys are going to be saying, 'We wonder why we kept asking him all them damn questions about this guy that threw for all this yardage and touchdowns,' " Green says.
Green knows there is risk. There will be growing pains, but he loves McCown's athletic ability and his toughness.
"There are very few things that you know," Green says, "but there are certain things that you think. I think Josh is going to be a tremendous player."
It has been a dramatic transformation for McCown. Until those three starts at the end of last year, he had played so poorly that even Rod Graves, vice president of football operations, questioned if McCown had what it took to play in the NFL. Now he is playing for a new coach who at times makes him sound like the next Brett Favre. All because he was able to start the final three games last season.
"Me and my wife talk about it all the time, (saying) 'Can you believe this?' " McCown says. "I feel very blessed that the situation worked out the way it did."
At first, even McCown seemed to have a hard time believing Green was so confident in him. But Green has displayed his faith in McCown at every opportunity, from cutting Blake to passing on a quarterback to take receiver Larry Fitzgerald with the third pick.
"If I removed myself from this situation and look at what he (Green) has done, it's different and innovative and it's a little daring," McCown says. "But if I was going to do it, I would do it the way he did it. I'd make my young quarterback feel good about himself and boost his confidence. The more he says about me, the more confident I get and the harder I work.
"I want to show him that he's made a good decision."
McCown exemplifies the message Green is trying to convey to his players. He does not care where they were drafted or how many years they have started. He owes no player anything. McCown's ascension means Green will give everyone a fair shot, regardless of name, salary and draft status.
"I think as the players see Josh rise up, they have to do the exact same thing," Green says. "He's not a franchise player. He's not a bonus baby, No. 1 pick. He's a guy that was a backup last year who is getting his opportunity under a new coaching staff, and all the other players can get that same opportunity.
"And so I think they need to look at him as an example of what be right about their own particular careers."
Still, McCown has not done it, and the young quarterback is well aware that he has yet to arrive. McCown is well aware of his tenuous place in the NFL. "As fast as you got here," he says, "you can go back to where you came from quicker."
While raving about McCown, Green has called out other players.
Leonard Davis can be the best guard in the league if he wants to work. If tight end Freddie Jones is not playing at a Pro Bowl level, he will be on the bench. Tackle Anthony Clement, defensive tackle Wendell Bryant and defensive end Calvin Pace need to improve.
Receiver Anquan Boldin, one of the few bright spots last season, likes Green's swagger.
"Hopefully, he can come in and change the mentality of the whole organization, and we can be the success story of the NFL next season," says Boldin, who set a rookie record with 101 receptions last year and made the Pro Bowl. "We need to change accepting losing to believing we can win."
GREEN WILL NEED ALL of his bravado, his motivational skills and perhaps a miracle or two to take the Cardinals to the playoffs. Last year's 4-12 record was not a fluke.
That was a team in need of talent. The Cardinals finished last in the NFL in scoring and points allowed, the first team to do so since Atlanta in 1987. The Cardinals were 0-8 on the road, losing by an average of 23.6 points.
Green is also battling history and apathy. The franchise, which has won one playoff game since 1947, has had double-digit losses in 10 of 16 seasons in Phoenix.
The team's season ticket base has dipped below 20,000, and a crowd of 40,000 is considered large these days at Sun Devil Stadium. Most are closer to 25,000. Fans have watched coaches come and go and now place the blame on the Bidwill family.
Green, however, has never been scared off by challenges. He had his eye on the Cardinals while he was out of coaching the two previous years, working for ESPN and living in Del Mar, Calif.
The situation is not hopeless, with a favorable cap situation, a core of young talent and a new stadium scheduled to open in 2006.
And, perhaps more significant, Bidwill has ceded considerable power to his son, Michael, who runs the franchise, and to Graves.
Graves and Michael Bidwill have convinced the elder Bidwill to extend the contracts of talented, young players, such as running back Marcel Shipp and tackle L.J. Shelton.
For years, Bidwill frowned on such practices, and it resulted in key players leaving via free agency after only four years with the club. That contributed to the Cardinals perpetually having the NFL's youngest team.
McGinnis deserves some credit, too, for the brighter future. He spent his first two seasons as coach digging out of a salary cap nightmare, suffering the consequences of a roster that lacked experience and talent. Bidwill had yet to enter his enlightened period.
All that is passed. The team has room under the cap, and with a new stadium, Michael Bidwill has promised to compete for free agents.
The team is paying him $10 million over four years, more than twice what any previous Cardinals coach has made.
"I was excited for us," defensive end Kyle Vanden Bosch says. "It's a guy we went out and targeted. We went out and paid the money we needed to pay to get him in here. He knows how to win."
Green's two seasons out of coaching proved to be an advantage. He knew a considerable amount about the Cardinals' personnel and front-office structure and impressed Graves and Mike Bidwill with his initial presentation.
Green's evaluation meshed with that of Graves' and Bidwill's. He thought the Cardinals had decent talent, better than the 4-12 record indicated. Green's roots are in offense, and he believes he can shape the current Cardinals to resemble the high-scoring teams he had in Minnesota.
The potential is there, with a few large asterisks. The receiving corps of Boldin, Fitzgerald and Bryant Johnson should be formidable, putting more pressure on McCown to live up to Green's expectations and get them the ball.
Shipp and Emmitt Smith should be a productive running back duo, provided the offensive line can open holes and the defense does not give up points early, forcing the team to abandon the running game.
"He (Green) has won games and scored points offensively," center Pete Kendall says. "Both of those sound great to me, after the last few years."
On defense, the Cardinals finally have a pass rusher to replace Simeon Rice, who left via free agency after the 2000 season. End Bertrand Berry, a free agent signee, had 11½ sacks last year for Denver. The Cardinals' defensive linemen had just 10 sacks last season.
Berry, however, is the only proven commodity on a line populated by high picks who have not contributed much. Bryant, the 12th overall pick in 2002, has been a disappointment. Pace, a first-round pick last year, had one sack despite starting 16 games. Vanden Bosch, a second-rounder in 2001, has missed most of two seasons with knee injuries.
Green is blunt when assessing his line. He believes Bryant should be better. And he was not happy that the team had to sign a free-agent defensive end a year after drafting Pace.
"You have to be honest with yourself," Pace says. "It would be one thing if I did have 10 sacks and I could say, 'What are you doing?' I pretty much didn't do anything to solidify myself at that position."
That is true for all but a handful of players. There is a difference of opinion about what caused the lack of production. The Bidwills and Graves thought young players failed to develop under McGinnis. But it also could be true the Bidwills and Graves have badly miscalculated the team's talent level.
Green does not think so. Since interviewing for the job, he has maintained the Cardinals are good enough to win and make the playoffs in 2004.
Feel free to roll your eyes and give him that look. He is used to it.
Tobin had the Cards in the second round of the playoffs by his 3rd season and Ryan left him a heck of a lot bigger mess than McGinnis assumed.
