Sarge said:
I suppose Dick Durl would be an appropriate name then.
LOL! The funny part is that the rest of the NFL thinks that this is a great concept. Read below...
New York Daily News -
http://www.nydailynews.com
Father time
By RICH CIMINI
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Sunday, August 1st, 2004
Pretend you're an NFL head coach. You've got the ball and a seven-point lead with 1:51 remaining in the fourth quarter, and your opponent has no timeouts left. Obviously, your objective is to kill the clock. The question is, what is the safest way?
Hint: Don't do what the Jets did last Dec. 1 against the Titans. Even though they didn't have to run a play - four kneel downs would've sufficed - the Jets called two handoffs to Curtis Martin near midfield. Imagine the fallout if he had fumbled. Weeks later, a member of Herman Edwards' staff remarked, "I was standing on the sideline, thinking, 'What the hell are we doing?'"
The Jets averted a Joe Pisarcik-like disaster, but the head-scratching sequence underscored a persistent problem: Clock management. Edwards vowed to address the issue in the offseason, and he did just that, assigning a member of his staff to be a time-management specialist.
Meet Dick Curl, formerly the tight ends coach.
Curl, 64, the oldest member of Edwards' coaching staff, is a gray-haired grandfather with a quick smile and an easygoing personality.
Edwards calls him "the wise gentleman."
As far as the Jets are concerned, Curl is Father Time.
Curl, whose official title is senior offensive assistant/special projects, spent the entire offseason watching tapes of the Jets and other teams, identifying clock-management mistakes and analyzing how teams handled various situations.
After compiling his research, Curl huddled with Edwards, and they formulated a plan for every conceivable circumstance. (So they hope.) They took it to the field during offseason practices and, starting tomorrow in training camp, they will cover specific game situations.
Obviously, no system is infallible - the head coach's ability to think quickly still matters most - but the Jets believe they have reduced their chances of blundering.
"Will we make some mistakes? Yeah, coaches make mistakes all the time, but I think we'll be better at it," Edwards says. "Now we understand the clock and we know what we have to do."
On game day, Curl will stand next to Edwards on the sideline, armed with two pages of laminated charts - his cheat sheets, if you will. Because he will speak directly to Edwards, and not to any other coaches, Curl probably won't use a headset. When a clock-related decision arises, Edwards will turn to Curl.
Example: The Jets get the ball with four minutes left in the game, clinging to a lead. The opponent has no timeouts. What is the best way to milk the clock?
"Coach will look at me and I'll say, 'Six plays and we're out of here,'" Curl says. Edwards said the new system will streamline the communication between various coaches. He still will talk via headset with offensive coordinator Paul Hackett (in the press box), defensive coordinator Donnie Henderson (on the sideline) and special teams coach Mike Westhoff (sideline), but he won't have to spend as much time hashing out clock-management decisions with them. Not with Father Time at his side.
"Hopefully, it will flow very well," Edwards says. "We had too many voices involved in the decisions (in the past)."
The Jets aren't the only team with a clock specialist. The Patriots rely on their football research director, Ernie Adams, who works from the press box. When Bill Parcells coached the Giants, he used assistant Ray Handley, who was brilliant with numbers.
"I'm certainly no math whiz," says Curl, whose job resume includes four seasons of head-coaching experience in NFL Europe. "I may have to use my fingers and toes to count, but we've done enough work in the offseason so we have a philosophy and we're prepared to go into the season."
Word of Curl's offseason research project made its way through the coaching industry. Edwards said he received calls from curious colleagues. Curl said he received a letter from an NBA coach (since fired) who was interested in fine-tuning his clock-management skills.
"It's really not that hard," Curl says modestly. Then, cracking a smile, he adds, "Watch me screw it up."
Of course, this isn't simply a one- or two-man operation. The responsibility also falls on the quarterback and other assistant coaches, especially those in charge of making sure the right personnel grouping is on the field. That, too, was a problem last season for the Jets, resulting in delay-of-game penalties and wasted timeouts.
Due largely to indecision, shoddy communication and, ultimately, confusion, the Jets burned five timeouts in the first and third quarters and five in the first seven minutes of the fourth quarter. Shame, shame. Edwards has warned his players not to use timeouts in those situations.
To eliminate the errors, to make it a smoother operation, the Jets will practice. Mastering the clock takes time.
"It's hard enough to win in the NFL," Curl says. "You don't want to give games away, and we're not going to do that."