Les Carpenter / Times staff columnist
NFL's stroke of genius can be fleeting

KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS Tampa Bay's Jon Gruden has gone from genius to starting over, just like his mentor, Mike Holmgren, has done in Seattle.

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Most read articles Most e-mailed articles

TAMPA, Fla. — Whatever happened to Jon Gruden?

It wasn't long ago that Coach Chucky was the most powerful man in football, able to freeze Al Davis with the flash of a cobalt glare. He made snowmen of those players who couldn't play when the thermometer dropped below room temperature, turned Brad Johnson into a champion and even made those silly, bumbling Glaziers look smart for about a weekend.

But genius never stood a chance against the salary cap. And before the glitter stopped falling on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers that night in San Diego, Gruden's mastery was already unraveling. The following months became filled with contract disputes, player firings and the eventual malaise that befalls a team that knows it's about to be ripped from its foundation.

Along with the Bucs' free fall to 7-9 came the sense that while a frosty stare from beneath a sun visor might make Al Davis wither, it can't salvage a team that is old and over budget. He stomped and cursed and made sour faces on the sideline. But none of this seemed to matter. Genius had moved on to New England. Jon Gruden was just another coach with a past, trying to hold on to a glory slipping away.

He got rid of the old players, brought in new ones. He signed 20 free agents this offseason and said he was going to win with his own players. He said the Bucs would be rebuilt with defense and then the first play last week, Joe Gibbs — a genius from another era — had Tampa Bay's defense running the wrong way as Clinton Portis ran 64 yards for a touchdown.

"Right now you have a coach who could look like a genius or an imbecile," the Buccaneers Simeon Rice told Tampa Bay media before that first game.

Suddenly everybody's picking Door No. 2.

Must remind Gruden of his old master.

Once Mike Holmgren wore the crown of genius, riding his own confetti blizzard with a Super Bowl trophy held aloft. The line of great quarterbacks molded from his hands read like a lineage of great European monarchs — Montana the Great, Young the Terrible, Favre the Lionhearted. Only genius got the best of him too.

Unsatisfied with being simply the best coach in the NFL, the maker of great passers, Holmgren wanted more. He wanted omnipotence. So he took millions of Paul Allen's money, then tore apart a division champion and remade it in his image.
 
And for years he looked anything like a genius, snarling when the interceptions came, growling at his defensive coaches as the scoreboard rang up against him and cursing the fans when the chants for a new quarterback spilled from the stands.

But there's this thing about genius in the NFL. It has a way of recycling itself.

Just a couple years ago it seemed like Gruden, who once chauffeured Holmgren through a Green Bay training camp, had passed his old mentor right by. That genius was the product of Gruden's 7-Eleven coffee runs at 3:30 in the morning, still hours before Holmgren would stir from his slumber. Endless hours in the office, it seemed, trumpeted the making of Montana and Favre.

Only now nothing that Gruden tries appears to work, and Holmgren is looking smarter than ever. Last week, the stubborn Seahawks coach threw out his New Orleans game plan when the passes designed just for the Saints fell flat. Instead, he gave the ball to his running back, Shaun Alexander, whom New Orleans players found about as easy to tackle as a Jersey cow.

Now Holmgren can do no wrong. He was asked, the other day, if he thinks he has gotten smarter over the last few years, and he smiled at the question.

"You're making a huge assumption there," he said while later declining to say what that assumption is.

Is it that he is actually smarter now? Or is it that he never lost his genius to begin with?

"That's for you to decide," Holmgren replied with a smirk.

The fact remains he is different. When he yells at his players it's not with the old blind rage but with a more controlled fury like he can finally see a goal looming on the horizon.

"Before he was (angry) more than happy," his longtime friend and coach Gil Haskell said. "Things are falling into place. That's the difference. Before he was (angry); now he's happy."

Meanwhile Gruden rolls through his Buccaneers trying to fill the holes on a disintegrating winner. His best receiver can remember Glasnost. His second-best receiver was in trigonometry class at LSU last fall. It might be some time before anybody is afraid of Chucky again.

Genius can be funny that way.

Les Carpenter: 206-464-2280 or lcarpenter@seattletimes.com. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists