One Born Every Minute

Those readers of a certain age may well remember the old saying, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” In today’s post, those suckers are football coaches who don’t know the rules, and who don’t at least sometimes prepare their teams for those weird moments that come up every so often, usually to their detriment.

Obviously, the latest example is from Monday night. The Lions’ Calvin Johnson was about ready to score a go-ahead TD in the last seconds of the game when Seattle’s Kam Chancellor punched the ball out before the goal line. The ball was headed towards the back line, when a Seattle LB helped it go out of the end zone by batting it. The ruling on the field was that it was a touchback, and Seattle got the ball on their own 20. As it turns out, this was “illegal batting” just like you would see maybe a punter do when he drops a snap in his own end zone. He doesn’t want to give up a touchdown, so he bats it out of the end zone and accepts the safety. In this case, because Detroit had possession of the ball, the penalty for illegal batting should correctly have been giving the Lions the ball at Seattle’s 1 yard line, first and goal. Might have made a big difference in the outcome.

Now, I’m not going to sit here and say I know all the rules. I’ve screwed up plenty of times, as have coaches I’ve worked with and coached against. But I do make an effort to at least go over in my head situational items such as the above and how to prepare the team for them. Almost immediately after Monday night’s call, one of the New England Patroits tweeted that Bill Belichek knows the rule, because they’ve practiced that exact situation before.

Had an interesting occurrence in the Bears’ game Saturday night (we won, 25-0, to get our league record to 8-1, 9-2 overall). The Ravens were punting, and they shanked the punt horribly…..like for negative yards. But one of their players very alertly picked it up since it hadn’t crossed the line of scrimmage and took off. Fortunately for us, we tackled him short of the first down, and took over. That was the second time that has happened in my career – the other was either in 2005 or 2006 against the Houston Energy, and that time the Energy player DID gain a first. Believe me, I’ve known that rule from that point on!

Usually all it takes is one time for something to happen to you, and that rule will be imprinted in your brain forever. One of the things I run in to all the time are the differences between NCAA and NFL rules. The Surge plays by NCAA, the Bears by NFL. So sometimes I have to think really hard about the situation before I go to a ref. (Funny side note…..my very first high school game as a coach, in 1991, I was down on the sidelines near the end of the first half and watched the clock go right past the 2:00 mark. I started hollering about the 2 minute warning…..yeah, the other coaches no doubt thought I was an idiot.)

Part of the preparation you can do as a coach is make sure you speak with the officials before the game. You can bring up things like how they will interpret certain rules (doing that saved us from running an illegal play in Dallas), or maybe what you’ve seen the other team do on film that perhaps breaks some rules. We noticed once that on screen passes, our opponent’s RB was consistently in front of the LOS when she caught the ball, with OL downfield. You better believe we brought that up in pregame talks, and we did get a call that way.

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We’re just over a month out for the RS Football Camp – time to book your flights if you need to, and reserve the hotel rooms if you need one! The Facebook Event page is here, and it has all the info you need! The coach-to-player ratio is really high, so no matter what level of player you are, from raw rookie to Team USA member, there will be instruction available!

The visiting coach list is pretty much set. In addition to members of the Surge staff, we’ll have the Head Coach of the Seattle Majestics, Scott McCarron; the Offensive Line Coach of the Dallas Elite, Billy Hughes Jr.; the Defensive Backs and Speed Coach of the Elite, Angel Rivera III, and the former DC of the Surge, former HC of the West Coast Lighting, and current defensive coach of the Phoenix Phantomz, Nate Benjamin. We may be announcing one other coach soon as well.

We’re looking forward to seeing you!