SI.com - How to build a running game

[Sperm Edwards]

How to build a running game

Some teams say they're going to run, others show it

Posted: Thursday September 21, 2006 12:19PM; Updated: Thursday September 21, 2006 2:58PM

When do you put in a running game? Before the draft. Before the free-agency period. When you're planning the personnel makeup of your squad. Pass-blocking linemen are swell, but you'd better have some grunts in there, some no-necked drive blockers.

I hear a coach say in the offseason, "We've got to establish our running game," and I'm suspicious right away. You don't establish it. You build it and it establishes itself. You bring in the personnel to make it work. It's a serious commitment.

I hear that quote and then I look at the players his team has drafted. Hmmm, don't see any guards there. And the only tackles drafted are nifty-footed pass blockers. Who, exactly, are they planning to run behind?

The Jets paid lip service to their running game right up through training camp. Hopefully, Curtis Martin somehow would get himself in shape to play, but if not, well, a runner would emerge from somewhere. Then they went and drafted a pass blocker to play left tackle.

They can't run. D'Brickashaw Ferguson, the fourth player taken in the entire draft, is very agile, very quick, a tap dancer who can keep step with the outside rushers. The problem is that he can't knock anyone off the line. Add to that a marginal player at right tackle ... 30-year old Anthony Clement, who'd been cut from three teams ... and you've got a running game that is tied for 26th in the league.

This is meant as no knock on the Jets. Their main concern on offense this season has been the health of their quarterback, Chad Pennington. Their primary job was to provide protection for him, and Ferguson was the most logical guy to fill that role. And Pennington is off to a fine start.

But do you remember the old days, when Martin and the Jets' running game gave people real problems? Who was the left tackle? Jason Fabini, who everyone said was a natural right tackle ... too slow and not athletic enough to keep up with the blind side speed rushers. And yes, he'd give up the occasional sack, but he'd also knock defensive linemen off the ball.

Last year the Seahawks' Shaun Alexander led the league in rushing and averaged 118 yards per game. This season it's down to 70 yards. Left guard Steve Hutchinson is gone. As a pass blocker he's OK, not great, just OK. Stumbles a bit sometimes. But blocking for the run he's pure hell, one of those annoying, gila monster types who will latch onto a defender and never let go.

Walter Jones, playing next to him last year, generally is conceded to be the league's best pass-blocking tackle, but he isn't a tough guy as a run-blocker. He's a position player who does it with finesse. The arrangement worked just fine when the two of them were side by side, but now that Hutchinson is gone, the production has fallen off.

I've often asked myself what a team really wants from its running game. Could it be the focal part of an offense that lacks a great passing attack? Hard to see that. It's too easy for a defense to cram the box and stop it with numbers. Is it merely an adjunct to the aerial game, an annoyance, a device to control the pass rush and give the QB a sense of security and make his play fakes more effective? Well, yeah, that sounds more like it.

Or is it like a battering ram, knocking down a wall? Hammer and hammer away. Two yards a crack in the first quarter, then a bit more, and still more, until the exhausted defense is surrendering six and seven yards per shot? That seems to be the Vikings' game, with Chester Taylor and Hutchinson now at left guard. You'd better have a superior defense if you want to implement that scheme, or you'll be establishing your running game while the enemy opens up a two touchdown lead. And then, regretfully, you'll have to say good-bye to the pound-it-out game, just as it was starting to open up some holes, and put it on the train with an apple and good wishes.

And who's to say that a defense that alternates its front four, and is just as sturdy and resolute as the guys who are trying to crack it, won't be just as tough at the end? Just look at what the Jaguars did to Pittsburgh. The Steelers had only one run longer than four yards all night, but they had to stay with it as long as they could, to protect a fragile quarterback.

I think it's fascinating the way the Patriots have changed their style, from CharlieWeis' short pass attack to a running game, to adjust to a shift in personnel. Can it be that this was something they planned before the draft, because they knew Deion Branch would be a contract problem and maybe they'd lose him and Tom Brady would need time to adjust to his new receivers?

It's scary to believe that they saw everything coming so far ahead of time, but I'll never know because they don't talk about such things. I mean you can ask them if they breathe air when they step outside and they'll respond, "If it helps our team."

But I saw what they did to the Jets last Sunday, and even with Brady having an off day, they controlled things with their ground game. Corey Dillon is running mad now. He's become a mean runner, probably because they drafted another back, Laurence Maroney, in the first round. At Minnesota Maroney was a guy who read the defense and reacted, as if he were on cruise control, a guy with good outside speed, but hardly much toughness. Now he's a slasher, inside or out, a quick thrust guy who can break tackles.

"Surprised me, too, that they took him," said a scout who's friendly with the Patriots' personnel people. "He really didn't seem like their type. But they told me after the draft, 'Just watch. He'll fit in. He just ran in college the way they wanted him to. He can do it our way.'"

I saw two things with that Patriot ground game, which looks like the best since Martin was on their team. Their left tackle Matt Light, smaller and less gifted athletically than some of the ballet masters who play the position, is one of the best drive blockers in the game at that position. Pass blocking? Well, I've seen him give up sacks, and they'll occasionally protect him with a tight end chipping on the rusher. But he gets a lot more thrust on that side than almost everyone else in the league at the position. And he's a guy who probably will never make a Pro Bowl squad.

The second thing I noticed was the quickness of New England's center, Dan Koppen.

"You can't have a decent running game in the NFL with a slow center," says a Patriots scout who actually did talk to me. "There are too many adjustments, too many quick things he has to do. Actually, most of the good running teams in the league have light lines. We're not that big up front. Neither are the Falcons or Broncos, two of the best running clubs.

"How do you tire out a defensive line? By getting 'em moving and chasing, and that's what these light lines are geared for. You can hog 'em with those big guys, and all the defensive lineman will do will be to drop to a knee and take the double-team. But make him run and he'll get tired."

You don't find the precision running games anymore, probably because in the free-agency era, offensive lines aren't together year after year like they used to be. I loved the intricate timing of the Giants' great power toss that carried them to their first Super Bowl victory in the 1986 season.

Joe Morris carrying behind the vicious down-blocks of Mark Bavaro, with Chris Godfrey pulling and Maurice Carthon leading. Man, it was beautiful. Then one day it was gone. I asked Bill Parcells about it.

"Yeah, I hated to lose it, too," he said. "But you can't coach it anymore. It takes up too much of your practice time."

An interesting thing, the running game. But if you're showing me a team that has a good one, I'll bet it'll have guards that aren't just failed tackles but guys who were drafted for their drive blocking, as Hutchinson and the Steelers' AlanFaneca were. And I'll bet that it will have, rarest of all, a left tackle who will actually go after people

[Phinsuck]

D'Brickashaw Ferguson is a specialist, a pass-blocking specialist. I seriously doubt his ability to run-block.

Want to revive the Jets' running game? It's a simple 3 step process:

1. Draft Adrian Peterson in Round 1.

2. Draft Brian Leonard in Round 2.

3. Draft a big, strong Right Tackle in Round 2.

[Johnnybones]

Well, you can only fix one thing at a time. We went through 100 QB's last year. We had to find some protection for our QB position.

[Gainzo]

The most underrated lineman come out of Boston College.

BC runs a pro-style offense and pounds the ball.

I don't have the stats but BC lineman get drafted every year.

[124]

Our biggest mistake was letting Kareem McKenzie go. F Fabini.

[Barton]

Our biggest mistake was letting Kareem McKenzie go. F Fabini.

Every time I watch the Giants I always see McKenzie getting abused vs the pass rush. He's a solid run blocker, but he's the highest paid RT in the NFL? What a joke.

[124]

Every time I watch the Giants I always see McKenzie getting abused vs the pass rush. He's a solid run blocker, but he's the highest paid RT in the NFL? What a joke.

Solid run blocker being the key.

I'd take McKenzie over Clement, Jones, Smith, whoever, anyday.

[Barton]

Solid run blocker being the key.

I'd take McKenzie over Clement, Jones, Smith, whoever, anyday.

So would I. He's a good young tackle.

[Bugg]

Never understood how the Bradway and Edwards let McKenzie (and Jordan) go. But there was always money for more DBs. Go figure.

[Barton]

Never understood how the Bradway and Edwards let McKenzie (and Jordan) go. But there was always money for more DBs. Go figure.

Randy Thomas, imho, was a big time loss, moreso than McKenzie.

McKenzie got an outrageous contract. We couldnt afford him, and he was not exactly the Orlando Pace of right tackles. Thomas is probably a top 2 or 3 RG in the NFL.

[Bugg]

Also in SI-

The Blind Side

The left tackle evolved, through natural selection and intelligent design, into a prized specimen who lived to ensure the survival of his quarterback against a predator he couldn't see

By Michael Lewis

Reprinted from THE BLIND SIDE: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis. Copyright 2006 by Michael Lewis. With permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Available online at amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

From the snap of the ball to the snap of the first bone is closer to four seconds than to five. One Mississippi: The quarterback of the Washington Redskins, Joe Theismann, turns and hands the ball to running back John Riggins. He watches Riggins run two steps forward, turn and flip the ball back to him. It's what most people know as a flea-flicker, but the Redskins call it a "throw back special." Two Mississippi: Theismann searches for a receiver but instead sees Harry Carson coming straight at him. It's a running down -- the start of the second quarter, first-and-10 at midfield, with the score tied 7-7 -- and the New York Giants' linebacker has been so completely suckered by the fake that he's deep in the Redskins' backfield. Carson thinks he's come to tackle Riggins, but Riggins is long gone, so Carson just keeps running, toward Theismann. Three Mississippi: Carson now sees that Theismann has the ball. Theismann noticed Carson coming straight at him, so he has time to avoid him. He steps up and to the side, and Carson flies right on by. The play is now 3.5 seconds old. Until this moment it has been defined by what the quarterback could see. Now it -- and he -- are at the mercy of what he can't see.

You don't think of fear as a factor in professional football. You assume that the sort of people who make it to the NFL are immune to the emotion. Perhaps they don't mind being hit or maybe they just don't get scared; but the idea of pro football players sweating and shaking and staring at the ceiling at night, worrying about the next day's violence, seems preposterous. Bill Parcells, the coach of the Giants on this night in November 1985, didn't think it preposterous, however. Parcells, whose passion is football defense, believed that fear played a big role in the game. So did his players. They'd witnessed up close the response of opposing players to Lawrence Taylor.

The game of football was evolving, and here was one cause of its evolution: a new kind of athlete doing a new kind of thing. All by himself, Taylor altered the environment and forced opposing coaches and players to adapt. After Taylor joined the Giants for the 1981 season, they went from the second-worst defense in the NFL to the third-best. The year before his debut they gave up 425 points; his first year they gave up 257. They had been one of the weakest teams in the NFL and became, overnight, a contender. Of course Taylor wasn't the only change in the Giants between '80 and '81. There was one other important newcomer: Parcells, hired first to coach the defense and later the entire team. Parcells became a connoisseur of the central nervous systems of opposing quarterbacks and of the symptoms induced in them by his sack-happy linebacker, including, but not restricted to, "intimidation, lack of confidence, quick throws, nervous feet, concentration lapses, wanting to know where Lawrence is all the time."

Where Taylor is at the start of the play, of course, isn't the problem. It's where he ends up. "When I dropped back," says Theismann, "the first thing I did was to glance over my shoulder to see if he was coming. If he was dropping back in coverage, a sense of calm came over me. If he was coming, I had a sense of urgency."

Four Mississippi: Taylor is coming. From the snap of the ball Theismann has lost sight of him. He doesn't see Taylor carving a wide circle behind his back; he doesn't see Taylor outrun his blocker upfield and then turn back down; and he doesn't see the blocker diving, frantically, at Taylor's ankles. He doesn't see Taylor leap, both arms over his head, and fill the sky behind him. Theismann prides himself on his ability to stand in the pocket and disregard his fear. He thinks this quality is a prerequisite for a successful NFL quarterback. "When a quarterback looks at the rush," he says, "his career is over." Theismann has played in 163 straight games, a record for Redskins quarterbacks. He's led his team to two Super Bowls and won one. He's 36 years old. He's certain he still has a few good years left in him. He's wrong. He has less than half a second.

Football history, like personal history, is cleaner and more orderly in retrospect than it is in real time. It tends not to have crisp beginnings and endings. It progresses an accident at a time. The evolution of the left tackle involved as many false starts and dead ends and random mutations and unnatural selections as the other little evolutions deep inside football. But this single strand of the history of the game is clearer than most: Over time the statistics of NFL quarterbacks, on average, came to resemble the statistics of the quarterbacks who played for Bill Walsh in what came to be known as the West Coast offense.

The football field is usually an efficient economy: There is seldom a free lunch on it. Of course there are the weaknesses and strengths of individual players, and a smart coach will know how to exploit them. Systematic opportunity is rare. Yet Walsh had stumbled upon a systematic opportunity, and in time other coaches borrowed heavily from him. His short, precisely timed passing game might not offer an entirely free lunch, but the discount to the retail price was steep. The passing game was transformed from a risky business with returns not all that much greater than those of the running game into a clearly superior way to move the football down the field. As a result, the players most important to the passing game became a great deal more valuable.

In that context Taylor posed a problem. The system Walsh brought to the 49ers of the early '80s enabled Joe Montana to get rid of the ball faster than anyone else in football, and usually that was fast enough. Now it wasn't. Walsh's system was all about rhythm, and rhythm was precisely what you didn't have when you heard Taylor's footsteps behind you. Walsh came to a pair of conclusions. The first was that he needed to find himself a player like Taylor to terrorize opposing quarterbacks. The second was that he needed to use his first pick of the next draft to find a left tackle, because, as Parcells observed, the only way to handle this monster coming off the edge without disrupting the rhythm of the new passing attack was to have a single player with the physical ability to deal with him. The old left tackle was coming to the end of his natural life.

[Bugg]

(cont.)

The red-brick monstrosity rises from a hollow beside a quiet road in the Buckhead section of Atlanta. To call it a home would be to give the wrong impression. It's less a shelter than a statement: the long, sweeping driveway, the lawn that could double as a putting green, the giant white columns, the smooth stone porch inscribed with greetings in Latin. Through the leaded glass windows can be glimpsed sleek marble floors leading to a grand staircase lit by chandeliers with enough wattage to illuminate an opera house. It's the sort of place where the door should be answered by an English butler, but Steve Wallace answers his own door. He wears shorts, a T-shirt and sandals, and he has the pleasantly surprised air of a man who has just awakened from a dream that he was rich only to discover that he's actually rich. The only thing that the home and its owner have in common is that they are both huge.

Hard as it is to believe now, there was a time when Steve Wallace worried about making a living. He wasn't born with money; all he knew how to do was block, and in 1986, when he started his NFL career, blockers didn't get paid much. His first contract was worth $90,000 a year, which was pretty good, but he wasn't sure how long he would last. He sat on the bench and waited without knowing exactly what he was waiting for. It turned out he was waiting for Bubba Paris to eat himself out of a job.

After the 49ers won their first Super Bowl, in 1981, Walsh used his first draft choice to select Paris. Bubba was meant to be the solution to Walsh's biggest problem, the need to protect Montana's blind side. "At 300 pounds or less," said Walsh, "Bubba would have been a Hall of Fame left tackle. He was quick, active, bright, and he had a mean streak." Bubba also had a history of putting on weight, but, as Walsh said, "we felt we could deal with that. And we did. Briefly."

In Bubba's first four seasons his weight jumped around, but the trend line pointed upward. Offered many choices between carrots and sticks, Bubba reached every time for another jelly doughnut. The 49ers won the Super Bowl again after the 1984 season. But the next three seasons they went into the playoffs with high hopes and were bounced in the first round. In '85 and '86 they were beaten badly by the Giants, and in both games Taylor wreaked havoc. He was too quick for Bubba. The 49ers offense, usually so reliable, scored only three points in each of those games. Montana was knocked out of the '86 game with a concussion. The hits didn't always come from the blind side, the turf Paris was meant to secure, but the blind side was the sore spot.

It was at the end of the 1987 season that Walsh's frustrations with his promising left tackle peaked. Bubba just kept getting fatter, and slower, and less able to keep up with the ever-faster pass rush. During the regular season his weight hadn't mattered very much. He had waddled onto the field at well over 300 pounds, and the 49ers had still cruised through the season. They'd finished with a record of 13-2. Amazingly they had the No. 1 scoring offense and the No. 1 overall defense in the NFL. Going into the playoffs, they were viewed as such an unstoppable force that the bookies had them as 14-point favorites to win the Super Bowl, no matter who they played. They appeared to be a team without a weakness; but then the regular season is not as effective as the playoffs at exposing a team's weaknesses. The stakes are lower, the opponents generally less able, their knowledge of opposing teams less complete. It's when a team hits the playoffs that its weaknesses are revealed, and in the '87 playoffs Walsh discovered that his seemingly perfect team had an Achilles' heel.

The first game was against the Minnesota Vikings, and it was supposed to be a cakewalk. But the Vikings had a sensational 6'5", 270-pound young pass rusher named Chris Doleman, and he came off the blind side like a bat out of hell. He was fast, he was strong, he was crafty, he was mean. He wore Taylor's number, 56, and when he was asked who in football he most admired, he said, "The one guy who has the desire to be the best, and the tenacity, is Lawrence Taylor."

Doleman had been drafted as an outside linebacker, but in the Vikings' 4-3 defense, the outside linebacker wasn't chiefly a pass rusher. Finally it occurred to the Vikings' coaches to try him as a right defensive end -- that is, to make him a pass rusher. To give him the role in the 4-3 that Taylor played in the 3-4. Doleman was an instant success. Thus Walsh received another lesson about the cost of not having a left tackle capable of protecting his quarterback's blind side. He had built the niftiest little passing machine in the history of the NFL, and this one guy on the other team had his finger on the switch that shut it down.

Doleman hit Montana early and often, but even when he didn't hit Montana he came so close that Montana couldn't step into his throws. Steve Wallace, Paris's backup, watched from the sideline. "He never let Joe get his feet set," Wallace said later. What Doleman did to Montana's feet was minor compared with what he did to his mind. "Every time Joe went back, he was peeping out of the corner of his eye first, then looking at his receivers," said Wallace. The pass rush rendered Montana so inept that in the second half Walsh benched him and inserted Steve Young. Young was lefthanded, which enabled him to see Doleman coming. Young was also fast enough to flee -- which he did, often. Against a team they were meant to beat by three touchdowns, the 49ers lost 36-24. Afterward Vikings coach Jerry Burns told reporters that "the way to stop [the 49ers] is to pressure the quarterback. Our whole approach was to pressure Montana."

A football game is too complicated to be reduced to a single encounter. Lots of other things happened that afternoon in Candlestick Park. But the inability of the 49ers' left tackle to handle the Vikings' right end, in Walsh's view, created fantastically disproportionate distortions in the game.

Afterward Walsh was so shattered that he walked out of Candlestick Park without pausing to speak to his players. He coached football just one more season and decided to hang his fortunes on something more dependable than the Bubba Paris Diet. But Bubba had no obvious replacement. Wallace hadn't been trained as a left tackle. He'd been drafted by the 49ers in the fourth round in 1986 and was known chiefly for having blocked for running back Bo Jackson at Auburn. Wallace had to teach himself how to pass-block, but he was a student of the game, willing to pay a steep price to play it, and the recipient of Walsh's highest compliment: nasty. As in: "Steve Wallace was a nasty football player."

A year after their loss to the Vikings, the 49ers found themselves in exactly the same place: in the playoffs, facing Minnesota. The 49ers weren't as good as they had been the year before, and the Vikings were better. They, not the 49ers, now had the NFL's No. 1 defense. It was led by Doleman, who was, if anything, even better than before at sacking quarterbacks.

The night before the game Wallace didn't sleep. The inability to fall asleep on the night before a game had become a pattern for him. Apparently it came with the left tackle position. Will Wolford, who protected Jim Kelly's blind side for the Buffalo Bills, had exactly the same experience. He started out his career as a guard (and slept), then moved to left tackle (and didn't). Late in his career he moved back to guard, and, presto, he could sleep again. The left tackle position, as it had been reconceived for the modern pass-oriented offense, presented a new psychological challenge for the offensive lineman. A mistake at guard cost a running back a few yards; a mistake at left tackle usually cost your team a sack, occasionally the ball and sometimes the quarterback.

And -- here was the main thing -- you only needed to make one mistake at left tackle to have a bad game. The left tackle was defined by his weakest moment. "You have this tremendous ability to be embarrassed," said Wallace. "It only takes one play. I could be good on 34 out of 35 pass plays, and all anyone would remember was that one sack."

This point was driven home to him on the Saturday before the Vikings game, when Walsh called the team into the auditorium for the pleasurable viewing of its past highlights. Walsh did this before every game. He thought it helped his players to see themselves at their best before they went out to play. The players watched Jerry Rice dash into the end zone, Ronnie Lott intercept a pass and Montana thread the ball between defenders. They whooped and hollered and cheered for one another. It was all good fun, all positive. But at the end of the highlight reel, Walsh, perversely, had inserted a single negative play: a Doleman sack.

The sack came during the regular season in a game the 49ers won 24-21. Doleman got by Wallace just once, but he crushed Montana. Wallace didn't need to be reminded of the play. That one sack was all he had thought about for days. Doleman had beaten him to the outside. Wallace had reached out to punch him but lost his footing. Doleman rose up off Montana, jumped around celebrating and then found Wallace, to editorialize. "You got this all day," he said.

Wallace responded as he had 13 other times that season, by starting a fight. "I remember thinking, If I don't do something, he may get 10 sacks," he said. "So I decided to mix it up." The NFL hadn't yet begun to levy big fines for fights, and Wallace had taken full advantage of the freebies. He now had a reputation as one of the league's dirtiest linemen. "I thought that's how it had to be," he said. "I had to fight if I was going to make it. And I had some folks to feed. And when you have some folks to feed, you have a whole different mentality." That really was how Wallace thought about these beasts bent on killing Montana: You go by me, and my family goes hungry. He was deeply insecure. People were saying that he wasn't a good pass blocker, and he wasn't all that sure they were wrong. Just that morning -- the morning Walsh played the tape of the Doleman sack -- Doleman was quoted in the paper saying, "The reason Wallace fights so much is to cover up his lack of ability."

Now he had to face Doleman again. Doleman was about to go to the Pro Bowl for the second straight year. No one on the team had forgotten what he had done to them in the playoffs the year before. And yet Walsh felt the need to replay that one sack. Over and over again Wallace watched Doleman beat him and crunch Montana. He didn't understand why Walsh needed to humiliate him. He said nothing, of course, but he was at once livid and ashamed. He wasn't going to sleep that night anyway; now he wasn't going to sleep with a vengeance. "All night long I'm lying there thinking, Why did he show that one play?" Wallace said. "A lot of times you can't understand what Walsh was doing until he's done it." At some point that night Wallace decided, "The lesson for me was to concentrate one play longer. As hard as you can possibly work, you can do it for one more play."

The next day, after he'd suited up, Wallace received another explanation for Walsh's perverse behavior. John McVay, the team's director of football operations, pulled him aside in the hallway and said, "You are going to be the key to this game. The game is going to turn on your performance." This wasn't a front-office pep talk. McVay was a former NFL coach -- and he was completely serious.

This was new. Until this season, his first as a starting left tackle, Wallace had never experienced line play as an individualistic event. But that is what playing left tackle had become: a one-on-one encounter, a boxing match. The passing game, increasingly, was built around the idea of getting as many receivers out into patterns as quickly as possible. More receivers meant fewer pass blockers. Fewer pass blockers meant the left tackle had to deal with whatever was coming at him all by himself. Every now and then a running back or a tight end might lend a shoulder, but mostly it would be just Wallace and Doleman, one-on-one. And the importance of the private battle was now clear to Wallace: "No one had ever said anything like that to me before, 'The game depends on you.'"

Number 74 trots to the edge of the tunnel leading from the locker room to the field. He loves this moment. This moment is the offensive lineman's one shot at positive recognition. When he started playing football as a kid, he wanted to play tight end; even then he preferred basketball. He enjoyed attention. It's still not natural to him to play a game in front of millions of people and go completely unnoticed. It's like playing the cantaloupe in the school play.

"At left tackle, number 74, Steve Wallace!" His name is announced to the packed stadium, and he runs out. He's still so nervous and new to this that he concentrates on not stumbling. The day is sunny and bright, but the turf, he notices, is slick and muddy. That's a break. Opposing teams who came to Candlestick Park were deceived by the sunshine. They'd think, On such a nice day the ground must be firm. The ground was seldom firm. By the second quarter they'd be slipping and sliding, yet they wouldn't think to change their cleats. A pass rusher like Doleman counted on traction to turn the corner. If Wallace forced Doleman to carve especially tight turns, Wallace knew, the turf might do the rest.

Wallace had made up his mind before the game that he would play within himself. Doleman's words in the paper had stung: The reason Wallace fights so much is to cover up his lack of ability. "I said to myself, No matter what happens, I'm not going to fight him today," Wallace said. "And it helped me to become a true left tackle."

It's during the Niners' second series that the heavyweight bout between Doleman and Wallace really begins. On the first play Montana takes a five-step drop, and Doleman comes with the same speed rush that he used to beat Wallace the first time they met. Wallace now understands that he was beaten that time because he was too jumpy, too eager to make contact. He prides himself on playing offense with the aggression of a defensive player, but that aggression is now counterproductive. The left tackle position is all about control -- of self and of the man coming at you. Control that inside number, Wallace tells himself. As long as I can control that inside number, I can push through him. He fixates on the 6 on Doleman's jersey the way a basketball defender stares at the midsection of the dribbler.

Doleman lines up far outside and, at the snap of the ball, sprints straight upfield. He's quicker than Wallace and has the distinct advantage of running straight ahead while Wallace backpedals. Wallace can't get a purchase on him; his only hope is to give Doleman a single hard push at exactly the right moment. If he hits Doleman the moment after the snap, he will achieve nothing. He'll throw himself off-balance, just as he did before, and speed Doleman on his journey upfield, en route to Montana's back. What happens on this first serious encounter between these two huge men happens so fast, it's nearly impossible to comprehend in real time. Doleman sprints upfield, probably expecting to collide with Wallace on his first or second step -- but he doesn't. Wallace has taken a new angle. "I had to make sure that his body was completely by me.... Wait.... Wait.... Wait.... Then I hit him."

He meets Doleman as deep in the backfield as possible without missing him altogether. They collide briefly at the spot where Doleman wanted to be making a sharp left to get at Montana. The hit keeps Doleman from turning and drives him farther upfield. Wallace has traded the pleasure of violence for the comfort of real estate.

Nobody notices, of course. His contribution is the opposite of dramatic. He has removed the antagonist from the play entirely. What the fans and the TV cameras see is 49ers wide receiver John Taylor come wide open in the middle of the field. Montana hits him with a pass, and Taylor races for a gain of 20 yards.

Doleman must think the play was a fluke, because on the next one he tries exactly the same move. Upfield he comes, at speed, and once again Wallace takes him right on past the action. What the fans see is Rice catching a touchdown pass. What Doleman sees, from a distance, is Montana throwing a touchdown pass. What the fans at home hear is the announcer, John Madden, saying, "The 49ers need production out of three key people. Two of them just produced." The three key people to whom Madden refers are Montana, Rice and running back Roger Craig. They are stars; they accumulate the important statistics: yards, touchdowns, receptions, completions. Wallace is not considered a producer. He has no statistics.

[Bugg]

(cont)

The next time the 49ers get the ball, Wallace suspects that Doleman might adjust. Doleman now knows that Wallace is quick enough and agile enough and intelligent enough to deal with his speed rush. He'll come with his bull rush.

In the playoff game the year before, Doleman opened the game with a bull rush and knocked Bubba Paris flat on his back. ("When you knock a 330-pound guy on his ass," Wallace observed, "that's a very serious thing.") Wallace expects the bull rush early. If Doleman establishes his ability to run right over him, he'll force Wallace to plant his feet early, to brace himself. Planted feet doom a left tackle. Planted feet are slow feet. If he plants his feet, Wallace knows, Doleman will see it -- and then he'll go right back to his speed rush. When a left tackle plants his feet, he gives the pass rusher a half-step head start in his race to the quarterback. That half step might be the difference between a productive Montana and a Montana being carried off the field on a stretcher.

As in sumo wrestling, the awesome crudeness on the surface of the battle between left tackle and pass rusher disguises the finesse underneath. Keeping Doleman off Montana's back is less a matter of brute force than of leverage, angles and anticipation. The outcome of the struggle turns on half steps and milliseconds. "I know early there are maybe three plays where he is going to try to bull-rush me," said Wallace. "And you know that if you're not ready, he's going to beat you like a dog for the rest of the day, because then you are setting with slow, controlled feet rather than happy feet. The trick is to see that bull rush coming early and go out and pop him. You deliver a quick karate blow -- pow! -- to stun him. But your feet never stop. If your feet ever stop, you're beat."

Here comes the payoff for all those hours he spent studying game tape. He's watched many hours of Doleman rushing passers. He's learned that Doleman tips his bull rush by the set of his stance, the tilt of his body, his attitude. Now Doleman comes with the bull rush. And Wallace is ready for it.

What the fan sees is ... nothing. Doleman is 270 pounds of raw, explosive muscle. There is probably not a human being among the 61,848 present who could withstand the force of his furious charge. To the naked eye, however, it looks as if he's not even trying. He's just stuck on the line of scrimmage, leaning against Wallace. Why watch that? Watch, instead, the real action: Rice catches another touchdown pass!

The next time the 49ers have the ball (they now lead 14-3), Wallace looks up to find Doleman gone. Doleman has moved to the other side of the field, in search of a better venue to practice his black art. On the other side of the field, however, he's in Montana's line of vision. He also must deal with two blockers: the right tackle plus the tight end. Two plays into the experiment he returns to his natural point of attack. For him it's the blind side or nothing.

Today it's nothing. Not one sack. A single tackle, and that comes on a rare play in which Wallace isn't assigned to block him. "When you're locked in," says Wallace, "you can't explain it. You just feel it." Today he is locked in. At halftime the score is 21-3. Montana has thrown three touchdown passes. No one ever mentions Wallace's name. The cameras never once find him. His work is evidently too boring to watch for long. Worse, the better he does his job, the more boring he is to watch. His job is to eliminate what people pay to see -- the sight of Doleman crushing Montana.

That season the 49ers won the Super Bowl. After the game Walsh retired, but his innovation continued to sweep the league in various forms. The passing game grew ever more important, the quarterback ever more valuable. Yet there was still little change in the value of the people who protected the quarterback.

The purest case study was Anthony Mu

[Bugg]

(cont)

Once the money started to fly, the talent evaluators became connoisseurs of left tackle flesh. The Wallaces and Wolfords were exposed as physically inadequate; the left tackle now had to meet a list of physical specifications rarely found in a human being. The left tackle was now meant to be the 300-plus-pound guy who was also among the best athletes on the field. Now that he was making rarefied sums of money, he was expected to be, by definition, rare. "It's tough to find 350-pound guys who can move their feet," said Giants general manager Ernie Accorsi. "They are either 6'2" or their arms are too short or their hands are too small or their feet are too slow or they simply aren't athletic enough. You can coach a lot of things, but you can't coach quick feet. You can't make a guy's arms longer or his hands bigger. And you can't make him taller."

On the other hand the NFL could wave millions of dollars in the air and let the U.S. population know that the incentives had changed. Boys who thought they might make careers as power forwards, or shot putters, might now think twice before quitting the high school football team.

Case in point: Jonathan Ogden. At the dawn of free agency Ogden, the son of a Washington, D.C., investment banker, had just graduated from the St. Albans School. He was 6'9" and weighed nearly 350 pounds. When he arrived at UCLA, to play football and put the shot, Ogden's nickname was Fat Albert. He liked football, but he loved the shot put -- and had a legitimate chance to make the U.S. Olympic team. At St. Albans he had played right tackle and enjoyed it, because teams typically ran the football behind the right tackle, and run blocking was fun. At UCLA his new coach told him he was moving to left tackle and becoming, chiefly, a pass blocker. Ogden bridled. "I called my father," he said, "and I told him, 'They're trying to make me play left tackle!' My dad told me just to do it -- because if I was going to play football, left tackle was the position to play." For a few years after the birth of free agency it helped a young man suited to play left tackle to have an investment banker for a father. After that the finances became so obvious that no one needed an investment banker to interpret them.

Ogden's freshman year at UCLA wasn't especially encouraging. His high school team had about 10 plays; his college team ran, more or less, a pro offense. Pass blocking, which struck him as an almost passive activity, was a lot less interesting to him than run blocking. But by his sophomore year he had figured out where he was meant to go and what he was meant to do, and it came naturally to him. After that season, three of the defenders he'd faced were taken in the first round of the 1994 NFL draft. Ogden had gone head-to-head with three extremely good blind-side pass rushers -- Willie McGinest, Shante Carver, Trev Alberts -- and hadn't allowed a single sack. "It was then I thought," Ogden said, "if they can be first-round picks, why can't I be a first-round pick?"

Good question! Nobody called him Fat Albert anymore. Ogden had slimmed from 350 to 310 pounds and then built himself back up in the UCLA weight room to 345 pounds. Muscle had replaced fat. He was faster and quicker and stronger and altogether terrifying. Six feet nine inches and 345 very mobile pounds. "I had some weeks in college where I could have had a cup of coffee in one hand and blocked the guy with the other," said Ogden. "Seriously." There were games when the pass rushers just gave up, and he'd look around and say, "They're not rushing!" His junior year was when he first heard himself described with a term he'd hear ad nauseam for the rest of his football career: freak of nature. The Baltimore Ravens selected him with the fourth pick of the 1996 draft -- and handed him the largest signing bonus of his rookie class: $6.8 million.

As a boy Ogden had been terribly shy. When he'd been required to compete in a spelling bee, he had turned his back on the audience because he couldn't face them and spell at the same time. A few years into his sensational NFL career you couldn't find a soul who would describe Jonathan Ogden as shy. He was bright and chatty and funny -- and about as sure of himself and his abilities as a human being can be. And why shouldn't he be? He did what he did alone, and he did it as well as anyone ever had done it. His quarterbacks never got sacked. When they went back to pass, they knew that what was behind them didn't matter. Opposing players weren't pleased to see him. "It can be intimidating if you allow it to be," legendary pass rusher Bruce Smith told The Washington Post when a reporter asked him what it was like to go head-to-head with Ogden. "I know when I walk up to the line of scrimmage and I have to look up, I only think to myself, What in the world did his parents feed him?"

Before the 2000 season the Ravens re-signed Ogden to a six-year deal worth $44 million. That was what one prominent agent referred to as "one of the great what-the-f--- moments in the history of pro football negotiations." At that moment Ogden was being paid more money than any quarterback in the NFL -- and eight times more than Trent Dilfer, the quarterback he'd be protecting.

Reprinted from THE BLIND SIDE: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis. Copyright c2006 by Michael Lewis. With permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Issue date: September 25, 2006

[Sperm Edwards]

Every time I watch the Giants I always see McKenzie getting abused vs the pass rush. He's a solid run blocker, but he's the highest paid RT in the NFL? What a joke.

How many times did Manning get sacked this past Sunday? Eight?

McKenzie's contract was for $38million. That is absurd for someone who's merely pretty-good.

[Bugg]

McKenzie migtht be overpaid; he's still a solid piece of any OL. But it was still disturbing that the old regime lavished assets on DBs and the DL(with marginal impact) and just let McKenzie walk without even bothering to negotiate with him. Had they been proactive, his numbers might be a whole bunch lower.It was like from Day 1 they knew his FA was coming, they didn't even bother. But Ty Law, coming off a broken foot, David Barrett, Donnie ABraham, Damien Robsinson-break the bank.

MIchael Lewis of "Moneyball" fame, has apparently written a book about the economics of the NFL, from which the above was excerpted in SI this week. So management has some copyright issues ahead. Enjoy!

[Sperm Edwards]

McKenzie migtht be overpaid; he's still a solid piece of any OL. But it was still disturbing that the old regime lavished assets on DBs and the DL(with marginal impact) and just let McKenzie walk without even bothering to negotiate with him. Had they been proactive, his numbers might be a whole bunch lower.It was like from Day 1 they knew his FA was coming, they didn't even bother. But Ty Law, coming off a broken foot, David Barrett, Donnie ABraham, Damien Robsinson-break the bank.

MIchael Lewis of "Moneyball" fame, has apparently written a book about the economics of the NFL, from which the above was excerpted in SI this week. So management has some copyright issues ahead. Enjoy!

This is how I felt about Chad. I mean c'mon; if they gave him all that money after the healthy half of his mediocre 2003 season, you're telling me they didn't know they were re-signing him after 2002? His SB would've been half as much. They knew Peyton's contract was coming up & Condon represents both. You don't wait for someone to set the bar WAY high numbers-wise and THEN start negotiating with the franchise's savior. Doubt Chad's bonuses & guarantees (about $23M total - I forget exactly) would've been more than half that was a year earlier.

Some guys you wait & see. Others you just know you're re-signing (barring career-threatening injury). They had to know with Chad that he was getting re-signed. Same goes for McKenzie - a year earlier & he would've been millions & millions less. They chose to wait it out & then not try. Gave that money to Law, Blaylock, Barrett, and a rookie DT.

Flip side - if not for the perceived collapse of the franchise (some due to a scary cap situation), Herm might still be here.

[PFSIKH]

This is how I felt about Chad. I mean c'mon; if they gave him all that money after the healthy half of his mediocre 2003 season, you're telling me they didn't know they were re-signing him after 2002? His SB would've been half as much. They knew Peyton's contract was coming up & Condon represents both. You don't wait for someone to set the bar WAY high numbers-wise and THEN start negotiating with the franchise's savior. Doubt Chad's bonuses & guarantees (about $23M total - I forget exactly) would've been more than half that was a year earlier.

Some guys you wait & see. Others you just know you're re-signing (barring career-threatening injury). They had to know with Chad that he was getting re-signed. Same goes for McKenzie - a year earlier & he would've been millions & millions less. They chose to wait it out & then not try. Gave that money to Law, Blaylock, Barrett, and a rookie DT.

Flip side - if not for the perceived collapse of the franchise (some due to a scary cap situation), Herm might still be here.

Sperm you make some real good points.

However, any agent worth half a damm would have Peyton set the bar for Chad rather then Chad set the bar for Peyton. Peyton was the trump card. Choosing the latter option would favor the team as Chad is basing his contract off the best QB one at the time. Which I am going to guess was a few 10s of millions less then Peyton's 132 million and 35 million bonus.

That is less money to player A, player B and more importantly the Agent.

[Sperm Edwards]

Sperm you make some real good points.

However, any agent worth half a damm would have Peyton set the bar for Chad rather then Chad set the bar for Peyton. Peyton was the trump card. Choosing the latter option would favor the team as Chad is basing his contract off the best QB one at the time. Which I am going to guess was a few 10s of millions less then Peyton's 132 million and 35 million bonus.

That is less money to player A, player B and more importantly the Agent.

I don't know. In the end, the agent works for the player. If the team offers a player who

- just finished his 3rd NFL season (the first two he threw like 20 combined passes)

- has 12 career starts or whatever under his belt

- who just got spanked in his most recent (playoff) game

a guaranteed $11M (at a time when I think former #2 overall pick & then-2x pro-bowler Donovan McNabb got a guaranteed/bonus amt of like $14-15M)...I think he takes it & tells Condon - you work it out & just get it done.

Instead, we waited one year & gave him double the bonus money; 50% more than McNabb got: $23M.

[PeterNorth09]

McKenzie migtht be overpaid; he's still a solid piece of any OL. But it was still disturbing that the old regime lavished assets on DBs and the DL(with marginal impact) and just let McKenzie walk without even bothering to negotiate with him. Had they been proactive, his numbers might be a whole bunch lower.It was like from Day 1 they knew his FA was coming, they didn't even bother. But Ty Law, coming off a broken foot, David Barrett, Donnie ABraham, Damien Robsinson-break the bank.

MIchael Lewis of "Moneyball" fame, has apparently written a book about the economics of the NFL, from which the above was excerpted in SI this week. So management has some copyright issues ahead. Enjoy!

You're right on the money. If you're going to overpay someone, overpay for a good O-linemen like Kareem Mackenzie who was a key part of our running game. These same people who argue that the Jets were right to franchise John Abraham and let Mackenzie go for nothing are mostly the same people who think it's a wonderful idea the Jets took a finesse pass blocker with the 4th pick in the draft.

The Jets OL and running game would both be better if we had resigned Mackenzie and let overrated, injury prone stat clown John Abraham swindle another team out of their cap room.

[#27TheDominator]

You're right on the money. If you're going to overpay someone, overpay for a good O-linemen like Kareem Mackenzie who was a key part of our running game. These same people who argue that the Jets were right to franchise John Abraham and let Mackenzie go for nothing are mostly the same people who think it's a wonderful idea the Jets took a finesse pass blocker with the 4th pick in the draft.

The Jets OL and running game would both be better if we had resigned Mackenzie and let overrated, injury prone stat clown John Abraham swindle another team out of their cap room.

You wanted to franchise McKenzie? It would have been nice to keep him, but do you honestly think if we would have franchised him we would have gotten a first round pick by trading him?

[The Troll]

D'Brickashaw Ferguson is a specialist, a pass-blocking specialist. I seriously doubt his ability to run-block.

Want to revive the Jets' running game? It's a simple 3 step process:

1. Draft Adrian Peterson in Round 1.

2. Draft Brian Leonard in Round 2.

3. Draft a big, strong Right Tackle in Round 2.

How does Leonard improve our run game? He is more of a runner than a blocker. Drafting Peterson in round one and Leonard in round two is overkill. We need a blocking fullback in the mold of Richardson, Neal, or Strong. And you can find those guys much later in the draft, and even in the free agent scrap heap. Did anyone sign Fred Beasley yet?

BTW, you think we're bad enough to have a shot at AP? I don't. Kenny Irons seems like a more logical 1st round projection. Or, if there is a great hybrid out there in the 1st round, we could always wait until the second round to go after a RB. Plenty of good backs went after round one was concluded. Not many Shawne Merrimans have.

[Barton]

How does Leonard improve our run game? He is more of a runner than a blocker. Drafting Peterson in round one and Leonard in round two is overkill. We need a blocking fullback in the mold of Richardson, Neal, or Strong. And you can find those guys much later in the draft, and even in the free agent scrap heap. Did anyone sign Fred Beasley yet?

BTW, you think we're bad enough to have a shot at AP? I don't. Kenny Irons seems like a more logical 1st round projection. Or, if there is a great hybrid out there in the 1st round, we could always wait until the second round to go after a RB. Plenty of good backs went after round one was concluded. Not many Shawne Merrimans have.

Brian Leonard in the 2nd rd would be ridiculous. I cannot see under any circumstance him being the BAP with 1 of our 2nd rd picks.

In the 1st rd I'd like to see us go after a 3-4 pass-rushing OLB or a running back. I agree troll, definetly not 6'3 Michael Bush.

Marshawn Lynch would be a great pick. I like him the best, only 2nd to Peterson.

Or we could go hard after chargers RFA Michael "The Burner" Turner, who I just checked is listed at 5'10 237lbs. I had no idea he was that big, and he'll be only 25 by season opener 07'. Maybe we could get him for 1 of our 2nd rd picks, allowing us to get that hybrid 3-4 monster in the 1st rd or BAP.

[Jetlag]

Or we could go hard after chargers RFA Michael "The Burner" Turner, who I just checked is listed at 5'10 237lbs. I had no idea he was that big, and he'll be only 25 by season opener 07'. Maybe we could get him for 1 of our 2nd rd picks, allowing us to get that hybrid 3-4 monster in the 1st rd or BAP.

Wow that'd be complete waste of a pick. He benefits greatly from a very good O-Line and having a All-Pro wearing down defenses. Sound like a RB we already have?

[Sperm Edwards]

Wow that'd be complete waste of a pick. He benefits greatly from a very good O-Line and having a All-Pro wearing down defenses. Sound like a RB we already have?

Thought you were going to say a RB we already HAD.

[Barton]

Wow that'd be complete waste of a pick. He benefits greatly from a very good O-Line and having a All-Pro wearing down defenses. Sound like a RB we already have?

I wanna see more of him for me to give a fair opinion.

But from what I've seen, this guy is good, even very good. LT thinks he can be a starter and will be, I know a biased opinion but still this guy doesnt just come up in the 4th Q for garbage time.

And I'd hardly call the chargers Oline very good. Its good though.

[The Troll]

Brian Leonard in the 2nd rd would be ridiculous. I cannot see under any circumstance him being the BAP with 1 of our 2nd rd picks.

In the 1st rd I'd like to see us go after a 3-4 pass-rushing OLB or a running back. I agree troll, definetly not 6'3 Michael Bush.

Marshawn Lynch would be a great pick. I like him the best, only 2nd to Peterson.

Or we could go hard after chargers RFA Michael "The Burner" Turner, who I just checked is listed at 5'10 237lbs. I had no idea he was that big, and he'll be only 25 by season opener 07'. Maybe we could get him for 1 of our 2nd rd picks, allowing us to get that hybrid 3-4 monster in the 1st rd or BAP.

Totally agree with you, but I rank Irons ahead of Lynch.

I love Turner. Would love to have that BEAST in our backfield.

[Jetsfan80]

McKenzie got an outrageous contract. We couldnt afford him, and he was not exactly the Orlando Pace of right tackles.

Bingo. I would rather get a less expensive RT that is balanced blocking for both the run and the pass than pay him more than anyone to be a human turnstile in pass blocking. We drafted two offensive linemen in the 1st round last year, its not like we could have expected to fill all the wholes on the line. The front office did the best it could.

When Pete Kendall returns, hopefully we will see a significant improvement. Otherwise, we'll have to wait until next offseason to get the right side of the OL patched up.

[#27TheDominator]

When Pete Kendall returns, hopefully we will see a significant improvement. Otherwise, we'll have to wait until next offseason to get the right side of the OL patched up.

I hope so, but we weren't exactly knocking the Titans on their a$$ before Kendall went down.

[Jetsfan80]

I hope so, but we weren't exactly knocking the Titans on their a$$ before Kendall went down.

Agreed. But I couldn't even tell you off the top of my head who is filling in for him.

[#27TheDominator]

Agreed. But I couldn't even tell you off the top of my head who is filling in for him.

Well, they don't spend much time on who is at RG on radio, but it's one of three stiffs-Katnik, the one that couldn't get it done in week 2 at G, Jones the one that couldn't get it done as RT in week 1 or Wade Smith who couldn't get it done in Miami. Guess you're right, better pray for Kendall and Teague to get back.