By Mark Spector
SPORTSNET.CA
TAMPA –- Forests have fallen to supply enough newsprint used to chronicle the likes and differences of the two head coaches here, Arizona’s Ken Whisenhunt and Pittsburgh’s Mike Tomlin, the youngest coach in Super Bowl history at just 36.
Whisenhunt, of course, was the Steelers assistant coach who was passed over for the head coaching job in Pittsburgh when Tomlin was hired to replace Bill Cowher.
One place where they differ however, will come Saturday night when the two speak to their team for the final time before game day. Tomlin said he makes “a conscious effort to wing it,” in his speech, while Whisenhunt is far more prepared for the task.
“I hope I have something up my sleeve, something that will help,” Whisenhunt said. “I learned from Jeff Van Note [a former centre for the Atlanta Falcons]. Seventeen years he was a player, and he took notes in every meeting he was in. For myself, when Coach Cowher used to stand up and talk, I wrote all of that down.
“I have notebooks with little tabs in there from when he spoke before the [AFC] Championship game, when he spoke before the Super Bowl, when he spoke at the mini-camp meeting…”
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A quick look into the collective Steelers mind, a team that defines that old football cliché, “Smash-mouth football.”
“Without giving the specific game plan, we desire to run the football,” Tomlin said on Friday. “We want to win by attrition. We want to impose our will on the people we play.”
It’s the oldest prediction in football, but the team that imposes its will is the team that wins. With two teams so dissimilar in their approaches to the game, that prediction has to hold true on Sunday.
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The NFLPA released the results of a league-wide players survey concerning playing surfaces, the most obvious element being that players overwhelmingly believe that artificial surfaces are harder on their bodies than grass.
Nearly 85% believe that artificial turf is more likely to contribute to injury, while 93% believe it will shorten their career. Some other items of interest:
The Oakland Raiders players think less of their field than any other NFL team. Arizona is the happiest at home.
Players also ranked the field at University of Phoenix Stadium as the best grass field in the NFL. Pittsburgh’s Heinz Field was rated the worst.
Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis was rated as the best artificial turf field, while Dallas’ Texas Stadium is considered the worst. The Cowboys move into their new, $1.3 billion stadium for next season.
The most frequent comments from players? “No more games in London! It’s awful!” And “If a cow can not eat it, we shouldn’t be playing on it.”
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Arizona Cardinal defensive lineman Darnell Dockett told his story here this week, a tale of walking into his Decatur, Georgia home as a 13-year-old, and finding his mother lying dead in the hallway, a bullet hole in the back of her head.
“I realized it was the projects, and it was a single black mom. They probably weren’t gong to put in a lot of effort to find the killer,” he said. “I would like to sit down with the killer, to ask them, ‘What was going through your head?’ Just let them know all the pain [they] caused.”
A few months later he was orphaned when his estranged father died of cancer, leaving Dockett to move in with an uncle in Maryland. “He was a bad kid,” that uncle, Kevin Dockett, told the New York Daily News. “He had no respect for others, no respect for teachers or adults.”
Today Dockett is an NFL player and Super Bowl starter, with a 60-word poem tattooed on his right forearm. It’s an ode to Kevin, the uncle who turned him around.
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The fake ticket and merchandise cops are out here in Tampa, busting two people and confiscating over $1 million in jerseys, t-shirts, hats etc.
“If you want a jersey that’s orange and has a serial number on it, we’ll be happy to give you that at Central Booking,” said Tampa police Major John Bennett. “And it won’t be counterfeit.”
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Conventional wisdom says that Phoenix offensive coordinator Todd Haley will reach into his bag of tricks and pull out at least a couple of gimmick plays. Anything for an edge on the best defence in the National Football League.
The problem? His quarterback isn’t big on trick plays.
“As a quarterback you always want to be in control,” Kurt Warner said. “With trick plays, you are not in control.”
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Spec’s Pick
It’s too easy to say that defence wins championships; to say that the team with tradition is just going to keep on winning.
Kurt Warner will get rid of the ball faster than any quarterback the Steelers have seen thus far. The Cardinals will need a couple of big plays from receivers Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Bolden, and running back Edgerrin James will have to find a way to make the Steeler defence respect the run game.
But, it is not far-fetched to think that all of that can happen.
Bet Arizona: 30-23.
