Week 4 Coaching Shorts: Martyball Is Back

By Brett | Permalink | No Comments | October 4th, 2006 | Trackback

It seems that the particular, uber-conservative style of football known as Martyball is once again rearing its ugly head in San Diego. And, once again, Marty Schottenheimer is catching hell for it in the media, after the Chargers blew a second half lead in a close game to the Ravens last Sunday.

Our three initial thoughts to the media’s predictable response were: A) What if this was Bill Belichik instead of Marty Schottenheimer. How would the media have responded? They’d fawn all over him, just like they always do. B) What if Marty had played it fast and loose in the second half of this game, and Phil Rivers turned the ball over? Marty would be getting crucified by fans and media alike this week. So it’s kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don’t thing, yeah? C) If San Diego’s hadn’t stopped playing one series too early, this would be a total non-issue.

So,while we laid into Andy Reid for doing the exact same thing just a couple weeks back in Philly, we actually agree with the Martyball approach, in this particular case. And we’ll tell you why, after the leap into the great beyond.

Here’s what we know:

• Philip Rivers, while promising, has very little actual game experience in the NFL.
• In LaDanian Tomlinson, the Chargers have arguably the game’s best running back. His back up, Michael Turner, is a big, physical back that runs well between the tackles.
• Through the first few games of the season, the Chargers appear to have one of the dominant defensive units in the game.
• Likewise, the Ravens defense is among the leagues best, and they have excellent playmakers in their linebacking corps and secondary.
• ESPN’s ongoing lovefest with Steve McNair notwithstanding, the Ravens offense really isn’t playing that well right now, and certainly hadn’t shown any signs of life when Marty decided to have his offense go into four corners mode.

  Call us crazy, but, when you take all those factors into consideration, it actually made a hell of a lot of sense for San Diego to call a very conservative game in the second half. We’re not handing Marty a Coach of the Week award or anything, but the recent criticism is unwarranted. Look, we’ll be the first to admit that Martyball has more than its share of drawbacks. There’s still a time and place for it, though. And that time and place was last Sunday, in Baltimore.

  
  
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