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Sunday, September 30, 2001

The grass has gotten more real in the NFL with all the new stadiums, but for some coaches it's not always greener.

Three of the biggest coaching names in the sport jumped ship the past two years, and in all three cases it appears to have been a mistake.

Dick Vermeil and Marty Schottenheimer departed St. Louis and Kansas City, respectively. Vermeil quit the Rams after they won the Super Bowl in the 1999 season. Schottenheimer left the Chiefs after the 1998 season.

Both came back this year and are 0-2, Vermeil with the Chiefs and Schottenheimer with the Redskins. At least Vermeil has a chance. Schottenheimer, who had success in Kansas City after success in Cleveland, might have no chance at it this time. He's already released his starting quarterback after two games and it might not be long before he joins Jeff George. Schottenheimer works for an owner, Dan Snyder, who has little patience.

Vermeil and Schottenheimer will be well-compensated, no matter what happens, but maybe they should have looked at the mistake Mike Holmgren made when he left Green Bay and Brett Favre to become quarterback-less in Seattle.

Holmgren, who left the Packers as coach for the job of coach and general manager in Seattle, can't blame management for not getting him a quarterback or surrounding cast.

In fact, his best success with the Seahawks came early in his first season, 1999, when he coached Dennis Erickson's leftovers to an 8-2 start. Since then, Holmgren's Seahawks are 8-17, counting a home playoff loss to Miami in 1999.

His Packers, with Favre, were held to three points or fewer only once in 112 regular-season games. His Seahawks have done it four times in the past 22 games, the fourth coming a week ago when the Eagles drilled them, 27-3.

The NFL landscape is littered with coaches who left one team as a success, went to another and were never heard from again. Not everyone can be a George Allen, Bill Parcells or Jim Mora.

It's happened too many times to coaches such as Mike Ditka, Jimmy Johnson, even Vince Lombardi, who left all those championships behind in Green Bay to coach the Redskins to 7-5-2 in his only season before he died of cancer.

Scheduling winners, losers

Putting the second week of the season off until the final week of the season has created some schedule quirks that make good news for some teams, bad news for others.

Arizona did not play until the third week of the season, the only team that had to wait that long, yet the Cardinals led the NFC East Division after two weeks without playing because everyone else was 0-1.

Buffalo will finish with three games on the road, two of them in the warm weather of Miami and indoors at Atlanta.

Cincinnati is basking at 2-0 when the Bengals likely would have lost at Tennessee in the second game. Jacksonville plays a third consecutive home game today, but must finish with four of five on the road -- all at cold-weather sites Cincinnati, Cleveland, Minnesota and Chicago, except the Jaguars will be indoors in Minneapolis.

The Patriots, who aren't very good, were looking at being home for the holidays because their final game was to be Dec. 22, with a bye on the final weekend. Now they must wait around to play their final game the week after New Year's at Cincinnati.

Instead of playing in the 1 p.m. heat of Tampa, Fla., in mid-September, the Eagles now go there in January. The Buccaneers play four of their final five games at home in December and January.

San Diego is the only team unaffected since its open date was scheduled for the second weekend.

Ed Bouchette can be reached at ebouchette@post-gazette.com