A Ray of hope

Sporting News, The, Jan 8, 1996 by Paul Attner

Coaching, Barry Switzer will tell you, is overrated. "It's personnel," he says "If I have better players than you, I win. It's that simple. I can dazzle you with a lot of talk about X's and O's and tendencies and that junk. But hell, doesn't mean anything. Players are what it is all about."

Tell that to the Eagles and watch them laugh. They'll tell you about a certain game a few weeks ago when Switzer coached his Cowboys to a loss against them by twice going for a first down when he should have punted. And they'll tell you that they are still alive this season, still clawing unexpectedly for a Super Bowl berth, because they've been transformed into a respectable outfit by the coaching hocus-pocus of Ray Rhodes. Superior personnel should enable the Cowboys to win Sunday's NFC semifinal game against the Eagles, but that shouldn't diminish at all the magnificent job Rhodes has done in raising Philadelphia from the football graveyard.

The Eagles simply shouldn't be in the play-offs, much less traveling to Irving. In one season, Rhodes has given the Eagles backbone, discipline, pride and a fighting spirit that makes them play much better than their talent should allow. He has rescued a franchise that finished last season with seven consecutive losses, mixed in one major free-agent addition (Ricky Watters), added a load of second- and third-tier free agents and castoffs and gotten everyone -- newcomers and holdovers -- to view him as a football evangelist preaching a gospel that produces some miraculous results.

To an outsider, Rhodes' fire-and-brimstone approach seems so much Hollywood of old, the win-one-for-the-Gipper angle that lost its effect once contracts reached seven figures and players became free to wander from club to club without a hint of loyalty. But in the aftermath of the Eagles' inexplicable 58-37 rout of the shameful Lions last Saturday, it is obvious the man has got to be doing something right with his words. So watch out Cowboys: Who knows what magic he'll conjure up for this one.

No one can ever measure the effect speeches have on athletes. How many times has the best pregame rhetoric been drowned out by horrible performances? We obviously only hear about the successful oratories. But Rhodes is riding quite a streak this season. Every time the Eagles seemed on the brink of reverting to their old bumbling selves, Rhodes has righted them with a well-placed word. His latest triumph came on the heels of Lions tackle Lomas Brown's guarantee that Detroit not only would win but would put the game away before halftime, too. So Brown maybe got carried away, right? But to Rhodes, it was the opening he was seeking.

"The Lions don't respect you," he told his players the night before the game. "They don't give you credit for anything you have done this season. It's like walking into your house, slapping your family around and robbing you." Rhodes doesn't smile much anyway, but he was steely serious by the time he shut up. He was angry. He wears five Super Bowl rings from serving as an assistant in San Francisco, and Brown wears none. "I could see if it had been someone who had been to a Super Bowl once or twice, but someone who doesn't even know what it is like, he shouldn't be making any guarantees," Rhodes said later.

Words can't block or tackle, which is what an unrepenting Brown said after the game. But considering that his team did little of either -- and Philadelphia did both so well -- something must have been driving the Eagles, the only home team in the first round not favored. If nothing else, Rhodes was able to use Brown's outburst to grab the attention of his players and stop them from thinking too much about how inferior they were to the Lions. You have to ride whatever horse is available to get the job done.

What has emerged from a season of Rhodes' motivational speeches is this: They are fighters. They may not be as good as you or as experienced or as highly paid, but when it comes to clawing and scratching and refusing to say uncle, they'll take you on every time. But more important, they have gone from trying to win to becoming winners in less than a season. Some franchises have never achieved the latter status in their history. Ask any coach; the hardest thing for a team to pick up is learning how to win. The Eagles now have done it 1 1 times this season.

"You look at our people and you think we don't have the ability to win," says veteran guard Guy McIntyre, the former 49er and Packer and wearer of three championship rings. "But this is the one moment in sports where heart can overcome talent. We make things happen. It took us a while to understand that we had to become fighters, but we finally decided (winning) was worth fighting for and it has worked.

"It helps to have a coach like Ray, who has been around and demands that you fight and if you don't, you won't be here. He will pull you or cut you, but he will demand it of you."

Teams in all sports talk way too much about not receiving enough respect. But this is one case where it is true. Look at the Eagles' roster and see if you can muster a lot of confidence in their abilities. There are few stars and a lot of journeymen. A lot of guys with limited futures who understand that hustle and bard work might earn them a few extra seasons.