Jim Harbaugh HC, to the LA Chargers

[den-the-coach]

That part may not have happened. Martz was a hot commodity off the 199 season. At that point he wasn’t thought of as a difficult coach. He would have been hired as a head coach.

Martz Will Succeed Vermeil – Eventually

By Leonard Shapiro
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 18, 2000; Page D7





ST. LOUIS, Jan. 17 – The St. Louis Rams' first home playoff victory in the city's pro football history had an immediate impact on the future of offensive coordinator Mike Martz. The Rams announced today that Martz, who was expected to be pursued as a head coach by other NFL teams, would become the team's head coach whenever Dick Vermeil decides to step down.

Vermeil himself initiated the move, in which Martz will sign a two-year contract extension to remain as the team's offensive coordinator. Vermeil, 63, said he intends to quit coaching when his contract runs out in two years. Other sources in the organization said Vermeil could retire sooner if the Rams win the Super Bowl this year or next.

"We promised to offer Mike the head coaching job, if it's available," team president John Shaw said today. He added that the prospect of losing Martz, 48, the architect of the league's No. 1 offense, to another team seeking a head coach "was a serious factor in what's taken place here. No one in this organization wants to lose Mike Martz."

But Shaw also said: "As far as I'm concerned, Dick can coach as long as he wants."

Martz's extension will prevent owners such as Jerry Jones in Dallas and Robert Kraft in New England from speaking with Martz about coaching vacancies. Green Bay, New Orleans and the New York Jets also have openings.

"I'm excited about the opportunity," said Martz, the Redskins' quarterback coach in 1997-98 before taking the Rams job last season. "It's from Dick's intervention that this opportunity could work out for me. I'd just like to say this is where I want to be. I don't want to be the head coach anywhere else but St. Louis."

Said Vermeil: "Mike and I are here for one reason, to win football games, and we're doing it together. I don't want to work my rear end off and get it at a level up here and not have a qualified guy to take it to the next level. My plan is to coach through my contract, two years."

The Rams' sudden success has been the talk of the NFL all season. Oddsmakers already have installed St. Louis as a 14-point favorite against Tampa Bay in Sunday's NFC championship game, even though the Bucs bring the league's No. 3 ranked defense to the Trans World Dome.

"Hopefully, we painted a glaring picture that we really don't have any obvious weaknesses," Vermeil said of his team's 49-37 victory over Minnesota on Sunday. "And I don't think you've seen the best of us yet."

The Rams are 9-0 in the dome this season after playing, and winning, the first home playoff game in St. Louis history since the old Cardinals moved here from Chicago in 1960. The Rams have been in town since 1995, when they moved from Southern California.

The remaining 2,000 tickets for Sunday's game were snapped up this morning in about the same time it takes for quarterback Kurt Warner to drop back and hit an open receiver. He did that 27 times in 33 attempts for 391 yards and five touchdowns against a wholly befuddled Vikings defense that simply couldn't cope with St. Louis's schemes, speed or matchups that were usually more like mismatches.

Warner, with 46 touchdown passes this season, has four receivers with 4.4 speed or better in the 40, and a running back, Marshall Faulk, who gained 1,381 yards rushing and 1,048 on 87 pass receptions.

"It's a quarterback's dream," Warner said today. "We've got weapons all over the place."

The Rams offense is yet another permutation of a previous St. Louis coach's creation. Former Cardinals head coach Don Coryell's "Air Coryell" had its beginnings here in the 1970s. Martz learned the game under Ernie Zampese, another Coryell disciple who also helped train Norv Turner when Martz coached with Zampese on the Rams staff in the early '90s.

Vermeil essentially has turned over the offense to Martz and allowed him to go full throttle. Somewhat conservative back in his days with the Philadelphia Eagles in the 1970s, Vermeil did a study last year on the statistical difference between Super Bowl teams and teams that missed the playoffs from 1991 to 1998.

What struck him was the difference in points scored – 24.5 by the Super Bowl champions as opposed to 16.8 by the also-rans. He also has steadily built his offense with speedy skill position players, creating what now resembles the Air Coryell offense on steroids.

"The only way we can be slowed down is if we make mistakes," Faulk said today. "We've got too many guys out there for teams to stop. Our kickoff guy [Tony Horne] is our fifth receiver, and you saw how he can run [with a 95-yard kickoff return Sunday]. The game is about getting the matchup you want and taking advantage."

The Rams' only weakness on offense has been turnovers, with 15 interceptions (13 from Warner) and 16 lost fumbles. Minnesota stayed in the game Sunday through the first half only because of a St. Louis fumble, interception and several dropped passes.

The quick-striking Rams defy conventional wisdom, particularly for the playoffs, about establishing the run in order to open up the passing game. Faulk gained 31 yards on the ground Sunday and the Rams offense had the ball about six minutes in the first half, but still trailed by just three at intermission before scoring 35 unanswered points.

"I'd never been around this many guys who could make plays," Faulk said. "Never. Now we look at each other in the huddle and it's whoever gets open first is going to get the ball."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sports/nfl/longterm/1999/playoffs/articles/rams18.htm

 

[gogoat1]

Vermeil is over rated as a HC coach for the Rams but conversely is drastically underrated as a GM. I'll never understand how any Rams fan (and I am certainly not referring to you) could use any sort of disparaging remarks regarding Vermeil. He literally created the best franchise overhaul in history in a matter of 2 years. Kurt gets (and deserves) so much of the fanfare for the GSOT but when one steps back and sees all the moves DV made to get that roster, it's a bit earth shattering

He got us Orlando Pace in a trade. I have to respect that. The Rams big immovable Pro Bowl linemen that start of a decade+ are my favorites.
He played in a great era and was not even the best one. But he was our eraser.
He showed up after Chuck Knox and Rich Brooks decimated our once proud franchise. To be fair they had the millstones of Georgia and John Shaw hanging around their necks.
I should stop talking about John Shaw, makes me ill.
When you look back on the crumbs we got in the ED trade. Then find out that John Robbinson was all in on us drafting M Irving AND Thurman Thomas but Shaw knew better

 

[Merlin]

I’ve always thought that in retrospect, Vermiels return to the Rams was a bit overrated as well. People like to overlook the negatives.

Vermiel was the one eyed man in the land of the blind when he joined the Rams. He wasn't perfect. But he built an Eagles team with rather poor draft capital into a contender before his burnout, and he returned to the game with a Rams team that at that moment in time was the losingest franchise in the 90s. The roster was destitute. The front office couldn't find their ass with either hand.

What I've always thought is that people don't give him enough credit. It was Vermiel who built the engine Martz took to the next level. It was Vermiel who gave the front office a sudden clue with personnel, and the very moment he left the organization they returned to having no clue on personnel. Martz was not even close to good enough to change that. Vermiel was.

And I also love Martz. It's not an either/or thing for me. But I'll always resent the way everyone was turning on Vermiel during the '98 season, in year two of a complete organizational rebuild Vermiel took on. I think the coverage of the team was poor, and it was also petty and mean spirited and dare I say even ignorant of what it takes to build a winner at this level.

You could probably count on one hand the coaches who were capable of winning a Super Bowl under that ownership and front office. Because to do it required elite people skills on top of an eye for talent and top coaching ability. So when I see someone shitting on Vermiel it tells me all I need to know about them as a fan.

 

[Corbin]

Thats my opinion and I am sticking by it. Vermiel was pals with Georgia, strike one. He coddled horrible person L Phillips. You can call it what you to and make your excuses for him running his players into the ground to the point of mutiny. He would blabber all the time about how hard June Henley "tried" in practice to the point where he actually started significant games when he should have been out of the NFL.
I could predict most of his plays, awful play caller. He cried at the drop of a hat.
Nice man, not a good coach. Martz got a Super Bowl stolen from him. What did he ever win in KC ?
My memory ? So I have taken a blank map of the earth and filled in every single country on it. my memory is not a issue.
You and I not having the same opinion apparently is, to you.

Seriously? What are you supposed to be enemies with the owner the minute she hires you? Think about what your saying and thinking with a little common sense. Obviously you have some biased views that are immovable without any other idea or pieces of evidence that would suggest the contrary.

Listening to your gripes and whatever else is exactly the contrary what his players at all three franchises he was HC at stated.

Almost feels like their is resentment that he won that Super Bowl so you can be " absolutely right"

This is part of the underappreciated part from STL is no more of the scum of the underbelly from the likes of the Post Dispatch mindset.