C.o.o.l.
Brad Sham - Email
DallasCowboys.com Columnist
October 3, 2007 5:53 PM
IRVING, Texas - No lunch for Tony Sparano Wednesday.
"I'm a lunch-passer," he says. "It's not easy to maintain this body."
To chat with Sparano, you're ushered into his Valley Ranch office. In the dark.
It's how offensive linemen like to keep things, and their position coaches are an extension of them.
One of the proudest possessions in Sparano's office is a coffee mug sitting atop the small bookcase against the wall. Simple yellow mug with an image of a big mushroom, and the initials C.O.O.L. Stands for Coaches of Offensive Linemen. Most of them in the fraternity have them. (Confession: One of my proudest possessions is a matching mushroom keychain given to me by then-Cowboys line coach Hudson Houck, now excelling at that job with the Miami Dolphins. I can think of no greater honor than to be an honorary NFL mushroom.)
Why mushrooms? Because O-linemen and their coaches liken themselves to the fungi that grow and thrive in the dark, in, uh, fertilizer. Don't talk about them. Don't talk to them. Just let them be to do their jobs. That's the way they like it. That's why the linemen Wednesday morning heavily fined Sparano for being the subject of a well-deserved Todd Archer column in The Dallas Morning News.
For those of you who want to see interviews and read stories about the offensive line, that can create a problem. It's hard for reporters to do stories about people who don't want to be interviewed.
Don't hold it against them. They're not anti-social. They're just used to the way things are.
Here's the way things are: There's probably not as misunderstood a position group as offensive linemen. Seldom do people want to talk about them unless things are going poorly. Most of us who have never played there don't know what we're seeing when we're looking right at it, but if the running game is going poorly or the quarterback gets sacked, the first thing we want to talk about is the O-line.
So they stick together. They understand each other, and they get the feeling that no one else understands or cares much about them, so they rely on each other, sometimes to the exclusion of everyone else. We'd probably do the same thing in their shoes.
But please understand this as the Cowboys' season passes the quarter pole: Love you some Romo, by all means. Thrill to MB3. Stomp and cheer for Witten and Crayton and pop all your popcorn for T.O. Be jolly for Julius and dream of the defense. But the spine of this football team right now is the Mushrooms. This space-age offense doesn't happen without this offensive line.
Sparano, the assistant head coach in addition to being Mushroom Coach, hears the talk of the offensive line being the strength of the team.
"I don't know if it's true," he says. "I just know we go to work every day. A lot of things had to happen to get us to wherever we are. We started training camp with two guys coming off knee surgeries (starting tackles Flozell Adams and Marc Colombo) and a new guy (Leonard Davis) playing guard. I had a concern about how it would work."
Sparano no longer has that concern, because of the work ethic and approach taken by the men inside The Room.
"I told them that this morning," he says, and you sense that even a Mushroom Coach will warm to the subject when it comes to his guys getting a little unaccustomed credit. "I told them for me, it wasn't about how they're playing or how they're finishing games, it's about their interaction with each other. It's been tremendous.
"They accepted Leonard into the group right away, and he let his guard down and let himself be accepted and became part of the group. We have great young guys, Pat McQuistan and Cory Procter and Joe Berger and the rookies (tackles Doug Free and James Marten). It makes for a good room. It's fun for me coaching these guys."
It's fun for them, too, being together. One starting lineman who prefers, in the spirit of The Mushroom, that his name not be used, says it's "the best room I've ever been in, even in college. We just all get it. Anyone can say something to anyone else. We're tremendously close."
And why not talk more, why not let people see more of your faces?
"We just have a different mindset," the Big Mushroom says, almost apologetically. "We're a quieter group. We don't create the spotlight and it's been that way most of our lives. Growing up, the skill guys get the attention. That's fine. We just want to go about our business, play as hard as we can and keep to ourselves."
Fair enough. But let the rest of us who want to know what makes this team work understand them.
One of the internal things that has happened in The Room and on the field is that left guard Kyle Kosier and right tackle Marc Colombo have stepped up and taken leadership roles. Sparano credits experience.
"Those two guys, their knowledge of what we need them to do and how we need them to do it has been tremendous," Sparano says. "It makes sense when you think about it. Last year Kosier was new. That had been Larry Allen's job forever, remember. Kyle and Flozell had never played together. Now they communicate beautifully.
"And that's come full circle on the other side. Last year Marco Rivera (at right guard) was helping Colombo know where to go and what to do. Now Colombo's doing that for Leonard. Those two have been together from Day One when Leonard came in here and it's become easy for them to communicate with each other."
And then there's the center. Andre Gurode worked his way to Pro Bowl status last season, and he is playing like a man intent on keeping it. Not talking like it: For the record he is as reticent as any of them. But late last year Gurode wondered what a lineman like him had to do to get Pro Bowl recognition, and Sparano now has a guy who wants to stay there.
"He's the quarterback of the group," Sparano confirms. "He really wants to be the best player he can be. I think he appreciates what the organization's done for him. I think there might have been a time when he wasn't too sure of his place here. But I think in Oxnard, in training camp a year ago, we had him more at center because we were in the 3-4 and he was banging on Jason Ferguson every day, and it kind of came together for him.
"He's the guy that keeps it going, and he's got to, because if things don't go well, he's going to be the guy with the most questions to answer from me."
And there is depth. For the first time in Sparano's tenure here, they have insurance they like at every position. McQuistan has worked himself into being a solid backup at both tackles, as Joe Berger has done at center and guard. Procter might be the smartest guy in the room, says one who's in there, and Free and Marten, the rookie tackles, are players the team believes have starting potential.
And their coach is also having a remarkable year. Sparano called the plays last year for one of the most productive offenses in team history, and that under the constraints of Bill Parcells. What might a Sparano offense have looked like if he'd been coaching for Wade Phillips?
For Sparano and offensive coordinator Jason Garrett to be working so well together is a tremendous testament to both of them. Garrett could easily have come in looking over his shoulder and holding Sparano at bay instead of working so willingly with him. But then, he wouldn't have been Jason Garrett. Sparano could have been bitter about being overlooked for the coordinator's job. But then he wouldn't have been Tony Sparano.
They work because they work together. Just don't ask either of them, or the Mushrooms, to take many bows.
"I have a hard time saying that stuff," says Sparano about the public praise either for himself or his line as the backbone of the team. "I don't know how good we are. We just do our best to prepare and play well. I tell them all the time, my job is to make Sundays easy for them. To do that, the other six days might not be so easy."
Just remember when you're enjoying your popcorn and Romo salsa, to pass the mushrooms.
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