ATLANTA — When you lose, you are ripe to be criticized, whether it be for what you did, how you did it, what you wore, what you said, the weather that particular day or for the fact that there’s global warming. Losers get hammered, winners get praised. If Dick Vermeil has learned anything in his 63 years on earth and his 14 years out of coaching, it is that fact of life.
It has been 19 years between trips to the Super Bowl for Vermeil, and yet he continues to be hounded for the way he prepared his Eagles prior to their 27-10 loss to the Raiders in Super Bowl XV in New Orleans. The Eagles were tight and played that way. The Raiders were loose and played that way. Vermeil, as high-strung as they came back then, had the Eagles wound so tightly that they could never recoil, never exhale, never enjoy the moment and let their athletic ability take over.
So goes the theory.
Whether he believes it or not — he clearly doesn’t — Vermeil last night swore that things will be different this time around. He arrived here with his Rams, to the site of Super Bowl XXXIV, six days before facing the Titans inside the Georgia Dome, and Vermeil promised that his club will not be bombarded with pressure and confined by rules and regulations as it gears up to capture a title.
“To think the Raiders beat us in the Super Bowl because we were extra disciplined in our approach and their guys could go out on Bourbon Street and get drunk and still win, that’s not the image I want,” Vermeil said.
Hoping that his age has allowed him to be “more aware of things and not as blind,” Vermeil has certainly changed his thinking from that game in 1980. He will not have a curfew for his players until Saturday night, at which time players must be back in their rooms by 11 p.m., the night before the game. This is a rare display of freedom, as most coaches who arrive at the Super Bowl install some sort of curfew, usually for midnight or 1 p.m. during the week.
Not surprisingly, the Rams were pleased with Vermeil’s show of faith that his team will not take advantage of his largess.
“He’ll definitely have to loosen up,” said receiver Isaac Bruce, who in the past has uttered some harsh words for Vermeil’s methods. “He’s been here, he went through the experience. I think his attitude will definitely effect the rest of the attitudes.”
If first appearances are any indication, Vermeil has indeed mellowed. He was relaxed and upbeat upon his arrival from St. Louis, a marked contrast from what he remembers about his demeanor after touching down in New Orleans. “I’m a lot less intense,” he said. “I remember being tied up in knots when we landed in New Orleans. Maybe I’m a little more mature.”
This is not the first time Vermeil has shown signs of breaking from his former rigid ways. He once was a strong believer in always practicing in full shoulder pads, which tended to wear out his players. He also always demanded that the team check into a hotel the night before a home game. In his three years with the Rams, Vermeil has shed the full-pad workouts and players this season spent the nights before games in their own homes.
The lenient, trusting Vermeil continued to ease up for this Super Bowl week, and the Rams aren’t complaining.
“I think definitely the team that’s more relaxed has a better chance of winning, because when you’re tense you tend not to let it flow, your whole game doesn’t come out,” cornerback Todd Lyght said. “When you’re tense you don’t get into that zone where you feel you can make every play.”
Vermeil does not buy into the notion that his intensity way back when prevented the Eagles from winning. As he recalls, the Eagles did not have a written curfew, merely an understood curfew, but he remembers also giving the following warning: “I told ’em anyone out screwing around and getting into trouble I was going to send ’em home.”
By working for 14 years as a television analyst, Vermeil says he came to understand how every game must have a storyline, and that the storyline for Super Bowl XV centered around how tight the Eagles were.
“Whenever you lose a game of this magnitude, whatever you did in losing it was wrong,” Vermeil said. “I’ve been there. If we’d have won that football game with my temperament, as soon as you lose, however you do it, for the rest of your life those mechanics are going to be questioned.”
Can the Rams be trusted? “I think guys will tend to do a little hanging out [last night], maybe Tuesday, but after that, we’ll shut it down,” Lyght said. “We know that hanging out and having fun are not more important than this game.”