Bernie: Fisher right man for tough job with Rams

Bernie: Fisher right man for tough job with Rams
• Bernie Miklasz

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/columns/bernie-miklasz/bernie-fisher-right-man-for-tough-job-with-rams/article_8f426897-8aa1-5f88-935e-4474b0456e3a.html

Before the Rams’ season even begins, it’s already turned weird.

First of all, this could be the team’s final season in St. Louis. Stan Kroenke is in position to cash in twice on the Rams. Initially, he realized enormous profits when, as Georgia Frontiere’s ownership partner, he helped pull the Rams out of Los Angeles and bring them to St. Louis in 1995 to scoop up a financial windfall thanks to the exceedingly generous terms provided by the new domed stadium. Then, after 19 seasons, he could yank the Rams out of St. Louis and away from the aging stadium and decreased profits to haul the franchise back to LA.

Second, Rams quarterback Sam Bradford was felled for the entire season when his left-knee ACL blew up for the second time in 308 days. Bradford was high on the short list of reasons that attracted Rams coach Jeff Fisher to the St. Louis job before the 2012 campaign. At the end of his third year in charge of the Rams, Fisher will have had Bradford as his starting QB for only 23 of 48 regular-season games.

Whether you like or dislike Bradford — or occupy the space in between — I think it’s fair to acknowledge that Fisher didn’t come here expecting to have the critical second and third years of his rebuilding project led by quarterbacks Kellen Clemens and Shaun Hill.

This is the coaching life. In particular, this has been Fisher’s coaching life. He’s had to deal with some real misadventures. Not every coach is fortunate to have Tom Brady and superb ownership.

This 2014 season is a potential double-whammy for Fisher. He was coaching the Houston Oilers franchise when the team moved to Tennessee to be reinvented as the Titans.

After coaching through that chaos, Fisher never wanted to go through another move again. So as Fisher opens his third season as coach, he doesn’t have his anticipated stability at the quarterback position or the full security of knowing he’s safe from the possibility of having to supervise another franchise move.

Here’s the thing about Coach Fisher: He does some of his best work in trying, difficult circumstances. Fisher’s critics like to point to only six winning records in his 18 full seasons as an NFL head coach. I won’t say the sniping is unfair, but it certainly lacks the proper context.

During a couple of crazy years when the Titans were moving all around Tennessee until their new Nashville stadium opened in the 1999 season, Fisher kept the team respectable. The Titans went 8-8 in 1997 and again in 1998, and the record should have been much worse.

The next five seasons (1999-2003) produced one of the NFL’s better records (56-24) and an AFC championship. And then the Titans entered salary-cap hell, had to rebuild and start over again. By 2006 Tennessee was back up to a solid 8-8, then won 23 of 32 games in 2007-2008.

From 2006 through 2009, Fisher’s Titans ranked fifth in the NFL with a .609 winning percentage. Vince Young and Kerry Collins were his starting quarterbacks. Young was talented but restless and unreliable. Collins was in his mid- to late 30s during his years with Fisher.

If you wonder if it’s possible to have success with Hill at quarterback, then all you have to do is look back to Collins at Tennessee. After bouncing around with several teams, Collins signed on as a backup with the Titans in 2006. They needed Collins to take over in 2008, and he delivered a 12-3 record as the starter, making the Pro Bowl well past his prime at age 36.

Hill is 34. And while Hill is no star, he’s not much different now from the aging Collins circa 2008. That’s the point. Fisher doesn’t need a superstar quarterback.

Yes, the late Steve McNair was dynamic at times during his 11 seasons with the Titans. But McNair made it to three Pro Bowls in 11 seasons and probably didn’t deserve the third selection.

And when the 1999 Titans made the Super Bowl, people forget that McNair was the starting QB for only 11 of 16 regular-season games. With McNair injured, Neil O’Donnell started the other five and went 4-1. Fisher coaxed that excellent 12-3 record in games started by Collins in ’08 and somehow managed to go 30-17 in games started by Young.

The lesson is that Fisher-coached teams can win as long as they muscle up with the running game, stop the run, attack the pocket and make Sundays miserable for rattled, turnover-prone opposing quarterbacks.

As long as Fisher’s teams can control the ground and invade the opponent’s air space, they have a chance. That’s true of the 2014 Rams. Fisher doesn’t need a great quarterback or astute ownership to win games. Not even in a potentially goofy year like this one.

Fisher’s most impressive attributes are his ability to manage crises, get players to follow his lead and construct a sturdy foundation of rushing and defense that’s strong enough to hold his team up in times of adversity.

If Fisher could win with Vince Young as his quarterback and Bud Adams as his owner in Tennessee, then he certainly has a chance to win with the combination of Hill and Kroenke in St. Louis. Or Los Angeles, for that matter.