Capitol Will...

n D.C., the Redskins are undergoing a transformation powered by new coach Marty Schottenheimer\'s determination and personality
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A year ago at this time, the Washington Redskins were the most hyped team in NFL history - Super Bowl expectations, $100 million payroll, marquee free agent signings. These days, the volume in Redskins land is at a monotone.

One person took it upon himself to bring the franchise down to earth: Marty Schottenheimer.

After a two-year stint as an ESPN analyst, the NFL's 12th all-time winningest coach is back on familiar turf. Since becoming the Redskins head coach and taking charge of the team's football operations in January, Schottenheimer overhauled the roster, coaching staff and front office of an organization that undershot its 2000 billing by a wide margin and needed resuscitation. In the process, he has stripped the Redskins of their glitz and glamour and re-fitted them with a blue-collar image.

With the 2001 season just kicking off, there's no doubt who's the Redskin's chief.

"Basically, a new sheriff's in town," says Earnest Byner, who played five seasons for Schottenheimer in Cleveland and is now the Ravens director of player development. "Things are going to be run a certain way. You're going to be expected to adhere to the things you're asked to do, and there will be no bones about it. That's the clear message Marty is sending."

So far, it's been Schottenheimer's way - or the highway. He released about two dozen players from last season's 8-8 team, including starters Dana Stubblefield, Keith Sims, Irving Fryar, Mark Carrier and Larry Centers. His cuts were mainly to slash the Redskins inflated payroll, but, and that some players didn't respond to his demanding personality and goals was another factor that hastened their exit.

Centers, the NFL's career leader in receptions by a running back (685) and the Redskins top pass catcher the past two seasons, met with the latter. Despite not admitting it publicly, Schottenheimer was reportedly irked that Centers failed to participate regularly in the team's offseason conditioning program. The tough-minded coach thus opted to put principle over production.

The Centers story exemplifies how Schottenheimer has instituted a greater level of accountability on the team. Compared with the more lenient system of his predecessor, Norv Turner, Redskin players function in a much stricter environment. For example, they must be punctual for practice, carry notebooks with them everywhere at Redskins Park, the team's practice facility in Ashburn, Va., and remove their hats in meetings. There's little room for excuse.

"There's just a lot of little things that add up to a big difference," Redskins offensive tackle Jon Jansen says. "Before it was like, 'Get the job done on the field. How you do it, I don't care.' With the team we have, and a lot of the different personalities that we have, it'll be good to have more of a structured system that will benefit us in time."

The scenario was much different for the Redskins when last season began. After reaching the second round of the NFC playoffs in 1999, the team fortified itself by signing such high-priced free agents as Deion Sanders, Bruce Smith and Jeff George. Washington also drafted linebacker LaVar Arrington with the No. 2 pick and offensive tackle Chris Samuels at No. 3. It all created the aura of a Super Bowl-caliber squad.

The Redskins were anything but.

Washington opened the season 6-2 but lost four of its next five games. With the 7-6 team on life support hoping to reach the playoffs, owner Dan Snyder fired Turner and promoted receivers coach Terry Robiskie as the interim head man. But the Redskins finished 1-2 and missed the playoffs.

A once-so-promising season had deteriorated into nothing, and Snyder considered big-name coaches to revive the team. His list featured former Redskins coach Joe Gibbs, New York Jets Director of Football Operations Bill Parcells, former St. Louis Rams coach Dick Vermeil and University of Florida coach Steve Spurrier.

Schottenheimer was also a candidate, and Snyder signed him to a 4-year, $10 million deal. The hiring raised eyebrows.

While the Redskins were the butt of jokes and criticism last season, it was none other than Schottenheimer who derided Snyder in the media. After the owner fired Turner, Schottenheimer said he might coach again but that he had no interest in working for Snyder. Schottenheimer implied that the meddlesome owner had too much influence in player-personnel decisions.

After meeting Snyder, Schottenheimer drew a different picture of his new boss.

"It became very obvious to me that Dan Snyder has been after the same thing that Marty Schottenheimer has been after his entire career, and that's to win a world's championship," Schottenheimer said at his introductory news conference on Jan. 3. "It begins today in a partnership in which two individuals have to begin the process of developing the kind of trust and interaction that I have no doubt Dan Snyder and I will achieve."

Since then, Snyder has been hands-off with Redskins personnel matters. He even let Schottenheimer return the team to its old training camp home in Carlisle, Pa., where the Redskins practiced from July 29 to Aug. 23. Last summer, Snyder scheduled training camp at Redskins Park and brazenly charged fans to attend, a public relations disaster for him and the team.

In Schottenheimer, now 57, Snyder hired a man who holds the best winning percentage among active coaches with at least 100 wins (.609). He sports a 150-96-1 record, including playoffs, after going 46-31-0 in Cleveland (1984-88) and 104-65-1 in Kansas City (1989-98). He's been to the postseason in 11 of his 15 coaching years, including trips to three AFC Championship games. His only losing season was 7-9 in 1998.

"Daniel Snyder is the luckiest owner in the world to be able to get a guy like Marty Schottenheimer to come in with the team in the status that it was," says Kirk Mee, a Redskins scout, assistant coach and player personnel director from 1970 to 1995. "Marty's come in and said, 'Hey, this is the way you win football games, this is what you have to do.' He's a strong enough person to do it. The Redskins have a chance to be very respectable this year for one and one reason only: Marty Schottenheimer. If Snyder had brought in anybody else, things would have been fragmented and just garbage. And they're probably still going to have some problems."

Schottenheimer sees a squad with the potential to win the Super Bowl. Although about 10 players left via free agency, namely quarterback Brad Johnson, middle linebacker Derek Smith and wide receivers James Thrash and Albert Connell, Schottenheimer did not use the free agent market to plug holes.

Schottenheimer was conservative, nothing like the audacious spending spree coordinated by Snyder and company the year before. To fill the depleted receiver corps, he signed Kevin Lockett, a marginal receiver who played for him in Kansas City, and used the Redskins first-round pick (15th overall) on Rod Gardner, one of the leading pass catchers in Clemson history. Plus, Michael Westbrook, who missed nearly the entire 2000 season due to a torn ACL after catching 65 passes in 1999, is back.

Schottenheimer also signed Dolphins linebacker Robert Jones, a solid 10-year veteran, and dependable veteran offensive linemen Matt Campbell and Ben Coleman. With the team's second-round pick (45th overall), he chose Mississippi State cornerback Fred Smoot, who will see significant playing time since Deion Sanders has retired.

At quarterback, Schottenheimer is banking on the spectacular yet irascible Jeff George as his starter. George's tendency to freelance and air it out clashes with Schottenheimer's more deliberate, West Coast offense. But the coach appears happy with George, noting that the 11-year veteran "wants to be part of a successful championship football team," and that "he's working everyday to try to do the things we're talking about."

"I see a very, very good football team, a team that can compete this year to win a championship," Schottenheimer says. "Our goal and objective has been singular, and it hasn't changed since I've been coaching, and the goal is to win the championship. If you approach any season with less than that, you ought to be in another business. This is about winning."

But a Super Bowl victory, no less an appearance, has eluded Schottenheimer - in a cruel way. In the 1986 AFC Championship game, John Elway led the Broncos on a 98-touchdown march in the final five minutes to create a 20-20 tie with the Browns in what became known as "The Drive." Denver won in overtime. In the 1987 AFC title game, Earnest Byner fumbled in the final minutes just before entering the end zone. Denver again beat Cleveland, 38-33.

Then, with Joe Montana at quarterback, Schottenheimer's Chiefs lost to Buffalo, 30-13, in the 1993 AFC Championship game. Two more of his Chiefs teams went 13-3 but lost in the second round of the playoffs. Overall, he has a 5-11 postseason record.

Schottenheimer admits that his absence from the Super Bowl was a driving force in his coaching return.

"That was a factor, certainly," he says. "The expressed purpose in coming back was to try to find the means by which we can assemble a group of people, build it and win a championship. We'd all like to be able to achieve a championship in whatever our field. That's something we've not been able to realize, and that's part of it."

Are there corrections or modifications he'd make to his coaching style upon again reaching the postseason?

"It's not as simple as that," Schottenheimer says. "It boils down to the fact that in every football game, whether it's the playoffs or otherwise, you have to find the means by which you make plays in a timely fashion. For the most, we have not made those plays, and ultimately, I accept the responsibility for our inability to do all those things. But there's not a single decision I made relative to any of those games that I feel was the reason we lost. It was a combination of things, a play made here, a failed play."

In terms of coaching, Schottenheimer assembled a staff the same way he addressed the player roster - by making sweeping changes. He hired 14 new coaches, retaining only defensive line coach Mike Trgovac and defensive assistant Kirk Olivadotti from the previous regime.

The current Redskins staff is like a Chiefs coaching reunion, for six primary coaches worked under Schottenheimer in Kansas City. That includes Jimmy Raye, the Chiefs former offensive coordinator who now holds the same position with the Redskins; and Redskins coaches Richard Mann (wide receivers), Mike Stock (special teams) and Joe Pendry (offensive line), who also assisted Schottenheimer in Cleveland. Redskins strength and conditioning coach Dave Redding has been with Schottenheimer in each of his 15 NFL seasons.

Furthermore, Schottenheimer named his brother, Kurt, as the Redskins defensive coordinator after Kurt coached defense and special teams under Marty in Cleveland and Kansas City. Brian Schottenheimer, Marty's son, is the Redskins quarterbacks coach. He also hired Bill Arnsparger, architect of the "No Name Defense" that led the Miami Dolphins to a 17-0 record in 1972, as a defensive assistant. Arnsparger hired Schottenheimer in his first coaching job as a linebackers coach with the New York Giants in 1976.

In all, Schottenheimer oversees a coaching staff with 53 years of experience under him. He believes there's a legitimate reason for such stockpiling of coaching talent.

"There's a language about a system that enables you to make a transition more quickly if you don't have to relearn the language," he says. "So we end up the first day out of the blocks, and in a staff meeting many of us are speaking the same language. It gives you a chance to accelerate your learning curve. You've got a chance to get off and hit the ground running."

A fast start is what Dan Snyder wants, too, and he feels Schottenheimer is the man who can elevate the Redskins to the upper echelon of the NFL.

"Marty Schottenheimer is a first-class coach, a winning coach who comes close to the ultimate mountain but still needs to stake a claim and put the flag up there," Snyder said in an exclusive interview with Washington all-sports radio station WTEM. "That's what he's going to do, and it'll be a Washington Redskins flag." Michael Richman is an Associated Press sports correspondent who reports on the Redskins and other teams in the Washington area. His e-mail address is mrichman@erols.com.
In 10 years at Kansas City, Marty Schottenheimer was 104-65-1.

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