AFM RSS Feed Follow Us on Twitter       
AMERICAN FOOTBALL MONTHLY THE #1 RESOURCE FOR FOOTBALL COACHES
ABOUT |  CONTACT |  ADVERTISE |  HELP  



   User Name    Password 
      Password Help





Article Categories


AFM Magazine

AFM Magazine


The Mouse That Roared

Mouse Davis did more than coach football, he revolutionized it and he\'s not done yet.
by: Kerry Eggers
© More from this issue

Click for Printer Friendly Version          

He is talking football, as usual, as he veers his black 1991 Mercedes 300 SE into the parking lot of the Riviera Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

There are other interests in his life, but nothing quite captures Mouse Davis' fancy like throwing the football.

"Visiting with Mouse is like talking to Mr. Football, and it is not an artificial enthusiasm," says another man with a passing interest in the game, Dick Vermeil.

Davis is discussing how to attack the latest defensive phenomenon in pro football, the zone blitz. He compliments Jacksonville Jaguars defensive coordinator Dom Capers for his use of the scheme, then his eyes twinkle.

"It makes you run more short routes," Davis says, "because if you don't, your quarterback is going to get hit in the mouth. You don't have as much time, but I love to go against the zone blitz. We can take two routes and move up and down the field against it all day long."

More than a decade ago, when Davis was taking his run-and-shoot offense for a trial run through the NFL, Philadelphia Eagles coach Buddy Ryan sneered. Ryan, whose "46" defense helped the Chicago Bears to the 1985 Super Bowl title, mockingly called Davis' system "the throw-and-duck."

"That's fine," Davis says. "I called his defense one I would like to face every week, too. You can't play that stuff against us."

He laughs. Davis has the ultimate confidence in his system. Gear your defense to stop us one way, he says, and we will find another way to beat you.

"Mouse is one of three or four true innovators in football history," says June Jones, who is now head coach at the University of Hawaii after serving the same capacity with Atlanta and San Diego in the NFL. "He will probably never be given the credit for it, but I can guarantee it is true. I was part of it."

In Super Bowl XXXIV, St. Louis and Tennessee often employed a one-back offense with four wide receivers. Every team in the NFL does the same.

"Mouse is a pioneer," Rams receivers coach Al Saunders says. "Quite frankly, there isn't a team in the NFL that doesn't have some of the concepts Mouse truly believes in and created."

Vermeil, who retired after coaching the Rams to the 2000 Super Bowl championship, was television analyst during Davis' two years as head coach in the World Football League.

"It is hard to say what is original anymore," Vermeil says, "but you see little wrinkles of the concepts he introduced with his pass offense all through the NFL - draw plays, check-down screens, that sort of stuff - that has all been influenced by Mouse Davis."

In recent years, variations have included the "West Coast offense," popularized by Bill Walsh and the San Francisco 49ers. The roots, though, were planted by Davis.

"They don't call it the run-and-shoot, but in everybody's offense are things he brought to the game 30 years ago," says Jones, who played for and coached with Davis for many years.

Rams coaches acknowledge as much.

"We don't run the run-and-shoot, but it is the same philosophy," says St. Louis quarterbacks coach John Ramsdell. "Before Mouse was at Detroit, you didn't see the four-receiver stuff. Now some teams use five wideouts."

Because Davis' system was so heretical, he was ostracized by some coaches, especially once he reached the NFL.

"Mouse and I both faced it from Day One," Jones says. "A lot of the Neanderthals thought it was a communist plot."

But Davis' teams always got results by throwing the ball.

"Those guys always had a feeling there was no way to stop them," said Frank Gansz, who became Jacksonville's special teams coach after serving in the same position with the Rams. "They could only stop themselves."

In 1996, Davis stopped himself, retiring after 40 years in coaching, leaving his imprint at virtually every level of the game.

He revolutionized the Canadian Football League passing game. He was the first director of football operations for the Arena Football League and helped set the rules for the indoor game. He served as a head coach in the USFL and World Football League.

Now, as he recovers from the death of his wife Beverly, Davis is back. At 67, he has signed a three-year contract as head coach of Detroit's Arena League expansion team, which will begin play in April.

"Good thing is, I am coaching again," Davis says. "I wanted something to do and No. 2, I want to win football games. That's the thing that juices me. Putting the ball in the end zone is my hot button."

Always an innovator

Davis' given name is Darrel, but to everyone who knows him, he has been Mouse since his days growing up in Independence, Ore. His father Nate called him "Burrow Mouse," then shortened it, and the nickname stuck. At 5-foot-6, it is a nice fit.

He does 55 pushups every day. His hair is still dark and full, and it is difficult to believe he is not a decade younger. Those who knew him at Portland State during the 1970s would say he hasn't changed a bit.

"The golf game hasn't, either," Davis says. "Still as bad as ever."

Even as a kid, Davis was an innovator when it came to football. He was an all-league quarterback at Independence High during his senior season, 1949. During the era of the fullhouse backfield, Davis wanted to do things different.

"I had been reading in this book about this thing called the screen pass," Davis recalls. "We didn't have it in our offense, so this one game, I drew it up in the huddle, talked the guys through it, and we ran (it). We threw it incomplete, and it looked awful. The coach (John Mathis) asked me, and I lied and said we ran something else and just did it so bad you couldn't tell."

Davis earned 12 letters at Independence, in football (as quarterback), basketball, baseball and track, then won 11 more as a three-sport star at Oregon College of Education (now Western Oregon). His original dream was to be a pro athlete, but he "got realistic about the eighth grade," he says.

So he set his sights on coaching football.

In 1957, Davis took his first coaching job, as an assistant to Bill McArthur at OCE. Five years later, as head coach at Milwaukie High in Portland, Davis heard about a new pass-oriented offense. His life would never be the same.

He didn't invent the run-and-shoot; he just popularized it.

Tiger Ellison, a high school coach from Middleton, Ohio, wrote a book titled, The Run-And-Shoot Offense. Davis loved the concept. Already leaning toward the pass, Davis didn't copy the offense, "but I stole everything I could steal," he says. "There were some very basic ideas, and our offense evolved from that."

The run-and-shoot was a vast departure from the prototypical offense of the era, both in formation and in theory. Instead of two or three backs behind the quarterback, the run-and-shoot employed only one running back - and in some cases, none - and four wide receivers, or even five.

"You had the Wishbone, the Power I, and so on," Jones says. "Mouse was really the first one to play the game through the air. The formation was around much earlier, but they used running backs in the slots. Mouse changed it by using pass-catchers."

At Milwaukie High, Davis first used two running backs and a slotback, sending one of the running backs into motion toward the slotback. Through his years coaching at other Portland area high schools, he evolved to one remaining back, no tight end and double slots.

"It is a ball-control passing offense," Davis says. "That is our whole deal. We want to pass first, and that sets up the run. I was always a frustrated quarterback, I guess. I liked to throw, I liked to catch. It seemed to be the best way. It was more fun than running.

"When I started coaching, it was my belief if you were in a big high school, you would always have a quarterback - the key was getting him suited up. If you make it fun by throwing the football, you will get more good athletes out."

The run-and-shoot relies on reads by the quarterback and receivers on defensive coverage. A play is called in the huddle, but there is more opportunity to ad-lib.

"You react off what the defense does," Davis says. "It requires more discipline than a normal offense in that the quarterback and receiver have to be reading similar things, but it is not brain surgery. You eliminate so many things on the pre-snap call, and at the snap, you read the coverage and adjust."

After winning a Class AAA state title at Portland's Hillsboro High School in 1973, Davis left to become an assistant coach at Portland State. The program, financially crippled, was on its last legs. The next year, Davis took over as head coach, knowing full well it might be the last season.

Davis signed Jones, a transfer from the University of Hawaii, and got after it with the run-and-shoot. In two seasons, Jones threw for 5,798 yards and 41 touchdowns, and the Vikings put together back-to-back 8-3 seasons.

Jones learned quickly what Davis is all about. It was the start of a long, prosperous relationship. Jones liked him as a person even more than as a coach.

"Mouse is the most consistent human being I have ever met," Jones says. "It doesn't matter if you call him at 2 in the morning, wake him up, he is the same upbeat, positive attitude. He is a rare cat."

"A joy to play for"

The year Jones left Portland State, Davis recruited Neil Lomax, an option quarterback out of Portland who became the most prolific passer in NCAA history (13,220 yards, 106 touchdowns in 42 games). The Vikings showed no mercy.

During Lomax's senior season, they scored 93 points on Cal Poly-Pomona, 105 on Delaware State - Lomax throwing for several first-quarter touchdowns in the latter game.

"Third-and-one, and here is what everybody else was doing: two tight ends, fullback up the middle," says Lomax, who went on to a record-setting nine-year career with the Cardinals that included two Pro Bowls. "Mouse might be going deep. His thinking is, 'I have such faith in my offense, we will pass at any time. This is what we do.'"

At PSU, Davis had no recruiting budget. He used his effervescent personality to develop relationships with local businessmen, who supported the program through free meals, hotel rooms, flights and entertainment for prospective players.

"What separates the great coaches from just the good ones is personality," Lomax says. "There is no fakeness about Mouse, no facade. His approach to the game is to have fun. You want to win, but not at all costs.

"He was such a joy to play for. Throw every down - it was a quarterback's paradise. During my time in the pros, I had four head coaches and five offensive coordinators, and it was never like it was with Mouse."

In six seasons at PSU, Davis' teams went 42-24, but most importantly, revived interest in a fading program.

"Of all the things I have done in my career," Davis says, "that is the thing I take the most pride in, that we kept the Portland State program going."

Going here, there, everywhere

Davis left PSU after the 1980 season for the University of California, beginning a 16-year odyssey that took him through virtually every league in professional football.

After a short stint at Cal, he went to Toronto to serve as offensive coordinator with the CFL Argonauts in 1982, a team that went 2-14 the year before he arrived. League rules allowed for unlimited motion for backs and receivers, and Davis took advantage of it. He used motion with all eligible backs and receivers, opened up the offense and helped Toronto go 9-6-1 and reach the Grey Cup.

"Within three years, everybody in Canada was running 'trips' and 'quads,'" says Davis, referring to three- and four-receiver sets. "Years later, I went though the CFL playbooks, and they were all running our stuff."

In 1984, Davis was hired as offensive coordinator for the USFL Houston Gamblers, with Jones joining his staff for the first time as quarterbacks coach. They helped Jim Kelly - who later took the Buffalo Bills to four Super Bowls - throw for a pro record 5,793 yards in 18 games and earn the league's most valuable player award.

The next year, Davis was hired as head coach of USFL Denver Gold. With Jones as offensive coordinator, the Gold went 11-7, but the league folded, and Davis took over football operations for the fledgling Arena League.

"We put together some rules to make it a fun game," he says. "The offense were based on the run-and-shoot premise. We wanted to get out there and do a lot of scoring... that's what people want to see."

Davis served as offensive coordinator with the Detroit Lions from 1988-90 - Jones was quarterbacks coach - introducing a system never before used in the NFL. Davis had Barry Sanders during his first three seasons, and the Lions' "Silver Stretch" offense rolled up impressive numbers.

"Mouse had a real impact in Detroit," says Gansz, who coached with him in Detroit and Atlanta. "They teach the system so well, it's in the players' hands. If you get the right players, they are tough to stop."

But Davis and Jones butted heads with the team's player personnel department, which wanted to acquire players in the more traditional mold, and they departed. The next season, using the run-and-shoot for the last time, the Lions reached the NFC championship game.

Davis spent the next two years as head coach of the New York/New Jersey Knights of the World League. They went 21-17 and piled up big statistics under Vermeil's watchful eye.

"To me, Mouse is fascinating," Vermeil says. "He has a tremendous passion for the game. I enjoyed watching him coach on the field. He coached it all very competently, not just the quarterback or the receivers. He coached everybody in that offense. He designed it and he developed it, and he really knew the schemes."

But it became an all-European league in 1993, so Davis returned to Toronto for another season as offensive coordinator. The next year, he returned to the NFL, this time as an assistant to Jones, who had gotten the head-coaching job with the Falcons. When Jones was fired after the 1996 season, Davis decided to retire.

"I was about that age," he says, "and I owed it to my wife."

Dealing with death

Beverly Davis was Mouse's college sweetheart. They married in 1955.

"She figured we had moved 22 times over the years," he says. "That was enough."

The Davises moved into a 6,000-square-foot home in a fashionable section of Las Vegas, called "Scotch '80s," not 10 minutes from the strip. Her plan was to buy houses, fix them up and sell them. His plan was to play golf and enjoy time with his wife.

In 1997, Beverly Davis was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. In April 1999, she died. It left a gaping hole in Davis' life.

"It was awful," Davis says. "It is still awful. It is hard to get over. You start to feel sorry for yourself. You find yourself at a loss as to why. You thought you were going to have another 30 years together. Then all of a sudden, wham, bam, it's gone. You sit down and cry, then you have to get on with your life."

In the ensuing months, Davis played a lot of golf. "But you can only play so much golf, at least as poorly as I play it," he says.

"Bev was his life," Lomax says. "Everybody thought it was football. She was his best friend, his buddy. A lot of us husbands don't have that in our wives. Mouse did. When he lost her, he went into a shell for a while. I am glad to see him get out and do something and have fun."

So is Saunders, who coached with Davis at Cal.

"Mouse provides an exciting brand of football," he says. "He is a real outgoing guy who makes the game fun for the players, and it will be fun for the fans in Detroit, too. Hey, he will probably figure out a way to have three guys climbing up that net to catch the ball."

Vermeil agrees. "It's great to occupy that mind. Mouse has a great one for football," he says.

And for now, football occupies his mind.

"Let's tee it up," he says, "and get it on."

This article was reprinted with the permission of The Oregonian.
"Mouse is a pioneer," Rams receivers coach Al Saunders says. "Quite frankly, there isn't a team in the NFL that doesn't have some of the concepts Mouse truly believes in and created."






NEW BOOK!

AFM Videos Streaming Memberships Now Available Digital Download - 304 Pages of Football Forms for the Winning Coach



















HOME
MAGAZINE
SUBSCRIBE ONLINE COLUMNISTS COACHING VIDEOS


Copyright 2024, AmericanFootballMonthly.com
All Rights Reserved