Hall of Fame Bound
LeBeau's Defensive Contributions Make A Case
By Tony DeFazio

By the time the Steelers introduced Mike Tomlin as Bill Cowher's replacement on Jan. 22 of this year, he had already made one great coaching decision. He decided to keep defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau on his staff.

"I was not interested in fixing something that wasn't broken," Tomlin said at the time. "I know that sounds cliché, but it is simply common sense. You'd be surprised at the number of people that get into situations and they want to put their stamp on something or they want to show they're in charge. I'm just interested in winning."

It's the same thing Cowher was interested in when he added LeBeau to his first-ever NFL coaching staff as his defensive backs coach in 1992. It is what was on Cowher's mind when he promoted LeBeau to defensive coordinator following Dom Capers ascension to head coach of the expansion Carolina Panthers in 1995. And it's certainly what Cowher was thinking when he brought LeBeau back in 2004-after a seven year absence-to replace Tim Lewis as defensive coordinator.

"As soon as he walked in, it seemed like old times again," Cowher said of LeBeau's return. "He works so well with the players, they love him. He has no generation gap; he's a people person, and they have an ability to get along with the young, old, anybody. If you can't get along with Dick LeBeau, you can't get along with anybody."

The same could also be said about winning with Dick LeBeau - if you can't win with this guy as your defensive coordinator, perhaps you can't win with anybody. As a coordinator, LeBeau has gone to three Super Bowls with two different teams whose playoff record is 11-5. When he worked as a coordinator under Sam Wyche in Cincinnati (1984-91) and Cowher in Pittsburgh (1995-95; 2004-06), his teams won a combined 115 games.

His time in Pittsburgh, however, has been especially rewarding. A 55-25 regular season record, and an 8-3 postseason record tell much of the story. It's no wonder Cowher brought LeBeau back after Pittsburgh's 6-10 season in 2003. With LeBeau on his staff, Cowher's Steelers boast a remarkable 87-41 record. Without LeBeau, Cowher's teams are a still respectable but much less flashy 62-49-1.

When Cowher walked away from the Steelers' head coaching job early in 2007, the popular question on everyone's lips was whether or not Cowher was a Hall of Fame coach. Perhaps the same question should be asked of LeBeau, who-while never a successful head coach-has contributed much more than wins to the teams on which he has coached.

GODFATHER

In 1984, Sam Wyche was hired away from Indiana University to replace Forrest Gregg as head coach of the Bengals. One of the first things Wyche did was promote defensive backs coach Dick LeBeau to defensive coordinator.

At that time, Bill Walsh and his San Francisco 49ers were the toast of the NFL, with Joe Montana running Walsh's vaunted west coast offense to perfectioon. LeBeau was searching for a way to combat the spread-out, pass-happy offenses-such as the west coast and the run-and-shoot-that were starting to become popular in the league.

"The west coast offense, with the quick quarterback release, was coming in, and the run-and-shoot was kind of sweeping the NFL then," LeBeau recalls. "They were both fast, quick-hitting, throw-the-ball offenses. Teams had gotten really locked in on certain keys, like if this safety blitzes, we're going to run this route and throw to that guy, and he'll break off. Everybody pretty much had the answer for typical blitzes.

"What I was looking for was a safer way to blitz."

LeBeau slowly began to piece together a strategy that would both disrupt the timing of the west coast offense and take away the passer's safety valve. Any one of the Bengals' linebackers, and often a defensive back, would be employed as pass rushers - but a defensive lineman would drop back into short pass coverage to compensate for the blitzers. Although his defense has come to be known as the "zone blitz," often times there were no more than four players bringing pressure.

But the entire idea was to bring pressure from unpredictable angles, confusing the quarterback and the offensive line. And it worked.

"You're not sure who's coming and who isn't coming," said Robert Morris University head coach Joe Walton, then the coach of the New York Jets. "Offensive linemen are used to blocking a four-man line and they know who their guy is, and all of a sudden they're doing different things."

"Different things" is putting it mildly. As LeBeau's defenses experienced more and more success, his imagination ran wild. Defensive ends dropped into pass coverage. Defensive backs walked to line of scrimmage and blitzed from the edge. Players looped around each other. Linebackers rushed from impossible angles - or sometimes they too dropped into coverage.

"One of the necessities of pressure is it has to have an element of surprise," explains LeBeau. "If the opponent knows what's coming, I don't care how good your pressure is, they're probably going to block it… So we try to change it up."

Offenses hated it. LeBeau's players loved it.

"It's fun because he makes you think," said future Hall of Famer Rod Woodson, who played for LeBeau in Pittsburgh. "He's going to have two or three new blitzes every week that he's going to bring in. This guy will blitz this week, or this guy will blitz this time. He gets the guys involved and everyone enjoys playing for him."

Current Steelers' cornerback Deshea Townsend echoes Woodson's thoughts.

"One play, I might be dropping. The next, I might be sneaking up to the line to blitz off the corner. The next play, hey, who knows?" Townsend told ESPN. "But Dick knows."

It's a complicated defense to be sure, and it requires the defenders to put in their time on the field and in the film room.

"When I left Pittsburgh I realized that other defenses didn't really do a lot," said Woodson, who also played for championship-caliber defenses in San Francisco, Baltimore and Oakland. "And players would say, 'Wow this is a lot.' And I'm thinking, 'My goodness, man, we had 30-40 calls going into a game in Pittsburgh.'"

If LeBeau's defense requires hours of study for his players, it demands much, much more from offensive coaches trying to combat it.

"You have put time in and practice it and make sure you've got the right guy," said Walton. "But more importantly, you have to be careful throwing to the strong side of the formation. Against most blitzes, you can throw to the hot read, where the blitzer has just vacated. Well in the zone blitz, a lot of times it's not vacated. They bring a lot of guys but they drop somebody else into that area, so that's what makes it difficult."

Pitt head coach Dave Wannstedt, who coached against LeBeau at stops in Dallas, Chicago and Miami, said LeBeau's defenses were always difficult to prepare for.

"Dick always had new ideas and he always had something new-that you knew he was going to come up with-that you didn't prepare for," Wannstedt said. "Every week. Every week there was going to be a new look. So what that would do from an offensive standpoint, you're constantly worried about giving up negative plays - sacks, interceptions. So it forces you to be a little bit more conservative than what you normally might be."

In football, offenses have the advantage of being in the huddle and calling the play. The defense is typically the unit that has to react to what the offense does. LeBeau's defense, however, turned the tables on that way of thinking.

"If we can give them a few problems it would only seem to me that turnabout is fair play," LeBeau said.

HALL OF FAME

Dick LeBeau retired from the NFL in 1973 after 14 seasons with the Detroit Lions. He is currently tied for seventh all-time in NFL history with 62 interceptions - a total that ranked third all-time when he retired. He still holds the NFL record for 171 consecutive games for a cornerback.

It's clear to most that played with him-or for him-that he belongs in the Hall of Fame for his outstanding career as a player.

"To have the credentials that he has and not be in the Hall of Fame is surprising," said Dick Hoak, who played against LeBeau in the 1960s and coached with him as a member of Cowher's staff with the Steelers. "To go out and have 62 interceptions and not be in the Hall of Fame is ridiculous."

While it's up to the NFL's Senior Committee as to whether or not LeBeau is ever enshrined as a player, it seems that there should be room for him as a "contributor."

Longtime NFL assistant coach Ernie Zampese is a nominee for the Hall of Fame this year, the first time an assistant coach will be considered for induction. Zampese, an offensive coordinator for the highly productive "Air Coryell" San Diego Chargers teams in the 1980s, and later with the Los Angeles Rams and Dallas Cowboys.

Might Zampese's nomination be a sign that LeBeau could get in as an assistant?

"I doubt if that will ever happen. I don't know…" said Hoak, himself a longtime assistant. "I just don't think that will happen."

Woodson and Walton have a more difficult time separating LeBeau's career as a player and as a coach, but both think he has to be a Hall of Famer.

"I don't know if that trend will ever start," said Woodson of assistants getting into the Hall. "The truth is there are a lot of NFL coaches who can put X's and O's on the board…. but there are not a lot of coaches that can tell you how to play a specific position and play it well. Dick did both. That's one thing I love about Dick LeBeau. He's a great teacher as well as a great innovator."

"I think the combination," said Walton. "He accomplished a lot as a player, and now he's accomplished a lot as a defensive innovator so I see no reason why he shouldn't be considered."

Wannstedt, who was the defensive coordinator in Dallas when Zampese was the offensive coordinator, thinks it could happen.

"Wow. I don't know what the criteria are, but I know people are talking about it," he said. "Dick LeBeau would get my vote."

Tony DeFazio is the editor of the Pittsburgh Sports Report. Email him at tdefazio (at) psrpt.com.