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Smackdown: Best Assistant Coach

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By ANWAR RICHARDSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 28, 2007

Smackdown Results: Offense 8, Defense 7

TAMPA - The success or failure of a professional football player can often be attributed to their positional coach.

While head coaches are often overseeing the final product, assistant coaches work daily toward improving their player's skill, ability, awareness and making a good player become great. They often do not receive praise when their unit does well, but collect all of the blame when those players struggle.

This week's Smackdown pits Tampa Bay running backs coach Art Valero against defensive backs coach Raheem Morris to determine who is ''The Best Assistant Coach.'' The winner receives some well-deserved recognition for their coaching abilities.

Art Valero, Running Backs Coach

Bucs RB Kenneth Darby hangs on every work Coach Valero tells him like a senior citizen waiting to hear that winning Bingo number.

Darby, a rookie, knows Valero helped Cadillac Williams rushed for over 1,000 yards during his initial season. He has also seen Valero help Earnest Graham, a former practice squad player who was primarily used on special teams, rush for nearly 1,000 yards in 12 games this year.

''I look at what he did with EG [Graham] and man 'oh man,'' Darby said.

Valero's first successful protégé was Michael Pittman, Tampa Bay's leading rusher from 2002-04. Pittman rushed for 926 yards in 2004, but Valero topped that with Williams' 1,178 yards in 2005.

However, Valero's greatest masterpiece has been seeing Graham transition from obscurity to becoming one of the best backs in the NFL, and arguably Tampa Bay's most productive back in team history.

Graham scored a touchdown in six consecutive games this season, setting a team record for consecutive games with a touchdown, plus tied a team record for most receptions in a single game with 13 catches at Detroit.

''He definitely understands the running back position and what we go through as players and he communicates with us,'' Graham said. ''He makes it very simple. Every week we know what is expected of us.

''He groomed me. He really taught me how to think as a running back and made the game very, very, very simple for me. He's a very simple guy, but it's a hard thing to be able to communicate as well as he does.''

Valero's players say he communicates so well, they learned through him how to treat each other like family and encourage everybody's success.

Then again, when you factor in Valero's attitude, their unity makes sense.

''The two greatest moments I've had since we've been here was our first preseason game this year against New England after Mike Alstott went on injured reserve, and to hear that ovation for him, was like ''whoa.'' I felt special for him,'' Valero said. ''Then to see Earnest get on a little bit of a roll, we came home and they introduced the offense and everybody cheered for him when two weeks earlier no one even knew about him even though he had been here working his butt off? To have those two things were great for me.

''To see my guys have success means a lot to me. I don't need all the other stuff because the other stuff ain't genuine.''

Raheem Morris, Defensive Backs Coach

When Morris returned to Tampa Bay this year after coaching one season Kansas State, he inherited a unit in need of an extreme makeover.

Sure, Morris had All Pro defensive back Ronde Barber and standout Brian Kelly, but he also inherited Phillip Buchanon, considered a first round draft bust, Jermaine Phillips after a disappointing season, a rookie name Tanard Jackson, and other NFL journeyman.

Instead of complaining, Morris simply made his defensive backs into arguably one of the best units for Tampa Bay this season.

Tampa Bay's pass defense is currently ranked No.2 in the NFL, while the careers of Buchanon and Phillips have surprisingly reemerged.

''He's just playing tricks on us. He fooled us into thinking we're great and we've been playing at a high level,'' Phillips said. ''He doesn't look at himself as coach, but he looks at us as coworkers. We're all working together for one common goal. He's also a coach that listens to his players. He's not a guy who says I know everything and you're going to do this, this and this. If a player says we might want to run a play to help us out, he will listen.''

Morris has shown an ability to listen, but more importantly, he found a way to put players in schemes where they will succeed.

''You miss a dynamic with a guy like that. We didn't have him last year and he bought it right back. It's like he didn't skip a beat,'' Barber said. ''We fell off last year, but he got us right back in tune with the method of doing things right around here in our secondary. It's because of him, his personality and his mentality about it. He's helped us.''

At this success rate, Morris has helped his NFL coaching stock surge.

Morris is expected to follow in the footsteps of Mike Tomlin, who was a secondary coach in Tampa before becoming a defensive coordinator in Minnesota and is currently Pittsburgh's head coach. If Morris is needed again to for a rehab project in the future, he has all ready proven his qualifications.

''I don't think it's anything I've done, but what the players have done,'' Morris said. ''And how they've taken what I've tried to implement, some of them getting it back, and some of them getting it for the first time. We still have a lot to prove. We still have a long way to go. At the end of the day, we want to win it all. Everybody wants to win, like they group did in 2002. Until we do that, we haven't really done anything.''

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