Coordinated Canton plea for football's unrecognized innovators

PITTSFORD, N.Y. -- Here's an idea: Instead of talking about what a marvelous defensive coordinator Jim Johnson was, let's ratchet the conversation up another level and start talking about how assistants like Jim Johnson and Dick LeBeau deserve something they can't get from the NFL -- at least not now.

Let's talk about them making the Hall of Fame.

Head coaches get there. General managers get there. Owners and commissioners get there. So why not assistant coaches? Beats me, and it's high time we start a discussion. Jim Johnson was one of the game's best and most imaginative tacticians, someone who could beat you with lesser players because of the schemes he ran.

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People everywhere respected him, but people everywhere copied him, too, and isn't that one of the criteria for inclusion in the Hall of Fame -- having an impact on the NFL and changing its game? Well, Jim Johnson had an impact, and if you don't believe me you should listen to Buffalo defensive coordinator Perry Fewell.

"Because they're not head coaches in the NFL," Fewell said, "the Jim Johnsons and Dick LeBeaus may never get true recognition. They really manage and change the whole complexion of the ballgame. I'm a guy who studied Jim Johnson as much as I could because I love what he does and how he does it. I'm amazed. [When I watch tape] I'm saying, 'I don't know how he put that together.'

"I definitely think the Hall or the league should look into the Jim Johnsons and the Dick LeBeaus of this league and give them the recognition and proper salutations they should receive."

I'll second that. But it's a proposal that's liable to go nowhere because there is a raft of deserving assistants -- Bud Carson in Pittsburgh, Buddy Ryan in Chicago, Bill Arnsparger in Miami and Ernie Zampese in San Diego -- who belong, yet haven't gotten a sniff. That needs to change, and guys like Johnson and LeBeau are just the guys to change it.

Heck, LeBeau deserves to be in as a player. When he retired in 1972 he ranked fourth in interceptions with 62. Thirty-seven years later he's tied for seventh. He also started 171 straight games, which is still the record for cornerbacks.

Then he went on to become a defensive assistant and the father of the zone blitz, a scheme that is used throughout the league. He also heads a defense that is at or near the top of league rankings each year and that was a Super Bowl champion two of the past four seasons.

LeBeau has been in the NFL for more than 50 years, yet he's not in the Hall of Fame. Amazing? Nope. Unconscionable is more like it. He should be in there because he deserves to be in there, both as a player and a coach.

"Coach LeBeau should be in the Hall of Fame," cornerback DeShea Townsend said after the Steelers' AFC championship victory over Baltimore this year. "Make sure you all put that in big print. He should get in for the body of work he's done." Johnson deserves to be in there, too, and not just because he was good at what he did but because he was so good that coordinators like Perry Fewell copied him. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, and I guarantee you two of the most imitated assistants the past decade were Johnson and LeBeau.

"He was a pioneering and brilliant strategist, changing the way defense is played in the NFL," Baltimore coach John Harbaugh, who coached under Johnson, said. "He belongs in the Hall of Fame."

So put him in there. Put Johnson and LeBeau in the conversation for the Pro Football Hall of Fame so we can start changing how we view candidates for Canton. If general managers and owners can get there, how come assistant coaches who have an impact on the game -- who change the game and the men who play it -- cannot?

I don't get it. Neither does the Hall of Fame. It's time to change.