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This is it, Clyde: Don't mess up

SHELTON E-mail: Click here Archive

By GARY SHELTON

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 24, 2001

It is the most annoying thing. No matter how much you pay for your new toys, they still come with the same label.

And so it is that the attention turns to the office of Clyde Christensen, the guy in charge of construction, completion and, most of all, coordination. Even now, you imagine Clyde sitting on the floor of his office, the instruction sheet on his lap, trying to figure out if that really is Sprocket AA-2 in his hand, and if so, how in the heck do you attach it to Coaxial AA-1?

It is up to Clyde now. Of course it is. Christensen, the Bucs' new man to blame (also called: offensive coordinator), is the man charged with the position of taking an impressive array of individual talents and building something that, in other places, they refer to as "offense." As job difficulty goes, it is less like putting together your kid's bike and more like building a space platform.

"We have some great parts," Christensen said. "But in team sports, the parts don't always equal the whole. We've got to turn them into a functioning machine, and that takes some doing. It takes some molding of egos, some blending, some bonding, some chemistry, some casualties."

Oh, yeah. And batteries aren't included, either.

These are the parts Christensen has spread across the room. He has a new quarterback (Brad Johnson). He has a wide receiver who was underused a year ago (Keyshawn Johnson). He has two brand new starters on the offensive line (Kenyatta Walker and Cosey Coleman). He has two young receivers (Jacquez Green and Reidel Anthony) who have been more down than up. He has two linemen (Randall McDaniel and Jeff Christy) he has to convince not to get old. He has to make one running back (Warrick Dunn) a featured back without doing so at the expense of the other (Mike Alstott). In his spare time, he has to privately save Ryan (Leaf).

And then he has to succeed where Mike Shula and Les Steckel did not.

Oh, and Clyde? If you can do it by the end of mini-camp, just to assure everyone, that would help.

It is late in the evening, and Christensen sits back in his chair and talks offense. It is a dangerous thing around here. In Tampa Bay, where there has never been offense, we tend to feed on offensive coordinators.

Already, there have been those willing to take a bite out of Christensen. He came to the job from the most unforgivable of locations: here. Had Tony Dungy been out to do the popular thing, he would have hired someone from outside, certainly not someone who had his fingerprints on the past two offenses. After all, other teams weren't beating down the door to make Clyde their offensive coordinator, were they?

But, after the Steckel debacle, Dungy wanted someone he knew, and someone who knows him. Steckel spent half of last season trying to get to know his players. He didn't seem to trust Dunn until he had to. He never seemed to buy into Keyshawn at all. He would start each game with a huge smorgasbord of plays, and when it was over, some of the key ones never seemed to be called. And Les, more than anyone else, seemed to be mystified by it.

So how should you feel about bonnie old Clyde? Cautious, perhaps, because we've seen offenses underachieve before. Hopeful, perhaps, because no Bucs offense has ever had this many weapons.

Look, the Bucs under Tony Dungy are never going to look like the Rams. That's fine. But what they should be is efficient. They should be productive when they have to be, deadly when the defense sets them up.

"I would like us to be more consistent, more confident," Christensen said. "The good teams have a confidence to throw the ball with a 10-point lead and know it's going to be all right. They just have a rhythm we've never really had.

"Where I'll measure myself is whether we are able to get the ball to our playmakers in their strength areas. Just getting the ball to your premier players isn't enough; you have to get it to them where they can do the things they do best."

On Keyshawn: "We want to throw to him more, and we want to throw to him smarter. He's a unique athlete. He can do some things other people can't do. We want to showcase those things."

On Dunn: "I'd like to see Warrick take over some games. He can be a special running back."

On Alstott: "I think he'll spend more time as a true fullback. He'll be on the field more than he ever has been. I'd like for us to throw to him more, the way we used him when he was a rookie."

Stop. How does Dunn get more carries and Alstott get more snaps? For one thing, Christensen says, you'll see less of an additional tight end coming in for either of them.

"I think that's a bad substitution," Christensen said. "I don't want to substitute a second tight end for Mike. I don't want Warrick standing over by me on third down.

"We have two premier backs. I want to use them."

So far, Christensen has at least been more of a communicator than the Bucs are used to at the position. He has talked to Brad, to Keyshawn, to Dunn, to Alstott about the things they feel comfortable doing, about the things he thinks they do best, about the things they think they do best. No, it isn't a democracy, and a coordinator's job isn't to build a consensus or to divide the pie equally. But communication isn't a bad thing, either.

"I want to do the best job these players have had done for them, and the best job Tony has had done for him," Christensen said. "I have a personal pride that I want to get the job done. That's what I'm being paid for. I put a lot of pressure on myself."

Not that there wasn't enough there already. Christensen needs to succeed to show that picking an offensive coordinator isn't Dungy's downfall. He needs to succeed to meet expections. He needs to succeed because, well, the alternative is ugly.

For Christensen, it begins with this week's mini-camp, when he leans into the most talented huddle a Bucs offense has ever seen.

The goal is that way, he should say.

Charge.

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