Resources

Email our editors with your tips, corrections, complaints, inquiries, suggestions, etc.

Sherman Lewis Is Here To Help However He Can

Posted Oct 7th 2009 4:16PM by Matt Terl (author feed)



Well, new offensive consultant Sherman Lewis was out at practice this afternoon, seemingly working with the wide receivers and generally trying to find his place in an established coaching staff. It's not an easy thing to do under the best of circumstances, and Lewis freely admitted today that he was aware of the awkwardness that could be caused by his hiring.

"I talked to [head coach Jim Zorn] about it last night," Lewis explained, "and to let him know that I'm just here to help. That's all I'm here for. And see what I can do; like I said, I wasn't planning on coaching, so I'm not looking for anybody's job. I thought it'd be a nice challenge, I thought it might be a good change for me, and I thought I might be able to help."

What Lewis is counting on to help dispel the impression that his presence is -- as some have suggested -- the "kiss of death" for Jim Zorn is ... well, himself. "I've been in football enough to know about that," Lewis said, "but I think if I handle it right and the organization will handle it right -- it's a very proud organization, a proud tradition here -- and everybody handles it right, it should go smooth."

Both Coach Zorn and offensive coordinator Sherman Smith were saying all the right things after practice. (And, yes, "all the right things" still included repeated variations on the phrase "new set of eyes.")

Here's Smith: "We're gonna do what we do. We're gonna come in and we're gonna coach our guys. No one's assignment is gonna change. Hey, he'll come in and give us an extra set of eyes."

And here's Zorn, after reacting with overdramatized shock at the suggestion that Lewis might be involved with the playcalling: "Listen: he's not coaching. He's here to observe, and he's here to have a set of eyes. And he should look at things that maybe we don't see, and that's really what I want."

Smith: "He has a set of eyes that's gonna see something we don't see, 'Hey, you need to do more of this and less of that'? You know, we'll listen to it. We're open."

Zorn: "Like I said earlier, I can't have so much pride in who I am and who I think I am that I can't have an extra set of eyes and a voice to listen to."

Smith: "I think we all take pride in doing our jobs. I think we feel we're trying to do our jobs. We feel we're putting the players in good position to make plays. If someone else can come in and help us, I'm not so prideful that I can't say, 'Well, okay, maybe you can help us.' I don't have that much pride."

It's not as if Lewis was sitting at his Michigan home yesterday, desperately trying to find any way back into the NFL. "I had just gone to the gym yesterday and I was home having lunch," he explained, "and I was getting ready to go to the senior center for bingo -- I don't play it, I call it, I'm a bingo caller. When I called Vinny [Cerrato] back and told him yes, I'd come in, I had to go to the senior center and cancel my bingo calling. I had to cancel my [volunteer shift at] Meals On Wheels today, and I took off last minute."

So given that he's had more recent experience with a bingo ball cage than with a football, what does Lewis believe he can bring in his vaguely-defined role as a consultant?

"I think some of my expertise," he said. "You know, I've coached receivers, I've coached running backs, I've coordinated, I've worked under a lot of different head coaches, and I think there are some things. You know, the offense changes; they call it the West Coast Offense, but I've coached in San Francisco's West Coast, Green Bay's West Coast, Minnesota's West Coast, Detroit's West Coast, and they're all a little different. I've just gotta get in here and get a feel for what Jim's teaching, and it won't be the same West Coast offense, probably that we had in Green Bay."

It sounds very simple when Lewis -- who was notably successful at most of those stops -- lays it out. "I know the basic things it takes to be successful in this offense, and I'm just hoping I can add something to it. If it's just a play or two that might help, you know..." he trailed off.

And Coach Zorn, for his part, seems perfectly comfortable with this slightly unusual situation. "Just big picture, overall," Zorn said of Lewis's role. "I just think it's gonna be a work in progress as we go along. There's no defined schedule for him quite yet."

Recent Posts

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

| 1 | 2 | Most Recent | Next 20 Comments


Search Blog

Hot Topics

roadtrips fedexfield hail tattoos

Recent Comments