Contrary to public opinion in places like Tampa, changes at the top sometimes DO work.
With five weeks left in the regular season, second-year coach Dave Wannstedt has returned the Bears to their seemingly rightful place at the top of the NFC Central, and Bill Parcells (second year) and Buddy Ryan (first) have revived long-downtrodden New England and Arizona to the point of being on the cusp of playoff contention."I thought we played our best game of the year," Parcells said after his Patriots beat San Diego 23-17 on Sunday. "When you start beating some teams like this it perks old guys up. You want to play for something."
"Something" in this case is a wild-card playoff berth, a goal that's become realistic for New England in the compressed AFC, where 11 of the 14 teams are between 8-3 and 5-6 with five games to go.
Sunday compressed things even more as AFC teams went 5-0 against the NFC, remarkable considering a decade of NFC Super Bowl wins.
But the games that tightened things were in the conference - Kansas City's win over Cleveland; Pittsburgh's victory over Miami, and the Patriots' win over the Chargers. In the East, only two games separate the Dolphins (7-4) at the top from Indianapolis and New England (5-6) at the bottom.
"We're still breathing," said Parcells, whose Pats had lost four of five before coming back from a 20-0 deficit last week to beat Minnesota 26-20 in overtime.
Wannstedt, meanwhile, is proving he deserves the "most sought after coach" label two years ago, when the Bears snatched him from the grasp of the Giants.
He got help from one of those AFC wins - the Jets' 31-21 victory in Minnesota, the second straight loss by the Vikings to an AFC team. The Vikings fell to 7-4 and are tied with Chicago as the Bears' Steve Walsh, a failure in Dallas and New Orleans, is 6-0 as the starting quarterback in place of high-priced Erik Kramer.
And Wannstedt, a disciple of the gimmicky Jimmy Johnson, doesn't eschew his own tricks, despite his reputation as a "conservative" coach.
Last week, it was a fake field goal that helped beat Miami. This week it was an onside kick after Kevin Butler's field goal had given Chicago a 13-10 lead over Detroit in the third quarter. It was the brainchild of special teams coach Danny Abramowicz, but Wannstedt, who had seen the same play work under Johnson, enthusiastically sanctioned it.
"We've been working on it since the first time we played them, so it was nothing gimmicky," said Wannstedt, whose Bears controlled the ball for 44 minutes, allowing only 16 for Barry Sanders. "We felt, at that point of the game, we wanted to get the momentum."
Ryan's Cardinals, meanwhile, are starting to reach the point where the coach can back up his big talk. They've won three of their last four and Ryan still predicts they'll win every game they play.
They got revenge on Philadelphia in a no offense game, beating the Eagles four field goals to two. And with five games left and a schedule that includes Houston, Washington and Cincinnati, the Cardinals are 5-6, only a game plus a couple of tiebreakers out of an NFC wild-card spot.
"It was the biggest win this franchise has ever had," said Greg Davis, who kicked the four field goals that gave the Cardinals their 12-6 win. Davis apparently forgot 1948, when the Cardinals, then two moves back in Chicago, actually won the NFL title and Bill Bidwill, now the owner, was the team's ballboy.
Ryan, who went with Jay Schroeder at quarterback in place of the injured Steve Beuerlein, is even taking an interest in offense now.