Rookie NFL coaches do it right from the start

There are times when hiring a football coach that professional football teams forget the actual football part.They cave in to all the warm air expended in the talk universe about hiring a "name" guy.They give in to the urge to "make a splash" in their marketplace.They jump into what should be a long-term decision with short-term goals in mind.They simply suffer some kind of business amnesia that it is what's on the field that can fix the rest of what ails them, for winning games will always be the best marketing strategy.And this year's collection of first-time head coaches has done well enough that owners and other decision-makers around the league should take pause when putting together their wish lists, which these days seem to entail basically luring Bill Cowher out of the TV studio with nothing really written under Plan B.But the Redskins' Jim Zorn is a first-time NFL head coach.His team is 6-3 and his quarterback, Jason Campbell, the guy he promised owner Dan Snyder he would personally tutor, didn't throw an interception in the team's first eight games.The Ravens' John Harbaugh is a first-time NFL head coach.His team is 6-3, his defense is No. 2 in the league overall and No. 1 against the run.The Dolphins' Tony Sparano is a first-time NFL head coach.His team is 5-4, has beaten New England on the road already this season and his "Wildcat" formation -- a throwback look that has a direct snap to running back Ronnie Brown to start the play -- has rippled across the league.And the Falcons' Mike Smith is a first-time NFL head coach.His team is 6-3, 4-0 at home, and has a city excited about professional football again.They are a Fab Four of X's and O's. Football guys hired to coach football."All of the guys who got hired . . . they were all very successful as assistant coaches who had worked with outstanding head coaches . . . ," Smith said. "I think they were well-respected as assistant coaches. It's nice to see guys coming out of the chute and doing so well. They are really good men and good football coaches."Does it always work? No, there are few sure things in the NFL and certainly plenty of football guys couldn't relate, share or teach what they knew to the players who played for them.Bill Belichick's first head coaching ride in Cleveland, long before his three-trophy run with the Patriots, was proof of that.But all four of this year's first-time coaches took a workmanlike approach as they checked off the days to the start of the season. One that was about doing things right.Smith was the most surprising hire to some of the four and even went about trying to meet everyone in every department in the Falcons complex in his first week on the job.At the scouting combine, Smith was never far from his laptop, where he had spreadsheets for almost every occasion it seemed, devoted to the things he believed were important to resurrect a team mired in the early post-Michael Vick era."I wanted to reach out to as many players on our roster as I could . . . ," Smith said. "I wanted to get out and talk to players who were on our roster and explain to them, interact with them about the direction (general manager) Thomas Dimitroff and I wanted to go in putting this football team together."Sparano had the biggest hill to climb, having taken over the league's only one-win team from 2007 as Bill Parcells' handpicked guy.A former offensive line coach who is simply rooted in physical play and all about building a roster from the lines out.Sparano said, after opening the season 0-2, it was his team's 38-13 win over New England, with four touchdowns out of the "Wildcat," that gave his young team the verification he needed them to have."Certainly, I wanted to get a couple wins here right away because I think it lends credibility to what you're trying to do with your players . . . ," Sparano said. "We had lost our first two ballgames and all of a sudden this whole offseason program stuff, the (organized team activities) and the training camp and how hard you worked, maybe they're starting to think, 'Well, wait a minute, this isn't any different than it was in the past.'"You can see it in practice, but you don't have that win to show. Once we went down to New England and we won in that environment, all of a sudden the players figure out maybe this is something different and maybe we are heading in a little different direction."Four guys, four teams, four winning records at the moment.So score one for that "little different direction" to be sure and perhaps they've cracked the door a little more for some others who hope for the same chance.(Contact Jeff Legwold of the Rocky Mountain News at legwoldj(at)RockyMountainNews.com.)