That was the last time they spoke -- until the Redskins pursued Marvin to be their defensive coordinator last winter. Marvin almost turned them down, but the money was outrageous, and he remembered the kid from North Hills. "LaVar is one of the reasons why you come," he says. But Marvin got to DC and started watching game film, and he couldn't believe the brainless way No. 56 played. "He ran around like a chicken with his head cut off," Marvin says.
So Marvin and LaVar were going to battle too. Marvin was going to ask LaVar to be a stay-in-your-gap linebacker on first and second downs and a pass-rushing defensive end on third. Marvin was going to try what Ray Rhodes tried during LaVar's rookie year: rein him in. Rhodes failed, of course, because LaVar was doubled over half the time. "I had a little belly on me," LaVar says. "The coaches didn't like me. I was new money. I was eating out every day, eating the wrong things. Too lax."
The team went 8–8, Rhodes was replaced by Kurt Schottenheimer, Marty's little brother. LaVar loved that Kurt and Marty asked him to just chase the football, and he turned an 0–5 season around with an interception return against Carolina. But the team went 8–8 again, and Dan Snyder made his annual coaching change. In came the Steve Spurrier-Marvin Lewis regime. Imagine LaVar's surprise when Marvin told him he'd been doing everything wrong.
"He killed them last year, killed his own team," Marvin says. "Against Chicago, critical third down, he doesn't cover the back. Back catches the ball for a first down. A guy I could cover. And they lose."
Then how did Arrington make the Pro Bowl?
"It's like I told him: You'll be on SportsCenter for your big hits, and you might go to the Pro Bowl, but we'll win six games," Marvin says. "Or you can do it right, and we can win 12 games."
So is LaVar just a role player now?
"That's what everybody is," Marvin says. "If you want to win, you need 11 role players."
Marvin's options were to change the scheme or change LaVar, and the scheme stayed. He assigned LaVar a personal coach, Jimmy Collins, because LaVar now had play calls to make. When word of a Marvin-LaVar philosophical rift went public after Week 3, Marvin demanded they talk it out. "And if he won't talk to me, I'll follow him to the locker room," Marvin says. "We're not going to do that fraction crap that breaks teams apart."
But too late. During games, LaVar would break the huddle and raise his palms up. "When he raises his hands it means, 'I don't know this call, I'm just going to be LaVar,' " says teammate Jessie Armstead. Lewis benched him a play in Frisco for doing that. And on the plane home from that game, LaVar told friends, "I didn't come here to be a defensive end." That's when his mama stopped watching.
"Listen, I don't have a problem with Marvin," LaVar says. "A lot of players bash their coaches and get away with it. And I'm not a fool -- I'm in a perfect position to bash him, if I wanted to. I'm coming off a Pro Bowl season. I could sit here and say, yeah, I turned last season around. But I don't buy into that. He's my coach. I'm not going to do no Terrell Owens-Steve Mariucci, because I'm no #######. I'm just uptight.
"Two seasons, and all I am is 8–8. I've just got to start ballin' again. Like I balled back in the day."
I know I do... :tryingtoforgetthestingingpainthatisourpreviousplayofffailures:Cheers
