Lovie Smith, who turned around the St. Louis Rams' defense, is taking on the Chicago Bears. And the Buffalo Bills hope Mike Mularkey can spark their stagnant offense.
The two men were hired head coaches of the respective NFL teams Wednesday. Smith agreed to a four-year deal with the Bears, replacing Dick Jauron, fired Dec. 29. He will be introduced at a news conference Thursday.
Chicago has struggled in recent years, notching just one winning season in the last eight. The Bears haven't won a playoff game since 1995. Smith will be the team's third coach in six years.
PHOTO: AP
But Smith is confident he can make the Bears winners again.
"Tough, hard-nosed football, that's what Chicago football is all about," he said. "That's what I've seen at times. The consistency probably wasn't there. That's why probably the coaching change was made.
"I think they can win. They just need a little boost, just a little bit more energy, a change of scenery," Smith said. "That's what I think I can bring."
Smith was the defensive coordinator in St. Louis the past three seasons. The Rams had one of the NFL's worst defenses when Smith arrived, allowing a whopping 471 points in 2000.
One year later, St. Louis had the league's third-best defense, giving up 273 points -- a whopping reduction of 198 -- on the way to the Super Bowl.
Smith is the first black head coach in Bears history. He's also the fifth black head coach in the league, joining Dennis Green, hired two weeks ago by Arizona. The others are Herman Edwards of the New York Jets, Marvin Lewis of Cincinnati and Tony Dungy of Indianapolis. There have never been more than three black head coaches in a season before.
At 42, the Bills' Mularkey will be one of the youngest head coaches in the NFL. He spent the last three years as Pittsburgh's offensive coordinator.
Mularkey replaces Gregg Williams, fired after a disappointing 6-10 season.
American football players were struck in the head 30 to 50 times per game and regularly endured blows similar to those experienced in car crashes, according to a Virginia Tech university study that fitted players' helmets with the same kinds of sensors that trigger auto air bags.
University researchers are compiling a database of blows to the head their starting players endured this year, with plans to study how much trauma the brain can take. The study adds to a growing body of research into concussions, the blows to the head that helped end the careers of quarterbacks Troy Aikman of the Dallas Cowboys and Steve Young of the San Francisco 49ers, among others.
The data so far surprised team physician P. Gunnar Brolinson, who said he didn't realize players were absorbing so many serious hits, especially since only about five came off the sidelines this season with concussions.
"There are probably factors that we don't fully understand that make players better able to withstand higher accelerations [football hits] than other people," he said.
It's possible that some players can withstand stronger blows because they have stronger neck and shoulder muscles or that they're simply more robust genetically than others, Brolinson said.
The researchers recorded 3,312 hits during 35 practices and 10 games this season, rotating eight specially fitted helmets among 38 players. Project leader Stefan Duma said offensive linemen endured the most hits, followed by defensive linemen, running backs, linebackers, wide receivers and defensive backs. Quarterbacks recorded the fewest hits.
The helmets measure hits in multiples of the force of gravity. Half of the hits recorded this season were greater than 30 Gs, Duma said. The hardest hits measured more than 130 Gs.
"An impact of 120 Gs would be like a severe car accident, which you could survive if you were wearing a seat belt," Duma said.
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