Green Bay hasn’t forgot last year’s hit by Tampa Bay’s Warren Sapp on Chad Clifton.
Knight Ridder Newspapers

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Endless TV cameras, countless countdown programs, numerous Web sites and those insipid halftime interviews have helped the National Football League create as many actors as it has athletes and coaches.

The pat answers can be as tedious as they are fake, but players and coaches are almost under a gag order with the constant threat of an NFL fine or a reprimand from the head coach if they dare say the wrong thing.

It’s rare that the truth escapes.

When Green Bay offensive line coach Larry Beightol let down his guard the day after the Tampa Bay game last year, his thoughts were a precious glimpse of the real emotions some of the Green Bay Packers felt in private after what will go down as one of the most memorable Packers games of our generation.

The day after Tampa Bay defeated Green Bay and coach Mike Sherman confronted Warren Sapp on live television, the Packers were back home without easygoing, likeable Chad Clifton, who was still lying in a Florida hospital bed after his collision with Sapp. The Tampa Bay defensive lineman’s hit, ruled legal, knocked Clifton out for the year.

Beightol was furious with Sapp and vowed revenge.

“There will be other games. There will be other times,” Beightol said at the time. “Like the saying goes, every dog has his day. We’ll see about him. Everyone is fair game. When we see him again, we’ll see how that dog fares. We’ll cut him every single time. I want him to know that.

“There’s no need for that. If we play them again, he’s fair game. Somewhere we’ll see him.”

Three hundred and fifty-seven days later (who’s counting?), after the hobbled Packers bowed out of the playoffs in Round 1 and the Buccaneers went on to win the Super Bowl without the desired playoff rematch with Green Bay, that day is almost here.

But Beightol is not rekindling the firestorm he created last year. His comments then drew a stern warning from NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, who said any further talk of that nature out of anyone in Green Bay would result in heavy fines.

“Emotions got to me,” Beightol said.. “I was certainly upset by it but, hey, that’s really old news.”

Peering up from his wire-rimmed glasses, the spitfire Beightol is about as convincing as Bill Clinton under oath.

“He’s very protective of his players,” Tampa Bay defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin said.

Beightol’s athletic, protective offensive line, which didn’t yield a sack for a team-record three-game stretch earlier this season, will go against Beightol’s good friend, Kiffin, and the sixth-ranked defense in the league. Though he’s toned down now, it’s a game Beightol has been looking forward to for some time.

“Every time we play Tampa Bay, (Beightol) is as excited as he ever is,” Packers guard Mike Wahle said. “He has a lot of confidence in us, he wants us to do well, and they’re one of the best defenses that have been around the last couple of years. So the coaches spend a lot of time on this game, not only this week but in the pre-season, you know, preparing.

“You spend that much time on a game plan, you really want to be successful at it. He’s got a real passion for this game and it’s never more apparent when we’re playing the Buccaneers.”

Beightol, who will turn 61 later this month, is still a winking, mischievous man with a throaty baritone. He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt Thursday even though the high temperature in Green Bay was 36 1/8degree 3/8s. With two bad knees that have been scoped seven times, he is the personality opposite of stoic Packers coordinators Tom Rossley and Ed Donatell.

Beightol is always a live wire in conversation anyway. He says things like, “It’s not my coaching, it’s the players. You can’t make chicken salad out of chicken you-know-what” and, on his future in coaching, “It’s not even year by year, it’s day by day. Next year I may not even be alive.”

But when pushed, Beightol admits that this might be one of the best groups he has coached in 19 years in the NFL. This offensive line is tied for second in the NFL, allowing just 11 sacks.

Green Bay leads the league in average yards per carry (5.48). If the Packers can keep that up, they’ll shatter the top two franchise marks of 4.96 and 4.74, set in 1961 and 1962 by Vince Lombardi teams that won NFL championships.

“That’s as well-coached an offensive line as there is in football,” Kiffin said. “Watch them run the ball. That football team has to love Larry Beightol. If you’re a running back, you love the way the line plays. The way they hustle downfield on screens. Anybody can call a screen, but you know who makes a screen go? The linemen. I’ve seen people who run screens and the linemen can’t find who to block. They do a great job.”

Green Bay’s line is upset that even though running back Ahman Green set a team single-game rushing record with 192 yards Monday night against Philadelphia, the Packers still couldn’t win.

“This Tampa Bay game means everything just because the last couple of games, the O-line has been really physical,” backup Kevin Barry said, adding that the team wants a victory more than it wants to settle a score with Sapp.

Beightol seems to be on that same line of thought as well, as this team is his life. His last day as a coach and his last day on this earth might very well be the same day. In 36 years of coaching, this 4 1/2-year tenure in Green Bay is the second longest of his life (he spent five seasons, 1990-’94, with the New York Jets). He needed a cart to get around in training camp but there seems to be no sign of him slowing down, and he’d like to finish his career in Green Bay, fighting the Warren Sapps of his world to the end.

“I’d say he’s got maybe six, seven years left coaching in him,” said guard Marco Rivera, the only Packers lineman to make it to the Pro Bowl in 19 years. “He’s got the passion and it’s all about the passion. I mean, what keeps Joe Paterno going? As long as you have the will to compete and the love for the guys, age is just a number. I mean, what else is he going to do? He’s a great coach.”

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(c) 2003, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

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AP-NY-11-13-03 2133EST