Byner article

[Star City Skins Fan]

By Jim Ducibella
The Virginian-Pilot
ASHBURN, Va. — The way Earnest Byner tells it, it was a moment he’s waited for since he was 8 or 9 years old.
Ladell Betts, one of several young running backs Byner tutors as the first-year backfield coach of the Washington Redskins, had just been embarrassed, plowed under hard at the line of scrimmage by blitzing safety Matt Bowen. Byner, standing to the side, narrowed his eyes as Betts started to make a move to confront Bowen before backing off and leaving the field.
Without saying a word, one play later Byner reinserted Betts. When he took the handoff this time, he hit the hole like a battering ram, gouging through the line for a nice gain.
“He was upset, and I wanted to see how he’d respond,” Byner said later. “And he busted it, just like I thought he would.”
And just the way Byner probably would have under similar circumstances during his 13-year NFL career.
When Byner, working in the front office with the Baltimore Ravens, phoned Joe Gibbs to ask for an interview in January, the first thing Gibbs remembered was how little Byner liked being coached during five seasons as a Redskins player.
“He had so much pride,” Gibbs recalled. “We’d run a play and if he made a mistake, he’d literally get off the ground and go, ‘I know, I know, I know;’ in other words, ‘Don’t tell me, I know.’ He had such pride and studied everything and was so bright. He didn’t have to be told what was going on.”
There were other attributes that impressed Gibbs. Byner was one of the toughest players he’d ever coached, rushing for nearly 4,000 yards in Washington despite a variety of injuries that slowed but rarely stopped him. He had experience working with Brian Billick in Baltimore, both in the front office and, to a lesser extent, with Ravens running backs.
Gibbs liked Byner’s heart, his class, his values, and it didn’t take much encouragement from other coaches and friends for him to welcome Byner back.
“To me, it was like coming home again,” Byner said. “This is where I became a man, where I learned to deal with responsibility, where my family grew up, where everything was always so positive.”
What Gibbs didn’t know was that by hiring him, he helped Byner attain a goal he says he had been harboring since he was a young boy playing in the front yard of his mother’s home in Georgia.
He was by himself that day when “the spirit spoke to me and told me I was going to be a coach one day,” Byner said. “I never forgot it.”
Byner played football at East Carolina with the intention of getting into coaching when his college career was over. He hoped for an NFL career, but never dreamed it would last as long as it did or that he’d retire as the league’s 16th all-time leading rusher with 8,261 yards.
“He was tougher than nails,” Gibbs said. “We’ve got an award around here and I can’t say the name of it because you can’t print it, but only five guys ever got that award. He was one of them. He was tougher than all get-out.”
Through the years, Byner kept gameplans from his Redskins career, elemental schemes that he says were so fundamentally sound and offered such flexibility that even ordinary coaches could win with them.
When Gibbs handed Byner his playbook this time, the former player flashed a big smile as he saw that many of the plays and plans he’d saved and hoped one day to implement were being resurrected.
Byner says he has more than ample talent to work with in Washington, including young star Clinton Portis, a player Byner labeled “a freak.”
He calls Betts “as gifted a player as we have,” raves about Chad Morton’s potential as a third-down back and warns implores someone not to against forgetting about John Simon.
“We are loaded at running back,” he said. “Ladell, if and when he gets his opportunity, will shine.”
Teaching his players the playbook is the last thing Byner wants to do. Helping them reach an understanding of what’s being asked is another matter.
“I’ll transfer the information I’ve been given in a way guys can grasp if I have to,” Byner said. “But I’d rather put the onus on these guys to want to learn and gravitate to being almost independent. My goal is not to have to say a lot."
“The only thing I want to do is make some points; not tell them, but ask them questions. I ask more questions than I tell them what to do. Most of the time, they already know what to do. It’s a matter of working through the process.”