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In the end, I've found, people like the direct approach. It's much more valuable to them to have a leader who's absolutely clear and open than to have one who soft-soaps or talks in circles.
I'm glad we were able to win this last one. I saw some good things tonight, ... It's just preseason, but we ran the ball good. I'm happy about that, and the first-team offense was pretty sharp.
Confidence is only born out of one thing demonstrated ability. It is not born of anything else. You cannot dream up confidence. You cannot fabricate it. You cannot wish it. You have to accomplish it.
There's a line, players usually don't cross it and coaches usually don't cross it. Every once in a while you get a little temper tantrum on both sides, I certainly have had 'em. I'm not proud of those.
You as an individual coach have a responsibility to try to give those players who put themselves at risk and in harm's way a chance to achieve success, and that goes for universities and professional teams, as well.
You ask yourself, 'What do you want your legacy to be?' I'm content at this point to say, 'Those who follow me.' Romeo Crennel, Bill Belichick, Sean Payton, to name a few. I think I've got a pretty good group, so far.
I spent a lot of time with my teams, especially in the East Coast teams, talking about dealing with the elements a lot of time, and a lot of instruction about field position and those kind of things. I like that variable.
God's been good to me, He really has. I don't know why he picked me out... Just think about it: I virtually coached in my hometown. From the middle of the Meadowlands field, it can't be but a couple of miles. I was lucky to do that.
I just try to do the best job I possibly can - put the blinders on, go to work and be the best you can possibly be. Once you have done everything that you possibly can - you've put forth your greatest effort - then I can live with whatever's next.
Even when you're successful, even when you win the game, about an hour after the game, you have a litany of things that you now deal with that are problematic... So the times that you are happy are minute compared to the time that you're dealing with problems.
I love the game. I think it's a great game because you find out a lot about yourself. You test your mettle every week. There's no grey area, there's instant gratification and there are no quarterly reports. We're not just doing a little bit better. You know every Sunday what happened.
All you have to do is play better than the other guy and things go well. If you don't play better than the other players then somebody takes your place. Now a lot of guys, in this day and time with the transient nature of the sport, as soon as the competition gets too good, they want out.
Anybody who watched football last year knows they're good. But that represents a very good opportunity for us. It really does. I think somehow, if we're able to pull that off, I think it will go a long way for our confidence. I look at it as a great opportunity, and hopefully we'll be at our best when we get there.
Some guys are just very, very interested in their sport and their predecessors. I know I was a guy like that when I was a young coach. I wanted to know about George Halas, I wanted to know about Jim Lee Howell, guys you don't even know. I wanted to know what they were like. So I read whatever I could get my hands on.
Part of buying the groceries is having a philosophy and trying to stick to it as best you can, knowing that occasionally you may make an exception. But, you do so knowing you're attempting to do it for a certain reason and you have to be very careful not to try to make too many exceptions, because then you wind up as a franchise with a team full of exceptions, which is not what you want.