MICHAEL LOMBARDI ON LEADERSHIP/COACHING/MANAGEMENT LOMBARDI ON BELICHICK - 2 … · 2017. 1. 25. · MICHAEL LOMBARDI LEADERSHIP/COACHING WISDOM – ZAK BOISVERT – PICKANDPOP.NET

MICHAELLOMBARDILEADERSHIP/COACHINGWISDOM–ZAKBOISVERT–PICKANDPOP.NET

MICHAEL LOMBARDI ON LEADERSHIP/COACHING/MANAGEMENT

• LOMBARDI ON BELICHICK - 2 • LOMBARDI ON COACHING STAFFS - 3 • LOMBARDI ON CULTURE - 3 • LOMBARDI ON DECISION-MAKING - 4 • LOMBARDI ON DEFENSE - 5 • LOMBARDI ON EVALUATION - 5 • LOMBARDI ON FALSE DUALITIES - 8 • LOMBARDI ON GAME MANAGEMENT - 8 • LOMBARDI ON HEAD COACHES - 9 • LOMBARDI ON INJURIES - 10 • LOMBARDI ON INVERSE THEORY - 10 • LOMBARDI ON KNOWING YOUR TEAM - 10 • LOMBARDI ON LEADERSHIP - 12 • LOMBARDI ON THE LOCKER ROOM - 12 • LOMBARDI ON MENTAL TOUGHNESS - 13 • LOMBARDI ON MOTIVATION - 13 • LOMBARDI ON OFFENSIVE SYSTEMS - 14 • LOMBARDI ON QUARTERBACKS - 15 • LOMBARDI ON PRACTICE - 15 • LOMBARDI ON SCOUTING - 16 • QUOTES - 16 • MISCELLANEOUS - 17

MICHAELLOMBARDILEADERSHIP/COACHINGWISDOM–ZAKBOISVERT–PICKANDPOP.NETLOMBARDI ON BELICHICK

-He's never going to flinch. The beauty of Belichick is he's so patient. If he were in the home-building industry, he would build one home a year. It's going to be the greatest home ever, but it's only going to be one a year. He's not going to get into the business where he's building neighborhoods. That's not who he is. So if you're going to try to stand the test of time with him and try to see who blinks first. He's never blinking. -Belichick tells his team every single day, "We get our toughness from kickoff coverage. That's who we are. We have to cover kicks. Games come down to being able to set the tempo in covering kicks. -On if a Patriots player had done what Antonio Brown did (filming Mike Tomlin's postgame speech): First of all, he never would have done it. They're trained not to do it. That's part of the program. When you talk about the Patriots, you talk about a program. You talk about 'Football 101.' They're educated o every aspect of the game--including the media...What would Belichick do? It never would have happened because he would have been proactive about it. -Bill hasn't changed. No matter how much success the man has, that's the thing you have to admire about him. That's what I call the "Born to Run" theory. He doesn't mind playing "Born to Run" every single day. He'll play it every day. He'll do the same thing over and over. I don't think he's a workaholic because to him it's not work. It's what he loves to do and he does it very well. Even though for most coaches the longer they do it, the easier it gets. There's no corner Bill cuts. There's nothing he leaves out. Every part of his day is spent working.

MICHAELLOMBARDILEADERSHIP/COACHINGWISDOM–ZAKBOISVERT–PICKANDPOP.NETLOMBARDI ON COACHING STAFFS

-Bill Walsh said this to me a long time ago, “When everyone is thinking alike, no one is thinking.” -He’s turned it around because he’s stopped trying to be a TV booth defensive coordinator. A TV Booth Defensive Coordinator is when you try to show the guys how smart you are when you’re in search of a head coaching job, when you’re trying to get the attention on you to say, ‘Hey I made this call. Look how smart I am.’ He’s simplified the defense, he’s defined the roles of the players and he’s made the players the focus of the defense (not him or his scheme). -You have to stop drinking the Kool-Aid. I'm getting on the bus after losing at Cincinnati in 1993 and Saban's sitting there in the first seat and he goes, "What's wrong big dog?" and I tell him, "I hate losing to this team. Every time we lose to the Bengals, I want to burn my clothes." And he goes, "At some point you have to realize that we're not any good and they're better than we are, then we're going to make strides to become better." They have to admit that they're not any good, that they're not talented and you have to have the cold reality of "this is where we are," and make the necessary adjustments because this isn't working. LOMBARDI ON CULTURE -For Josh to be a really good head coach, the organization has to buy in to the culture he wants to create. I heard Howard Schultz talk about when he bought the Seattle SuperSonics. He thought he could change the culture of the SuperSonics and he learned the hard way that he couldn't. And I think Josh McDaniels learned that sometimes organizations don't want to change their culture. And if you want to win The Patriot Way, it has to be a culture change.

MICHAELLOMBARDILEADERSHIP/COACHINGWISDOM–ZAKBOISVERT–PICKANDPOP.NET -That's a "Style of Play" win. Those are so fun because you walk in and say, “That is why we do it like we do. -That's what separates the Patriots from the Bills: the culture. That's what makes them better. That's why they can win. You can sign Ndamokung Suh in Miami, but you're never going to beat the culture. Because culture can eat strategy for lunch, as Peter Drucker once said. So that's why they win. -You’re not going to beat Pete Carroll by hiring just one guy. You’re not gong to take out the Taliban with one bomb. If the Rams don’t build an organization, they’ll never be able to compete at the highest level. You can’t just hire a guy who is going to be in charge of the coaches, you need to build an organizational philosophy. -He was trying to create a culture. If you don't want that culture, then don't hire him. That's the problem with the NFL. Everybody wants to be the Patriots, but they don't want to have the culture. Belichick tells the team all the time, 'There's only one way we're going to do this. We're going to work at it. There's no pill we're going to take that's going all of a sudden overnight have success.' It's the same thing. You need to build a culture. If you want to beat the Patriots, you're not going to do it by signing Suh or extending this player or bringing that. No, it's going to be creating a culture of TEAM that can beat another team. LOMBARDI ON DECISION-MAKING

-I equate it to Curly in the "Three Stooges." It’s “Curly in the boat” decision-making. When Curly is in the boat with Moe and Larry, there happens to be a hole in the boat so Curly has the bright idea that he's going to drill another hole to let the water from the first hole out. That's what Doug Pederson is doing. He's compounding the problem with a young quarterback by making more problems. It's one thing to be aggressive and another to be cautiously-aggressive.

MICHAELLOMBARDILEADERSHIP/COACHINGWISDOM–ZAKBOISVERT–PICKANDPOP.NETLOMBARDI ON DEFENSE

-You can’t control the game emotionally with your offense. -When you can reduce the offense by what you do on defense then the defense has the advantage. LOMBARDI ON EVALUATION

-There are certain people in the NFL that can draft players, there are very few that can build a team. -He’s a “Trailer Player.” You know what a trailer player is? A trailer player is when you look at a trailer for a movie and you say, “That looks like a really good movie.” The only problem is that IS the movie. That’s the only part of the movie that is any good. That guy gives you 5-6 plays a game where you say, “Jeesh,” but that’s not the whole movie. -You need to evaluate two things: You have to evaluate the offense and the skill set of the players within that offense. Is what we’re asking them too much? Does it fit their skillset? Did Player X look bad because he was put in a bad situation? Is our sysem maximizing Player Y’s abilities? -Only way you get better in evaluating personnel is to learn from your mistakes. How'd we mess this up? Did we mess this up? How'd I miss that guy? What'd I do wrong? -I’m gonna let you in on a secret, you ready? If we’re three years in and we’re still trying to find a system for the guy…you ready? There is no system. -In scouting the first rule you have to understand is past performance predicts future achievement.

MICHAELLOMBARDILEADERSHIP/COACHINGWISDOM–ZAKBOISVERT–PICKANDPOP.NET-We had this thing in Cleveland called the few, the proud, the free, and that was after the draft, we would invite as many guys as we could. Now this was back in 91, 92, 93, people weren’t doing this. It was the Branch Rickey approach to scouting. So we invited all these players in, we found Orlando Brown and Wally Williams like that. And we would say, look, "We’ll give you a try out, if you’re good we’ll sign you to a contract, if not we’ll send you home." And that’s essentially what we started back in 14 when I went to the Patriots, we kind of reinvented the few, the proud, the free, brought Malcolm Butler in, and instantly once you saw Butler go through a day of workouts, you said wow, and he signed a contract immediately. It was that obvious. He got a nickname "Lil Deion" from the first practice. -On Jacoby Brissett: He had learned the offense, we taught him a couple of things, he met with the staff, and you could just see football was important to him. And if football is important to him and you have skill, you're going to get better. -On not signing Terrell Pryor after he worked out for the team last December: We blew it. The league often gives you a chance to be great and if you don't take advantage of it, it's your own fault. -Bill and I went and spent time with Jerry West when the cap was put in. He told us that draft picks are fool's gold. If you don't hit with them, they're not any good. You have to make sure you hit with them. If you keep trading picks because what you end up doing is you're on a doctoral study. -Percy Harvin was an accessory. It's like something you put your phonecase into. You never drive to the stadium and say, "Oh my we're playing Percy Harvin today." Why are you paying all that money for a gadget?

MICHAELLOMBARDILEADERSHIP/COACHINGWISDOM–ZAKBOISVERT–PICKANDPOP.NET-You could see his quickness, you could see his explosiveness, you could see his ability, and all of those things you saw on tape, but because it’s West Alabama, and the level of comp…One of my pet peeves in football is when you hear people on TV say I’ve watched every single game on this college player, Good for you big guy. It’s insane because college is about level of comp, not watching every tape. Like I could watch a player play against Alabama and that’s going to be a heck of a lot more valuable than watching him play against Vanderbilt, no disrespect to Vanderbilt. So it’s all about level of comp. So you don’t know when you’re watching Malcolm Butler at West Alabama, he looks like he can run, he’s got quickness, he’s got instincts, he guesses, which a great corner always has great ability to guess, so you saw all those things, but you just weren’t sure. And then once we brought him in it was pretty obvious. -It's the "Scott Williams Theory." Remember when the Sixers signed Scott Williams from the Bulls and they thought he was gonna double his stats because he played ten minutes and had like 8 points and 5 rebounds? So they thought they were gonna get 16 and 10. You expand their role and you expect the same production. That's not always how it works. -Donnie Walsh told me this back in 1995: "You have to know what you're trading before you can make a trade." Belichick knows what he's trading [giving up Jamie Collins]. He's trading a guy who is very talented, but very moody and very inconsistent with his effort. For him, to pay that guy a lot of money, it sends a message to the locker room that says, "Hey I tolerate this and reward this." He's never doing that. With Belichick, every message he sends in terms of a contract is a message to the locker room. -If you're spending 12 games watching a prospect, that's not efficient evaluating. -Al Davis watched the Senior Bowl religiously. The reason he did was he felt that it controlled the level of competition for him. It took away that question of level of competition. He could evaluate the player for what he stood for.

MICHAELLOMBARDILEADERSHIP/COACHINGWISDOM–ZAKBOISVERT–PICKANDPOP.NET-You can't be Jed Clampett. Jed Clampett lives in the woods in Tennessee and shoots something and finds oil. You can't limit yourself by trying to find the oil with one shot. You can't be a stockbroker who only wants to invest in drug companies who refuses to diversify his account. Ted Thompson has become Jed Clampett. His only way of acquiring talent is through the draft and you just can’t do that—this isn’t the Beverly Hillbillies. -One thing about New England, that's not a recruiting visit. You're not taking them out to dinner. That's a job interview. We're going to learn about you. Some of the teams are like, "Oh we're going to take you out to dinner." Like, really? We don't have to recruit them. They might not like our colors. Who cares? I mean, the mascot doesn't matter. Look, this is a job interview. They're not interviewing us. We're interviewing them. LOMBARDI ON FALSE DUALITIES

-To be a head coach in the NFL is a hard job. Someone on that sideline should present all the variables. We call this “false dualities.” Most coaches look at it like it’s A and B when it's really A, B, C, D, E and F. When you can figure out what the C, D, E and F are, that's when you're the better coach. Belichick is looking at C and D when the guy is hung up on his A/B coin-flip. -There's a thing called "false duality." You think you have a decision between A and B, but when really the decision is between A, B or C. Inexperienced head coaches can't see the C. Everybody thinks it's A or B, but the thing is there's always a C. The great ones find out about the C. You have to find out the alternative. You can't just look at two things, you have to have a broader perspective. LOMBARDI ON GAME MANAGEMENT

-Sometimes as a head coach, you need to understand who your opponent is. Is it your opponent or the clock? Sometimes it's both.

MICHAELLOMBARDILEADERSHIP/COACHINGWISDOM–ZAKBOISVERT–PICKANDPOP.NETLOMBARDI ON HEAD COACHES -The number one job a head coach is to prepare for every contingency that might happen during the season. -The head coach’s personality will be the team’s personality. -This is the time of the year where coaching really matters and how you set up the game plan and how you execute the game plan is so critical come playoff time. This is a great opportunity for Bill O'Brien or Jack Del Rio to script the way they need to play the game to win and understand that everyone is going to focus on the inability of the quarterback, but there are other parts of the team that can be successful and they have to find a way to utilize those. -Bill Belichick looked at his defense and said, “I need to take a bigger hand in this.” He fixes problems. Belichick is the head coach of the New England Patriots. He isn’t outsourcing his defense to Matt Patricia, he’s not outsourcing the offense. It’s his building and his name is on it so he’s going to be intimately involved. -When you try to make everybody happy, you know who you make happy? Nobody. -The best case scenario for a head coach? To win a game when you didn't play well. It sharpens the players' focus. -You know what the difference between a manager and a leader? A manager does things right – the leader does the right thing. -We need to break down why Green Bay now is so good and why they weren’t five weeks ago: they defined the roles of the players.

MICHAELLOMBARDILEADERSHIP/COACHINGWISDOM–ZAKBOISVERT–PICKANDPOP.NET-New coaches don't know how to set up the game plan or how to set up a team like Belichick does, like Pete Carroll does, like Mike Zimmer does. They don't know how to set up a team to prepare for the fight. -Four Traits of Leadership:

• Management of Meaning • Management of Attention • Management of Self • Management of Trust

LOMBARDI ON INJURIES

-One thing when you lose Gronk: you rally the forces around and you become more about the team. That’s one benefit an injury has—it has a tendency to band the team together more. -On David Carr’s injury: I think this is a time when Jack Del Rio has to earn his money. I think he's gotta be able to sell his team that there's a formula to win the game. LOMBARDI ON “INVERSE THEORY”

-The first rule of winning games is to avoid losing. You have to eliminate losing before you win. -One of the adages that Belichick always subscribes to is called the "Inverse Theory" by Charlie Munger. Instead of saying "What will it take to win?" you ask "What can we do to avoid losing?" Belichick always takes that approach and the number 1 way to avoid losing is to not turn the ball over. LOMBARDI ON KNOWING YOUR TEAM

-We're in the veterinarian business: the patient doesn’t talk to you. When you're running a team, the patient doesn't talk to you. You have to use indicators to tell you what your execution is like. What are you doing well? You have to figure out and have conditions about what your team is doing.

MICHAELLOMBARDILEADERSHIP/COACHINGWISDOM–ZAKBOISVERT–PICKANDPOP.NET-September is all about learning about your team. September is an extension of the preseason. You have to know your team. When you go to training camp, you have 10 moves you have to make - before the season and during the season. You have to find a way to make about 10 adjustments. Think of your team as a car. You're to going to have pit stops and you're going to adjust the engine and rotate the tires. September is your team telling you what your team needs and you better listen. You have to make those adjustments. -Here's what happens now: we're in November, teams' improvement must show up. You can't practice as much as you did in September or August. -Most teams that win aren't like Nicholas Cage who says, "I'm just having 2-3 drinks a day." The good teams say, "We have a problem. We need to fix it." New England's sitting there saying, "We're no good on defense. We're trading Collins. We're putting Roberts in." Whether it works out or not, I don't know, but they're having honest conversations with themselves. -If you know who you are, then you can play to your strengths and you become much better. -Before you make a decision, you have to correctly identify where you are. Continuity is great, but what if it’s not working? Where’s the problem? Is it the coach's fault? Is it the general manager's fault? It's the hardest thing to do in sports. There are 3 areas you must look at:

1. Players 2. Coaches 3. Scheme

o What's the problem? Is it the players, the coaches or the scheme?

MICHAELLOMBARDILEADERSHIP/COACHINGWISDOM–ZAKBOISVERT–PICKANDPOP.NETLOMBARDI ON LEADERSHIP

-With the Patriots, you can’t see their lack of leadership. Losing Jerod Mayo really hurts them because Mayo was their leader. Mayo wasn’t a great player but his leadership really impacted the Patriots. -It’s the perfect paradigm if you’re a young executive: you’ve got two really good young players [Ezekiel Elliott & Dak Prescott] and you’ve added them to an experienced team that understands how to play the game. Typically that doesn’t happen. Usually what you see happens is Todd Gurley goes to the Rams. He’s a great player on a young team and nobody knows how to win. LOMBARDI ON THE LOCKER ROOM -On the sanctity of the locker room (following Antonio Brown's "Facebook Live" situation): Vince Lombardi had a great saying, “What we see here, what we say here, what we do here, let it stay here when we leave here.” -Bill Walsh signed Jack “Hacksaw” Reynolds for one reason: his box of pencils. He he had a box of pencils taped in white tape and every pencil in his box was sharpened. He needed to teach his young team how to be professionals. Hacksaw would show up to every meeting with his box of pencils and Ronnie Lott would look at him and go, “Oh, that’s how you do it. That’s how it works.” That leadership that Hacksaw provided transcended itself through all of those 49ers championships. That box of pencils never left the building. Everybody that was in touch with it kept it going.

MICHAELLOMBARDILEADERSHIP/COACHINGWISDOM–ZAKBOISVERT–PICKANDPOP.NETLOMBARDI ON MENTAL TOUGHNESS

-That’s what the playoffs are about: toe-to-toe, punch-for-punch. You have to have enough to handle the fourth quarter. What we’re going to find out after Thanksgiving is conditioning matters. Conditioning of your football team really matters. Pad level of your football team really matters. The good teams are well-conditioned. The Jets last week in the fourth quarter were dead. They were tired, had no conditioning. This is where you find your conditioning and where you find your inner mental toughness. -Mental toughness matters now [in December]. How mentally tough are you? Can you go handle the cold and the elements and still play your best football? -You have to do what's right for the team. That comes down to mental toughness. What is mental toughness? It's simply doing what's right for the team that might not be right for you. That's where the Patriots win. -They're a true "Warrior Team" - they make plays when it counts. All the other teams on this list don't have near the mental toughness that Seattle does. The thing that always strikes me about Seattle is their ability to play in close games, never blink, never panic and find a way to win the game. They enjoy being in really close games and finding a way to come out the winner. Those are the hardest teams to beat. LOMBARDI ON MOTIVATION

-It’s so funny last night on TV they were talking about how much the Rams players loved Jeff Fisher. Well the Texas players loved Charlie Strong too. This isn’t a love business. We’re not on Love Boat. This is a business of ‘you gotta do what’s right.’ I mean we’re not pouring cocktails at 4 in the afternoon here. We don’t have volleyball on the deck. Not everyone is happy. I don’t care who is happy, I want to win. The only way to win is to demand things and push people to the limits and if they think they’re doing just good enough, they’re going to do just good enough.

MICHAELLOMBARDILEADERSHIP/COACHINGWISDOM–ZAKBOISVERT–PICKANDPOP.NET-On the Patriots improving defensively: Fear does the work of reason. I think the players were fearful of losing their job and now Belichick has come in and reasoned with them. -When I was in the building I would tell Jamie Collins this, "The team really is as good as you want them to be." He sets the tone and when he plays good, the team plays good defensively.” LOMBARDI ON OFFENSIVE SYSTEMS

-I have an uncle named Fred Palermo who believed that if you went to a restaurant and they had more than eight things on the menu then you should leave because they can’t cook them all good. You can’t do everything. -Some of it's Kirk Cousins' fault, some of it's the coaching staff's. He is who he is, you manage him. You've had him, you know who he is. Why do you think he's going to change? Manage him! Build the system around him that fits him. Don't ask him to do more because you gave him $18 million. -Do you have an offensive system or do you just run plays? -If you don't have any tendencies, you're not any good. Are there going to be things that defenses can scheme to take away? Sure, but that’s whey having a system (and not just an assortment of plays) is so important. And those are the great offensive minds, the ones that can map out (and counter) the defense’s adjustments ahead of time. -The best offenses - whether it be in basketball or football - don't have to substitute and can run multitude of offenses. -That's why tight ends are like knights on a chess board. Because they're so versatile in what they can do and they can attack from so many different places that when you have really good knight play in chess, you're a dominant chess player. When you have really good tight ends in football, you can have a dominant offense.

MICHAELLOMBARDILEADERSHIP/COACHINGWISDOM–ZAKBOISVERT–PICKANDPOP.NET-Everything the Patriots do is to get to the adjustments of the defense. That's the essence of their offense. What's their offense? We want you to adjust your defense. Once we know what your adjustments are, we have you in checkmate. -They rely so much on the talent of their quarterback and so much on the talent of their players. When their players aren't as talented, they don't do a lot in their scheme to enhance their players. If Amendola and Edelman were in Green Bay, they wouldn't be as good because New England is always scheming ways to get them the ball. Green Bay says, "Here we are. We're coming at you." Sometimes that works, sometimes they need more. That's a fine line you have to go through. If you do a little more, you're taking away what you do. I think sometimes when Green Bay plays these better defensive teams it shows up. LOMBARDI ON QUARTERBACKS

-Brett Favre said one time: "There's 3 kinds of quarterbacks: the quarterback who can throw it through the door, the quarterback who can hit the doorknob and the great ones can throw it through the keyhole." -Quarterbacks are like baseball stadiums. In baseball they build a team around a stadium. Quarterbacks are the same way. You have to build your team around a quarterback on his talent/skill-set. LOMBARDI ON PRACTICE

-On Cincy’s struggles: They're not playing with the same level of physicality. It's funny Pittsburgh's complaining about how physical their practices were, but it's really benefiting their team - they're one of the best tackling teams and they really break tackles on offense. I think that has something to do with them [physical practices]. What happens with Cincinnati is when you think you're a good team, you think, "Well if we just keep everybody healthy, we'll be ok." Well then you don't practice enough football. Their pad level is too high on offense, they can't knock anybody off the ball.

MICHAELLOMBARDILEADERSHIP/COACHINGWISDOM–ZAKBOISVERT–PICKANDPOP.NET-Remember: a football team is like a boxer. You have to prepare with sparring rounds before you go execute and play. LOMBARDI ON SCOUTING

-Gronk is what I call a "Tuesday Player." A Tuesday player is when you sit in the room on Tuesday and say to yourself, “How do we stop this guy?” The earlier in the week you start worrying about him, the better the player. QUOTES -Marcus Aurelius: “All victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious. -Winston Churchill: "The further back in history you look, you're able to predict the future." -Key to life in any business is if you think you know it all, you're in trouble. Once you think you've learned it all, you gotta keep learning -Some people are so far out of the race, they actually think they’re winning. -Bernard Baruch had a saying, "Every man has a right to his own opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts." -Mark Twain: “The greatest swordsman in the world doesn’t fear the second-greatest swordsman. He always fears the unconventional swordsman. He fears the unknown.” -George Young once said, "The hungry soldier is the best soldier." Sometimes when you overpay for a player, you don't get their best. -The product matches the design. -You can't learn to win until you've figured out why you lost.

MICHAELLOMBARDILEADERSHIP/COACHINGWISDOM–ZAKBOISVERT–PICKANDPOP.NETMISCELLANEOUS

-They lack confidence and they lack leadership. That’s the area that’s most important that fans don’t see. What fans don’t always understand about winning is this: Marcus Aurelius has this great quote, “The secret to all victories lies in the organization of the non-obvious.” It’s not obvious to fans that Seattle has incredible mental toughness. They don’t mind that Buffalo has the ball first & goal at the 9. They’re mentally tough you can’t see that. With the Patriots, you can’t see their lack of leadership. Losing Jerod Mayo really hurts them because Mayo was their leader. Mayo wasn’t a great player but his leadership really impacted the Patriots. -What Doug Pederson is doing is like if you and I go online today and steal all of Emeril's recipes and we're going to move to Houston and open a restaurant and only use Emeril's recipes. We're going to be out of business in about six months because we can't cook it as good as Emeril cooks it. It's the same thing with Doug Pederson. He can't run Andy Reid's offense as good as Andy Reid runs it. -If your best player - your number 1 receiver - isn’t going to act like a number 1 receiver in a key game, you’re probably not going to win. That game came down to two players - Dez and Odell. Odell made the play, Dez couldn’t. -The only way you can learn is by studying the other teams. -Arizona just needs to shut up and play good They're trying to get to the super bowl without climbing the mountain. Take it one game at a time. I noticed something when they reacted the way they did to the loss to Patriots in week 1, I saw something. There's an anxiousness in their organization that needs to go away. It happened to us in Cleveland after we won in '94. In '95 we started off slow and there was an anxiousness in the organization. You look back and you say, "Relax. We need to get better and focus on the task at hand." That was a mistake we made then and I see that mistake in Arizona because I see them acting desperate as opposed to being poised.