#230 Bill Belichick: 8x Super Bowl Champion on Winning, Leadership, and Discipline

0:00:04 The big thing about preparation and success is the price has to be paid in advance.
0:00:07 You have to put in the work before you get any results.
0:00:11 If you can eliminate all those things, then you can actually make progress on being a better
0:00:16 football player and winning games. Was there ever a time where you kept a player on the roster who
0:00:21 might not have made it from a talent level, but sheer work ethic, sort of kept them around not
0:00:25 only because they were improving, but because they made everybody else prepare harder?
0:00:28 Yeah, absolutely. Let’s start with Tom Brady.
0:00:37 Welcome to The Knowledge Project. I’m your host, Shane Parrish. In a world where knowledge is power,
0:00:41 this podcast is your toolkit for mastering the best of what other people have already figured out.
0:00:49 Today’s guest is Bill Belichick. Coach Belichick is an eight-time Super Bowl champion who’s widely
0:00:55 considered the greatest football coach of all time. He is the only head coach in NFL history to win
0:00:59 six Super Bowls, all with the New England Patriots. He’s currently the head coach of the
0:01:05 University of North Carolina football team, and this conversation needs no introduction. This is
0:01:09 amazing. I’m so happy to have Coach Belichick on. It’s time to listen and learn.
0:01:33 When I thought about where to start, I think the place that came to mind was the sign you had in the Patriots facility. And as every employee walked in, they read these four things. Do your job, work hard, be attentive, and put the team first. Right. Why did you want everybody in the organization to read that on the way into work?
0:01:39 Well, that’s really our game plan every day. Didn’t matter whether it was a day in the offseason,
0:01:44 a day in training camp, or the day before the AFC championship game, or the day of the AFC championship game.
0:01:47 Those things never really changed.
0:01:51 That we all had a job to do, whatever that happened to be, and every job was important.
0:02:09 Every member of the team was important that they do their job well. And being attentive and working hard is really the formula to getting better. That’s how you improve. You figure out what it is you need to do better, and that’s by being attentive and listening to people who can instruct you or help you get better.
0:02:20 And then putting the work in to make that positive change. Then always thinking team first. That’s always the most important thing. What do we need to do to win? And what can I do to contribute to the winning cause?
0:02:30 And so, regardless of what the task was, whether it was a coach, a player, a staff member, really any employee, it kind of fit for all of them.
0:02:42 So, and again, because we played and practiced in the same facility, as I said, it didn’t matter whether it was the AFC championship game or whether it was a day in March or a day in June.
0:02:46 It was the same every day. And so, we strove for that consistency.
0:02:51 What does it mean to work hard? There was a term in your book that stuck out to me called eyewash.
0:02:57 Working hard, sometimes people can come in and put in their time and check the box.
0:03:04 You know, a player can come in, put on his gear, go out, run around, break a sweat, take a shower and say, well, I, you know, I practiced today.
0:03:09 Well, but if you don’t really accomplish anything, then that really is not not working hard.
0:03:16 It’s actually we refer to it as a day off. No days off actually means, you know, you come to work and you go to work.
0:03:19 You don’t come to work, check the box, kill the time and then leave.
0:03:21 You need to be productive while you’re there.
0:03:33 So, you know, that is really just a way of saying, yes, we’re going to put in the work, but we need to accomplish the things that we set out to accomplish for that for that day and then build on those tomorrow.
0:03:41 Was there ever a time where you kept a player on the roster who might not have made it from a talent level, but sheer work ethic sort of kept them around?
0:03:46 Not only because they were improving, but because they made everybody else prepare harder.
0:03:52 Yeah, absolutely. Let’s start with Tom Brady. Tom Brady was a fourth string quarterback his rookie year.
0:03:59 He had three players ahead of him and and, you know, he just he just worked his way up.
0:04:04 No team keeps four quarterbacks at any level, high school, college, the NFL.
0:04:22 It’s it’s really almost unheard of. And he he he would be exhibit a Steve Neal, you know, a guy who never played high school football, never played college football, was a was a wrestler in college and then became a, you know, an offensive guard, started for us for seven years.
0:04:34 Julian Edelman, who played quarterback in college and and then became a receiver and upon returner to positions that he never played in college in the NFL and became very good at him.
0:04:46 So, yeah, absolutely. That work ethic and that day to day improvement, when you just stack those days together on top of each other for a sustained period of time on, you know, it levels out the talent.
0:04:56 Sure, talent’s important, but guys with a great work ethic and and who really are committed to improving can catch a lot of players with more talent who don’t work as hard.
0:05:05 Is there an example of a player who just had outrageous talent, but didn’t work hard at all that sort of ended their career a lot earlier or they never made it?
0:05:09 You know, they got to the the big league and then they they sort of just faded away.
0:05:23 Yeah, sure. I mean, there are lots of them. Unfortunately, you know, I referred to one of them in the book that, you know, talked about coming in and being a running back and, you know, being a combination of, you know, two great running backs that were in the Hall of Fame.
0:05:38 I think he had barely 100 yards in his entire career. So it’s, you know, talent’s one thing, but the application of turning that talent into being a productive football player and a great teammate is is it’s hard to do it.
0:05:58 It’s not that easy and talent get you through high school. It might get you through college, but once you get to the NFL level, that talent, that field levels out and there are only a few players that have such elite talent that they they don’t have to work very hard and can stay better than a lot of their competitors.
0:06:14 For the other 95 percent, if they don’t stay on it, they’re either going to get replaced or in a lot of cases, players that don’t trade hard will get injured and their careers will get cut short that way because they don’t, you know, commit to a good training regimen.
0:06:29 Are competitive people competitive everywhere? I think of like you, Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, and you’re always competitive in every everything you’re doing. And I’m wondering if that’s a trait of hyper competitive people or just the ones that reach the pinnacle of success.
0:06:56 No, I think it’s, I think it transcends everything. It’s unbelievable how competitive guys are, uh, literally over nothing. I mean, it could be for a t-shirt. Um, you know, uh, not having to run a couple sprints or, uh, an hour later on curfew, uh, they’ll compete in it. And honestly, it isn’t even necessarily for the prize at the end.
0:07:26 It’s just to be able to say, you know, I won, I competed and, you know, I, I beat you today. Or, um, if they don’t win just the, the love of the competition, the, the love of the prize, uh, and, and fighting for that, the, the pride to say, Hey, you know, um, we would have a lot of kind of team competitive events. Like, um, for example, a trivia, you know, or know your teammate, um, and, you know, ask questions about different teammates of, um, you know, maybe what position they played in high school, or maybe,
0:07:56 another sport they play, or, you know, some other random fact about teammates and, and play offense against defense or the wide receivers against the DBs or the O-line against the D-line and the rookies against the veterans and, you know, create different competitions and, uh, whether it was free throw shooting or cornhole or trivia, uh, or, you know, all different things like that. Um, guys that like to compete, love to compete. And, and, um, it was a lot of fun actually to, to, to move some
0:08:26 of the targets around for the competition. Um, you know, some guys are good at free throws. Some guys are good at trivia. Some guys are good, uh, you know, uh, closest to the hole golf shots, you know, whatever it is. Um, but it’s just fun to see them compete. One of the best things we did, Shane, was we would have usually one of our rookie offensive and defensive linemen, uh, would compete against each other and to catch a punt. Right. And so you put a, a, you know, an offensive tackle and a defensive tackle back there. And, and, uh, you know, you go one at a time. And the punter
0:08:56 would, would, would punt and, you know, we’d make sure that it was at least four seconds hang time. So, you know, the ball was up in the air and then, um, whichever, you know, whichever guy caught it first, um, then that group would win. And the other group would have to do extra sprints or, uh, the group that one would get out of bed check or, you know, whatever it was, but it was a good way of team building because all the players were rooting for their, their guy who had never caught a punt in his life probably. Right. You know, watching Vince Wilfork and Matt
0:09:01 like back there catching punts uh you know trying to track the ball and catch it and and of course i
0:09:07 made him punt you know so the returner had the sun in his eyes uh you know had to deal with that
0:09:13 uh but you know to watch those guys do something they hadn’t done before for some type of a reward
0:09:19 uh was uh you know it was a great team building exercise and and um they but they they do they
0:09:26 love to compete competitors are the guys that really love to compete um you know are honestly
0:09:32 the guys that get the most out of their talent you know because they just are are determined to work
0:09:37 hard prepare and and go right to the very end they might not be as talented as somebody else
0:09:44 but they they play and compete you know to the max you mentioned the last dance in your book what was
0:09:49 your reaction to watching that i mean i thought it was awesome and you know jordan’s one of the
0:09:57 greatest competitors in any sport ever and um you know just just you know his competitive spirit
0:10:03 is you know up there with the guys that he played with like lawrence taylor at north carolina those
0:10:08 guys they still compete all the time on the golf course so um i thought it was you know a great
0:10:14 insight into it you know brady’s a tremendous competitor julian edelman brewski every time a
0:10:19 brewski came back from stroke and and continue to play you know some of those guys rodney harris
0:10:24 it’s just it’s it’s it’s at an elite level which it should be in the national football league but it’s
0:10:29 just at an elite level i think one thing that surprised a lot of people when i talked to friends
0:10:36 who maybe casually follow the sports um it was how much you know jordan’s teammates had maybe a not love
0:10:43 relationship with him always and do you think that’s true you know i wasn’t around him enough to you
0:10:51 know the comment about that but um i i think if you don’t really like to compete that a top competitor
0:10:58 will kind of wear you down and it kind of um i don’t want to say resist to it but you know just
0:11:04 to resist and compete at that level um so i i have seen that from time to time but the guys that really
0:11:10 love to compete love to compete and they just join in there and compete with them one of the things you
0:11:15 you said in the book is you you cannot win until you keep from losing which reminds me of inversion
0:11:22 from charlie munger what what does that mean in a football context oh boy uh where we start
0:11:30 um anything um anything that anything that prevents you from achieving your best um that you control
0:11:36 so it’s not the opponent it’s it’s something that happens internally examples would be um you know
0:11:46 guys getting uh suspended for uh performance enhancing drugs or guys that uh uh wouldn’t hydrate
0:11:53 and would pull muscle you know pull hamstring pull a grind pull calf uh because they weren’t fully
0:12:01 hydrated those aren’t that’s not buffalo that’s not the jets that that’s us that’s us and in the game
0:12:05 um i’d say two of the biggest examples well there’s a lot of them but let’s start with penalties
0:12:12 um pre-snap penalties so penalties that happened before the ball snapped those are our fault you can’t
0:12:18 blame them on the other team false start illegal motion too many men on the field delay a game
0:12:24 like all that that’s that’s our inefficiency that’s not our opponents and really for the most part post
0:12:29 whistle penalties plays that happen after the whistle of blow has blown hitting the guy out of bounds
0:12:36 taunting illegal celebration you know stuff like that where uh you just get carried away emotionally
0:12:41 in the moment and and cost your team you know personal fouls rough in the pass or rough in the
0:12:47 punter stuff like that that that really happens after the play is over those are examples of of beating
0:12:52 yourself you know you can’t win until you keep from losing those plays aren’t because of what the
0:12:57 opponent did those plays are because of either our lack of concentration communication discipline
0:13:01 whatever happened to be and i’m not just putting it on the players i’ll put it on the coaches too
0:13:07 you know that’s our responsibility um to eliminate those um and other things turnovers for example when
0:13:12 when the offense turns the ball over uh and the defense doesn’t make a good play it’s just the
0:13:19 offense fumbling a snap fumbling a hand off the ball goes off of receiver’s hands uh pops up in the air
0:13:24 and the defense intercepts it uh plays like that that don’t have anything to do really with good defense
0:13:30 um the offense just gives the ball away you know snap the ball over the guy’s head the quarterback’s head
0:13:36 snap it over the punter’s head drop the snap um stuff like that just plays that are poorly executed
0:13:44 by us so as you can see it’s a long list shane uh some of them are off the field and some of them you
0:13:48 know some of them are on the field you know in college football would be you know being academically
0:13:53 ineligible i mean that’s you know that’s not your opponent’s fault that’s you know that’s that’s a
0:13:59 lack of commitment and uh you know doing the required academic work to be eligible to play so
0:14:02 those would all be examples of you can’t win until you keep from roots and if you can eliminate all
0:14:07 those things then you can actually make progress on being a better football player and and winning games
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0:15:30 shopify.com slash knowledge project there used to be days i’d open my inbox and feel buried like
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0:16:45 you’re supporting our show too notion.com slash knowledge project i remember reading something a while ago but the
0:16:52 difference between um being beaten and losing and it sounds like what you’re saying there is kind of
0:16:57 hinting at that yeah absolutely uh you know we’ve always said more games are lost than one in the
0:17:04 national football league and when i say lost i’m saying those type of things missed opportunities
0:17:13 missed assignments um poor clock management just just fumbling the situation more than the other team
0:17:19 um you know really really playing well to win a lot of times if you just
0:17:24 kind of get out of the way and let the other team make a mistake they’ll make one and and you can
0:17:29 capitalize on and take advantage now not all the time again you know as you go deeper into the season and
0:17:34 play play play better teams and playoffs and things like that that happens less frequently but
0:17:39 um in a lot of close games when you go back and really look at the way the game the outcome of the
0:17:45 game was the team that lost really probably should have won or or had had many good chances to win
0:17:52 and and just kind of messed it up and uh more than like i said the winning team going out there
0:17:59 making all these spectacular plays so again the big thing is um you know number one keep from losing
0:18:05 and number two make the plays you’re supposed to make i mean sure there’s some great plays out there but
0:18:11 before we get to the great plays let’s just make the the plays that you know you’re supposed to make
0:18:16 just the the regular ones the normal ones and that’s execution concentration uh and discipline to
0:18:22 to do it all the time you tell your players to focus on the the drawer to help them focus on what
0:18:30 matters what is the drawer and how does it help drawers a um was a saying that that we use to
0:18:36 uh especially at the end of the year like as you get into the holidays thanksgiving christmas new
0:18:41 years and then the playoffs um you know the end of the season’s in sight and wherever you are you know
0:18:47 you’ve put in you know all the work back into the spring training camp you know 10 12 14 regular
0:18:53 season games whatever it is and now you’re really coming you know coming down the home stretch and and
0:19:00 the drawer was just a way of saying um unless it’s a a family or personal thing that’s really important
0:19:06 um put it in a drawer dealing with it after the season you know you do you need to go to sign these
0:19:14 cards at the mall do you need to um you know go look for a new electronic whatever it is
0:19:20 can you put those things aside and just finish the season spend that time on preparation for our
0:19:26 opponents spend that time on um you know rest recovery training so that you’re your absolute
0:19:32 best when we really need you here in these last few stretch weeks and and as you know you know shane
0:19:37 when you get to a certain point every it’s a one game season you know if you lose you’re done and if
0:19:43 you win you get to play another week so when you get into that scenario put it off until next week and
0:19:48 if you’re in it next week put it off until the week after that um but this is what we’ve worked all year
0:19:54 for put those things in the drawer and then and then open the drawer when the season’s over now we would
0:19:57 joke about it and you know guys would say hey coach you know my drawer is getting pretty full here
0:20:03 um so you know what maybe you need a bigger drawer or maybe you need two drawers uh but the idea was to
0:20:10 put those things um on the back burner and focus on on the very special opportunity that we had in front
0:20:17 of us which was playoffs or championships one thing that seems to have evolved since you started coaching
0:20:23 is that time becomes more fragmented now players have cell phones they have more distractions they’re you
0:20:28 know i don’t have an hour to sit there and do a meeting i have all these competing things for my
0:20:34 attention how how have cell phones changed the locker room culture and made coaching easier or harder
0:20:40 or technology in that way well first of all we don’t have cell phones and apple watches and things like
0:20:44 that in our meetings so that they’re they’re not part of the meetings but when the meetings are over
0:20:48 you know a lot of times the guys race to see what you know messages and texts and so forth are there
0:20:54 um you know and my thing on that has always been again other than you know family and very personal
0:21:00 situations um you know the guys that are most important to to each of us are the guys in that
0:21:06 locker room you know the guys that you um you know win and lose with and live and die with each day
0:21:11 and that you count on them and they count on you so uh it was really very important for us to
0:21:18 to focus on those relationships and i i tried to downplay the you know how many likes or thumbs up
0:21:24 or whatever you get on different social platforms i don’t even know what those are um but what’s more
0:21:29 important is what the guy next to you thinks about you and the respect that that you guys have for each
0:21:34 other and the trust that you have in each other and and that’s something that you know in a you know
0:21:40 on a football team you you just you earn every day um every day you come to work uh as a coach
0:21:45 you know you earn the trust and respect of your players and and your other coaches by being prepared
0:21:51 by showing that you’re there to help the team and you can help the team win and again it’s the same
0:21:56 thing for every player and and when you earn that every day you build that trust and you build a
0:22:01 cohesive team and when you don’t you know those are the players that again that other players don’t
0:22:05 don’t trust as much is he going to run the right route is he going to be at the right depth is he
0:22:10 going to block the right guy is he going to be in the right gap and and that causes uh when you don’t
0:22:14 know what your teammate’s going to do that causes a lot of hesitation on your part and you’re kind of
0:22:18 waiting to see what he’s going to do instead of knowing what he’s going to do and then you can
0:22:24 aggressively do your job because you’re confident of the people beside you and um i learned a lot about
0:22:30 that with the um especially with the navy seals those elite teams i mean uh blue angels to be
0:22:35 another example you know those guys fly 18 inches apart and you know the amount of trust and
0:22:41 preparation and teamwork that’s involved in something like that going you know 600 miles an hour or seven
0:22:47 whatever it is um is is pretty amazing but you know the seals it’s the same thing like everybody’s got a
0:22:54 job to do and and you learn your teammates so well that you can even in a dark room uh you know pick out
0:23:00 his you know his silhouette or or something about him that identifies him and and you know each of
0:23:05 you count on each other to do their jobs and accomplish the missions and um you know that’s
0:23:10 obviously that’s at the highest level football we’re not talking about life and death here but
0:23:15 we are talking about the championship level of performance of having that same type of trust and
0:23:22 and um and belief and and confidence in your teammates so that you’re never questioning what
0:23:27 they do and you can be more aggressive and in doing your job and there’s never that look over
0:23:32 your shoulder of is he where he’s supposed to be you know if you know he is then then you can perform
0:23:38 better so um those are kind of the you know the themes that we we try to instill there i remember
0:23:43 talking to a navy seal once and he said you know when things get hard you’re doing it for the person next
0:23:48 to you when you want to quit or when you want to give up or how much of that is in football too i think
0:23:53 there’s definitely a carryover on that you’re you know you’re you’re playing for the team but you’re
0:23:58 playing for the guy beside you too you know and and uh especially in a sport like football or in in a
0:24:04 real battle situation like like the seals are involved in um you know you’re talking about potentially
0:24:11 getting hurt or you know or or worse in a seal situation where you know that guy beside you like
0:24:17 you have to count on him to to do his job to and you do yours for the same reason to protect each other
0:24:23 one of your most famous press conferences you said snap face or something and i literally spit out my
0:24:28 water when i heard you say that i was listening to the about social media you’re like snap face or whatever
0:24:36 the hell it is like yeah well i’ve battled those social media platforms and uh and and now i’m
0:24:43 actually on one so um you know college football is uh has kind of changed that a little bit i mean i’m not
0:24:49 too active on it but i am on it but um but again look i don’t really have anything per se against social
0:24:54 media it’s just you know prioritizing it and and as i said i think that in a football locker room
0:25:00 the relationships between the players the team and the coaches are are paramount uh more so than
0:25:06 people you’ve never met or seen or or heard of before what their opinions are and so i always
0:25:14 you know try to encourage our players to um yeah not be too consumed with that but you know we’ll worry
0:25:19 about the guy next to you that’s the one that matters the most how is technology changing the way
0:25:24 that players prepare in the sense of you know the story that comes to mind is certain jaden daniels
0:25:30 last year using vr to get more reps how walk me through how technology is changing and where it’s
0:25:36 really impacting uh people who are willing to put in the work yeah that system that jaden daniels uh was
0:25:42 referring to is one that he used at lsu and and then uh also used that with the commanders last year
0:25:47 uh it’s actually one that we have as well it’s it’s uh one that’s very hard to get it’s only
0:25:53 available very selectively and and so i’m pretty familiar with it um and it’s an incredible system
0:25:59 it enables you to see the game you know in a pair of goggles um in real life in real space and it
0:26:04 actually feels like you’re getting hit it feels like um you’re you’re right in the middle of the game but
0:26:10 you’re actually able to see things um what you do and then you can program in what your opponents do
0:26:15 uh to create a a very realistic picture and then you’re also able to adjust the speed so
0:26:23 you could actually play the game at let’s call it 105 or 110 percent of the actual speed um so that
0:26:29 theoretically you’re you’re having to react even quicker than you would in in a real game situation so
0:26:37 um i can see you know how that could really help especially uh for skill positions uh like quarterback or
0:26:46 um you know positions like like that where you can you you you have to see a lot of things uh very
0:26:51 quickly and and identify quickly what you know what decision you’re going to make that’s true of every
0:26:58 position the quarterback especially when you talk about distributing the ball um and and also for a
0:27:03 player who’s um who’s injured um so let’s just say that you had a leg injury and you weren’t able to
0:27:10 to practice uh or run full speed for a couple of days um you could actually see the game through this
0:27:18 product and get your recognition your reads without actually having to run and and you know be involved
0:27:24 in a in a situation uh that physically you’re just not you know what not ready for um but i’d say a lot
0:27:29 of the other technology is just you know things that maybe make it go a little bit faster ways of grouping
0:27:35 grouping plays together grouping situations together that you know allow you to to research and and uh
0:27:41 analyze those things a little bit quicker but that’s probably about across the board about the same for
0:27:47 everybody they all we all have the same opportunity on that i mean ultimately a lot of those situations
0:27:53 come down to preparation but also maybe a gut feel of the way the game is going you said in your book
0:28:00 the price of success is paid in preparation but you also said it was a way of working what did you mean
0:28:07 by that well i think the big thing about preparation success is is the price has to be paid in advance
0:28:14 you have to put in the work before you get any results so there’s no way to to honestly know how
0:28:21 good your preparation is or isn’t um that’s why i always try to emphasize keep preparing keep working
0:28:26 um you don’t know what the other guy’s doing he might be you know working just as hard as you are
0:28:31 and that preparation you know it can’t be after the fact of like oh i wish i would have studied more
0:28:38 it’s too late at that point you have to do it on the front end so um getting in condition um you know
0:28:44 studying preparing on your film and your opponents and all that like those things are all have to be
0:28:49 done on the front end and you know a lot of times uh there’s i would say a little bit of a tendency to
0:28:54 just sort of let up on the preparation well i’ve watched some film well i’ve done some extra sprints
0:29:01 well i’ve done this i’ve done that well is that is that enough you know is it really enough and and
0:29:06 if you do more will it make a difference um not to the point of diminishing returns but to the
0:29:14 point of you know comprehensive preparation so um that’s really what we try to try to um
0:29:20 emphasize on that the way that i think about that is sort of that you know the pain of losing is sharp
0:29:26 but it’s over fairly quickly but the pain of regret not putting in the work not doing the things you
0:29:32 didn’t leave it all in the field that lasts forever exactly that’s exactly it the pain of regret
0:29:39 is much more than than the pain of preparation absolutely i think you had a 24-hour rule sort
0:29:44 of after winner losses you have 24 hours to think about it and then you move on is that that’s right
0:29:50 yeah you play the game you go back you analyze it you what do we do well what do we do poorly what
0:29:53 do we need to do better what adjustments should we have made what coaching errors did we make
0:30:00 and so forth and and then you you factor all that into you know how does that affect this next week
0:30:04 sometimes there’s a lot of carryover sometimes the play team you play the following week is completely
0:30:10 different and some of those lessons may not really become applicable for a week or two weeks or three
0:30:17 weeks until you see a you know a similar type of opponent um say like a scrambling quarterback you know
0:30:21 maybe you play two or three weeks where those quarterbacks aren’t too mobile and when you get up
0:30:27 against another scrambling quarterback you go back and look at a how you know how how do we need to
0:30:32 to handle this better uh against this type of an opponent so um but yeah you look at all those things
0:30:40 after 24 hours win or lose or draw uh you you take your lessons and and you decide how you’re going to
0:30:45 incorporate any of those things into this week’s preparation and practice uh what we’re going to do
0:30:51 differently or maybe do more of or do less of whatever it is um and then you’re done with that
0:30:58 and you move on to your opponent and and spend the next uh five days six days whatever it is of just
0:31:03 you know digging in on that opponent and and what they do talk to me about the relationship between
0:31:10 the best talent in the world and you know you’re playing in the nfl you’re coaching in the nfl and
0:31:18 confidence well again it’s all relative you know shane i mean as good as um as good as as the players
0:31:24 are in the nfl um the guys on the other side of the ball are pretty good too and uh you know i’d say
0:31:32 every team generally speaking every team has about you know five or six players they’re elite have elite
0:31:38 payments elite contracts and then you might have some younger players in their first through fourth
0:31:44 year you know two or three four whatever those that are elite players they just haven’t hit those top
0:31:49 contracts yet um but they don’t necessarily match up in the same position you might have a tackle i might
0:31:56 have a guard you might have a linebacker i might have a corner and so forth um so um the way those elite
0:32:05 players match up is is very um specific from game to game and how you want to match them your your matches
0:32:10 against theirs and how you want to deal with that is you know that’s a big part of it i think the
0:32:18 confidence thing is really um interesting i think what really separates the great players um is their
0:32:23 ability to do it even when the bullseye’s on their back every week um like it was with tom brady like it
0:32:29 was with lawrence taylor like it is with patrick mahomes um like it is with you know players like
0:32:35 that lamar jackson and so forth every week the the teams are geared towards stopping those players
0:32:39 and game planning against them or putting their best guy on them or however you’re going to handle them
0:32:46 and for those players to continue to be productive um in spite of the game plan attention they get
0:32:53 is is what truly makes those players you know great and elite and i i think that um you know when
0:32:59 we had kobe bryant come in and talk to our team i think it was around eight 2018 19 somewhere in there
0:33:09 and you know kobe talked a lot about evolving you know and he said um you know look at when i was 22 23
0:33:15 you know i could just get the ball and drive by anybody and and score and he said i can’t do that
0:33:22 anymore i still score but i found different ways to score moving without the ball jump shots and you know
0:33:29 being better in pick situations and all those kind of things um that you know he said i found i found
0:33:37 ways to evolve my game um because i just couldn’t do the things i used to be able to do as well um but
0:33:42 there are other things i found that i can actually do better and i thought that was a great message for
0:33:49 all of us to hear that as we um you know as we go through our careers do the things that are working
0:33:54 do the things that you can do well but also evolve continue to learn continue to you know find ways
0:34:02 to to be productive that are maybe a little out of your comfort zone or um are not um you know habitual
0:34:09 for you now but if you can become good at them um they can be great you know great tools for you
0:34:15 are there any other people that you brought to speak from sort of different sports that sort of had
0:34:21 uh a different message that resonated with you or the team and just stands out in your mind oh yeah we
0:34:26 had a lot of them yeah we had a lot of them and and it was great because you know just the guys you
0:34:30 know they hear a lot of football stories but it’s good to hear all the ones uh one of the ones i thought
0:34:37 was particularly entertaining a couple of them one was uh paul assiante they won like 14 national
0:34:45 championships in a row they won like 160 some games in a row matches in a row i mean and at the
0:34:51 patriots we were favored in almost every game you know not every game but most every game for quite a
0:34:57 while and so you know i brought coach assiante and i said you know here’s guys won like 13 straight
0:35:03 national championships they won 160 some matches in a row i mean talk about being favored now like
0:35:09 they’re favored and and and like let’s listen to what that’s really like and he was great he talked
0:35:14 about it it doesn’t matter whether you are or aren’t or how many you have or haven’t won every day is an
0:35:19 opportunity you make the most out of each day and you just get better each day and you don’t worry
0:35:24 about what you’ve done in the past you just you look at today’s opportunity and make the most out of it
0:35:29 it was great so one of our code one of our players sticks his hand up and said hey coach i have a
0:35:37 question what’s squash i thought it was a vegetable hey jimmy johnson you know we were going into the
0:35:43 playoffs and jimmy came up and he was doing a um uh you know a story on somebody and i said hey would
0:35:48 you mind you know talking to teams so sure so he said yeah let me tell you a little playoff story here
0:35:53 you know when i was in dallas we were getting ready for the playoffs and we were in a special teams
0:35:58 meeting i’m standing in the back and i see i see one of our one of our players back there kind of
0:36:03 dozing off and and not paying attention and he said he wasn’t a it wasn’t a starter but he played in
0:36:09 special teams and he said it just really annoyed me and so i went over i flipped on the lights turn the
0:36:14 lights on at me and i went over to him i said that’s it you fall asleep in this meeting uh we don’t want
0:36:20 you this is your primary job you can take your playbook and and go see the job manager you’re done
0:36:25 you’re cut and everybody like whoa you know that woke everybody up and you know it was right before
0:36:32 the playoffs so you know any questions um yeah coach um what would you have done if that had been
0:36:39 troy aikman jimmy said well i wouldn’t have turned on the lights i probably would have gone over to him
0:36:48 and nudged and said like hey troy pay attention and the message was if you have a lot of pelts on the
0:36:55 wall you you might have a little more slack if you don’t have a lot of pelts on the wall you don’t have
0:37:02 any room you don’t have any room you can’t live on what you’ve done because you haven’t done enough
0:37:08 you better know where you are and until if you’re troy aikman and tom brady you you go but he goes
0:37:14 those guys would never do that anyway but you that you might be able to survive that but if you if you
0:37:20 don’t have that kind of resume you haven’t had that kind of production for this team so you nobody wants
0:37:25 that you’re replaceable they’ll find somebody else who will stay awake in the meetings and who will be
0:37:31 more attentive and uh it’s pretty funny i just nudge them and say hey pay attention
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0:40:23 did you treat everybody the same i remember one story and maybe it’s just uh sort of the press
0:40:28 uh doing the press thing but where you sent uh jarell revis home from practice because he was like two
0:40:34 minutes late or something oh we had a few of those yeah we had a few of those and honestly those are
0:40:40 tough ones you know shane because when you send a player home it it hurts the team it it doesn’t just
0:40:45 hurt the player it hurts the team because you know you need the timing and and the communication and the
0:40:51 teamwork out there but i try to treat them all the same but i i do think jimmy johnson i believe that and
0:40:58 coach parcells uh you know same thing yeah that did the same thing there were um certain players
0:41:05 got a little more grace than others based on um you know what they had done for us and and they
0:41:11 i would say kind of earned that so um i tried not to do that but there were times when you know when i
0:41:17 did i but i tried to treat everybody the same you know they’re not all the same but you certainly want
0:41:23 everybody to feel that you know we’re all team members and it’s not um you know we don’t have a
0:41:28 an elite society here we have different ranks and certain players can do some things and other players
0:41:35 couldn’t so i tried to make it as consistent as possible but at the same time uh i think you have to be
0:41:42 flexible in in a professional football environment for some latitude and and maybe for some it’s called
0:41:47 exceptions to your rules you sent one player home from the super bowl for having somebody in his
0:41:54 hotel room was that a hard decision or was that a how did you make that was that team first and you
0:41:59 violated the rules you’re you’re out or you know i made it very clear before we went down there that
0:42:05 you know it was a business trip and yeah we had a great year and and we were all celebrating the the
0:42:12 super bowl and and uh and what we had accomplished to get there um but here are the rules and and
0:42:17 you don’t have to break the rules go to the other person’s room if you want to be with them but our
0:42:24 floors are secure and and at the super bowl in particular there’s a good reason for that um you
0:42:29 know with super bowl tickets and and guys with valuables and stuff like that if it’s not one of our
0:42:36 players on the floor i don’t know whether that person is a friend of our players or an intruder
0:42:42 there’s really no way to know and no matter you know i mean unless i knew the person for some reason
0:42:47 but you know what i mean you just don’t know who that person is so our policy was players only on the
0:42:54 the floor period that’s it and so um you know it was unfortunate because i wasn’t trying to
0:43:00 say hey you can’t have guests or you can’t you know be with your friends or your your companions
0:43:06 or anything that wasn’t it it’s just don’t do it on that floor do it somewhere else i don’t care
0:43:13 and and again i was trying to protect the players by not having people on our floor that we didn’t know
0:43:19 that could roam in and out of rooms or could you know and and if you don’t if you don’t remove
0:43:23 those people then you end up with you know potentially somebody leaves their room then
0:43:28 that person walks in then you have a big mess on your hands so that was our policy not just in that
0:43:34 game but everywhere but unfortunately uh because that game was you know we were there for five days
0:43:41 um i just felt like it was a blatant violation of our rule i want to come back to confidence for a
0:43:45 a sec one of the follow-ups i meant to ask was there ever a moment where you had your confidence
0:43:54 shaken and how did you handle that oh plenty of times um i i mean honestly shane there were times when
0:43:59 you know i wasn’t sure if we were going to win another game the entire year
0:44:05 you know and you know we ended up winning a lot of them you know but sometimes you just see
0:44:13 um problems and and maybe you want to fix them but you just don’t have the resources to fix them where
0:44:18 you’ve tried a couple different things and it still isn’t really uh the way you want it and you can see
0:44:24 in the future some real problems coming up with your opponents and some match-ups and whatever the case
0:44:32 might be and and you’re like i mean i don’t know like i mean i’m trying to fix this but i just don’t
0:44:37 feel very confident that that we actually are going to be able to handle it the way we need to and uh
0:44:46 and ultimately you know in most cases um it wasn’t maybe as bad as what i thought it might be i was
0:44:52 expecting the worst and and that usually didn’t happen so that’s a good thing but um yeah i don’t know
0:44:57 know if that’s a lack of confidence or or i don’t know what the exact word is but yeah you definitely
0:45:04 have those apprehensions and certainly opening day is a is a is a difficult day because you don’t know
0:45:10 very much about your team you don’t very know very much about your opponent’s team um and and unless you
0:45:17 have a really veteran team you don’t know exactly how the team is going to react in certain situations
0:45:23 particularly tough and critical competitive situations um so you know even though you have
0:45:29 a good team how are they going to react when you know you’re really in a in a really a tight ball game
0:45:33 and that’s that’s something that you don’t know until you’ve been in a few
0:45:37 unless you’ve been in a few with those guys and it’s the same guys
0:45:44 when you first started in the nfl you worked for nothing you were you worked part-time for nothing
0:45:49 and then you switched to full-time for nothing yeah and one of the things that you said was i did
0:45:56 anything and everything and i think of this as like a taste for salt water you do the hard things but you
0:46:01 were snapping the football but you were like oh the benefit was i got to listen to coach talk to the qb
0:46:06 and walk me through like how that’s changed today and what people miss when they hyper specialize
0:46:12 well i think one thing that that i see with you know some of our younger staff members coaches and
0:46:18 things like that is they’re they’re very concerned about their title you know can i be the can i get
0:46:24 this title can i get that title and the coaches of you know can i be the run game coordinator can i be the blitz
0:46:31 coordinator can i be the zone coverage coordinator can i be the i mean it’s like what are those titles
0:46:37 for like they don’t impress me i know what your job is i mean do you need that title to you know
0:46:42 validate what you’re doing or is it for somebody else and i’m not really interested in helping
0:46:47 somebody else i mean we we all know what we do here i mean honestly i was a general manager
0:46:55 um for almost 30 years of my nfl career and i never had a general manager title that was never important
0:47:01 to me um i didn’t care about what the title is you just you do the job that you have to do so
0:47:11 i see that but for me when i look back at it retrospectively um shane the big thing was i was
0:47:18 so low on the totem pole that i did all the jobs at the very bottom of the organization i shot film i
0:47:27 lined the fields i moved equipment out there i ran off xerox copies i you know made notebooks i sharpened
0:47:36 pencil i did all those things and as you move up in the organization it really helped me because i
0:47:42 understood how everything functioned you know at the you know at the at the level of you know making
0:47:48 things work you know deliveries and you know mail and stuff like that i mean all those things that
0:47:54 needed to happen um i understood kind of the process of it how it worked and what was hard about those
0:47:59 jobs and what wasn’t hard about those jobs and and as i you know gained more responsibility in the
0:48:04 organization i was always able to show appreciation for the people that were doing those like hey i
0:48:08 know this is really hard or hey i know this is a tough week i i could sense what you’re going through
0:48:15 and i think that built some you know camaraderie and trust there but also it helped me understand how
0:48:20 everything worked and there were multiple times when people come to me and say oh coach we can’t do this
0:48:23 you know we can’t do this we can’t do that and i said wait a minute i’ve done that job before
0:48:30 we can do that here’s how you do it here’s this is how you make this work and and so i i felt very
0:48:36 confident about all the aspects of the organization how they fit together and you know scouting and
0:48:41 coaching and like i said equipment and video and security and travel and all those things because i was
0:48:48 a part of those um in one form or another at different points in my career so i i think you
0:48:54 know for a lot of people you know when i talk about we need to start at the bottom you really need to
0:48:59 understand how the organization works there’s a lot i want to skip those steps there’s i want you know i
0:49:04 just want to jump up and and coach the line and linebackers or the tight ends or whatever it is
0:49:12 and i’m like that’s okay but it would really help you to understand what happens in the entire
0:49:17 organization and if you want to really move up and become a coordinator and a head coach those will
0:49:24 be very valuable for you because you’ll understand you know the the different uh intersections of various
0:49:31 departments and how the organization works and and where the conflicts are you know and sometimes there you
0:49:37 just you know kind of two people doing the same thing or nobody doing one thing and you you miss
0:49:43 that intersection somehow and and that’s just part of it but you know how do you avoid those and how you
0:49:50 make that more efficient so i really try to encourage our our the younger people you know to do those jobs
0:49:56 and embrace them don’t how quickly can i get done with this so i can go do something else no embrace the job and
0:50:02 embrace the process and and you know understand it because it’s going to help you in the long run
0:50:07 and the other thing is you know as i mentioned a couple times in the book with um you know josh
0:50:14 mcdaniels and nick casario and brian dable um if somebody has one of those jobs and they’re really good at it
0:50:19 and they say well i want to move you you know i want to move to more responsibility and i said well i want
0:50:24 you to move to more responsibility too but first you got to train somebody to do your job because what
0:50:28 what you’re doing is really valuable and that’s when brian dable hired josh mcdaniels to replace him
0:50:36 that’s when josh mcdaniels hired nick casario to place him and so uh but it forced those guys to make
0:50:42 sure that the person that was replacing them was not only good but they trained them to do the things
0:50:48 the way they needed to be done and and that really heightened our efficiency but also enabled them to move up
0:50:55 to uh responsibility move up in responsibility and so um that really worked out well i was you know
0:51:02 i thought that that was for me that was a good way to handle it because those guys were very invested in
0:51:06 making sure their replacement did a good job because they knew they were going back to do that job
0:51:12 if that person if their replacement failed a lot of people when you ask them to do sort of the
0:51:22 unglorious task they just look at you and say that’s not my job yeah yeah it’s not my job or i’ll get to
0:51:29 it you know tomorrow i’ll get to it next week or whatever and those are you know i i mean i don’t
0:51:35 like to have those type of people you know around and sometimes it’s it’s inevitable you have to put
0:51:40 something off maybe i get that but um the quicker you get it done the quicker you can move on to
0:51:44 something else and be more productive and you know the more you procrastinate it then
0:51:52 you know it it just slows everything down so um there’s got to be a priority system i mean i’m fully
0:51:57 aware of that but um you know but people that want to put stuff off and and kind of hope that it won’t
0:52:03 need to get done um they didn’t do very well in our organization one thing you mentioned that stands out
0:52:08 to me i think of this like stepping stones where people have a job but they see it as
0:52:13 a stepping stone to the next job right so they’re never fully present in the job that they’re doing
0:52:18 because they’re always looking ahead and those people don’t actually tend to do very well at the
0:52:23 next level absolutely and and like i said then they miss some of the things that they really need
0:52:28 to understand at the level that they’re at and again that’s just part of do your job you know
0:52:33 that’s just part of it is is everybody has an important job to do and if you’re trying to do
0:52:39 somebody else’s then you’re probably not doing yours well enough and um you know be patient and
0:52:45 you know your your opportunities will come um as long as you know you show that you can handle
0:52:50 the responsibilities that you currently have but you’re right a lot of times there’s a big rush to move
0:52:59 ahead and and that um a lot of times also brings sloppy work incomplete work um and honestly just a
0:53:05 a feeling that i don’t not really confident promoting that person because you know they’re more interested
0:53:10 in what they are going to be doing than what we need to do right now how would you define discipline
0:53:16 discipline is is is doing the right thing over and over again doing it every time
0:53:23 it’s just continuing to do it every time in the national football league the players are very skilled and
0:53:28 talented and and i would say you know all of them can do something um they can all go out there
0:53:36 and produce you know plays at a very high level um the discipline is what is what really separates
0:53:43 the players is their their consistency and their discipline to do it over and over again um so you
0:53:50 can count and depend on um you know at a very high and high rate are there any stories in your mind that
0:53:56 stand out about discipline or consistency involving players you’ve coached well i mean i told the story
0:54:01 of edelman you know catching balls before the super bowl tennis balls and stuff like that i mean those kind
0:54:08 of things that um you know that players do they have a routine and you know if a guy’s played eight nine
0:54:15 ten whatever years um if they skip a day in their routine i mean is it going to be the end
0:54:23 probably not but they’re just so disciplined and so consistent to just continue to do it uh and maybe even
0:54:31 do just a little tiny bit more um to to make sure that they’re prepared for the game uh especially the big games
0:54:39 that um that’s that’s just who they are so i mean i i really i really respect that but you know it’s
0:54:44 it’s a little bit like the shopping cart you know um when nobody’s looking are you going to take the
0:54:48 shopping cart back and put it in the you know where it belongs or just leave it there in the middle of
0:54:56 the parking lot and it’s the same thing with a really disciplined uh player and teammate um is is he
0:55:03 going to be disciplined to you know go in and get treatment after practice um you know even though
0:55:09 it’s two days before christmas or you know whatever it is where is he just disciplined to
0:55:16 not let something get in the way of of his productive routine and that’s um you know the
0:55:21 the guys that the guys that do that um i would say have for the most part have had very long and
0:55:27 productive careers and and the guys that haven’t have careers that that go to a certain point with
0:55:35 talent uh but they don’t have the same the same kind of uh longevity and consistency uh of a player like
0:55:41 matt slater or dev mccourty or tom brady or guys like that that people keep saying you just keep
0:55:45 waiting for those guys to drop off well they’re a year older they’re a year older they’re a year
0:55:50 older but you don’t see the drop off because their routine and their and their discipline is so
0:55:56 consistent that they’re able to they’re able to sustain that level of performance um you know
0:56:02 far longer than really what the expectations in some cases are do you believe you can motivate
0:56:08 people and if so how i think you can definitely motivate them and and it depends on the person i think
0:56:13 there are different types of motivation um you know we could uh there were times where i think
0:56:18 you could really you know motivate a player by just you know flat out challenging them um based on
0:56:24 something that you know somebody else said or intimated or something that might have happened in
0:56:33 the past uh i think you can you know motivate people by um uh you know especially you know sometimes
0:56:40 maybe a more selfish type of player you could motivate by you know making him see uh what the reward is for
0:56:47 himself as opposed to the team um an example i like to use shane is if you have a receiver and
0:56:51 you want the receiver to come in and block on a running play and come in and block a safety which is a hard
0:56:57 job um you know some receivers don’t really want to do that they’re really not too excited about that
0:57:01 they want to catch passes um but if you say well look if you come in and block this guy
0:57:06 um and we need you to block him as a team we need you to block him we’ve come in and block this guy
0:57:12 um then the next time we come in and and you’ll do the same thing but fake it and we’ll be able to throw
0:57:17 you a pass when the defense comes up to solve the play well the player’s not coming in to block him
0:57:22 because you asked him to block him and we need really need you to block him um that julian edelman
0:57:28 would do that but it’s not everybody would necessarily do that uh but when they understand
0:57:33 okay if i come in and do it this time that opens up an opportunity for me the next time
0:57:41 uh then they might do it right and so now i get what i want he gets what he wants um there’s some
0:57:48 management and motivation in there but in the end um both parties are able to accomplish their goals
0:57:56 i get the team goal the player gets the individual goal he sacrifices for the team but for the other
0:58:02 reasons um so uh again i think there are different methods of doing that it really depends on you know
0:58:09 how the player is wired and maybe what circumstances you know you can use certainly when you’ve lost to a
0:58:16 team previously um that’s a pretty good motivator for for most of these guys um because you know you
0:58:23 take those losses personally and since we lost as a team that is everybody it’s not you know one guy got
0:58:29 a pass caught on them or one guy got tackled i mean it’s it’s a full team loss so a lot of times you can
0:58:37 you know you can generate a lot of um uh energy towards your opponent by um you know referencing that you
0:58:43 know that that loss or situation that might have happened in a previous encounter as a leader how
0:58:50 did you know when to be hard on players and when to sort of back off and i’m thinking you know when a
0:58:55 player makes a critical mistake in a game and they know they’ve made a mistake what’s your role in that
0:59:01 moment well again shan i think it depends on the mistake you know if it’s um sometimes you know
0:59:06 something that kind of unexpectedly happens and maybe the player made a bad decision or maybe he did something
0:59:12 that you know he’s caught that pass 100 times and and he’s dropped it once and this is the one time
0:59:20 um you know uh some of those are a little easier to handle um i’d say the ones where you know you’ve
0:59:24 told the player 10 times this is what you need to do when this happens and then they don’t do it i’d
0:59:29 say the reaction is a little bit different in that situation you know how many times they have to be told
0:59:33 and you know what maybe maybe you know you just don’t want to do it we’ll put somebody else in there to do it
0:59:39 because i can see that you know you’re not you know you just don’t care enough to follow your
0:59:45 assignment so um you know it kind of depends on those i i think one of the biggest things in football
0:59:52 is correcting mistakes and we all make a lot of them um but when during the game when time is of the
0:59:58 essence and you don’t have much time um you need to figure out what went wrong pretty quickly and fix it so
1:00:06 let’s say defensively we came off the field and we’d given up a 20-yard run um and maybe a 15-yard
1:00:11 pass and another third down conversion and say okay all right like what are the issues on these plays
1:00:19 well let’s say the 15-yard run would be if one person knows that that they messed the play up
1:00:24 and just says hey it’s my fault i messed it up like that was we were in good shape i was right there i
1:00:29 shouldn’t made the tackle i just missed the tackle i’ll make that play the next time well great that
1:00:33 clears it up for everybody we all know we’re gonna do the same thing we did the last time and and this
1:00:41 time i know that you know my teammates going to make the tackle versus um you know kind of a blame game
1:00:47 where i was here and i don’t know i should have been there and should i do this and should i do that
1:00:54 and was i too deep and this and that and then it’s you know what’s the issue how do we fix it right and
1:01:00 so if you know you did something wrong just own it all right admit it and and let’s move on um sometimes
1:01:04 it’s not that simple sometimes you kind of have to figure out well i did what i thought i was supposed
1:01:08 to do you do you were supposed to do he did what he was supposed to do we still had a problem okay now
1:01:15 that needs to be fixed and so um but again identifying mistakes and fixing them quickly is really the name
1:01:24 of the game and if as a coach you know when i would say um look that was that play was it was a bad call
1:01:30 i shouldn’t have called that defense against uh that personnel group or against that formation uh that’s my
1:01:34 fault it’s all me i’m not going to do that again forget about that play it’s not going to come up
1:01:40 again because i won’t call it again in that situation okay well then all right we’ll stop worrying about
1:01:45 that play let’s worry about something else so owning up to those mistakes and and making the corrections is
1:01:51 key if you don’t know what it is exactly then then that’s when you have to figure it out pretty quickly
1:01:56 whether those are players or coaches or some combination because if you don’t you’re just going
1:02:00 to keep you know you keep dealing with the same issue over and over again and you know none of us
1:02:06 want that when i say the words on to cincinnati what does that mean to you on the cincinnati well
1:02:15 it first of all means it was a long night in kansas city um you know we got we got totally beaten in
1:02:23 that game um out coached out played out everything they were just a far superior team than we were and
1:02:27 as a head coach you have to look at that and say you know i didn’t have our team you know where they
1:02:33 should have been and we didn’t play well we didn’t do anything well and it starts with me um
1:02:38 but that game’s in the books it’s over and there’s nothing we can do about it we can’t get it back
1:02:46 so or we just have to move on to cincinnati and make sure that we don’t perform next week
1:02:51 like we did last week you know don’t let one game become two bad games don’t let it become three bad
1:02:59 games don’t let it become a habit um change the things that we need to change so um we played
1:03:04 cincinnati the following week and you know our players did a great job of putting the kansas city
1:03:11 game behind us and focusing on what we needed to improve on and and and do better and get ready for
1:03:18 cincinnati who was you know a very good football team as well at that time and so um you know we’re
1:03:24 able to do that and you know it it became you know one of those one of those catchphrases but
1:03:31 really the idea of it was move on and let’s start getting ready for next week it’s kind of similar to
1:03:39 the situation we had in uh 2001 uh shame where we buried the ball you know we we lost to miami we
1:03:45 we didn’t play very well obviously didn’t coach very well and we came back and you know we just took the
1:03:52 team out there i got a shovel i dug a hole i took the ball uh you know we put it in the ground put the
1:03:59 dirt on the ball we stomp on it we spit on it we kicked it we you know took our frustrations out but
1:04:08 that was the funeral game’s over it’s done we lost buried the ball buried our feelings move on i’m not
1:04:15 saying that was you know this great thing but visually it it’s sort of the point of it was put
1:04:23 the game out of your mind it’s over we’ve had the funeral life goes on i’ve heard you say we’re building
1:04:29 a team not collecting talent what’s the difference the difference is it so it fits together so that the
1:04:36 the team is functionally as efficient as it can be uh not just a bunch of guys wearing the same same
1:04:43 uniform uh with different numbers but um a group of people who function well together you know as a team
1:04:50 and when you think about football um shane football is a team of teams right you you have the offense you
1:04:56 have a defense you have a hands team you have a punt return team you have a nickel defense you have a dime
1:05:02 defense you have a goal line offense and so forth you have all these teams and they all come together to
1:05:11 form one championship team and so you know the idea is whichever team you’re on um you need to be the
1:05:17 very best team that you can be in that situation if it’s a hands team it’s a punt return team whatever
1:05:23 it is like that is critical to our success and you have your responsibilities on that team i have my
1:05:29 responsibilities on some different teams but ultimately we all come together and and those
1:05:36 shared responsibilities and those shared teams um so that we can operate together functionally as a team
1:05:41 are are really what we’re trying to accomplish so it’s not just getting a bunch of guys who
1:05:47 you know can do have good skills um and can run fast and jump high or whatever i mean that helps
1:05:53 of course but they have to be able to operate as a team and as a team of teams and you know a lot of
1:06:00 that is a mentality is a willingness to uh to communicate and work with and efficiently uh cooperate
1:06:05 with your teammates so that collectively we can accomplish our goals when when our units are on the field
1:06:12 how has coaching changed in the past five years you know outside of rules changes and and things like
1:06:22 that um you know there are some trends and i know i think as look when you’re on defense you have to react
1:06:26 to the offense right if the offense have three has three tight ends on the field you’re not going to be
1:06:31 playing the same defense that you had when they have three receivers on the field um so defensively a lot of
1:06:36 what you you have to deal with now you can say look we’re going to play the same thing and make them
1:06:43 adjust to us but i mean there are certain matchups that just become um you know difficult to to sustain
1:06:51 that philosophy so um again what i’d say is it’s important to defensively be able to adapt to what the
1:06:56 offense is doing because ultimately you don’t control who they put on the field you just have to stop them
1:07:02 you know offensively um you know you take the talent that you have and try to make the most of
1:07:08 it so um i would say in college football which is where we get our resources from in the nfl
1:07:14 um you know some of that’s a function of of what’s available you know what’s coming out uh what they’re
1:07:19 teaching in college what type of players they’re developing um because that’s really what you have to
1:07:24 choose from so i do think there are some trends but fundamentally it it really comes down to
1:07:30 you know having good solid fundamentals um and doing the little things right that will enable
1:07:35 you to win your one-on-one matchups and i’d say i don’t think those have changed um too dramatically
1:07:42 over the years on the way out of the building you had a sign that read ignore the noise manage
1:07:49 expectations speak for yourself and don’t believe the fuel or hype can you walk me through those
1:07:57 yeah absolutely absolutely um well speak for yourself as is you know pretty obvious um
1:08:02 you know if you have any comments to make just make them you know personally you know don’t say things
1:08:07 like well shane’s looking really good this year i mean he should probably have 15 sacks the way he’s
1:08:12 he’s rushing the passer you know and start making expectations and predictions for other people things
1:08:20 like that ignore the noise i mean there’s so much um airtime that’s filled uh whether it’s uh on the
1:08:28 radio on the internet on tv of people talking about football all right and players and matchups and
1:08:34 everything and again with all due respect and look i’ve been part of that too so i understand but
1:08:40 um you know with all due respect the people that talk about it haven’t been in our building they
1:08:44 haven’t watched us practice they haven’t watched us prepare for the game they don’t know what our
1:08:50 matchups are they don’t know what you know they don’t know what our game plan is um so with all due
1:08:56 respect what they say as it relates to us it doesn’t matter if other fans want to listen to them i mean
1:09:01 that’s great but you know when they say well you know shane parish has got to shut down belichick or
1:09:09 they’re going to lose that’s you know it’s just hot air so ignore the noise it’s just ignore what
1:09:14 other people who aren’t really don’t know what they’re talking about are saying and focus on what
1:09:19 the people in our building in this room are saying what your teammates are saying how they can how you
1:09:24 can communicate with them how you can anticipate a play and and help them react to it and that kind of
1:09:30 thing um you know don’t feel the hype you know when things are going good i mean people can’t wait to
1:09:37 you know you’re three and oh and they’re selling super bowl tickets and they’re already talking about
1:09:46 you know repeats and all this stuff and our thing was don’t don’t add into that if other people say it
1:09:54 we can’t control that once we say it now now we have to own it you know and so uh belichick says you
1:10:00 know um uh we should be in the afc championship game and we’ve only played four games well then
1:10:05 everybody else has to react to that oh shane what do you think about what belichick said tom what do
1:10:09 you think about what belichick said grok what do you think about you know you it just creates a
1:10:16 distraction so um fueling the hype or believing the hype that four games into the season we’re talking
1:10:24 about an afc championship game is i mean ridiculous it’s just way too premature so you know don’t deal
1:10:29 with that one what was the last one ignore the noise don’t feel the hype speak for yourself manage
1:10:36 expectations manage expectations right and so like what are realistic expectations this week it’s to
1:10:40 beat the team we’re playing like our focus is on beating buffalo this week that’s who we play
1:10:48 that’s where we’re at um you know in terms of win the division you know which is eight weeks away from
1:10:54 now don’t talk about man winning the division like that’s not an expectation we can’t achieve that
1:10:59 right now even if we wanted to it’s only the fourth game of the year now if this was the game to win the
1:11:04 division then okay let’s talk about winning the division but until we get to that point you know manage
1:11:10 the expectations the expectations are to have a good day today have a good week and to win this game
1:11:18 those are our weekly you know and expectations you know not where we’re going to be in january who
1:11:24 we’re going to play in the playoffs or um again managing expectations of like oh this guy should
1:11:30 go out and you know he should have 200 2 000 yards receiving why don’t you just worry about what you’re
1:11:35 going to do and you know stop talking about what other people what your expectations are for them
1:11:41 that’s speaking for yourself but that’s also uh managing expectations or or a player saying well
1:11:47 i expect to you know i expect to go to the pro bowl well is that your goal to go to the pro bowl or is our
1:11:51 goal to win a championship and let’s go back here for a minute you know what what are our expectations
1:11:57 like let’s let’s think about what’s first thing first put the team first you know and that’s you know
1:12:03 team teammates self that was the whole you know um progression of you know trying to put the priorities
1:12:09 in order for for each of us i want to end i usually end with one question about success but i actually
1:12:14 want to change that a little bit here and flip that around and i want to talk about the atlanta super bowl
1:12:22 you’re down 28 to 3 and the thing that astounded me as a fan uh who’s watched a lot of football and a lot
1:12:28 of games uh was that nobody was sort of like hanging their head you know you look at brady on the sideline
1:12:36 you’re down 25 points and he still had confidence yeah you know shane it’s funny sometimes you play a game
1:12:41 and you feel like you have control of the game but you don’t have control of the score
1:12:47 and that was that game um i felt like we had pretty good control of the game but we didn’t control the score
1:12:53 at all there are other games where you have control of the score and you don’t have control of the game
1:13:00 you know maybe you’re ahead by 10 points but you know they fumbled they threw an interception
1:13:05 you got a lucky break and and you’re ahead but you really haven’t been able to move the ball you really
1:13:10 haven’t been able to stop them um they’ve just fumbled it away a couple times and and you kind of
1:13:15 maybe got a lucky play to to you know get your points and so you feel like you don’t have control
1:13:20 of the game but you’re ahead on the scoreboard and what you really want of course is to have control
1:13:27 of the game and control the score um but in that game we had a real confidence at halftime when it was 21
1:13:35 to 3 that um you know we’d given up a touchdown on a third and goal from the 12 we gave up a pick six
1:13:43 we fumbled going in um you know we missed some opportunities uh to you know maybe be tie or could
1:13:50 have even been ahead in the game at halftime 10-7 or maybe 10-10 something like that and so yeah the score
1:13:57 was bad but we felt like we were had control of the game well then they go out and score make it 28 to 3
1:14:04 and now i’m thinking you know we might have control of the game at 25 points is a lot to make up and
1:14:11 there’s a lot of things that have to go right um so two two-point conversions and a strip sack and
1:14:16 two kickoffs where we tackled them inside the 15-yard line so they couldn’t get in the field goal range
1:14:22 um and another sack and another holding penalty and literally everything went right for us in the last
1:14:27 you know 20 minutes of the game there was no lack of confidence because we actually felt like we had
1:14:33 control of the game we were moving the ball we were playing good defense but we just had a couple of bad
1:14:39 plays in there that that skewed us and skewed the score um but once that kind of settled down
1:14:46 you know we we were okay and um and then once we kind of got rolling again we had some plays that
1:14:51 we needed to make and and we made them you know um on both sides of the ball and in the kicking game
1:14:56 on those kickoffs so um everything had to go right and it did and we were very fortunate in that one
1:15:01 i really appreciate you taking the time today coach belichick and thank you for writing uh the art of
1:15:06 winning i loved reading it it was a great read thanks jane i appreciate it thanks for the opportunity
1:15:12 to be on uh it was a pleasure enjoyed speaking with you and um i look forward to catching up down the
1:15:17 road you know i just uh would be remiss if i didn’t you know say how much uh you know michael
1:15:24 lombardi has contributed to to my career and indirectly to this book i mean a lot of the things that that we
1:15:29 talk about and i talk about here are things that i share with mike or that mike helped me do and um you
1:15:36 know it’s great to be able to work with mike uh you know at north carolina um but he’s a um a
1:15:42 great motivator very well organized uh very efficient and you know as an excellent partner
1:15:48 to you know to build the program down there so um i really appreciate all of uh not only mike’s help
1:15:56 but his guidance and and you know his uh the daily coach and and the um you know the motivation that
1:16:01 he puts out on a daily basis is something that you know we all uh look forward to and enjoy carolina
1:16:06 i’m looking forward to getting down there watching again i look forward to having you shane
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