December 3, 2020
Opening statement: “Good morning everyone. I actually can’t believe you can possibly still have some more questions for me, but let’s go. Let’s shoot.”
On what it’s like to have spent so much time coaching in the NFC North: “This division means a lot to me. I’ve kind of joked (that) I feel like it’s my division. I’ve been in it for the entirety of my career for the most part. Just great football – all of the black and blue days, even when it was not the North, and it was different names. The rivalries that are here, I guess the history of football – some of the greatest places and organizations that are in football, and with some of the greatest people. I mean I learned a lot at every single stop. I was a young coach getting to work with Brett Favre. Obviously, it was amazing, and working from a (quality control) guy to becoming the quarterbacks coach there and coaching a guy that was actually older than you. So, all that kind of stuff’s fun. Going to a place like Minnesota, same thing. Bud Grant, the history there, all of those guys. Being able to talk to Bud Grant in the building. Coach (Brad) Childress was there with me, my college coach. So, a lot of history, a lot of just great memories from this division.”
On what his first day on the job was like: “I kind of liken it to a little bit like the end of the week of a game. There’s just so much of the buildup and the emotions and trying to just get everything right. Then once you play the game and it’s over, there’s that moment where you pause and there’s kind of just that little bit of a letdown and you just basically crash. So, I had a little bit of that moment yesterday. It was a great day. I mean (an) exciting day for me, for the team. Everything went about as well as I could have hoped for. All the things that we tried to get done, I thought everyone was on board. It was a good day. It’s just been a whirlwind, but it was a good day.”
On what time he crashed yesterday: “Well I was crashing earlier than I liked. I was sitting with one of the coaches trying to continue the gameplan, so I said, ‘Hey, I’ve got to get up for a minute and move around.’ The day still didn’t conclude until really this morning, I guess you could say. So, like 12:30 this morning or something.”
On what it was like to wake up this morning and repeat the process all over again: “Well I look at it as like, ‘I get to do it again.’ I mean I’m telling you: I’m so fired up. I mean I’m excited to be doing this. I’ve told the support staff around me – they’ve been great, like I talked about yesterday. Every day that I’m doing something in this role is new, and so it’s exciting, it’s refreshing. Again, just trying to do the best job that I can each and every day.”
On how much Hall of Fame QB Brett Favre has meant to him in his career: “There’s a lot really to unwrap there. Actually, the first time I met him was after – I believe it was after we won the Rose Bowl. So, I was still in college and he was recently coming off the Super Bowl. We had this little photoshoot together, so that’s the first time I met him. Fast forward like, I think it might have been three years, and I was in the room with him as a coach. So, I did start out as a young coach. I did a lot of listening. I learned a lot from those guys. I mean he’s in the room, Doug Pederson was in the room as a quarterback as well. I had Matt Hasselbeck, so I had a lot of really good, talented quarterbacks and smart guys. I did a lot of listening. The offensive coordinator, Tom Rossley, was great to me. It was learning the system, learning how we do things, and then after three seasons, I had earned enough respect from the head coach, from the coordinator and then of course the quarterbacks, super important in that, to become the quarterbacks coach. Again, you’re coaching a guy that’s older than you, but I had earned his respect. I always said if there was anything that you could ever tell those guys that would help them out, they were all ears. They were never too big for any coaching points or anything. They were there to listen if you had information that could help them. That taught me to always make sure that I was prepared, never take for granted going into a meeting. Those are brilliant guys and they’ve been studying for a long time, so make sure that you’re prepared and not try to act like you know something that you don’t. You better be prepared when you go in there.”
On his best Hall of Fame QB Brett Favre story: “I mean, I could go on and on. I don’t know if I have the best story to throw out at this moment, right off the top of my head. He was a jokester. I think those are some of the greatest memories that I have. I mean, him and Doug Pederson played off one another like Abbott and Costello or something like that. Those (two) were always going at it. It was a lot of fun to be in those meetings.”
On if Hall of Fame QB Brett Favre reached out to him this week: “He was not one of them (who reached out), but I have talked to him recently. He wasn’t one the last couple days, no.”
On how WR Kenny Golladay felt after practice: “Good day yesterday. I actually have not talked to Dave (Granito, head athletic trainer) yet to get an update on where he is when he came back in the building this morning. I’ll have that later.”
On if RB D’Andre Swift is still in concussion protocol: “That’s a touchy subject, obviously, with the concussion protocols and everything. It’s something that we have to make sure that we continue to work through with him. It’s kind of touch-and-go every day, but he’s still working through it. He was out on the field a little bit yesterday, trying to get him through some things. You guys saw him out there. So again, we’ll see how it goes today.”
On how he and Hall of Fame QB Brett Favre clicked: “I think the driving force is we love the game. I love, obviously, how this guy played. He played the game with all that energy, with all that excitement. He played it like he was an 8-year-old Pop Warner kid. That’s the first thing that jumps out at you, and then the guy was tough as nails. Some of the things that I saw him go through, the injuries that he had, not missing practice, not missing a game – the guys wanted to be out there. It was so important to him. That’s what I saw in him and I see some of those things in our guys, and those are the most important lessons I took from it. I hope I’m coaching with that same enthusiasm and same love of this game because there’s nothing better to do than football.”
On if he ruined the surprise of his daughters’ upcoming proposals: “They had an inkling of it. Yes, because they brought (their boyfriends) out here. I mean, there’s only small windows to talk to dad. So they both came out here on Thanksgiving weekend to do that. So they know, they just don’t know when it’s coming. TMZ! I didn’t know I’d be on TMZ, but pretty cool.”
On what he meant by using pace as an offensive weapon: “I think it’s all of it. There’s definitely a pace we want to have. There’s a pace you want to have when you’re changing personnels, so you’re going to be on-and-off the field, in-and-out of the huddle, we talk about that. But then also, there is change of paces whether it’s a huddle that you break quickly, whether it’s no-huddle, so just different style of tempos. But we are always preaching pace, and always preaching tempo.”
