First, can you let us know what you’ve been involved with as of late?
Well, I work for the NFL Network – I’m doled out on different channels and I also have a small radio syndicated show.
I’m also doing corporate speaking. I mentored while I was coaching with Art Berg – a motivational speaker who is quadriplegic and does 150 speaking engagements a year, if you can believe it. I could only do a handful of engagements when I was coaching but I enjoyed it and it got me out into corporate America. I learned to talk about teambuilding and working with companies going through mergers to help them with change management and things like that. A large part is about goal setting and helping organizations be less siloed.
Who were some of your coaching mentors that helped shape the way you approached coaching?
I take a part of every coach who touched me, really. I had a legendary high school coach in Southern California and then had the fortune to learn under Denny Green and Bill Walsh. Bill had the biggest impact on me.
How so?
I was incredibly fortunate – Bill had me on his administrative staff in San Francisco with a group of coaches who were like a who’s-who of coaching. I ended up co-writing a book with Bill that he wanted to write summarizing his legacy of coaching. I was honored that he reached out to me. And in doing it it really all came full circle for me I could just see how far ahead he was of everyone – how groundbreaking he was as a coach.
How hard is it to adopt that kind of approach as a coach knowing the risk that comes with it?
It’s born out of two things, really. One is you have to have great faith in what you are doing. The other is what you do out of necessity. When we were in Cincinnati the West Coast offense was born out of necessity. We had a smallish quarterback with a weaker arm. We didn’t think at the time we were building a revolutionary offense. We were just doing what we could do to survive and win games.
Bill was so wonderful in coming up with those ideas. And it wasn’t just about the X’s and O’s. So much of his innovation was about things like practice structures and teaching sequencing. How do you win with lesser athletes…. then you gain confidence in the system and bring in better athletes that fit that system to be more successful.
How did you end up as the head coach of Baltimore?
We had success in Minnesota – the last year I was there we made the playoffs. We had the highest scoring offense in the history of the NFL then. So naturally that brought a lot of attention.
That got me consideration by a lot of teams for a head coaching job at the time – Kansas City, San Diego, Cleveland, and Baltimore all courted me. It came down to Cleveland and Baltimore, which was a unique situation due to the history of those two teams with one another. It created a lot of competition between the two teams to hire me, which put my salary offer through the roof. Neither team wanted to lose to the other. It was an interesting dynamic, to say the least.
How did you prepare for those rivalry games with the Steelers once you got there?
Obviously, you want to win a Super Bowl first. But you have to win those rivalry games. When I was in Minnesota, our big rivals were the Green Bay Packers. You have to remember then though that the Ravens weren’t that great then. The Ravens saw the Jaguars as their big rivals, but the Jaguars didn’t see us that way then either because they kicked our asses then too.
But I saw how good our defense was becoming and that defined our team. Much like Pittsburgh, we became a very physical team. Both teams were defined by their defenses. Then, when we beat Pittsburgh that first time, the rivalry really took off. The nature of the two teams was always to be physical.
How did you get Baltimore over the hump versus Pittsburgh?
The nature of the challenge was our mindset – we didn’t beat Pittsburgh for years in Pittsburgh – I forget how long it was – like 20 years. I knew right away I had to change that mindset. None of the players had institutional knowledge of how to beat Pittsburgh. I had to develop that mindset. That first win was huge, as was that come from behind win to beat Jacksonville the year we went to the Super Bowl.
It’s interesting – to change their mindset, it was less about the players. They were all new to the rivalry – they weren’t there for most of those losses. The players didn’t know any different. The toughest part was dealing with the mindset at an organizational level – from an organizational standpoint. The front office remembered and I didn’t let their mindset about not being able to beat Pittsburgh to steep into the players.
How was your relationship with Bill Cowher then?
It’s funny because all coaches are a strong-willed, confident group of people. Not all get along. But Bill and I – I mean we weren’t close friends – but Bill was very gracious and respectful towards me. He didn’t try to demean me as a new coach. After we won the Super Bowl. he saw that rivalry grow and we all bought into it. But compared to other coaches, while I was known for saying some stupid shit at times about other guys, that never happened with Bill. I never went back and forth like that with him.
Any memories stand out to you most of those rivalry games?
There are so many memories. They were such physical games. At the end of the day though the players all played hard and physical, but you’ll notice at the end of the game they’d all come together and take a knee and pray together or hug each other. It was all born out of respect, the way they responded to each other.
It’s interesting too – when we were at our best, that’s when Pittsburgh was usually having their down years. And when Pittsburgh was at it’s best, we were having down years. But those games were still so intense no matter how good the teams were. They were treated like playoff games even though they really didn’t mean as much. It went beyond the meaning of the particular game. Jacksonsville and Tennessee – we were at our best at the same time as those teams and those games always mattered and helped decide the division. But against Pittsburgh that interestingly wasn’t usually the case.
No good memories of those games?
In Bill’s last year in Pittsburgh – we knew it was his last season there – he did a fake punt from his own 20 – and it worked – they scored on it. I just thought, “Holy mackerel!” We won the game if I remember – I don’t think they were very good that year. But he and I had a good chuckle after the game about that. I guess he felt, it’s his last season, so why not. But it was a ballsy call!
And the players they had then – Ward and Polamalu were the two guys that just pissed me off. But I would have loved to coach them. They were the bane of my existence. They were good players, and tough. Those two guys were the ones that stuck n my craw the most.
Any thoughts on the way the game has changed since you coached?
At the end of the day, I don’t think it really has changed that much. I look at the numbers – that’s part of my job. I don’t think it’s changed that much. It’s more spread now on offense, but even then, you’re seeing teams go bigger and shoving the ball down defense’s throats again as defenses went smaller to defense the pass. So, not so fast on those 50-40 games everyone said would happen every week. Look at the Super Bowl last year.
What is evolutionary is what the Ravens are doing with Lamar Jackson now. They are all in on having him run the ball 200 times a season. Other teams have quarterbacks who will run on occasion like Russell Wilson, but they are committed to running him 200 times a year. I’m not sure if other teams will do that. We’ll see. I do think guys with that ability will rise in the draft now. But are there guys as good as he is that won’t get hurt? Will other teams be willing to do the same thing? We’ll see.
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