New Orleans Saints' Gregg Williams' Feb. 3 press conference transcript

QBREES9 · 02-03-2010, 10:47 PM

Provided by the NFL, here is a transcript of New Orleans Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams' Super Bowl XLIV press conference Wednesday in Miami.

On changing the culture of the defense:

“They’ve played for a lot of coaches. When I walk in the first day in the first meeting of the offseason training program April 1, there are a lot of things we covered in that 30 minute meeting. One of the things that I covered was there will not be an excuse by anyone in this room about having a coach slow you down. There will not be an excuse about wishing that you played for a coach that will let you play, that will encourage aggressiveness the way I will encourage aggressiveness. All my life I’ve been trying to speed players up, toughen players up, nasty players up. I promise you if we live on the edge and play on the edge, I’ll grab you before you’re ready to fall off. If you’re about ready to fall off that edge and cause our team to get hurt or do something bad for our team, I’ll grab you by the pants. We’ll chit chat. I’ll settle you down, but until you get there, we can’t be good. You have to climb to that edge all the time. There have only been a couple of times that we’ve gotten to that edge. I say it all the time: live on the edge, play on the edge, never hurt the team. Our guys have bought into that.”

On maintaining that attitude throughout the season:

“I don’t think you can show up on Sunday night at the Super Bowl and expect to turn it on like a light switch and say, ‘Here we are now. We’ve got to play different.’ I’m a certain way off the field, and these guys are a certain way in meetings, a certain way in practice and a certain way when they’re not competing. But when we step on the field of competition, that’s what it is. The reporters and the people that watch us practice, even the offensive coaches that I was new to, going against them every day in practice, they thought we were nuts. They thought we were nuts in OTAs.

They thought we were nuts in minicamps. They were talking bad about us in the meetings. I know they were. But all of the sudden they said, ‘Hey, this is pretty good. It’s making us better.’ It started from the first practice.

Buddy Ryan told me this a long time ago: sometimes you have to break a thoroughbred before you bridle a thoroughbred. There were a lot of breaks we had to do in breaking bad habits and setting up the culture and foundation. We did it through some painful discussions and we did it through some painful exertion. I would say all the time, ‘If we can’t play football the right way then we need to get in better condition. We’ve got to go over here and condition a little bit.’ It wasn’t a negative reinforcement. It was an opportunity reinforcement. It was an opportunity for them to choose how they were supposed to play when we got on the field. If they didn’t choose, the only way we had a chance to compete now was to be in better shape than the other team, so we went over and did the old fashioned up/downs, old fashioned running and all that kind of stuff.

It was somewhat looked upon as old school. Now they look at it with tremendous pride. Another thing that we’ve done here - and you can talk to some of the players - once we ended minicamps, we ended minicamps with 40 up/downs. We started training camp with the very first drill … the very first drill was 40 up/downs. I call them out. Any new player that has come into our regime, that has come onto our team after that first day, before they could practice with us, they had to do 40 up/downs with the whole team around them. It was almost a camaraderie thing. They felt that that guy was paying dues to what we’ve gone through before. There were certain guys at tryouts, they thought, ‘Holy cow! I’m going to have to do that?’ Yeah you’re going to have to do that if you want to be part of our team. Those little bitty things are more important than any Xs and Os that I called. Those kinds of things, from a unity and a culture and a foundations standpoint are what got us here. It’s not some fancy defense that I called.

It had to be the competitiveness and the toughness that they all bring together.”

On the Saints cornerbacks:

“I’m a better coach when Jabari Greer and Tracy Porter play because they allow you to do a lot of other things out there. When you take a look at the statistics of them being able to handle their man out there on the Autobahn, out there on the fastest track on the field, it helps you coaching wise to give protection to other people that may not be as good in the core of your defense. All of the sudden you’re not as good at corner, you’ve got to give a lot of help out there. That’s the most dangerous position you’re defending and then you lighten up a little bit inside. Both these young guys are excellent.

New Orleans Saints' Gregg Williams' Feb. 3 press conference transcript | Super Bowl Central - - NOLA.com

02-03-2010, 10:47 PM	#1
QBREES9 Moderator Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: New Haven Ct Posts: 23,989	New Orleans Saints' Gregg Williams' Feb. 3 press conference transcript Provided by the NFL, here is a transcript of New Orleans Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams' Super Bowl XLIV press conference Wednesday in Miami. On changing the culture of the defense: “They’ve played for a lot of coaches. When I walk in the first day in the first meeting of the offseason training program April 1, there are a lot of things we covered in that 30 minute meeting. One of the things that I covered was there will not be an excuse by anyone in this room about having a coach slow you down. There will not be an excuse about wishing that you played for a coach that will let you play, that will encourage aggressiveness the way I will encourage aggressiveness. All my life I’ve been trying to speed players up, toughen players up, nasty players up. I promise you if we live on the edge and play on the edge, I’ll grab you before you’re ready to fall off. If you’re about ready to fall off that edge and cause our team to get hurt or do something bad for our team, I’ll grab you by the pants. We’ll chit chat. I’ll settle you down, but until you get there, we can’t be good. You have to climb to that edge all the time. There have only been a couple of times that we’ve gotten to that edge. I say it all the time: live on the edge, play on the edge, never hurt the team. Our guys have bought into that.” On maintaining that attitude throughout the season: “I don’t think you can show up on Sunday night at the Super Bowl and expect to turn it on like a light switch and say, ‘Here we are now. We’ve got to play different.’ I’m a certain way off the field, and these guys are a certain way in meetings, a certain way in practice and a certain way when they’re not competing. But when we step on the field of competition, that’s what it is. The reporters and the people that watch us practice, even the offensive coaches that I was new to, going against them every day in practice, they thought we were nuts. They thought we were nuts in OTAs. They thought we were nuts in minicamps. They were talking bad about us in the meetings. I know they were. But all of the sudden they said, ‘Hey, this is pretty good. It’s making us better.’ It started from the first practice. Buddy Ryan told me this a long time ago: sometimes you have to break a thoroughbred before you bridle a thoroughbred. There were a lot of breaks we had to do in breaking bad habits and setting up the culture and foundation. We did it through some painful discussions and we did it through some painful exertion. I would say all the time, ‘If we can’t play football the right way then we need to get in better condition. We’ve got to go over here and condition a little bit.’ It wasn’t a negative reinforcement. It was an opportunity reinforcement. It was an opportunity for them to choose how they were supposed to play when we got on the field. If they didn’t choose, the only way we had a chance to compete now was to be in better shape than the other team, so we went over and did the old fashioned up/downs, old fashioned running and all that kind of stuff. It was somewhat looked upon as old school. Now they look at it with tremendous pride. Another thing that we’ve done here - and you can talk to some of the players - once we ended minicamps, we ended minicamps with 40 up/downs. We started training camp with the very first drill … the very first drill was 40 up/downs. I call them out. Any new player that has come into our regime, that has come onto our team after that first day, before they could practice with us, they had to do 40 up/downs with the whole team around them. It was almost a camaraderie thing. They felt that that guy was paying dues to what we’ve gone through before. There were certain guys at tryouts, they thought, ‘Holy cow! I’m going to have to do that?’ Yeah you’re going to have to do that if you want to be part of our team. Those little bitty things are more important than any Xs and Os that I called. Those kinds of things, from a unity and a culture and a foundations standpoint are what got us here. It’s not some fancy defense that I called. It had to be the competitiveness and the toughness that they all bring together.” On the Saints cornerbacks: “I’m a better coach when Jabari Greer and Tracy Porter play because they allow you to do a lot of other things out there. When you take a look at the statistics of them being able to handle their man out there on the Autobahn, out there on the fastest track on the field, it helps you coaching wise to give protection to other people that may not be as good in the core of your defense. All of the sudden you’re not as good at corner, you’ve got to give a lot of help out there. That’s the most dangerous position you’re defending and then you lighten up a little bit inside. Both these young guys are excellent. New Orleans Saints' Gregg Williams' Feb. 3 press conference transcript \| Super Bowl Central - - NOLA.com Attached Thumbnails
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