Apparently, these are notes for a meditation on life and teams and sport and play. Dated November 30, 1995. – JDW
The idea is this. Duel Meet as a football story. A tall, fast, athletic type, but white, plays defensive back, a honky Neon Deion Sanders. Cornerback. talented, individualistic, spectacular, flamboyant. Swaggered onto the field and dared people to beat him.
He’s matched up against a slow, cerebral, gutsy, slow black wide receiver, who makes up in cunning and sheer determination what he loses in speed. A nubian Steve Largent. Reverse the stereotype. The sport is its own exotic location. Goal is to put the reader inside the heads of these competitors as they are matched up against each other all afternoon. Man-to-Man. Single Coverage. Bump and run.
One of the guys plays against a team which didn’t recruit him. Too slow maybe.
Is there a halftime talk? Do you write the story in quarters, alternate voices. Present tense. First person.
On one pattern the umpire/referee/zebra gets in the way.
“Call it in the air,” referee Lance Ito said, tossing the silver dollar into the crisp autumn sky.
“Heads,” Red Devil captain Lisa Simpson said.
“Tails,” Ito announced after the coin fell to the turf. But he barely had the word out of his mouth before Wild Dog quarterback and co-captain Duke Wayne blurted, “We’ll take the ball,” as though he couldn’t wait to get his hands on it.
He never wants to come out of the game. Never. That’s the kind of player you want.
Most people go out of their way to explain they don’t need the spotlight. I see nothing wrong with it.
It’s not enough to get open, you have to catch the ball.
Petrification of the fingertips
The ball hits nothing but metacarpals, but fails to stick.
So he puts the next ball into his chest.
QB hollers at the reciever who drops a catchable pass.
He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know yet. re QB
If you’re not in it together, you’re not in it to win it. And if you’re not in it to win it, buy a ticket like the rest of the spectators.
I’ve never had a problem with losing because I am not fast enough or because I wasn’t strong enough. I have a problem with losing if I don’t try hard enough, if I don’t think I’ve given everything I’ve got. That’s a problem, and so I do whatever I can to ensure it never happens. I am always ready to win.
(WR) Most receivers don’t like to block. The pretty boys who don’t like to get dirty will maybe screen for the backs. It’s part of being willing to do whatever it takes to win. I love to block downfield. The best is if you can lay a crack-back block on a guy and he’s not looking. Sometimes a cornerback or a safety will see a little speck of red out of the corner of his eye and prepare for it. But when the guy isn’t looking and you blow him up, it just feels good.
Guess I just have a linebacker mentality, although blocking is tough on the hands.
His ballhawking ability 
The key to each bunch is whether they believe in themselves. Do they think they can get the job done. This bunch does.
They have confidence whether it’s third and eighteen or third and one.
We finally pulled our heads out of our rears. Now if we can just keep our head out of our rears.
This team refuses to quit. It’s a mindset that keeps us playing up to a certain level.
The ball is going to bounce our way, I believe that.
I love knowing I am one of the best.
Greatness begets greatness. People take their cue from the people they rub shoulders with.
Exceptional people must be judged by different standards.
As for my reputation for being a troublemaker, well, I don’t back off. The Cowboys try to mold everyone in their image, and I couldn’t be molded. I created the whole scenario, so I had to live with it. I kind of thrived on the controversy I created.
But when you talk about Tony Dorsett you have to ask this: What has he brought to the picnic?
We blew our run-pass keys.
The theory of reduction. You keep hitting somebody and hit him and hit him again, and pretty soon he’s not going to get up. He’s reduced.
I do pinch myself a lot. But I try to stay in that compartment of my brain where I keep doing the same thing, keep believing in myself and my teammates.
It’s tough to stay with everybody all the time. Favre does a good job of looking downfield when he’s scrambling. He found guys open while eluding pressure.
They have no inhibitions. They are completely loose. They feel like everything they do is going to work out.
He’s mentally tough. He’s determined. Call it heart. Call it desire. Call it perseverance. Call it whatever you want. He can intangible you to death.
It’s a game, remember. You should have fun. Play hard, but enjoy yourself.
You shouldn’t need a reason to win. Winning is its own reason.
You don’t really grow in an environment of pleasure. You grow by confronting challenge.
Hope is a muscle.
Number one, you’ve got to trust yourself.
Get used to it. I am going to kick your butt.
I was this kid chasing a dream. And chasing it and chasing it and chasing it.
I wouldn’t change anything that has happened to me. I’ve got a long, long way to go and it will take me a long, long time to get there. I believe everything I’ve gone through is only going to make me a better player.
I’ve always been told, ‘You’re too nice. You can’t win.’ But I’ve never believed that you had to be nasty to be a winner. I’m so glad I stuck to that belief.
I’m not concerned with beating other people. I’ve discovered that the battle is with yourself. As long as I feel I’m improving, I’m going to keep going for it.
Playing and not winning is the best thing that ever happened to me. I had to learn how to play; now I know what it takes for me to win.
The one hundred yard universe. (field is 160 feet wide)
The end zone looked a million miles away.
Hook-and-lateral play. QB passes to end who laterals to running back.
Just saying it’s a big game does not say how important it is. It’s not just a big game. It has everything riding on it. When we play Florida, that’s the way it should be.
We’re going to have to open a can of whup-ass against them. The players have confidence in their position coaches and, to me, that’s where attitude starts. Attitudes don’t start with slogans or team colors. They start with trust and respect between and among players. I think these players believe in those assistant coaches.
Keep the quarterback clean.
I’ve been too careful not wanting to make a mistake. I’ve got to find that fine line between being aggressive and being conscious of my responsibilities.
My mom kept telling me to picture myself in that uniform and on that field. That’s what I’ve had in my head forever – the green and gold.
When his high school coach came over with a tape to look at, one of our grad assistants looked at it briefly and said this guy can’t play for us. That grad assistant is no longer with us. He was a little more rude than we like.
I remember when they told me I wasn’t good enough for a scholarship. It was a day I’ll never forget. It was my birthday. You are always disappointed when you have people who say you are not good enough to do something. But, in the end, I think that is actually one of the things that motivated me to get better, to prove those people wrong.
He walked on at State and immediately caught the coaches’ attention with his precise routes and velcro-like hands. He added muscle and speed and worked his way onto the depth chart at wide receiver. He is the consummate example of a kid who was overlooked.
Effort can make up for a lot of lack of ability. I try to go out and play with the most maximum effort every time I’m on the field. The biggest thing about me, you can’t measure desire with a stopwatch. I will do whatever is necessary to get the job done.
He doesn’t remember catching his first touchdown pass. I was knocked a little wierd. Luckily, Coach had ingrained the routes in head so much I couldn’t help but be in the right spot.
I don’t like headhunters. Players should want to win because they’re better, not because they’ve knocked somebody out of the game so they can face an inferior player.
When you sip at life, it gets easier to swallow.
Figuring the Cowboys would have Sanders covering the outside receiver, Trestman put Rice in the slot and sent him on a quick crossing route over the middle, a pattern Rice expertly sold with a stutter step to the outside. Rice moved out of Cowboy cornerback’s zone and faced man-to-man coverage from a linebacker, who received no help from a slow-to-react safety.
Aikman threw a quick slant to Irvin, who caught the ball in the left flat and then instantly had it jarred loose by Pope.
We can’t play down to the level of lesser competition. We have to come out every week with the same intensity we seem to reserve for the top teams.
I have to say I learned a lot by being on the bench last year. I learned I don’t like being on the bench.
Your talent is God’s gift to you. What you do with your talent is your gift back to God.
There’s a utility pole in the front yard back home. I used to take a five-step drop and try to hit as if it was a receiver on the run, ten yards out. I’d place a couple of garbage cans near each other and toss little fade passes over the first defending can and into the second.
Obviously the rush makes a big difference because you can only cover them so long anyway. But our coverage is good. They’re really conscientious about what they’re doing.
Seems so obvious you need a defense line. Put a group on the field that could pressure the passer and still play the run well, and you could drop your linebackers into coverage. Which in turn would help the defensive backs gather more interceptions.
Great talent won’t overcome bad habits.
Three big plays by the split receiver (wideout on left side) all on weakside blitzes. There’s nobody to jam the wideout, so he comes into the middle clean. They flared the halfback each time, which is the free safety’s responsibility, so now he’s gone, too, and there’s nobody to help out in the middle. Yeah, they caught us on it, three times on the same setup. I can show it to you on film right now. It’s as plain as day.
Later we went with the full-blitz package ourselves. It was a way to take them out of those five-man patterns and out of their play-action. The blitz put too much pressure on the quarterback, he didn’t have time to find the open man, if indeed one was open. Potential receivers had to stay in and block, so play-action became useless.
It comes down to blocking and tackling. It’s a simple game. The rest is just clinic stuff.
When the players start thinking about individual success, the team will suffer.
Hutson once reversed direction on a crossing pattern by hooking his left arm on the right goalpost and spinning around the upright, his feet off the ground, for a one-handed touchdown catch.
Hutson was the first to run “the quit,” known today as the stop and go. That sneaky move where the receiver appears to pull up on a play, only to dash off after the ball when the defender relaxes.
He was a cagey and shifty gent. And when he runs out and throws up his arms, his fingers seem infused with a peculiar sense of magnetism that unerringly draws flying leather in the form of a football.
He would glide downfield, leaning forward as if to steady himself close to the ground. Then as suddenly as you gulp or blink an eye, he would feint one way and go the other, reach up like a dancer, gracefully squeeze the ball and leave the scene of the accident – the accident being the defensive backs who tangled feet up and fell trying to cover him. Curly Lambeau re Don Hutson.
We ran a play that was a long post route to me in the end zone. Greg Landry threw a pass that was way over my head. I didn’t think there was any way I could catch it. I dove anyway and remembered what my high school coach told me: “Always put out your hand, because someday a bird might crap in it.” Well, this was the day.
Sometimes our teamwork borders on telepathy.
Opportunistic.
We came out a little lethargic.
We showed our poise.
Surprised us with some of their defensive calls.
(On the sideline) Time stood still.
Make the plays when you have to.
Guess we’ll find out. That’s why we play the game.
Look up and the ball is already in the air. I see it coming and say to myself, I’ve got to get it no matter what. As I was thinking, I can’t afford to step out of bounds.
I read run and start inching up to the line of scrimmage.
Sometimes I need to stick that first solid hit to settle down.
You’ve got to run every pattern hard, whether you’re the primary receiver or not. You can’t be much of a decoy unless you look like the real thing.
The safety is supposed to read the shoulders of the quarterback, the angle he’s pointing, and then angle that way across the field.
My head was ringing. I felt like I was dreaming. I looked up to see if our fans were cheering. I knew if our fans were cheering, that’d mean we won, but if their fans were cheering, that’d be bad.
Listen for the cheering. Pray your fans are jumping up and down with joy.
Helps to have the crowd in the game. That twelfth man really gets your adrenaline going.
The ball just barely fell out of his grasp. A great diving attempt.
Anybody can make the play when the balls there. Making catches like that, that’s why we brought you here.
Frustrating to move the ball and not score any points.
Keep glancing at the scoreboard.
Coach: “I’m stressing the importance of not being embarrassed. I’m stressing the importance of not being outhit. I’m stressing the importance of winning the game, period.”
Somebody always seems to do something stupid at the end of a great run-back. It’s like you see your teammate about to break away and you get excited.
There are some things that some teams never seem to learn. Winning is one of them.
We were just a little out of sync. We were a little behind, a ball thrown a little too hard, passes dropped. Some knockdowns, some deflections. This, that and the other. A lot of funny things happened out there. Some days you just don’t operate on all cylinders. Some days you couldn’t complete a pass if there were no defensive players on the field. If Vandy would have had an offense that could stay out on the field, shoot, we could have been in trouble out there. We just weren’t clicking. Offensively, we sputtered a lot.
It was either do or die. A lot of the guys were saying we had to separate the men from the boys. We were able to be the men.
Takeaways, e.g., interceptions, fumble recoveries.
Need to get good field position on kickoffs.
Defense needs to bring the heat, put the pressure on the quarterback. Stop the run, take the ground game away from them and force them into the air.
Put the ball and only three things can happen and two of them are bad.
It’s just a matter of knowing and understanding the game. Awareness. You can’t get away with the throws you got away with in college and you have to get over that mentality.
Ten guys do it right, one guy breaks down, the play doesn’t work. We’ve had guys wide open down the field. But some guy will get beat deep and Trent can’t get the ball off. Another time a guy runs the wrong route. Whatever it is, something seems to jump up and bite us.
He is our toughness. He isn’t big, he doesn’t possess a whole lot of speed, he doesn’t get by on natural talent. Deceptively hard-nosed.
I like attacking people. Bringing the hit and stopping the other team.
In football today, kids want respect more than anything else.
“Don’t tell me about the pain. Show me the baby.” – Bill Parcells.
I am always fighting for respect.
Coach said to trust the doctors. Be patient, he said. “The people treating you understand your competitive nature and sense of duty to your team. They’ll bring you back as quickly as possible.”
Coach’s philosophy has always been, when in doubt, bring the house.
I tucked it away like a loaf of bread and ran to the house.
This is a guy who can make plays. And we’re trying to get people in the game who make plays.
There were guys on this team who gave up in the third quarter. I saw people with their heads down., like the game was over. That’s a bunch of (bleep). They were key people, too. They were veterans who should know that you’re never out of a game.
Focus on each game as it arrives. Never look ahead, don’t think about tomorrows.
When he’s not there, it’s like my security blanket is on the sideline. QB re TE.
They are playing aggressively, they are all over the receivers, they just take the receivers out of the game.
I’ll tell you what I told the players. I feel like I’ve failed as a coach because I can’t convince them of what it takes to win. This team does not give that kind of effort on a consistent basis. It’s as simple as that.
That group is going to have to play. No ifs, ands, or buts.
I always loved being in the middle of the action, and this is where the action is.
Every Saturday we’re just playing a different face and a different jersey. We’re very businesslike about it.
re cornerbacks on single coverage on wideouts: We put them on an island all the time.
People say we’re not as talented as some other teams. We do have a great work ethic, it’s true, and we do believe in each other. But it sure doesn’t feel like we’re less talented out on the field.
Our mantra is, somewhere warm on New Year’s Day. Somewhere warm on January 1.
They don’t want to taste losing again.
Talent, depth, experience. That’s all a coach can ask for. Then you ask those guys for discipline, dedication and determination.
Work’em hard, real hard, you got a good chance of keeping your job.
He. Could. Go. All. The. Way.
