Mike McDaniel – October 19, 2022
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Wednesday, October 19, 2022
Head Coach Mike McDaniel
(We failed to ask you about WR Jaylen Waddle on Monday. Is he going to practice today. Is he healthy to play Sunday? Do you expect to have him Sunday and do you expect to have him today at practice?) – “He’s a tough competitor. A tough, very tough kid. I’m very confident that if he is able to, he will (play). I’m optimistic. I don’t expect to see much from him today, but technically, I’ve already seen him a couple times today. He’s going to be working diligently. It’s important to him to play with his teammates. He’s a hard – as you guys have noticed at the end of training camp, he’s a hard guy to really, you really have to be in front of everything with him and be his own voice of reason, because he likes to push stuff. We like guys like that, because our medical staff can do their jobs and keep them out of harm’s way.”
(You’ve had several plays lately where you’ve had good success, downing the ball inside the 20, for example, but you’ve also had a lot of negative plays on special teams. When you put it all together, how do you assess the special teams of late?) – “I don’t look at everything entirely as one thing. I kind of go through the progression of each game because one thing specifically with our crew, meaning our team, we’ve had a good amount of lineup changes. So you’re assessing the way – the way I like to do it is what are we identifying the unit we’re playing against as? How are we preparing for them? How are the players executing what we prepared for them? Are we articulating things appropriately? Were things told correctly or not? I think that the results haven’t been where we want them – there’s no doubt about that. What I do see and what is important to me, I know is the fabric of teams that are able to have success in any phase is you don’t see loafing, you don’t see lack of strain. These are things that the miscues have to do with things that need to be coached up, and I don’t continually see the same exact thing. So my confidence has not been affected. It’s more that are we continuing to get better and do those same things that happen last week or the week before happen this week relative to our opponent?”
(Steelers Head Coach Mike Tomlin mentioned yesterday, as you have, that staff familiarity with players, talent and skillset can be overblown, but he did think that Senior Defensive Assistant/Linebackers Coach Brian Flores’ presence on the staff would be a useful resource in that area. Specific to QB Tua Tagovailoa and Coach Flores’ knowledge of his strengths and weaknesses, how might that affect the way you want him to approach things? How do you think it could affect the game?) – “Yeah, I don’t really – from my vantage point, I don’t really make a correlation necessarily with that. It is good to have familiarity with players in a sense of you know some of their strengths and weaknesses. But at the same time, I think that’s an evolving process for Tua (Tagovailoa). And also, every defense is trying to defend the offense. Defenses have tried various things against our offense with Tua at the helm, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I don’t see a consistent theme. I think this game is about the players on the field playing against each other more than anything.”
(As someone who loves football a lot, what’s kind of your perception of Sunday Night Football? Playing on Sunday night, especially against kind of a historic team like Pittsburgh, who’s played on Sunday night a lot.) – “I typically don’t like abstract questions, except I do. (laughter) Sunday Night Football – Kyle Shanahan said this probably like 10 years ago and I jumped on it because it made a lot of sense to me, and it was that what’s really cool about Sunday Night Football is that more than anything, it’s not the TV, it’s not the viewership, it’s that you’re the only game on. And so on Sunday night in particular, the entire league is home from their games, and it’s an opportunity for players to perform in front of their peers. So that’s unique, because there’s all the stuff that’s going on. I mean, you catch box scores and highlights, but I think that’s a that’s a very cool thing in that respect. Then, once you get past that reality, I think it’s more of a challenge to understand it for what it is – anytime you are thinking about (how) this is a big game or national television, or things like that, that’s an opportunity cost from thinking about what you need to do in your given gameplan for your team to accomplish the goal. So it is cool for the players. I do tell them that. I told them in the offseason, I think I said to them after the past game, but beyond that, it’s more of a battle of which team can play football and ignore the noise, or the clicking of cameras, or things of that nature.”
(The fact that you guys didn’t IR QB Skylar Thompson, is that a sign that his tests came back pretty good?) – “That is a sign that his tests did come back. (laughter) Yes, that would be a good sign. It was more positive than negative overall. It was definitely not the worst case. And he’s going to be – I think he’s probably doing jumping jacks today with (Head Strength and Conditioning Coach) Dave Puloka. It’s probably not serious. (laughter) But he’ll get back into action sooner than later.”
(What do you want to see from QB Tua Tagovailoa over the next few days of practice to show you that he can be the quarterback he was before he went down against the Bengals?) – “It’s pretty easy considering there’s an extensive amount of time spent on the relationship between the starting quarterback and the head coach and the play-caller. So those are hours and hours of field, meeting room time and you get to know each other pretty well. So what I want to see is the same locked-in guy that I know when he’s on it, he’s laser focused, he’s in his normal mood, but he doesn’t lose attention span at the task at hand. That’s what I’ve grown to love about the guy. That’s why he’s been able to have some success in a completely new language and system. And that will be my expectation for this week because it is not the Tua Dolphins.”
(What have you seen from QB Tua Tagovailoa over the past couple of weeks as he’s been around the building?) – “Well I’ve seen his love for the game, honestly. In a simple but not simple form, I’ve seen how much he loves his teammates and how he loves the game of football. I can see that he understands his responsibility as a leader, which he is fully embraced and resonates with all the guys. So he knows that he has to be in the moment for the players that are playing and contribute the way he can. And so he’s been very positive. But I can also tell that he thirsts for the brotherhood, for the camaraderie, for the competition. There’s a saying that you never know what you had until (it’s gone). And I think it wasn’t that he didn’t exude that, it was just blatantly obvious to everyone around him that he was missing out on something that he truly loves. It’s a cool thing to find out in an adverse situation about a player that you coach.”
(If I could follow up on that really quick, you’re saying like embracing his role as a leader for the guys who are actually playing? I guess, how did he do that at practice last week when he’s returning from concussion protocol, but obviously knows that he’s not playing Sunday? How did you see him balance wanting to get back to work versus sitting back and letting QB Skylar Thompson and QB Teddy Bridgewater take over?) – “That’s not a lip service thing that you’re just like, I’m going to be a leader. And that’s what’s cool about it. What you saw was every single play of practice, saying the play – like after I say it, like he’d say it in the huddle. Then watching the timing of the concept, watching the footwork of Skylar, getting excited when perfect technique is executed, because he knows exactly what it looks like. And then you go through an entire practice – you’re used to being the starting quarterback, which in the NFL season, means you are taking every snap when the offense is up. So you get in a routine, where it kind of goes by fast because you have all this stuff going on. Well, to see that focus last for the entire practice also speaks to the point that it’s not just about him, his selflessness, which is why he has he has a unique aura of leadership that people gravitate to because it’s genuine, authentic and real.”
(So after the game, you mentioned turnover margin is one of the numbers that you look at, that you deem very important. My question is, are you a guy who subscribes to you are what your record says you are? And then the second part, aside from record and turnover margin, what are the other numbers either individual or team wise, that you value?) – “I guess it’s not really my personal belief in turnovers. That’s just straight up facts. And, as far as you are what your record says you are, I think there’s truth in that because to spend time saying, ‘well, but, this, that or the other,’ is a fool’s errand. However, I think teams are whatever they define themselves that day. I think the Miami Dolphins are as good as their Wednesday. It’s kind of, I think, the approach that when you watch great competitors across all sports and just people that are doing anything at a high level, there’s a common denominator there. And it has nothing to do with forecasting we are this or that or whatever. It is present in the moment and it is completely convicted (and) committed to what you’re doing, knowing that that will affect future outcomes. So for me, I’ve been on a team that was – last year I was on a team that won two games and then lost four in a row, then was in the NFC Championship game. In 2015, we were 5-0 in Atlanta and finished 8-8. I think people clinging to what their record says they are might be not quite focused on the job at hand, which is continuing to get better so you play your best football at the end of the season, which is what teams, good teams, end up doing. I think it’s very hard to do that. I think there’s a lot of noise about records and trends,. You’re 3-0 and you’re awesome, you lose three in a row and – that will always be the case. But it’s always going to be distraction techniques that if you’re truly committed to being your best and having your team be your best, you have to and feel very comfortable ignoring,
(I know you mentioned Sunday Night Football earlier. Another element of that will be the 1972 Dolphins honored. I know that you’re a man of history. What stands out to you when you think about that team?) – “There’s not a team that can be that iconic that still doesn’t quite get the credit deserves. The amount of adversity that was going on with that team, surviving the injuries, some of the close games, some of the little details – as you know, in this offseason, I was fortunate enough to speak with Larry Czonka about. Like the little details that maybe the non-starter third tight end on special teams noticed that ended up winning the game. You’re talking about a record that in a team sport, that is the strongest compliment or feat that a team has ever really done, in my opinion, in sports, because football is a funny shaped ball and it bounces weird ways and you have to have you have 11 people on the field representing one team at a time. So many things can happen. And the perseverance – when the streak got longer, the ability to not let the pressure crumble them, then changing quarterbacks in the playoffs. All of these things are, ‘Whoa!’ I feel very, very fortunate to be a part of an organization that manifests that because we talk about it every year. I know since I was five probably, Chris Berman and the champagne (on ESPN), like every single year. That’s wild because a lot of people are trying and unable to match that feat.”
(A popular topic, especially with the fan base, is the throwback jerseys. I’m curious if you have a preference on your current jerseys versus the throwback jerseys, if it was your choice.) – “I like winning jerseys. I like everyone to have the same jersey. (laughter) I find value in both. I really do. And that speaks to the history of the ‘72 Dolphins because there is a feeling that those jerseys and that uniform elicits. And not just ‘72 but all of the things that have gone on since that are really great things. So it is nice. I like wearing them as a change of pace. I also really do like our uniforms, especially when it’s hot out and we’re in all white
(With CB Nik Needham going down and CB Byron Jones not being able to return on this week, are you comfortable with the depth at cornerback? Do you anticipate the team might need to make a move to add to that spot?) – “You know, it would be weird if I’m a head coach for the Miami Dolphins and I’m not question about my comfortability with the defensive back group, because this is this is like one of the things that was fortunate in the preseason, when we were finding out a lot about these younger guys. I’m always confident in the group we have, just because they prove it to me every day. It is challenging. People get more reps that have already been seeing reps. But I think it’s to the credit of the personnel department, the players themselves and really our coaches, that guys are able to step in and play to the technique and consistency. If we didn’t have the competitors and loyal teammates in that room that were NFL talents, it would worry me. But just like it’s been going on since August, we’ve had guys get dinged and guys step up. That’s what that room does. That’s the only way those guys know how to do it.
(Do you have CB Keion Crossen and CB Kader Kohou updates?) – “They’re both – they both really want to play. They both definitely have a chance to only because they are trying to will themselves and it’s important to them. That’s one of the reasons we have so many good guys on the team that will fight through as much as possible. It makes my Wednesday, Thursday and Friday pretty questionable. But we’re all comfortable adjusting. There’s a lot of people working on the ship going in one direction.”
Larry Little – October 18, 2022
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Tuesday, October 18, 2022
Hall of Fame G Larry Little
(What does it mean to you? You’re looking forward to the reunion but what’s 50 years mean to you?) – “Well, 50 years means that we have gone 50 years and we’ve been often imitated but never duplicated. It’s definitely a great deal to me because I never thought our record would last this long or actually, because I felt some other teams would come along and at least tie us. Not that no team will ever surpass us. But you know, to tie us but not surpass us.”
(Did you at the time think it was – did it resonate, ‘Oh, we went undefeated. Boy, this was historic’ or did it…?) – “No, it never resonated with me because that was one year, and who would have thought 50 years later or 49 years later it’s still the record still standing.”
(I had a question related to you going to Booker T. You’re one of the few Dolphins who spent time at a high school locally and I wanted to know what did it mean for you being a trailblazer from Booker T. in the Overtown area and making it all the way to the Hall of Fame?) – “Well, it meant a great deal to me. You know, when I was a kid going to the Orange Bowl to see football games, we used to go see the University of Miami play. I could walk from my house to the Orange Bowl and during that time it was segregation and we had to sit in the bleachers and for me to come back to Miami when I’ve actually went out with the Chargers and played in the Orange Bowl, it meant a great deal to me, but then be traded here and finishing my career here in Miami means a great deal to me. To be the first – I wasn’t the first – some other guys went to play pro football, but to reach the level that I reached playing the game of football.”
(I was just curious how much you’re watching the Philadelphia Eagles right now. Their 6-0 start right now and also what odds would you give them and also what do you think’s the most important trait for a team if they want to finish a perfect season?) – “I’m glancing at them right now. I’m not looking very hard at him right now because they still have some games to play, but but they look like they have a very good football team from what I’ve seen so far. And you know, they’re a good football team, but it’s early in the year. I don’t even start thinking about them going undefeated because they have to actually play the Cowboys game in Dallas. So I think that would be a real big game for them.”
(What about the second part there? What do you think is the most important trait for a team if they want to be perfect? What do you think is the most important trait that you guys had?) – “To believe in it to believe in one another, to believe in your coaching staff, and we had a great coaching staff. We only had six coaches, compared to what, 25 now? And just believe in yourself. Believe you can get it done, although we didn’t talk about getting it done in 1972. But we knew we had a good football team from the year before and we wanted to redeem ourselves and we lost by losing a game against Dallas in the Super Bowl, but we didn’t ever even think about going undefeated. We only want to get back to the Super Bowl and win it.”
(I wanted to ask you a little bit about your offensive line and it’s obviously the best offensive line this team has ever head, and yet the way it was put together was rather interesting. I know you arrived via trade. What do you remember about that trade? Were you kicking and screaming about coming to Miami? Were you happy? Did you think that it was going to happen in the first place?) – “Well, actually, I was disappointed when I was traded to Miami because although in San Diego we didn’t win any championships, but we had a good football team. Some great talent on it. And coming to Miami being an expansion team, which they were at the time in 1969. And I didn’t know we would turn around as quickly as we did, and we probably wouldn’t have if Don Shula hadn’t come in to be our coach. And I had a good offensive line coach in San Diego by the name of Joe Madro. But then I got into Miami, I had Ernie Heffley my first year who wasn’t a bad offensive line coach. But then the next year when Monte Clark came, he made all of us into better football players up front.”
(And have you thought about how different would your life be had you lost even one game in 1972?) – “I don’t think – I think it would have been the same because you have other teams now that got close. The Bears were – it was the same with them – and the New England Patriots that lost one game. So I don’t think that much would have changed as long we won the Super Bowl. Just like for next year – it’ll be 50 years also from the 1973 team.”
(Were you one of those guys on the sideline on that Monday night game in 1985?) – “Well actually, I wasn’t because I was coaching at the time at Bethune-Cookman. And although I wasn’t here physically, I was there mentally because my team had a meeting earlier that night to watch the game on TV. Normally I kept them till 10 o’clock. I had them till 9 o’clock that night. They weren’t …. (laughter)”
(I’m curious – 20 years ago, 25 years ago, we’d hear like Nick Buoniconti call it “The Forgotten Team” – you guys, because the idea was you didn’t get your due for going undefeated. Do you think that’s changed in the last 10-20 years as really the years mount on what an achievement it was?) – “I think it does now because 20 years are good, but 50 years are just amazing. For us still be the only undefeated team in history, I like to say they like to say – once a team is getting close to going undefeated, they bring it all back from the day they start talking about us again, because other than that they forget about us. But you know, I’m happy that we are still being recognized because that is a tremendous accomplishment that we had. I’m quite sure the other guys that you’re going to talk to would feel the same way.”
(Going back to the question about referring to one of the best offensive lines we’ve ever seen in the NFL. Obviously, you have a couple of Hall of Fame running backs as well. I was curious how that undefeated team’s play style benefited the weather down here in South Florida as you guys ran the ball in this hot heat? Like how did those two things work together to make you guys the best versions of yourselves?) – “Well, you know, we could always tell when another team was sucking it up. They’re coming from the north. And late in games when we had to hold the football to keep the other team’s offense from coming onto the field. We relished that because we knew they were tired and we knew blocking and we knew (Larry) Csonka was going to running behind us. And Mercury (Morris) was going to be running behind me basically. And we relished that. We knew they were getting tired. See, what happened, too, a lot of people don’t realize this – before Shula came, we were on the other sideline. But when he came to Miami, he realized we could have be benefited by being the team that’s not in the hottest part of the stadium. So he changed sideline. He moved us to the other sidelines, so the other team can suffer like they’re doing now like they did against Buffalo this year.”
(You mentioned Coach Shula there. How tough is it going to be for you and your teammates to be out there celebrating this monumental moment, this 50th anniversary without Coach Shula?) – “Well, not only not having Coach Shula there with having, what, 16 other teammates not being there. It will be a joyous occasion for us and still is going to be a kind of sad occasion for us. Because, you know, we lost our last one this year who was one of my closest teammates, Marlin Briscoe. It will be sad not having Marlin there, just like all other 15 guys that that left us. But it will be a sad occasion by Coach (Shula) not being there because he was there for the last one. And some of the guys were there for the last one. They’re not here for this one and who knows, this is probably our last time being together as a group that went undefeated. I do know that Shula’s, his wife will be there on sat on Sunday, but it’s going to be a sad occasion.”
(You mentioned that you spent some time coaching at Bethune-Cookman. You also spent time coaching at North Carolina Central University. I wanted to know did you ever reach out to Coach Shula for some advice during that time or during your coaching tenure?) – “Well, when I first got into coaching, I had never coached before. So I asked Coach (Shula), with me not ever coaching before, what should I do first? He told me ‘no offense, no defense, and let your assistant coaches coach and don’t over-coach.’ That was the advice I got from him, and I also took the Dolphins playbook with me. And you know, and we ended up winning our first championship – we got a championship at Bethune my seventh year coaching and won it four years later in 1988. But taking some of his philosophies with me that I got from him, although I’ve never had a full coaching staff. I had nothing but part-time coaches. So one coach was my coach, he coached basketball, another coach coached women’s basketball, the other coach coached something else. So you know what, I was lucky enough to have those guys and they were good coaches also and we had some success there.”
(I wanted to ask you about the Hall of Fame. I’m sure it was an unbelievable honor for you and the teammates you have who made it to Canton. But as you know, there’s one teammate who has come very close and hasn’t gotten in yet. Bob Kuechenberg. How do you feel about that?) – “’Kuch’ (Bob Kuechenberg) had a great career and he had as good a career as any other offensive lineman in the Hall of Fame and I think he should be in the Hall of Fame. Although, you know, he was my teammate. And you know, it’s hard when you look at our offensive line with Jim Langer the center being in and me being in the Hall of Fame; it’s sort of like the Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker corps. You know, Jack Ham is in the Hall of Fame, Jack Lambert is in the Hall of Fame. And Andy Russell, he was a great linebacker for the Steelers. He’s not in the Hall of Fame. So it could be pertaining to something like that. But ‘Kuch’ deserves to be being in there, no doubt. He played 15 years, tough as nails and I wouldn’t say he was as good as me, but he was a great offensive lineman.”
(What are you doing now? Are you retired?) – “I’m retired. My last day of working was January the 14th of this year. But ironically, one of my former players who is a principal now here in Miami, he called me a couple of weeks ago and said, ‘Coach, I know you retire, but how would you like to work two days a week at my school?’ I told the man I’m enjoying laying in my bed. He said, ‘You don’t even have to come until 10-1.’ I said, ‘Man, I’m enjoying laying in my bed every day. Not having to get up in the morning.’ I love being in my shorts all day. I don’t want to be dressed anymore. I love doing what I’m doing right now. He said, ‘We’re going to keep going after you, Coach.’ I said, ‘Okay.’”
(One other thing – off topic of the ’72 Dolphins, but I know you did fundraisers in Virginia Beach and that was important to you. Have you followed up with what’s going on there with they’re now limiting the number of African-American commissioners or something at Virginia Beach?) – “No, I’m no longer involved in that project. My main focus right now is minority scholarships. And last year we gave away $41,000 in scholarships. $1,000 for 41 different students. Also I donated $20,000 to my alma mater, Bethune-Cookman College for scholarships. So this is what I’m focusing on right now.”
(So one of the cool things about the 72 team, the stats are crazy. Zero [losses], 2,000-yard rushers, most rushing yards by team in a season. But what I think has been the most interesting part of looking at all the history had been specific plays – the interceptions in the Super Bowl, the fake punts, things like that. Are there any kind of standout plays either that you feel like were great plays for you? Or plays that really stand out your memory when you think back on that season 50 years ago?) – “Well, we ran a play called Float 38. That was me pulling and Mercury (Morris) running behind me. And that’s where he gained most of his yards, on Float 38 running behind me.”
(And then another question that I think has been interesting is the difference in the game in 2022, versus 72. Particularly the difference in offensive line play?) – “Guys hold every play now. We couldn’t hold back then. We had to keep our hands inside, and they’d be – they could call a holding penalty on every play in every game if they wanted to, and they have a lot of fat guys playing now, too, and there’s a lot of belly bumping out there. I was big then, but I wasn’t fat. I’m kind of fat now.”
(And in some of your previous interviews on the subject, you talked about how important losing 20 pounds before that season was to help you kind of block on the outside. Could you talk a bit more about that?) – “Oh, well, Shula made me lose weight. When he came to Miami, I went to his press conference and after the press conference they introduced him. And I said, ‘Coach, my name is Larry Little. I’m your right guard.’ The first thing he said to me was, ‘How much do you weigh?’ I said 285. And he walked off. Didn’t say another word to me and when I got my letter and to come to training camp, the letter stated that ‘I want your weight to be 265 pounds.’ And at that time, I was still big for an offensive lineman compared to the style of the offensive lineman today. So you know, I worked out to keep my weight down and that helped me a lot. Because, like you said earlier, this sweltering heat down here in Miami, I could play a whole game without really getting really, really tired.”
(You touched on this a little bit talking about offensive line play I wanted to ask you just help us get into the mindset of an offensive lineman. Coming off of Tua’s injuries. He took those two big hits in those two games. He’s coming out of the concussion protocol. He’s going to be back out there on the field. Obviously, the linemen – your goal is to protect the quarterback on each and every play, but what’s going through their head now knowing he’s coming back from such an injury, knowing that they’re going to have to take that extra step to protect him even more after what he’s coming out of this concussion protocol?) – “I was told not to talk about that today.”
(Or maybe your thoughts just as a lineman in general after …?) – “Let me put it this way. It’s very similar to actually in 1972 when we lost about Bob Griese and Earl Morrall came in. And at the time Earl was 38 years old with no escape ability. And we knew we had to block a little harder and longer for Earl than we had to block for Bob. But then that year, Earl had the longest run from scrimmage out of any of our backs. Earl ran a 38-yard touchdown against New York Jets. So what your mindset is always to play hard. You knew you had to block off for your quarterback and we had to block that way for Earl more so than Bob. Not more so than Bob, but a little longer than Bob.”
So you’re conscious of that. In your head you’re thinking maybe a little bit more about who’s that back there under center at the time when you’re figuring out your game plan?) – “Not really. Just want to do the best job you can with what you have and no linemen like to get beat. It’s embarrassing and nowadays, too, and it started late in my career when they call your name out for holding. You don’t want to hear your name, ‘holding on No. 66.’ Oh no, goodness. No, you don’t want that. But playing offensive line, you have to have a lot of pride to be a good offensive lineman. You just can’t go out there and say I can’t – you have to have the mindset that you can’t let this guy in front of you beat you, and that’s what I had. I played some great defensive linemen, too – Mean Joe Green, Curley Culp, Mike Reid, Merlin Olsen. You have to go out there and say, ‘I’m not going to let this guy beat me because that’ll be embarrassing to me.’ It was embarrassing to me to get beat by anyone.”
(Give me your thoughts real quickly on – you mentioned earlier, “Wow, it’s been 50 years.” Are you surprised that no other team has been able to duplicate what you guys did 50 years ago. Tom Brady even just went out on social media and said bluntly football is hard. And not only is football hard, but going undefeated as he learned, he made it through the regular season but going undefeated and winning the Super Bowl. Are you surprised that no other teams have been able to do that over the last five decades?) – “Yes, I am. Like I said earlier, I never thought that we would be on top of the mountain by ourselves. I thought we would’ve been joined by someone else and it hasn’t happened.”
(In reading up and just learning more about the history of you know the 70s and the Orange Bowl specifically, I came to learn about Dolfan Denny, the superfan who’s in all orange and getting the crowd hyped up. I was just curious if you knew of him, if you noticed him while you were playing and just what impact he had hyping up the crowd back in the day?) – “I knew Dolfan Denny. I do know, too, that I believe he worked for Southern Bell with my sister, too. But I never paid that much attention to what he had when he was hyping up the crowd and not because my total concentration was on the game. But I knew of him for sure.”
(Could you tell that he really had an impact on getting the crowd hyped up when you guys were playing at home?) – “I think what really got the crowd hyped up that we noticed when they started you bringing out the white hankies. More so than Denny hyping up the crowd. I mean, at the Orange Bowl we’re seeing 80,000 people standing there waving those white handkerchiefs. I mean, that did a lot for us.”
(I wanted to ask you about Don Shula’s legacy. What does he mean to South Florida and the city of Miami?) – “Well, he is South Florida, although he wasn’t born and raised here. Shula is South Florida. What do you have a highway named after him? He had a hotel and country club named after him because of what he accomplished as a head coach and still being one of the head coach in the history of the NFL. And his legacy will always be around Miami, no matter how many years to come. If you want to know who Don Shula was and what he meant to not only Miami, South Florida.”
Bob Griese – October 18, 2022
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Tuesday, October 18, 2022
Hall of Fame QB Bob Griese
(Opening Statement) – “I heard everything, every word that (Larry) Csonka was saying. He was – in the huddle, he was on one side of me, and Mercury Morris was on the other side of me. And you saw how long Csonka talks and you saw how intelligent he is, well, Mercury thought he was just as talkative, and he was, but he wasn’t nearly as smart as Csonka. But occasionally, I would say, ‘Alright, I don’t have any ideas of what I wanted to call.’ It was like second-and-1 or third-and-1. I would say, ‘Anybody got any ideas?’ Well, gee, here we go. Csonka says P 10, Mercury Morris says Flow 38, and then (Bob) Kuechenberg is up there, and he’s playing left guard, or he might be laying center, and he has his suggestions. So that’s what I put up with. I just want you guys to know that Mercury and Csonka and Kuechenberg, and then (Head Coach Don) Shula is on the sidelines, ‘Bob, hurry up! Hurry up, Bob! Hurry up!’ I said – and he knew, he knew, he knew, he knew what the problem was. So I didn’t ask for suggestions of play calls very often, but when we were ahead, it was fun to see those guys jump in there. You just saw with Csonka, a very intelligent guy, very intelligent but also – I always liked that play in the Super Bowl where he came, got swept and he hit that guy on the sideline. Shula thought it was going to be a penalty on the other guy, but no, it was on Csonka. (laughter) I enjoyed seeing that one, I do.”
(I think one of the most interesting things about this season is how you ended up splitting quarterback duties with QB Earl Morrall over the course of the season because of injuries. I was wondering if you could just speak about that, and also because he can’t speak with us today, if you could just reflect on QB Earl Morrall?) – “I played the first five games. We were inside the five-yard line, and I called a – I don’t know what the play was called, it was a pass. I dropped back to pass, I threw the ball, and I followed through with my right leg, and one of the defensive ends – I think it was San Diego or Los Angeles? Anyway, (he) fell on my right front leg, and I knew immediately that this was not going to be a thing that I was going to play the rest of that game. I’m saying I’m wonder how many games I’m going to miss. It was a fractured fibula and a dislocated ankle. The dislocated ankle was much more serious than the crack in the fibula. So here comes Earl, Earl Morrall. Earl had been with (Head Coach Don) Shula in Baltimore. Shula’s second year with us, he brought Earl from Baltimore to us, because if anything happened to me, he had a lot of confidence in Earl. A lot of the guys didn’t see that yet, because Earl hadn’t played. Earl was not a good practice player. He was not the good practice player. So all the guys and the offense and the D-guys on the defense and the guys on the rest of the team were saying, ‘Uh oh. Uh oh, Bob’s hurt. Earl is going in. Did you see where he threw that pass on Friday? You see how he threw those passes on Saturday? Oh geez, here goes Earl.’ Earl was like, I don’t know, 38 or 39, which was – nobody played when they were that old in the league. So anyway, Earl comes in and just sets all the questioners, all the guys to the side, he answers all the questions. He leads us the rest of the way. And I’ve always said Earl was a great guy. We lockered next to each other, and he did a great job. There would be no undefeated season without Earl Morrall.”
(That’s great of you to say. I’ve got to say, one other aspect of that season for you that seems like something out of a movie is halftime AFC Championship game, Head Coach Don Shula talks to you about coming into the game. Can you just describe that moment a little bit?) –
“Well, I was ready. I was ready. In fact, I was healthy. I think I missed – what I miss? 10 games? 11 games? Like I said the cracked fibula was not problem, it was the dislocated ankle. I was getting treatment all the way from the time I got injured, well once they took the cast off, all they way up there. I had some friends and they played softball in the in the offseason. And a guy had a dislocated ankle like I did, and he said, ‘it took me two years to get over that dislocated ankle.’ And I said, ‘It took me five months.’ So five months and I was back playing. Everybody saw me in practice, I was running the second team. Earl Morrall was still running, he was doing his thing. Sometimes he was looking good in practice, sometimes (inaudible). (laughter) So anyway, I was throwing the ball well, I had a fresh arm. I mean, I had no bumps and bruises. I had no people stepping on me. Nothing was wrong with my head as far as bad plays. My arm was fresh, but Earl was doing a good job. So when Coach Shula came to me at halftime in Pittsburgh, the AFC Championship game, and he said, ‘You’re in,’ and I said, ‘Alright, I’ve been ready for the last couple of games.’ And he saw that and he knew that, and the rest of the team knew that. So I said, ‘OK.’ So, that was it – I just went in. Earl did a great job getting us there, and like I said, he’s a big part of that 17-0.”
(I wanted to talk a little bit more about how you mentioned the injuries that you suffered and QB Earl Morrall came in. Looking at this year’s Dolphins team, they’ve been dealing with injuries at the quarterback position. It’s derailed the season a little bit. They’ve suffered a few losses. Are you excited to see – It appears QB Tua Tagovailoa is coming back into the lineup. Are you excited to see him reintroduced out there onto the field? Is that the kind of spark that a team can have that will help get them back on the winning ways and really help turn the season back to where it was at the beginning with those three straight wins?) – “You couldn’t get any worse than having not only your two top quarterbacks, but your three top quarterbacks injured before you played six or seven games. But they’ll be back – none of them are out for the season. Tua (Tagovailoa) coming back – Tua will play and play well. The other two guys will heal. The thing we’ve found out is that seventh-round draft pick (Skylar Thompson) is pretty good player.”
(Another question just related to that a little bit. I know you were listening to Larry Csonka when he was talking with us. And he said listen, back in his day, these players could knock each other off their feet. Not the case anymore – the NFL really trying to protect the players and making rule changes. As a quarterback, what are your thoughts on the way the game is played now? I know there are some pluses and minuses. You see the questionable roughing the passer call with Tom Brady that social media erupted over. As a guy who played quarterback for so many years, what are your thoughts on the rule changes now to help protect players?) – “Well, when I played and all the other quarterbacks have played, they needed to protect the quarterback a little bit more. They may have gone overboard a little bit, but I would say I’d rather see them (stay) on the side of too much protection of the quarterback rather than too little, like they did back when we played.”
(We talked to Larry Csonka a little bit obviously before. He gets pretty excitable about the prospect of the undefeated teams losing each time that they have a chance. Can you talk about – is that a shared sentiment? Or would you say there’s somebody that gets the most excited about a team nowadays that loses the chance to match you guys? Or how does that go about with you guys?) – “Well, we’re kind of used to having one or two or three teams go undefeated, maybe halfway through the season, but this year was different. After, I don’t know, almost three games, there were only one or two teams still undefeated. I haven’t seen Philadelphia play that much, but I’ve seen some highlights. And like I guess like ‘Csonk’ (Larry Csonka) said, they could – but it gets tougher as you go along. It’s tougher, even the weaker teams have the chance to beat you. But yeah, they play one more game (or) two more games than we did. So I don’t know – if we went 17-0, they go 19-0. So they have one more game, but we still have the zero on the loss column.”
(Is there a certain trait you can point to that you guys had that you would say was the most significant trait for that team for not losing a game?) – “Oh, we had a hell of a defense. We had a hell of a defense, and we had a hell of an offensive line. We had the hell of a running game, which controlled, I think Csonka talked about it a little bit, we were out there not trying to score points so much but to stay on the field, keep our defense on the sideline and the opponent’s very good offense on the sideline. As long as we stayed out there making first downs and running that clock, we were doing our defense and our team a service and a disservice to the other team’s offense by not letting them on the field. So things change a lot. Back in that day, the thing was the running game and the offensive line and the running game. Today, it’s not that – it’s the passing game. So it’s kind of hard to control the field and the offense and the clock with a passing offense, but some people can do it.”
(I’m just curious, 50 is a big number – 50 years is a big number. But I remember at 25 years, Nick Buoniconti saying you guys were the forgotten team and Head Coach Don Shula saying you didn’t get your respect. Do you think by now that the undefeated and the achievement of it is on a bigger stage than it was back then and maybe what you guys deserve?) – “Yes, that’s a good point. That’s a good question. I think back then, so what? So you go undefeated, win the Super Bowl – somebody is going to do it in five years. Nobody did it. In 10 years – they’ll do it soon. 15 years, nobody has done it. 20 years? No, nobody. 30 (years), then the good teams come by, the Brady year, the New York Giants with Eli Manning beating the Patriots in that Super Bowl game. And everybody says, ‘Geez, that must be pretty hard to do, go undefeated.’ So yes, I think as time has gone by, I think more people realize that that was something special. We didn’t realize it was something special. We just thought – we didn’t try to go undefeated. We just went out there and tried to win each game. Win each game and that’s what we did. But it’s tougher to do now because there are more games. I think we get more respect now than we did back then because we went undefeated.”
(Just generally, how do you think like the game has evolved with the rules for concussions? Especially with what we know about CTE? How do you think head trauma injuries are like viewed now as supposed to back then?) – “I’m glad to see them protecting the quarterback a little bit more. A few years ago, they said, ‘OK, you can’t hit the quarterback below the waist, and you can’t hit him above the shoulders when you’re coming in there.’ Now, when the guy grabs him legally and twirls him around and throws him down and his head and his helmet pop back on the ground, now they’re starting to call that. I’m all for the quarterbacks – you can’t protect enough (is) what I’m saying. What would a game be without Aaron Rodgers? What would a game be without (Tom) Brady and some of these quarterbacks? You want to see them in there. As long as the rules are the same for both sides, both defenses and both offenses, I like it.”
(It just seems like there’s more of an awareness now for head trauma injuries as opposed to back in the day for all positions. What are your thoughts on that and how concussions and CTE are viewed now as opposed to back then?) – “Back in the old days – I’m looking across here at armoire and I see two or three of my helmets sitting up there. Inside those helmets are the way that helmets used to be made, and that was just straps. There were just straps in there holding your head away from the helmet and protecting it – not very good. Today, they’ve got these air-filled helmets on the inside that you can pump up and pump up, so the technology has come a long way. I see these guys hitting their heads and I say, ‘Oh, if that would have been me back int eh day, I probably would have had a concussion.’ But they’re much better – the helmets are much better, and they’re protecting the quarterbacks a little better. I like what I’m seeing.”
(I spoke to QB Tua Tagovailoa probably in the beginning of this season, he said he never had the chance to speak with you before. If there’s one thing that you could tell QB Tua Tagovailoa, what would that be?) – “Keep doing what you’re doing. He’s a bright kid. I would tell every quarterback this; when you drop back in the pocket, and you look to the right, and you look over the middle, and you look to the left, if nobody is covered and there’s no way to takeoff running, scrambling up the middle or scrambling to the right or the left, get rid of the ball. You have to think that. You have to say, ‘OK, I’ve got three receivers going out on the right and two on the left and they’re coming across the middle of field. I’m looking here first, then I’m looking here.’ And if not, I said, ‘I’m looking over here. I’m going to get rid of the ball over the middle. And if not, that baby is going somewhere. It’s going at the feet of somebody that’s covered. I’m getting rid of the football.’ And that that is a trait that the really good quarterbacks in this league have.”
(You spent some time as part of the greatest college broadcast team with you and Keith Jackson. What was that experience like working with him over the years?) – “Oh nelly! Oh nelly, I’ve got to tell you. Keith (Jackson) was – Keith was a great guy. My first game, he says, ‘I’ll take care of you.’ I never will forget, my son, Brian, was playing for Michigan and they were in the Rose Bowl. Michigan was ranked No. 1, and everybody was asking me, ‘How are you going to call this game without being favored to your son and to Michigan?’ And I said, ‘Well, I’ve been – we did five or six Michigan games, and I just call it the way I see it.’ I called – the Michigan quarterback was my son, I called him Griese. I didn’t call him – so anyway, we’re doing the Rose Bowl game, the National Championship, (and) Michigan wins. They win the National Championship. So they win, and Keith – it’s kind of near the end of the broadcast, kind of signing off and he says, ‘Woah, nelly. Do you want to know who the MVP is? I’m standing right next to his proud daddy.’ And I said, ‘Keith, you better take it from here, because I can’t talk.’ (laughter) He was a great guy – one of the best.”
Larry Csonka – October 18, 2022
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Tuesday, October 18, 2022
Hall of Fame FB Larry Csonka
(Can you kind of paint the picture of what it’s like every time this team gets together and you guys are reunited? Also, can you speak to how much Don Shula will be missed for this reunion?) – “Well, getting together as a group is very nice and it’s nice for the Dolphins to do that to where we’re actually looking at each other, pressing flesh and able to talk, lean on each other, smile, smoke cigars and all of that. But there’s a unity that goes on with the ’72 team that goes on every year that it’s the most alive team that I’ve ever been affiliated with – I think anyone has ever been affiliated with – because it’s still competing. You guys know what I’m about to say. As soon as we get five games in, just like right now, I’m starting to get calls from Manny Fernandez and different guys going, ‘What do you think of Philadelphia? What do you think their odds are of (going undefeated)?’ Right away. See what that does is we’re dusty old guys. We’ve been retired 50 years. It’s been obviously 50 years since we went undefeated. But each year, we come back to life. It’s like the dust blows off and we’re up and we’re talking, ‘it’s us against them,’ kind of thing. But it’s not really us against them. It’s our reputation against them. I don’t know how to explain it other than to say it gives you the feeling, as you reach antiquity, that you’re still in there. There’s still a competition going on. The great thing about it is we don’t have to listen to (Don) Shula and we’re not having two-a-days. (laughter) But we’re still competing in a very minor capacity. It’s still there and it goes on. And it reaches a peak. The year that New England went so far, clear to the Super Bowl, Tom Coughlin, my old teammate from Syracuse, bailed us out. That was a sweat and right down to the wire. I don’t like that. (laughter) That year wasn’t a very pleasant one, although we were together and talked a lot during the course of that. I like when it all ends about midseason or two-thirds of the way through because whatever team is going undefeated or shows signs of going undefeated drops a game by that time.”
(I have to follow up. What are those internal conversations about Philadelphia this year? You’ve got a lot of teams that suffered their first loss early but then the Eagles kind of stood pat for a few weeks now. So what are you guys saying about this year’s Eagles?) – “Well, we’re all starting to growl in our beards about it. You’re glad that there’s one or two teams that are still undefeated when you reach about the sixth or seventh game mark. But then around the 10-game mark, you start to want to see them disappearing faster because you’re very guarded about it. It’s a jealousy thing. In one capacity, it’s fun. In another capacity, it’s still a competition thing and it’s a little frustrating, particularly when you get to the Super Bowl, and you know it’s coming right down to the wire. Nobody can better us but they can certainly tie us. So you’re pulling very heavily against them to do that. It makes you feel alive. It makes you feel like you’re part of it again, and that’s a very good thing.”
(You mentioned Tom Coughlin and in your book, you spoke on your time with him at Syracuse. I wanted to know, going back to that 2007 season, do you still thank him for preserving your undefeated record when he was a coach with the Giants?) – “Absolutely. I’ve thanked him many times. We talked through the years – Tom and I go way back to August of 1964 when we both met in an elevator at Booth Hall at Syracuse University. Remarkably, you look at coaches in the capacity that Tom was there, he’s a very detail-oriented guy and he and Coach (Don) Shula are very similar personalities. Great attention to detail. Very dedicated people, I guess, are the words that I want to say. They are dedicated to what they do. A lot of us, me included, tend to take things half-hearted and sign on to do things. They’re a little more detail-oriented and Tom is a very sincere competitor. If he’s going up against you – Shula used to call it the winning edge. What that means, and it’s applicable to Tom Coughlin as well – it’s something they have in common – it’s the attention to detail. Shula flew out and went to a Super Bowl game, before we went to the stadium that we were going to play in in a couple of weeks, on a Sunday and documented where the sun was every hour in the afternoon. Those kind of details give you an insight into how serious they are about all of the details adding up to a win. It’s not a thing where we’re just going to practice and they do this, we’ll do that. It’s much more intense than that, I guess is what I’m looking for. I think that’s the common denominator between Shula and Coughlin. To answer your question about him being the coach in the Super Bowl, I felt confident because they both – Shula and Coughlin – were very similar in their attention to detail. I thought if anybody can beat the Patriots, it would be the Giants because Tom Coughlin will not miss a detail. And he did not. And it came down to a thread. But that’s the great thing is you’re either on top of that mountain and undefeated or you’re not. There’s no – almost doesn’t count for much. You’re either there or you’re not. In those closing moments, who was the guy that caught the ball on the side of his head – David Tyree – at the end of the game and won it for the Giants. What a moment. I jumped up out of my chair and almost stuck my head into an overhead fan, I was so excited. But that – knowing people like that, you talk about Tom Coughlin and what he means in my life or how close we were, we were close when we played together, we were close when we were in professional football at the same time, and then he coached the team that defended our perfect season. So how much closer can you get in football than that?”
(You said you jumped out of your seat. Can you take us through a little bit how it’s gone over the years? Do you remember any other stories from watching the teams? How do you watch the Eagles right now? Is it a pretty rollercoaster ride for you right now? What’s that experience like?) – “What’s funny about that is when you start out and there’s a new team like Philly that’s showing signs of doing things and you turn your attention to them, it pleased me to see how well-balanced Philly is. Everyone is acting surprised but when you look at what they’re doing and how they control the ball, they’re reminiscent of – football has obviously changed a great deal in 50 years. A lot of folks sitting in the stands – back in the day, when I played, I think most of the fans had played football and had some understanding of it. More of the base of the fans today, I don’t think that’s necessarily true. There’s many people sitting in those seats that have never played, never been on the field and just like the whole scenario – the competition and the excitement. And when they look out there and see a ball thrown, they see a man throw a football, they see another man run and catch it, and they understand that. When they see the power running game operate and four yards is gained, they probably don’t know what they just saw. But the ingredients that go into a ball-control offense are so finite that if you have an understanding of what’s happening out there, it enables that team to do that repeatedly and have that, and you have a greater appreciation of what you’re looking at. I’m not going to say one is good and one is bad. It’s just the difference over the decades. And when you talk about the intensity that we get excited about, when one of the other players calls me – Larry Little, Manny Fernandez or one of them calls me – they start talking about like Philly. And I say it looks like they’ve got ball control, which is something you don’t see very often anymore, where they can actually say it’s third-and-2 and we’re going to run right here and you can’t stop us, and they do it. Not 100 percent but certainly play in and play out, a high percentage of the time, they go ahead and do it. That affects the defense. You can’t imagine how unbalanced the defense starts to feel when you can start controlling that and burning that clock down. Now when you throw the pass, you score fast, the other team takes the ball and scores fast, you get high-scoring games that are very exciting. I’m not saying it’s not a great thing for the fans. But when I watch a game and I see what Philly is demonstrating right there, they have things that are reminiscent of our old power running game when we went undefeated. It’s gratifying but it’s a little scary. (laughter) So there’s two sides to that coin.”
(Have you looked down that schedule a little bit? Who is going to beat the Eagles?) – “Probably the team that is the least likely looking at the schedule is the one that will do the trick. That’s how competitive today’s game is with how much the passing game has been enhanced. Back in the day, until the ball was in the air, you could knock a guy clear off his feet anywhere on the field in a pass pattern. But today, it’s not the case. It’s a very different game. It’s just probably more exciting for more people in the stands than it was then. I’m not downplaying that. And I’m not really trying to compete with it. It’s just a fact. It’s just the way it is. But if you see a team all of a sudden that doesn’t depend on that, that actually shows signs of ball control, it gets us old grandpas sitting in our antiquity chairs to sit up and say, ‘Damn! They look a little reminiscent of something we might have done back then.’ So it gets a little exciting and you’re happy about that, and you like to watch them. But then as they keep going undefeated, you’re starting to think, ‘wait a minute here. Why am I applauding? These guys are going to dance on our dance floor here shortly.”
(You mentioned how the game has changed and how you can’t just knock players clear off their feet anymore. The league has obviously made a lot of rule changes to try and protect players overall. And then you see instances like the QB Tom Brady roughing the passer call that erupted social media and people were complaining on the other side of that. What do you think about the rule changes and does the league have it right when it comes to protecting players? Or is it still a work in progress?) – “I can’t comment on protecting players. That’s more than the league. I’m sure the league has combined with medical. There’s a lot that goes into that, the whole science of that. But as far as making it competitive on the field, I think it’s more competitive than it’s ever been. I’m a power runner, a fullback. I’m not a breakaway runner. I have to have linemen that can cooperate and work with each other. It becomes very intricate, very tricky. I’m appreciative of that. I like that. But I understand that probably 50 percent of the people or more sitting in the stands don’t really know about that. It’s not that exciting to them. To see a 3-yard gain on first down, it’s like what just happened? Well, if you know the inner workings of it, you’re much more appreciative of it. And you know the ability of an offense that controls the clock to make the other team to not have time to get that last touchdown, no matter how good their passer is. That’s the difference. Now, it’s a business. The NFL is a business. To make it more attractable to the fans, the product more attractive to the customer, the purchaser, certainly you enhance the passing game. Coach (Don) Shula was one of the guys. He was on the rules committee when they started changing a lot of those passing rules. If you look back in the 70s and 80s, he was one of the guys that was into that. He liked the passing game and thought it was better to help that side of it more than the power running game. Obviously that’s come to fruition. But when you’re sitting in the stands and you don’t really know a lot about football, again you can recognize that throw and that catch, and that’s exciting. And it comes right down to the wire. They fire a lot of them right down to the wire. But suddenly you see all of that ball control that we had seems to have disappeared in antiquity. And then all of a sudden you see there’s Philly sitting there and they’re starting to do some of the things that we did. You sit up and clear your throat and think, ‘Damn, they’re starting to control that ball.’ Well, the only way that you can keep the other quarterback from not slinging the ball 40 yards is to burn that clock up. And you see Philly starting to do that. That’s reminiscent to what we had back 50 years ago. Even though I’m in my rocking chair in antiquity, every once in awhile, I sit up, clear my throat and call (Manny) Fernandez and say, ‘did you just see that?’ (laughter) And for 30 seconds or a minute and a half, we’re right into it, bridging the 50-year gap and each paragraph is being spouted. And it’s fun. It makes you feel current.”
(On that note, you mentioned that you get the messages from Manny Fernandez and some of your other former teammates. When you’re going to be on the field together in-person on Sunday, how is that going to be different to not be exchanging text messages and actually be there as a group once again, celebrating this monumental occasion, this 50 years since you guys did what many thought couldn’t be done?) – “Well, to answer your question, it’s super. I look forward to it. They all do. I’m sure we all do. And we appreciate it. But just being week-to-week, or year-to-year, where we would all get together – the Dolphins have been gracious enough over most of the 50-year period to bring us back at least once a year or maybe even more. Or provide us an opportunity where all the veterans and the old pros could all get together. You don’t realize how fast you’re getting old until your teammates, your friends, acquaintances, family, start to disappear. I don’t think anything brought it more drastically to mind than when Coach Shula passed. None of us – he was just such a strong and prominent figure in so many of our lives, that you just assume he’s always going to be there. And then suddenly to be talking about him in the past tense was a really bitter pill. It made us realize we’re all getting older. We’re passing that quarter-mile post. It’s coming around the bend. That’s what promoted the fact with me about writing the memoir was that I realized 75 is a lot different than 55. Let’s put it that way. I was still making memoirs at 55. Now at 75, I’m looking back at them.”
(What sort of reaction are you getting from your teammates about your book?) – “(laughter) Well, that’s the great thing about a memoir. You don’t say it’s history, you say it’s a memoir because everybody remembers things a little differently. (laughter) Coach (Don) Shula and I never had the same expression or the same comment about anything from a ham sandwich to a cup of coffee. We’d find something to (inaudible) about. But it’s a memoir. That means that’s the way I remember it. Now what I did with Manny (Fernandez) and several of them – Larry Little, Paul Warfield, Bob Griese – and even back before Jim Kiick passed away, I started re-hashing stories with him because sometimes the way you remember, you only remember from your perspective. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the details on things, just how it concerned me and how it affected me. So when you start writing about it 50 years later, you kind of want to get your teammates – I didn’t want them to get involved with it in writing it; but at the same time, after I wrote it, I wanted to have them proof it and say, ‘Do you remember this this way?’ Like when Shula first got there and we had the confrontation, when we put the alligator in his room. Because some of the details got shifted over the years, so I wanted to make sure my teammates were still remembering it the same way I was. So when you talk about a memoir, that kind of gets you off the hook. That’s the way that I remember it. And Manny Fernandez and Larry Little were kind enough to really proofread it. Paul Warfield (too). Different fellows took the time to sit down and read it. A lot of my offensive linemen read it, read the proofs, and got back to me and told me about the differences. And then I decided whether I had to change it a little bit. Because as they were telling me, I started to remember that’s probably more the way that it happened than the way I just wrote it down here. So I incorporated them to kind of proofread a little bit and I think you have to do that because all of us tend to remember things the way we want to remember them instead of the way they actually happen.”
(One other thing I wanted to ask you – G Larry Little was on a few minutes ago and he said something that sounded kind of sad but I understood where he was coming from. He said this is probably our last time together as a group. Do you think that might be true? Or will you guys always have a way of getting back together, do you think?) – “Well, your definition of together. I get a real kick out of just them calling me on the phone. During the Giants game with Tom Coughlin, I was switching lines and talking to different guys and sitting out in the rec room with the TV set. That’s the closest to being actually in a football game in 35 years that I’ve ever been. The involvement is different levels at different times, I guess is what I’d have to say.”
(Is that your ’72 Super Bowl ring on your left hand?) – “Yeah. The perfect season. That was a good one. (laughter) Because we had done so well on the way to it and what a hard-fought game it was, it should have ended at 17-0 just the way the season did. But in the waning moments, it turned into a melee and then Jake Scott and Manny Fernandez and others stepped forward. That’s a really great thing – I stressed that in the book. I’ll just touch on one thing – when you have a perfect season, it’s not all Paul Warfield on offense or Larry Csonka or Bob Griese. And on defense it’s not all Nick Buoniconti or Jake Scott. It’s everybody. Two of the crucial games, Charlie Babb turned the Cleveland game around for us. We were about to lose when we played Cleveland. And he wasn’t even a starting defensive back. He was a rookie backup defensive back but he saw something in the film, went to the coaches – it’s a long story and I won’t tell you the whole story but you can look at it in the book. He made the difference in that game. Here he is and he’s not even a starter. Larry Seiple at Pittsburgh in the playoffs sees something. The Pittsburgh Steelers are busy getting a punt return set up and they’re not paying attention to the fact that the punt is being punted. Seiple, who is really cagey and went on to be a coach, he could play tight end for us and he punted. He could play quarterback. He could play wide out. He was one of those very versatile guys that you could plug in anywhere. He’s a very valuable guy on the team. Most writers don’t remember his name other than the run that he made in Pittsburgh. But he was an integral part. That was the essence of what I wanted to convey when we talk about the ’72 team. It wasn’t the stars. It wasn’t the coaches. It wasn’t the trainers. It was all of us. Charlie Babb stepped forward. Larry Seiple stepped forward. Jake Scott stepped forward. They made the difference on the matter of one, two or three plays that made the difference in the season. That’s how finite that gets. That’s how competitive that is to be able to say that they’re the No. 1 team in the history of the league. The only one that went from game one to the championship and won them all. Because you have to have people, more than your superstars on offense or defense or even on special teams. You have to have coaches that are more than just a general coaching staff. They have to be dedicated. They have to really think about it. Far into the night after they’ve left the practice field, driving home, they’re still thinking about it. What is the winning edge? And that’s how finite that gets. And to be a member of that, and having had that work and seeing that operate, that’s the ring I wear and that’s the way it will always be because it’s a thing you’re more proud of because it reflects teamwork, not just a few stars.”
(A lot of the younger readers are familiar with this aspect of you and I’m wondering if you’ve ever encountered this description of yourself as the only ball-carrier to get a call for unnecessary roughness. Do you remember that play? That’s a very cool thing to be able to say about yourself.) – “(laughter) You have to understand that that was then and this is now. But there was a great difference on the football field back then in regards to hitting each other late and all of the things that happened. A lot of defensive backs, when you’re a power running back – and I’ll try to cut this down so it’s not so long. When you’re a fullback and you run up through the middle, you’re not breaking any 90-yard runs around the end or anything. The defensive backs can come in late because at tackle, if a guy like Joe Greene gets you around the shoulder or gets a hold of you, he’s not turning loose. It’s just a matter of how far you can drag him and how your momentum of the pile can change. And when those defensive backs come in and give you a shot, because you’re trying to drag just to get another yard and a half or so, and here they come in late and stick you in the ribs or come in and hit you up around the head or whatever it is that happened – it happened a lot – well, you remember that. Then in the book, I said something about the coming of age, the winning edge mind, when I was in the huddle and Paul Warfield – a great wide receiver that I saw when I was high school because he was playing for the Browns in Cleveland, and I snuck into a game and got to see him perform – he’s in the huddle with me and he goes down. After I hit a guy, and kind of knocked him sideways, a defensive back, Paul Warfield leans over in the huddle and says, ‘Hey, good job. Watch this.’ Then he gets him one-on-one, and Paul Warfield gets that guy I just hit, who is a little bit dazed, who is 40 or 50 pounds lighter than I am, I just turned into him at the last second and just crunched him because I’m tired of him beating on me. So I turned into him, instead of turning away from him, and hit him and dazed him a little bit. Paul Warfield sees that, goes to (Bob) Griese, he knows he can get one-on-one with that guy, and twists him in the ground and scores. That’s when I realized I should do more of that for Paul Warfield because we’ll win more. (laughter) But in the particular instance that you alluded to, that was something that I was getting even with. I tried to do that legally with a forearm but sometimes in the heat of the battle when you’re getting hit, that forearm turns into a fist because your elbow gets knocked down and that’s the way it happened. I whacked a guy pretty good that had whacked me pretty good, and I considered it a late hit on his part. Although there was no flag. He wasn’t penalized for it. What I did, I got penalized for and should have, because you shouldn’t be allowed to hit a guy with your fist. There’s no room for that in football. But sometimes that happened. It wasn’t by design. I tried to deliver a forearm but that’s what I was doing was getting eager. I got caught and I paid the penalty. (Don) Shula was not real happy with it. When he saw the blow he was excited and thought great hit. Then about that time, I was coming off the field and the flag hit me in the shoulder and he looked at the flag, grabbed me by the shirt and started shaking me. (laughter) He would get so emotional in a game you’d have to send him over there. He went from being very happy to being very angry. There are some words in Hungarian that convey that. I didn’t know that character assassination was part of it but it got in there. (laughter) Anyways, Shula was moment to moment in a game. There was no bigger cheerleader than him. But he was like that. He was like Woody Hayes at Ohio State. You know how excited he’d get in a game and actually hit someone. Shula was like that but at the same time, there was another part of him that he would be seeing everything that happened on the field and he would be thinking there would be a strategy cooking up in his gizzard. And by the fourth quarter, he would come to us and say, ‘they’d be doing this, this and this. If we create this situation,’ he’d say at halftime. He’d have a whole scenario of what he had seen that the team we were facing was doing differently against us than they had against all of the other teams they had played before us that we watched films on and documented. He would notice that new thing and he would have something cooked up and have it ready for us at halftime to ingest and hopefully put it on the field. But he loved it when we were excited and in the game and hitting players back and forth. He was like that but any time that flag came out, that was like the gladiators or the guy in bullfights waving the red flag in front of the bull. If that flag hit us and we were guilty of something that wasn’t absolutely necessary, Shula would go off on a tangent. He went from being very happy to being very unhappy with me in about three seconds. I guess you had to be there.”
(I believe you were one of the several ’72 players who were on the sideline during that ’85 game where the Dolphins knocked off the Bears and broke their undefeated start. I was curious as to what memories you have of that game and whose idea was it to kind of come and support the team in ’85 during that big game?) – “I don’t remember whose idea it was but I think just the fact that we were there hexing them helped. I felt like it did. I don’t know. I think the Dolphins players, I think they responded to that. Just the way I went to see them recently when Coach (McDaniel) was just about to start the season, I went down and paid a visit to them and talked. It’s been 50 years. What could I say to a guy on the field today? Not much as far as how to play the game or something. But about the intensity, and about the winning edge, there’s a whole raft of things that you can communicate to the players today because winning is still the supreme benefit. I know pay scales are all different. They’re making millions. That’s great. But move that all over on the desk because money comes and money goes, but winning and becoming a team that has a mantle that nobody else has – if you can achieve something, at least aspire to achieve something that no one else has done. That makes for great memories. Those guys that are on that field, that’s pretty much what I said to them when I spoke to them before the season. They had a new coach coming in and it was very reminiscent of 1970. I sat in there and talked with them and I said ‘Look good, look hard here. This gray hair and this wrinkled old face. Fifty years is going to go by. Some of year are going to experience it going by very fast. Some of you are going to experience it going by very slow. All kinds of things are going to change drastically in your life. But right now, you’re in a crossroads where you have an opportunity. If you care about it enough, you have an opportunity to do something perhaps no one else has done or will again. The season is two games longer than it used to be, so if you go undefeated, technically you’ve done a little more than what we did.’ So we’re still on top of the mountain but you have to give credence where credence is there. If it’s two more games, you have to adhere to that. So there’s a chance. So when I spoke to them, I talked about that. I talked to them about the money is going to be spent. The notoriety is going to fade. But what you did will remain with you. And if you’re the best ever – if you’re the best in 100 years, the first in 100 years, the best team ever. Think about that. It’s something that keeps us competitive. It keeps us still in the game. I love it.”
Paul Warfield – October 18, 2022
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Tuesday, October 18, 2022
Hall of Fame WR Paul Warfield
(I had a question to you related to ‘The Magician,’ WR Marlin Briscoe. What was your relationship like with him, as well as the entire receiving corps?) – “We had a great group of receivers when I was with the Miami Dolphins, and certainly, Marlin Briscoe epitomized that. He came to our ball club from the Buffalo Bills and certainly was an important member of our receiving corps during that 1972 season. Marlin, of course, got his start in the National Football League as a quarterback, I believe, with the Denver Broncos and played a couple of seasons there before being traded to the Buffalo Bills. Then at that point, he transitioned into a receiving corps. But very knowledgeable, very good pattern runner, outstanding team player. We also hooked up together on a few special plays because of his ability to throw the football. We had a couple of plays designed where he would receive a quick pass from our quarterback Bob Griese, but I would go out in the pattern and from behind the line of scrimmage, he would throw the ball downfield to me. But I really enjoyed the relationship with Marlin. Marlin fit into our scheme, certainly. He ironically, although a smaller man, was an outstanding blocker also.”
(I know the team will be playing in the throwback uniforms on Sunday night, and that’s a fan favorite uniform. I wanted to know your take. Do you think those uniforms should be made permanent? Or should they just be worn on special occasions like this?) – “Well, I think that’s up to the organization. Certainly, we’re very proud – I say we, my former teammates and I – of the aqua and orange that we wore. If the organization wants to bring those uniforms out in tribute (inaudible), then that’s a decision I think that should be made by the organization. Nevertheless, certainly my teammates and I – I may be speaking for our teammates in this situation, certainly enjoyed wearing dark colored shirts for our home ballgames.”
(So winning a football game – it’s hard. You guys won 17 of them. How were you able to do that? How were you able to remain undefeated? And why, over the last five decades, 50 years, has no other team been able to do that to win each and every game, including the Super Bowl?) – “That’s a very interesting question that you pose, and my answer would be simplistic as far as I feel. Now, if you talk to other members of the Miami Dolphins undefeated season, perhaps they may feel a little bit differently, but I did not think that that was an objective or that was what we were attempting to do for the most part. I think that we were attempting to show the, if I could use this term, football world that we were a better team than the team that was defeated previously the year before by an outstanding Dallas Cowboys football team in Super Bowl VI. What we are attempting to prove that year was to get back to the point where we could show the football world that we truly were not just the team that gotten there by accident, that we were very good football team and that we were capable of winning that prestigious Super Bowl Lombardi Trophy.”
(Why has no other team been able to do that? Obviously, you go out each and every week, and your plan is to win. Why is it so hard? And why has it been impossible to replicate over the last 50 years? Are you surprised by that, that no one’s been able to do it?) – “From my perspective, going 17-0, this just may be me individually, I did not feel like that was what we were trying to do. But nevertheless, what happened during the course of that season – we won one game, we won five games, we won 10 games, we won all 14 of the regular season games which enabled us to get back to where we want it to go, which was the playoffs to prove that we were a better team than we had shown in Super Bowl VI. So once we made it to the playoffs, it’s a win or go home. So we got to where we wanted to be, and then at that point, the real business was to win in Super Bowl VII. … From my perspective, again, we wanted to get back to the playoffs. And it was not an easy chore to do so, but going back to that 1972 season – yes, our fan base in Florida and in the Miami area were following us and our reporters, our local reporters were coming by, as they do on a weekly basis to cover our football team, but the national media was not necessarily paying that much attention until, as I recollect, we got to New York to play the Giants, next to our final ball game of the year. Then all of a sudden, it was like the New York media…”
(Before you were traded to the Dolphins, you were a member of the Cleveland Browns. Growing up in the state of Ohio, you went to Ohio State. Initially when the trade happened, how did you feel? And did you ever think that you will be a part of the undefeated season at that point and winning the Super Bowl? What were your emotions when you heard that trade?) – “Well, that trade was not something I really relished at that point. Yes, you’re right on all the points that you cited. I am a native Ohioan, played my high school football at a fine, fine school that had a great football tradition. I later, of course, was at The Ohio State University and played for the legendary Woody Hayes, and then while I was drafted by my favorite…”
Mike McDaniel – October 17, 2022
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Monday, October 17, 2022
Head Coach Mike McDaniel
(update on CB Keion Crossen, if that will be a long-term thing? And with CB Byron Jones, do you think he’ll practice this week? And do we know that he’ll definitely play this season? Is that in question?) – “Keion (Crossen), he’s a tough one to kind of nail down with the timeline for a good reason (because) he’s one of the fastest healers that I’ve ever been around. He’s shown that in the couple opportunities he’s had since he’s been here when he’s had something. So we’ll reassess midweek, only because it’s hard to kind of nail that down. Then with Byron (Jones), it is a big deal to put someone out there on the field, a cornerback that’s trying to perform at a high level, with a lower body extremity injury. So we’ve been judicious with it. I don’t think we’re going to see him practice this week, but we’re really just trying to do it the right way. It’s hard to know fully when that’s going to happen because if I gave a timeline – I’ve had a couple timelines in my head and held back from giving you those timelines, and I’ve been correct in doing so. We’ll just be taking that week by week and watching him work in the process.”
(With QB Tua Tagovailoa cleared, are you going through the week and anticipating that he’ll practice as the starter and ultimately start on Sunday?) – “The plan is for him to approach the game as the starter. So he’ll be able to get those reps in on Wednesday. I felt really good about how he was able to get back on the field. What’s unique about his whole process was that his last really full week of practice was the week of the Buffalo Bills game, because when you have a Thursday night game, you’re walking-through. So you’re talking about your last full-speed practice. So last week was a big week to get through the protocol, see all the specialists, get all the information and then get him back moving around. So, he responded really well and was his exuberant self. We’ll be excited to see him practice on Wednesday, and I know the team will be as well.”
(I know you haven’t wanted to make excuses for being without him, but what does having QB Tua Tagovailoa back do for this offense and this team?) – “He’s a captain. He’s a captain for a reason, and as I’ve told you guys from the onset, I think he’s a very, very good player at that position. So very good players, they definitely give people a boost – not because of what other people aren’t but more just because he is who he is. So he’s a strong fabric of this team, and that’s exciting when you get to go play with one of your brothers, which is why the team will be excited, and it will be exciting.”
(Did you see from just him tossing the ball around last week, at the end of last week, could you see that he’s not going to have any problem with the rust? Do you want to wait and see if rust is going to be an issue for QB Tua Tagovailoa?) – “No, I don’t anticipate necessarily rust from a mechanics standpoint. He is pretty gifted in that in that realm, and he was really the same the same guy. Luckily, he hadn’t forgotten. He didn’t start throwing right-handed, so that was a good thing. (laughter) But there’s always – you’re a product of your process in the NFL season. So there’ll be some things that for him getting used to the whole process will probably – there’s a little rust in that. But typically when that happens, nobody even really knows. You’re just getting used to, ‘Oh, it’s Wednesday, and we’re walking through, getting the huddle correct and proceeding from play to play and calling the plays to the guys and emphasizing the information to each player in the huddle that you need to.’ There’s always a little rust when you take time away in that regard, but physiologically and how he plays the position, he’s been so mentally locked in to everything we’ve been doing. I expect him to be pretty comfortable executing that.”
(When QB Tua Tagovailoa does go back into the game, do you want him to be more cautious about how he protects himself? Do you not want him thinking about that? Or what’s the line there when he goes back?) – “I talked to him a lot sooner than this week. When we were – when he’d come by the office and we just kind of talk about how things have kind of gone, there’s risks in this game and you’ve got to be able to control the controllables. One thing for him is you love his competitive nature, but there is a time in a play where you have to kind of concede, and that’s where he’s kind of been focusing on because it’s something that’s not natural to him. He wants to break every tackle, and he doesn’t like when plays don’t work. Well, sometimes they won’t. So that’s something that he’s mindful of, and I think that that’s a consistency of all the really great quarterbacks that you think of, the guys that you look up to, the guys that kind of set forth the example of how to play the position, they do find ways to be available. And part of that is that concession, but that is – all things considered, that’s probably a good problem to have in terms of a competitor. You just need to be able to understand your importance to the team and how sometimes the best play you can make is a throwaway.”
(After WR Jaylen Waddle’s fumble in the game, he appeared visibly distraught and just really upset about the play after the fact. I’m curious what it means to you when you get that tangible visual evidence of a guy that it just means so much to him?) – “Well, it’s definitely case by case. For him in particular, I recognize it as a good thing in nature. Like, it’s good that you’re mad. But he’s a young player that is going to have a wonderful career and we rely on him to make plays for us. So to me, I think one of the things that he can take a step forward in is being able to translate that frustration towards the next play rather than his helmet in the sideline bench, because people understand where he’s coming from, but also, what he aspires to be as a player and what I want to see him get to, when you’re a big time leader; you end up translating that energy for things between whistles. So it was definitely not a negative thing, but something that I could use the opportunity to try to give him a picture and a vision of growth moving forward because things will happen that you don’t want to happen. Regardless, he was trying to catch the first turnover that bounced off of him and was an interception. Then he was trying to score when he let the ball be a little loose and 22 (Harrison Smith) made a terrific play. That is coming from the right place. He’s trying to help the team win and then you can just learn from those examples because they’re very powerful and emotional because that’s the type of competitor he is.”
(The unique circumstance of Stephen Ross being suspended and now coming back. What, if any, impact does an owner’s return have on the team and what have your interactions been with him? – “I’m excited to talk to him. I haven’t talked to him in a long time. Since daybreak on Mondays, my day, even up until this point, I’m literally meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting to hanging out with you guys. So I’ll be excited to talk to him. I think every team is different. I know this particular team, with regard to everyone in the organization, the players really appreciate him because he allows myself, Chris (Grier) and everyone else in the organization, to do whatever it takes necessary to try to produce a winner, and he gives us all the all the resources possible. So I know the players will be excited to see him just because of that and their respect and regard for him and what we’re trying to do here. So it’ll be fun and I’ll be glad to see him because it’s been a while and we all very much appreciate him.”
(Speaking of some of your leaders, yesterday CB Xavien Howard kind of said, just spoke on the need for guys to make plays, specifically putting more points up on the offensive side of the ball. What can you say about his leadership? And what have some of the other captains stressed after yesterday and what has kind of the response been from the team?) – “I believe with the context that ‘X’ (Xavien Howard) was speaking on, I 100 percent agree with him, and I think every player does, too. You have to score more points than the opponent to win and we’re in the business of winning, so that is without a doubt, like I totally agree with him. I also know where ‘X,’ where his footing is, with regard to the team and he is stating what everyone is saying, which is that we need to put together a complete football game to get the results we want. So I appreciate that really all the guys really want to win. And speaking to the captains today, there’s without a shadow of a doubt, complete confidence in our ability to do what it takes to win on both sides of the ball. And I think when guys are more demanding of themselves than other people, which really all seven of our captains are, their sentiments do not go unnoticed and are supported because they lead by the best example you can give which is personal accountability over everything.”
(I know you said with the T Terron Armstead and OL Austin Jackson, the decision was made to hold them out. Were they on pace? Do they appear to be on pace, barring setback, which are always of course unpredictable, do they appear on pace to play Sunday?) – “With both guys for individual reasons – I feel good about where (Terron) Armstead got without playing in the game. I thought that helped him and he’s a guy that as he works through this stuff, he’ll be day to day. But I know he really, really wants to be out there and I’m fully confident that if he’s capable, he’ll be out there. So I would say it was a step in the right direction for him not to play because he had been gritting through a lot of stuff. So I feel good about that. With Austin (Jackson), we’re really, when you think about a high-ankle sprain or a low-ankle sprain or really anything with an ankle; that for an offensive lineman, is a tough injury. You can feel better, but then now you have to go lean on a 300-pound individual and try to displace them. And that force from ground up is challenging. He didn’t have any setbacks, so I feel good about that. It’s more about being judicious with that process so we don’t put himself in a position where he has any setbacks moving forward, or he doesn’t all of a sudden, we put him in a position where he’s super vulnerable in a game and isn’t able to complete it, which is tough with the active roster selection. So we’ll be monitoring that and a lot of guys have gotten good reps and are getting better in their place so hopefully we’ll get one or two of them back this week. If not, we’ll just keep getting better with the players on the field.”
(I wanted to ask you about a couple of other injuries. CB Nik Needham – has he had surgery yet or is that coming tomorrow or something? And also QB Skylar Thompson, obviously with the thumb, what update do you have?) – “So I’m not sure he had surgery, but Nik (Needham) will be put on IR for the Achilles. And then as far as Skylar (Thompson), he’s such a tough competitor. He’s in that whole little bucket of what our whole team seems to be, which is day to day. So especially Wednesday, we’re going to reassess where he’s at. But right now, it’s super unknown with that fresh injury to his throwing hand.”
Robert Hunt – October 17, 2022
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Monday, October 17, 2022
OL Robert Hunt
(What do you think about the possibility of maybe T Terron Armstead or OL Austin Jackson reincorporating themselves into this offense?) – “It would be exciting to get those guys back but like we’ve been saying, it’s always the next man up mentality. Unfortunately injuries happen in this league and some guys can’t go, and that’s been the case for those two guys and guys have stepped up. I think guys have done a good job stepping up, playing well. So you know that is what it is. If they come back, man we’ll be fired up and if they can’t go because of something that’s going on with their body, we got to understand that and the next one is up.”
(What has kind of been the message from captains on both sides of the ball to you guys, entering the losing streak three in a row. What have they kind of been telling you guys and emphasizing?) – “We don’t really look at it like it’s a losing streak. Of course, we have lost three in a row. But the message is the same. It’s never really been – with this game, you win and you lose. It’s hard to win in this league. We know the margin of error is very slim. So that’s the thing. We know what we’re capable of. We know we have a good team. I think the captains have done a great job reiterating that and I think it’s been good. I think they’ve been going about it the right way.”
(How do you guys kind of get back into – you guys played such good complementary football those first three weeks and then kind of – injuries have played a part obviously. But what have you guys strayed away from and how do you get back to playing complementary football?) – “We just got to come in like we do every week and look at the gameplan, do what we do, get our routine. Just the little things and just be on our little things and our details and we’ll be right back where we want to be. Like I said, I think we got a really good team. I think we all think we got a really good team. It’s just the small things, the little details we got to clean up.”
(What do you think about Steelers Senior Defensive Assistant/Linebackers Coach Brian Flores being on the other side this Sunday?) – “I don’t really know. I mean I’ll say what’s up to him after the game. That’s all I really got for that.”
(You guys have talked about having the next man up mentality and not worrying about who is at quarterback and just going out there and playing, but with QB Tua Tagovailoa possibly being back this weekend, what’s unique about what he brings to the team and how helpful is that going to be?) – “Tua is Tua. Tua is our leader. He’s the guy who has been running the show and we’ll be excited to get him back. But exactly what you said – if not and it’s somebody else back there, we still got to do our job and try to play a game and win a game.”
(Who have been some of the guys that have kind of really been – you mentioned how the captains have kind of been giving you guys a great message. Who have been the guys that have really been talking to you guys the most and emphasizing getting back to your style of football?) – “I can’t point out one specific guy. I think there are a bunch of guys that are on the team that are in leadership roles and not even just leadership roles, but guys that are probably not in leadership roles that still speak up and are vocal. It’s just the same message that I’ve been saying. We know what we got to do is the little details, and we know what we want to do, so we’ve got to go. It’s a bunch of guys. I can’t just name one.”
Christian Wilkins – October 17, 2022
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Monday, October 17, 2022
DT Christian Wilkins
(You guys are sitting here at 3-3. Do you believe in a sense of momentum? Like coming off three losses, would it feel different if you guys were coming off of three wins, if it was reversed?) – “I feel like the biggest thing is we definitely – obviously it’s different – but I feel like the best thing is we’ve got the right mindset and the right energy around the building. Guys aren’t growing weary. Guys aren’t putting their heads down, none of that. We’re just trying to figure it out. The best way to move forward is to come in the building every day with the right energy with the right mindset. It just gives us the best opportunity to win on Sundays.”
(Has that mindset come naturally for guys in the locker room or have the veteran guys had to sort of step up in front of the team?) – “The good thing for us is we got the right kind of guys in the locker room. So however that’s being handled within the locker room, that’s how it’s been handled and guys are doing all they can to make sure we can put the best result out there on Sunday.”
(Have you had a chance to talk to CB Nik Needham after the injury?) – “Yeah, I did. I actually called Nik (Needham) after the game and it’s obviously a tough situation because that’s a guy who comes in – you know, he was part of my draft class, and that’s my dawg – and he works his butt off every day to be the best he can be. Football means a lot to him. Personally, he’s my favorite guy on the defense. No disrespect to anybody. (laughter) But he’s one of my favorite players to watch and be around. So obviously, that’s a tough situation, but I got his back through it all and if he needs anything from me, he already knows I’m there for him.”
(What did you think of DT Raekwon Davis getting his first full sack?) – “I was happy for him. Raekwon (Davis) has working really hard and just to see his growth in Year 3 and becoming – well, not his physical growth, you can’t get much bigger (laughter) – but just his growth as a player and as a pro is definitely good to see and I’m glad he’s able to enjoy some success out there and get his first full sack.”
(Yesterday looked like the Dolphins defense we’ve all been accustomed to seeing in November and December last year. Was there anything said last week by any of the captains like LB Elandon Roberts or Defensive Coordinator Josh Boyer or something that you think made a difference?) – “Yeah, again, I’m not going to get into specifically who said what or did this, but like I alluded to earlier, just the right mindset by guys and just trying to figure things out and guys coming in every day preparing and doing all the little things right, and trying to really focus and do everything we can to be the best we can be.”
(What’s it going to be like with Steelers Senior Defensive Assistant/Linebackers Coach Brian Flores on the other side this Sunday?) – “Yeah, I mean, well, it’s just business as usual. We’re preparing to play the Steelers and obviously there’s history there with ‘Flo’ (Brian Flores) and everything, but we’re just preparing business as usual getting ready for the Steelers.”
(How difficult is it when you guys seem so locked in for the first three quarters of yesterday’s game – it was really just two or three plays that kind of broke it open for them, but for the most part, you guys were very much the defense…) – “No, that’s just how football goes and that’s just how it is in the NFL. You’ve got to really bring it and be on it every play. Because you never know when that play is going to come and if that one play, you’re not on it, things happen. It’s just good to see that but we can be and what we can accomplish and what we can do as a defense, but we’re always striving for perfection and to be the best we can be, even if we fall short.”
(Yesterday, CB Xavien Howard kind of talked about challenging everybody on the team to step up and make plays regardless of injury, quarterback situation. Kind of what has just the captains’ message kind of been after yesterday?) – “He’s right on with that, but really just be yourself, play within the schemes and make the plays when your number’s called and when it’s your opportunity. No one needs to be a hero. Just do what we’re asked, do your job and do it well.”
(You were one of the first guys to greet TE Mike Gesicki after his touchdown and Griddy. What were your thoughts on his Griddy?) – “It’s somewhat improved from the last time he did it. I feel like he’s been working on it some more, but still has a long way to go. (laughter)”
(With the team honoring the 1972 team this weekend, what do you know or what have you learned about that team?) – “That’s obviously a special team and they stand alone on their own. To go undefeated, win at all, I definitely got a lot of respect for those guys and our predecessors and the things they were able to accomplish because that’s not an easy task. I’ve got a lot of respect for that team. They deserve all the honor, praise and recognition that they’ll be getting this Sunday and hopefully we can represent them well and hold it down for those guys because I got a lot of respect for the history of the game and especially within the organization. I think that’s awesome they’ll be recognized and we’ll do some things for them.”
