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Each week throughout the 2006 season, Miami Dolphins Head Coach Nick Saban will share his thoughts through an exclusive column on MiamiDolphins.com as told to Andy Cohen of Dolphin Digest.
In addition, Coach Saban will occasionally answer questions from Dolphins fans in his column on Miamidolphins.com. Please click "Ask the Coach" to submit your questions.
November 10, 2006
My main concern heading into this game against Kansas City is that the players are able to maintain their intensity level. You have a great win like we had against the Chicago Bears, there is statistical evidence out there that teams don't play well the next week.
You have a tendency to get satisfied and feel relief, but that's where you want your players to maintain the same level of intensity. You want them to build on the success they've had so you can do the same thing the next time and improve even more. That's a challenge we're facing this week because it's not really normal for most people to do.
We always want to correct the mistakes we make in a game and we had plenty against the Bears. We had seven penalties on defense alone against the Bears. That's the most we've had in a while.
On the one hand you want guys to play through the mistakes and not let a bad play lead to another bad play. You'd like not to have any negatives in the game. But if there was anything that was extraordinary about the Bears game being on the road in a real hostile environment it is how we played through the negatives in the game.
When we did throw an interception, what did the defense do? Three plays and out. When we did jump off sides on fourth-and-three to give them new life, what did the defense do? Stop them on three plays and get us the ball in even better position.
You could take almost all the scenarios in that game of the bad things that happened, and say you don't want those things to happen. But the most amazing thing is how we played through all the bad things, which I think is critical.
I don't want people to think that the coach here says it's OK for the bad things to happen. That's not the case. But you're never going to play a perfect game and how you manage the negatives is critical to being successful. Like Woody Hayes said, there are no great victories without tremendous adversity. This was a great victory for us, and we overcame a lot of adversity in the game.
This Kansas City game will provide a very difficult test for our team. You know, it's not only Larry Johnson we have to stop, and he is a great, great player. It's a combination of Tony Gonzalez, who is their leading receiver, and Johnson, who is their second leading receiver. So we have to not only stop the run, but still have to play the match-up you need to cover well in the passing game.
That's the most difficult thing. You've got to give Kansas City a lot of credit because they use a lot of formations, shifts and motions so it makes it even more challenging to make sure you always get in the right situations. They do a really good job of trying to outflank you in running the ball outside. If they can create it, they will create it. We've got to stop it. It's challenging because of the players they have, but it's also challenging because of the way they utilize those players offensively.
The Bears win validates itself. You can say it's uncharacteristic for the Bears to play bad and you can say it's uncharacteristic for the Dolphins to play good, but I personally think the way we played contributed to the Bears playing bad. We made them play bad.
If we can continue to have that attitude as we move forward then we'll have the opportunity to make other people play bad and that will help us be successful. That's really important if this team is going to turn the corner.
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Jason Taylor won the AFC Defensive Player of the Week for his play against the Bears and it was very deserving.
Most great players have common denominators. They are all great competitors. They all enjoy making the guy they are playing against miserable. You make him play bad. Everybody didn't have a bad day against Michael Jordan. He just made them play bad. Jason Taylor has the ability to do that and he's done it on a consistent basis over the past four or five games.
It is an unusual run of games he's on, a really impressive run of sacks and big plays. But I do think he compliments the whole defensive group. They compliment him. He's done a fantastic job. He's had a great year.
There are so many great plays that come to mind from this season. The two plays against the Bears really points out his talents. One, on the interception, was a great catch. When someone throws the ball from 10 feet away and they really zip it and you snatch it, that's not an easy play. Jason would have made a great tight end.
Then on the pass rush, which was really a power rush, he bulled the guy back to the quarterback and Kevin Carter recovered. The combination of those two plays shows the diversity of expertise he has as a player.
People do all kinds of things to contain Jason. They slide the protection to his side. They move the tight end. One thing we do in the 3-4 defense is we stand Jason up and we don't let the offense know where he's going to come from. That has contributed to his success. We have quite a few pressures, which makes it difficult to single in on one guy.
Where is Jason at in his career? It's hard for me to make any comparisons because I wasn't here earlier in his career. He had a good year last year and he's having a better year this year. Relative to that, he seems to be getting better and not slowing down. That's very impressive.
COACH SABAN COLUMN ARCHIVES:
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