 |
||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||
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.
October 20, 2006
The most important thing for our team right now is the mental energy and the positive attitude that we can create to play winning football is critical. There has been a lot of negativism. But everybody needs to learn and grow from the experiences we've had.
This week's message was pretty clear. If you play differently in the last 12 minutes of the game in New York then you played in the first 48 minutes than you have a lesson to be learned because you're supposed to play that way all the time. When I say supposed to play, that's got to be your expectations, your sense of urgency.
The first time we get the ball Sunday against Green Bay, we should be trying to score as badly as we do when we get the ball at the end of the game. Everybody needs to understand this. We need to change our sense of urgency. If we always say play for 60 minutes, and we seem to play differently at the end of the game, we've got to start playing differently at the beginning of the game. That's our challenge.
Let's score the first time we get the ball. How about if the defense goes three and out to get the ball back for us in two situations at the end of the game? Let's do it more during the game. You can say it about any part of the game. There is something to be learned from this in playing winning football, to try and get ahead early in the game instead of trying to come back late in the game.
That's a mentality that everybody needs to create for themselves and understand the importance of this. I know people think I'm crazy about this, but that's how I feel. See, I'm not talking about play calling because it's obvious we threw the ball more than we ran it late in the game against the Jets. I'm talking about how we go about doing our jobs. It's human nature to get frustrated. But we've got to overcome that. Being a competitor is beyond human nature. It's having the mental discipline to be able to persevere in every situation.
We have a tremendous appreciation for how our fans can help us on Sundays. Our players have worked hard. We've been competitive in every game. We've shown fight. Our biggest issue is that we haven't played well enough consistently. You can very easily say we could have won every game that we've played, but we've made just enough mistakes, or don't come up with quite enough big plays, to make a difference.
We're coming home Sunday after three straight road games, all tough defeats. I think the emotional support our players can get from the positive energy our fans can give us is going to contribute to our success.
Now, this Sunday we have a unique challenge in facing a veteran quarterback the caliber of Brett Favre. Looking at him on tape, he is still a fantastic player. He can sling it as well as anyone. He can make plays like nobody else can. He can scramble and it's like he has eyes in the back of his head, knowing the exact moment to throw the ball before he gets hit. He makes a lot of plays that way.
You have to affect him with disguising your coverage and you have to affect him with pressure, but at this stage of his career they protect him a lot. They don't send five guys out for passes all the time, so it's a little more difficult to get to him.
We've got to be disciplined. We've got to be smart. Most importantly, we've got to play with a sense of urgency, the same sense of urgency that we show at the end of games.
***************************
The defense has played well this season, which is evident by our ranking in the NFL. We have stopped the run fairly consistently. We have minimized giving up big plays, which was one of the goals in the off season. We did a lot of blitzing last year, which resulted in lots of sacks. But it also exposed and created some issues with giving up big plays.
So this year we decided to play with a little more balance. We still have to put pressure on the quarterback, but we've cut down on the big plays.
The one area we constantly harp on is turnovers. Turnover ratio is critical to winning games. In one game we got three turnovers and we won that game. But in other games we have played really well on defense, but didn't get turnovers. That affects field position, which would set up scores. That's one of the areas we are constantly focusing on to try and get better.
Look at the game against the Jets. We had the ball out three times and we didn't get any of them. The Jets recovered all three. You have to be in the right place at the right time and get everybody going to the ball. As I always say, you never know when you're going to have an opportunity to make a big play so therefore you always have to be getting there so, whenever it happens, you can be there to make it.
Because we play a little bit more man-to-man coverage, we try to deny the ball to the receivers. Sometimes that doesn't lend itself to maybe getting the interceptions you would get if you were playing zone and breaking on the ball. Now the difference is if you're playing zone, there is also more windows for your opponent to complete the ball.
You make big plays and you cause turnovers by having explosive hits and having more players who are aware of stripping the ball. It's a constant emphasis to make it a mindset of our players.
COACH SABAN COLUMN ARCHIVES:
|
|
 |
 |
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
|