Seahawks.com:Mike Holmgren's Monday media session

[TK]

http://www.seahawks.com/ArDisplay.aspx?ID=3167

Mike Holmgren's Monday media session

11/10/2003

Listen in: Windows Audio | Real Audio (25:12)

Q: Is it necessary to establish some credibility when playing on the road?

Mike: “I think so, until you really establish at least a balanced road record. You have to earn that credibility. Last year, as I said, we were good on the road. I think we were 5-3 on the road last year. But, I said this after yesterday’s game, the disadvantages you have on the road are noise, for the most part, and that was not a problem yesterday. The disadvantage you have when you go into a dome stadium or on the road wasn’t there. Yesterday’s game had nothing to do with us traveling or being on the road. Nothing. Now, it's on the road, so all of a sudden you start adding things up and we've lost a couple this year on the road that I think we should have won and could have won, so it begs the question. But yesterday’s game really…that didn’t enter into the outcome of the football game yesterday. Sometimes you go into stadiums and it's a bear, it’s tough, and you can say that was pretty difficult because you can’t get your audibles done or whatever. That was not the case yesterday.”

Q: There wasn't much blitzing of (Redskins QB Patrick) Ramsey in the game.

Mike: “I think yesterday’s game boiled to the fact that, assignment-wise, we weren’t very good on defense. Much is made about pressure and blitzing, and if I had a dollar for every time we wanted to blitz more…that's a question I have been asked for 12 years now. There are reasons you call a game a certain way defensively, but yesterday, assignment-wise, we were not very good. We had a lot of breakdowns and it was a little bit uncharacteristic but a little similar to what happened against Cincinnati. Against Green Bay and Cincinnati I thought that we weren’t flying around enough. That was not the case yesterday. Yesterday we were flying around, it's just that we didn’t execute the game plan quite right for a lot of plays, too many plays to be real tight. I think overall we hit Patrick three times, one of them was on Damien Robinson’s interception, but we chose not to empty the post as Dallas did against that team. We did that against Cincinnati and got burned on it one play. So we were going to play the game a little differently. We didn't get enough pressure with our front four and that’s been a problem for us this season, and that's not going to change all that much. If we really want to make the decision to sell out then we are going to have to do that; you can’t go kind of half way because that's not working too well. But having said all that, what it really boils down to is there were a couple times when we blew coverage, we weren’t aligned right, we didn’t do something quite right and it allowed them to stay in the game. Both instances, the last two games, I thought we should have won. Cincinnati and this one. There was a play in the game that had it gone one way…I don’t want to assign too much of a cliché thing here. Damien Robinson’s play, the game goes from 21 to 3 to 14 to 10. Now that's a big little hump there, and emotionally or whatever or momentum for one team or allowing someone to stay in the game, that was really a huge play in that game. They made the play and we didn’t quite get it done.”

Q: Was that the deciding play of the game even though it was early?

Mike:“I don’t know that for sure, and people have guessed about that. But at the time I felt with the atmosphere of the place that would have been big for us had we been able to do that. Now, does one play determine the outcome of the game? No. But is that one play important? Yes.”

Q: You possibly could have put the game out of reach there.

Mike: “Yeah, it was too bad. He made a great interception, he was a yard and a half from scoring and Coles made a great play and then he recovered the football, which really made it a great play. Then on that same drive we intercept another one. It was a very odd set of circumstances there that allowed them to really stay in the football game. Then we go up 17 to 10 and then they score on the last play of the first half, and we had a breakdown. I kind of felt then, here we are again, we're going to be in one of these games where it goes right down to the wire, and it did. Then the offense, we couldn’t convert on third and one. Not only could we not convert we looked ugly and like we hadn’t even practiced that play, it was just ugly. It was bad, we made a huge mistake there on offense.”

Q: Should Matt have audibled on the third and one?

Mike: “No, no. We had it hat for hat and if they time it right where he was on the snap of the ball, no. Usually on the front it's an overload of men, they have more guys that we can block. That was not the case. It was certainly a case of very, very poor execution on our part. We kind allowed that player, and Trotter is a good player, but we altered some of our stuff and just didn’t execute it very well.”

Q: Do you feel you should have blitzed more?

Mike: “No, no. Now, I wouldn’t say that. In that game we came after him sixteen times. We didn’t have an all-out blitz, like a seven-man blitz, because to do that you have to involve your safeties and you're opening up the middle. But I would say there have been games like against Pittsburgh where we didn’t blitz as much as that and against other teams we may have blitzed a little bit more. Ray called for extra people sixteen times. What happened in the football game, and this happens, the other side kind of guesses with you and they did a nice job of guessing. When he was going to bring it and when he wasn’t, and half of those times they ran the ball. They ran the ball kind of away from where we were blitzing. We were in a passing type situation and they chose to run it. He was doing it based on what he saw on film and they were fortunate in some areas that they got away from pressure by running the football. We do the same thing sometimes. That happened a little in the game. It was too bad. I felt very embarrassed for the team after a game like that. They played very, very hard. But, we have to become more consistent. We have to become more consistent. With the studying…we do practice hard and we have had good weeks of practice, but then it has to go from the practice field into the game and better execute the plan. Then, quite frankly, we had to burn a couple timeouts at the end which were very costly, I would have liked to have those timeouts in the last drive for us. We also made mistakes as a coaching staff and then we had to call those timeouts. This, honestly, is a family, and so when I’m talking and referring to the team, when I say the team, I'm talking about players, coaches, trainers, doctors and equipment guys. I’m talking about the whole deal. I was very, very upset after the game yesterday. Today when I talked to them, after I had seen the film and kind of said, okay, that's what happened and this is what happened, we can fix this or I don’t know how we are going to fix that. Whatever I say, I do remind them that we’re in first place in the division and I don’t believe there is a team left on our schedule that we can’t compete with and win the game. I also said that if we don’t clean up some of these errors which are very correctable we could be in for a tough go here. But we have typically been very strong in November and December, we’ve been pretty good even in the couple tough years. We've played good football in November and December and I would expect nothing less from this group.”

Q: They had a lot of rushing yards in the game.

Mike: “I don’t even know how many yards they had yesterday. How many yards did they have yesterday? Yeah. We missed some tackles. In that game yesterday that's the most obvious thing you see. We had them and we missed tackles, that's probably 25-yards there and I’m not talking about tough tackles or reaching tackles, I’m talking missed tackles. And, two or three of the runs we weren’t aligned properly and that's what I was referring to in mistakes and alignments and things like that. I think we're doing a better job of fitting than we did earlier in the year, certainly against Green Bay, as an example, in the run game. I think Rashad Moore gives us a nice presence inside and he played pretty well. Lamar King was improved over his first exposure after his surgery. But we have to keep working at it. We have to become more consistent in all areas of our game, and that includes run defense.”

Q: Is it a result of missing Norman Hand?

Mike: “We miss him a lot. After he hurt his foot and was playing he couldn’t do the things that he was doing earlier. But any time you have a man of that size who can play the run the way he can play the run you're going to miss him.”

Q: Will Hand have surgery?

Mike: “Yeah, he is going to have it fixed. I don’t have a time on the surgery yet. He is supposed to be in here this afternoon. I haven’t had a chance to talk to him yet and I don’t know if Fergi (GM Bob Ferguson) has talked to him. My understanding is he is going to have it and is out for the year.”

Q: Are you looking at making a roster move?

Mike: “Yeah, we're going to look at that. We're going to meet the next couple days and see if we are going to do anything. First of all, if we have to do anything, and then if we have to who is it going to be. I couldn’t tell you either way.”

Q: Darrell continues to drop passes.

Mike: “That’s one of those things that is very difficult to answer. Lord knows I've talked enough about it and you’ve asked enough about it. That’s one of those things that everybody in the world sees, it's not like little subtle thing that happens in the interior of the line or something. A wide receiver or a corner is out there for the world to see. I put together a tape and we're going to review it this afternoon of the catches Darrell hasn’t made this year and see if we can come up with something to help him. He wants to do the right thing and we as coaches have to help him through kind of a tough time. You guys know he's a good football player and you've seen him do great things on the football field. And, quite frankly, the way our roster is set this year we don’t have huge depth at the wide receiver position. We think we have good ones. It's not like we're shoving people around going 'look at this guy and that guy', we don’t have that and that's okay with me. We had reason to do that. Now our job is to kind of help him through this, if something is bothering him.”

Q: Could it be getting on him too hard to catch those balls?

Mike: “I suppose it could. I wish I was swearing off the answer to that question. I think there are a couple schools of thought: there's the idea that if you show negative reinforcement type things, and to me that just compounds the problem. I’ve never coached that way, if a guy makes a mistake we're going to talk about it and look at it and see if we can fix it. The other things are a little too deep for me. But a lot of smart people say you don’t want to do that. I think the communication that we have with our players around here is good, I think they know it's not a personal thing and that we're all trying to help. Ultimately the player has to try to figure it out. Whether you are talking about a batting slump in baseball or a guy starts having trouble hitting free throws or a golf swing gets a little wacky or whatever. Athletes go through things like this where they are not performing to a level they are used to. We do everything we can as coaches to try to figure out some of the things they're doing. So we put this film together and we’re all going to study it and sit him down and look at it. Do we see anything different? Are we doing anything different? Is it on the right side? The left side? Is it night? Day? Whatever it is. Usually after this stage, and I've been involved in a few of those over the years, at the end of the day you kind of say it's football. You can’t come up with something you can grab onto but eventually if the player is a good player, like Darrell is a good player, and he works his way out of it then it kind of goes away.”

Q: Are you considering changing the rotation of the receivers?

Mike: “I don’t think so. The only thing I would ever even consider would be to start Engram, but I don’t think I’m ready to do that.”

Q: If you did do that, hypothetically, would Darrell then assume Bobby’s role?

Mike: “No. In the three-wide receiver I would leave Bobby where he was. We have had that discussion before. And before we got Bobby Engram, Darrell was the inside receiver for us and did a nice job. But instead of moving two people…we're talking about something I'm not going to do.”

Q: Is Darrell seeing the football okay?

Mike: “Yeah, he sees the football. One of the problems, and we haven’t made a lot of it, but he has a banged up hand. He has a finger on his hand where a guy just took it and went the wrong way. So he has to tape it all the time, and receivers have that, it's part of being a receiver. But is that bothering him? Maybe. But we haven’t talked about it for the same reason I gave you before. Okay, let’s say it’s bothering him. So what, he's doing the best he can. It's not his vision, to answer your question.”

Q: Is it weird this is happening, because the offense hasn’t changed?

Mike: “Yeah, and you have the same quarterback throwing to him. We're going to research this to the best of our ability. Do what is right for him.”

Q: Does Matt get upset with Darrell?

Mike: “If you play the position of quarterback you have to learn early on that not every ball is going to be caught, just like every once in a while you may miss a wide open receiver. If every time that happens a receiver comes back and goes, 'what are you doing, I was wide open?' That can’t happen either. Actually, I really love our guys for the fact that they recognize that stuff happens and no one is perfect. There's not a lot of finger pointing. Really, the successful teams don’t do that and the players don’t allow that to happen in the locker room. Does frustration set in? Certainly. You go way back in the dark ages when I was playing. I never had a receiver on my team that wasn’t open. Ever. I was open. Yeah, I know. Whatever. They are always open, always. The simple fact is you can’t make every throw. It's like the quarterback getting upset with his line when he gets sacked. You can’t do that, those guys are selling out for you every play. Do you get frustrated? Yeah, you’re human. But that's part of the game in football. The price you pay is usually getting your socks knocked off.”

Q: You disagreed with the pass interference call on Shawn Springs' interception.

Mike: “Yeah, in fact I looked at the tape closely and I have to get the TV copy. But it looked like Kris Richard may have tipped the ball. They called a foul on Springs, but it was really Trufant. The ruling is if the guy is running that way and you have your hand here and you’re hooking him and you turn his body with your hook, make the receiver do that, which is a foul. You can have your hand here and do this and it's not a foul, but it is a tough call by the back judge. But that's kind of what they're looking for. First of all, I thought it was tipped. If it was tipped there's no foul. They said no it wasn’t tipped and he hooked the receiver. When I’m looking at the film I’m hard pressed to see that.”

Q: Is the tip hard to see?

Mike: “Yeah, that's a tough call by that official. It was compounded, of course, because we got the interception. But that's what they're supposed to be looking for and in his opinion he hooked him. I don’t know. It's hard for me to see that on film. I understand I’m looking at it a certain way.”

Q: Maurice Morris probably wasn't expecting the first kickoff to be short.

Mike: “I think so. You don’t expect a kick like that, but their kicker is a very strong kicker and he was easily kicking the ball. I think he missed the ball. Someone said they tried to do that but I don’t think they tried to do that. I think he missed the ball. We don’t want, as happened later, Jerry Wunsch returning a kickoff. I don’t know how many more years I have left but I don’t want to see that again. We kind of have a rule that the guys in the back return the kickoff and when that ball kind of dies…you have to practice that a lot…but you have to fight the urge to go for the ball and look up before you have the ball. It's a hard thing to do but that's what he did, and by that time now it's breaking loose. I told him you can’t start a game like that, that's a bad way to start a football game. Our whole thing is now, when we look at that tape of that football game, let’s be honest. Let’s try to be honest about what happened. As coaches, did we put the players in a bad spot, first of all? And if we didn’t, did they execute the play? Coaches and players have to be honest about it. That's the only chance you have to fix something. Sometimes it’s hard to be real honest about it because it affects your area or it’s you. But heck, you have to do that.”

Q: Any significant injuries?

Mike: “I don’t think so. I think guys are going to be sore. Hasselbeck, Hamlin, Damien Robinson has a hurt arm, but he went back in and played. Tough guy. I think those are the guys that may not practice on Wednesday, but I think we have a good chance to have everybody for Sunday.”

Q: Who decides who will start at free safety?

Mike: “I kind of let Ray do that. We have confidence in both of them. He tells me how he would like to do it. We have a meeting early in the week and a lot of it has been based on injury. That's how Damien actually got back in the starting lineup. When he's been in there he's made plays. I think it's okay to utilize all your players if they can play and that's what we're trying to do.”

[Skeletor The Invincible]

What's that I smell? Oh, right, BS!

Blitz, and you'll stop us. Seems pretty elementary to me.