by Tony Dungy
I brought the coaches in for a meeting that week and gave them the same message, this time coming from me. “We’re going to get this turned around soon,” I told them. “You guys have been great, and the players are buying into what you’re teaching. We don’t have any wins to show for it yet, but we are playing better, and I can see little improvements, even if the rest of the world doesn’t. So hang in there. You have my complete support.”
I called Coach Noll and asked his advice. “Don’t change what you believe in,” he told me. “My first year we won our first game but then lost thirteen in a row. The next year we lost our first four games. Stick with what you want to do, even though it’s not always going to be easy.” Similarly, another experienced NFL coach, Dick Vermeil, called to tell me to stick with my plan. He said it looked to him like we were making progress.
Do what we do.
I never doubted we were heading in the right direction, but it was affirming and important to have the owners’ and my coaching peers’ encouragement. Today, whenever I notice other coaches who might need a word of encouragement, I always try to offer it.
We came off our bye week to face Minnesota. Chris Foerster and I had a pretty good idea about their talent and schemes, which probably gave the players a little more confidence. They needed it. After all, Minnesota had the best record in the NFL at 5–1, while we were 0–5. And all the while we were telling our guys that our plan was working. We tried to make sure that our Wednesday team meeting was upbeat.
“This is a perfect setup to get our first win,” I told them. “We’ve had a good week of practice, and we’re the healthiest we’ve been all season. They’re the best team in the NFL, but we’re getting better each week. Our plan is solid, but this won’t be a ‘game-plan game.’ It will be a passion game. Execution. Attitude. Protect the ball. Have a little swagger.”
We took the field and did all of those things. We trailed 7–0 at halftime. In the second half we scored three touchdowns, including an amazing play by Mike Alstott. Not only was he the battering ram we were expecting on that play, he pushed two guys backward from the five yard line and extended the ball gracefully into the end zone just as he was knocked out of bounds—touchdown. Once we had the lead, Warren Sapp sacked Warren Moon and caused a fumble, which our Chidi Ahanotu recovered. All of a sudden we realized, We’re going to win. I can still remember the excitement and relief we felt as the clock wound down and we wrapped up our victory, 24–13.
We gathered for a postgame prayer. We always prayed, as a lot of teams do, both before and after the game. This particular prayer still stands out—not for what was said, which I can’t remember, but because I hoped the guys now realized we were going to give thanks in all circumstances. We had already prayed together following our five losses. I wanted them to know that a great win would not change our core values. We would thank God both as gracious losers and as grateful winners.
Although we had a chance to get on a roll then, we didn’t. In fact, we began another slide as we dropped three more games in a row and fell to 1–8. One of the three, however, was the Packers again, this time up in Green Bay. We lost 13–7, but it was better than being crushed as we had during our first game against those guys. Green Bay was a playoff team, and we had significantly closed the gap. The plan was slowly working.
Do what we do.
Whatever it takes.
No excuses, no explanations.
I pointed to the evidence and made sure the team knew that we had improved, but I also let them know I expected more from them. I said I would continue to treat them as adults—the way I would want to be treated—but I reminded them that there was an alternative.
“A lot of people say I’ve got to make you afraid—afraid of being cut, afraid of me. I don’t believe that’s true.” I have always believed that if you tell people what needs to be done, they will do it—if they believe you and your motives for telling them. I knew these guys would see through manipulation but would respond to motivation.
I also told the team that, despite my soft-spoken approach, I would hold each of them accountable.
“There are three possible options to correct this and get where we need to be. One solution is for me to change, to decide I’m wrong, to change my vision for this team. That one is not going to happen. Another option is for you to change—put in more time, go harder, pay more attention to details. As a final option, we’ll simply have to go find other guys. Your choice.”
Dave Moore, one of our tight ends, later told me that he had expected me to blow up at the team that night. “I was always waiting for you to blow up in practice, at halftime, in a Monday game-film review,” he said. “With all the near misses that were resulting from guys just not paying attention to the details, I figured at some point you were going to lose it. But you never did. I don’t know how you did it, but I think that’s why we finally got the message.”
Dave forgot one incident, however.
I felt good about laying out those options for our team. I had let them know where I stood, and now I was ready to move on, turning my attention to our game the following week against the Raiders. But the next time we met at the facility, I completely lost my composure.
It was Wednesday before our game against the Raiders, and I was angry. My anger had nothing to do with football or our losing streak, however. I was upset because two players had missed personal appearances. Errict Rhett didn’t miss his appearance completely but was thirty minutes late for an autograph session at a car dealership. Regan Upshaw, on the other hand, completely missed a visit to a fourth-grade class. Making matters worse, this was the second time Regan had missed a visit to that class. This appearance was to have been the makeup that the teacher rescheduled after Regan missed the first. On Wednesday morning I had received a letter from that fourth-grade teacher, and it was painful to read. She was understandably upset, and what made it worse was the fact that she had explained Regan’s first absence to the class as a misunderstanding. Now, reading about the class’s disappointment when he didn’t show up for the second time, I was beside myself.
I began the Wednesday morning team meeting by telling the guys that we were not going to talk football—at all. Instead, I informed them of the incidents involving Rhett and Upshaw. “I don’t care about the Raiders,” I told them, “and I’m not going to talk about the Raiders. We need to focus on us, on changing our own attitudes and accountability. Obviously your word isn’t important to you if it doesn’t involve the game of football. You don’t seem to think being accountable off the field is important. But as far as I’m concerned, we are never going to win consistently until you all get rid of that attitude. The quicker you figure it out, the better.”
I told the team that Errict and Regan were not the disease but that they were merely symptoms of a bigger problem. Too many of our guys had the same attitude—they were unwilling to give 100 percent if they didn’t personally think it was important.
“What you don’t understand is that champions know it’s all important,” I said. “You have to understand that all the little things your coaches are asking of you really do matter. Knowing I can count on you is just as important to me as your talent. You’ll always find excuses for not doing exactly what you’re supposed to do. But that’s exactly what creates a losing environment.”
In 1996, we needed to change that losing environment so we could start doing what we do.
That incident still stands as my biggest blowup in a meeting in eleven years as a head coach. My description of the meeting is far calmer and more coherent than the meeting itself probably was, by the way.
We beat the Raiders that week. We went on to win five of our last seven games, including a game in San Diego in which I believe we grew up as a team. Until then, the Buccaneers hadn’t won a game on the West Coast in about ten years. Previous teams had tried all sorts of gimmicks to change their luck. They had gone two days early, gone one day early, kept their watches set to East Coast time
, whatever. Anything and everything they could think of. I told our guys that it wasn’t complicated. It’s a game at one o’clock in San Diego, the same time as a four o’clock game in Tampa. Just do what we do.
We fell behind 14–0 in the first quarter. However, this time our guys stayed the course and played together. For the first time, we encountered adversity and overcame it. We chipped away at the Chargers’ lead, played great defense, and won 25–17. John Lynch and I later agreed that that game in San Diego was where our run of success in Tampa began.
As we prepared for the season finale against Chicago, I distributed a handout to the players. I wanted to make sure we kept teaching and encouraging all season long. Here is what I handed them:
The first step toward creating an improved future is developing the ability to envision it. VISION will ignite the fire of passion that fuels our commitment to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to achieve excellence. Only VISION allows us to transform dreams of greatness into the reality of achievement through human action. VISION has no boundaries and knows no limits. Our VISION is what we become in life.
Our vision had to be one of excellence, of playing the best that we could play every time we hit the field, whether it was practice, regular season, or the Super Bowl.
“This game won’t matter in the standings, and we won’t make the playoffs,” I said. “But I want you to play as if it were a playoff game. Use this vision to imagine that this game means everything in our season. Show me how you would perform if it did.”
We dominated the Bears from start to finish. With the win over Chicago, we finished 6–10, dead last in our division. But we had made great strides and really improved. The Bucs players dumped Gatorade on me after that game. Gary Shelton of the St. Petersburg Times wrote an article asking why anyone would throw Gatorade on a 6–10 coach. But he followed up by saying that this year had felt different from past ten-loss seasons in Tampa.
It felt different for us, too. We finally felt as if we had begun to change the mentality around One Buc and were headed in the right direction.
Whatever it takes.
No excuses, no explanations.
Do what we do.
Chapter Ten: Filling the Corners
Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
WE REALLY BELIEVED, as we headed into the 1997 off-season, that we were close to reaching the level of success we had been striving to achieve. Even though our 1996 record was 6–10, we had finished the season strong and felt good about our defense. And our offense had shown an ability to control the ball and pound it ahead with our running game. However, we were in dire need of offensive playmakers. We still had trouble making big, momentum-changing plays.
Heading into the 1997 draft, we held two first-round picks—San Diego had traded the second one to us from the 1996 draft. With our two picks, we were focused on getting a receiver with great speed and a running back who “could hit home runs.” We believed this combination would give us some offensive threats to stretch opposing defenses.
During the off-season, heading toward the draft, Derrick Brooks became a regular visitor to my office. Derrick was the outside linebacker drafted by the Bucs in 1995. Each day, his message was the same: the Bucs needed to draft his college teammate Warrick Dunn, the running back from Florida State. Over and over again, Derrick came by with that same advice.
At the end of February, the assistant coaches and I headed to the NFL Scouting Combine, which had moved from New Orleans to Indianapolis, to meet some of the top college seniors, including Warrick Dunn. I came away from our initial meeting highly impressed. I was around him for only about twenty minutes, but I left with the feeling that this guy could be something really special in the league. Coach Noll had always said to err on the side of production over looks, and Warrick certainly put that philosophy to the test. At only five-foot-nine and 180 pounds, Warrick was small for Florida State, let alone the pros. I double-checked my impressions with Bobby Bowden, FSU’s head coach since 1976. Coach Bowden told me that despite his size, Warrick was the best player he’d ever coached at Florida State. Coming from Coach Bowden, that was quite a statement.
As we deliberated the pick, I continued to think about my training under Coach Noll.
“Watch the film, not the stopwatch,” he used to say. After all, the point is to select athletes to play football. Some guys test well, either with their foot speed, leaping ability, strength, or other measurable physical traits. But some guys just play well. If given a choice, I’d rather select the guy who did both, of course. But I didn’t want to discount a great college player simply because he had suspect physical traits, especially if the guy played high-level competition well. Warrick fit that profile. He was small, but he had been highly successful at FSU, playing in the tough Atlantic Coast Conference.
Conventional wisdom said small running backs could not hold up in the NFL, but I was inclined to follow Coach Noll’s advice and go with production over size. Rich McKay, Jerry Angelo, and Tim Ruskell all agreed with this approach. The year prior to my arrival, the Bucs had selected Warren Sapp and Derrick Brooks. Both players had some physical question marks, but both had performed exceptionally well in college and were off to a good start in the NFL. Rich was focused primarily on not “missing” with our picks as some former Bucs teams had done. He believed we could minimize our risk by focusing on a player’s production against top competition.
Warrick Dunn had made many big plays for the Seminoles, and we desperately needed such a playmaker. In addition, Warrick was the kind of guy who would do other things that might not always be noticed by the fans. He picked up blitzes without fear, even if it meant blocking much bigger players. He had soft hands and caught the ball well coming out of the backfield. And if his quarterback threw an interception, he always hustled to get into the play and make the tackle.
We didn’t know whether Warrick could hold up physically for an entire season as the every-down running back, but he believed he could. In the meantime, we were sure he could be a play-making running back. We believed big things would happen if we gave Warrick “touches”—chances to get the ball through rushing attempts, pass receptions, and punt and kickoff returns. We all agreed we wanted to draft Warrick Dunn.
Our question then became where we would have to select him. Did we need to get him with our first pick at number eight, or could we get him with our second pick? Or, because of his size, could we trade down from our second pick and still get him even later in the first round? When the draft began, we found ourselves in a multi-party trade, with picks flying around everywhere. In the first round, we moved down from eight to twelve, but we also acquired the sixteenth pick.
As for receivers, we were looking at three from the state of Florida: Ike Hilliard and Reidel Anthony from the University of Florida and Yatil Green from Miami. We also liked Rae Carruth of Colorado. All had positive and negative qualities. Hilliard ran excellent routes and had solid hands but didn’t have Anthony’s speed. Carruth had neither Anthony’s speed nor Hilliard’s hands but was a nice mix of the two. Green had size and some great tools but didn’t seem as polished. After considerable debate, we entered the draft with our focus on Dunn first and then one of the receivers. Hilliard was my favorite, but it wasn’t a clear-cut decision for any of us.
The Giants made that decision for us, taking Hilliard at the seventh pick. We still had three receivers we liked on the board, so we decided to shoot for Dunn with our first pick, with Tiki Barber of the University of Virginia as our fallback if Dunn was gone.
Warrick Dunn was still available at twelve, so we immediately sent the pick to our representative at the draft in New York. We were all excited about getting Warrick. Then we saw Yatil Green go to the Dophins at fifteen, so we decided to take Reidel Anthony at sixteen. We were thrilled with our first round, and in subsequent rounds we got some players who became solid starters over the next few years. O
ne of these was our third-round pick, Ronde Barber, Tiki Barber’s twin. I still have my draft notes, which show that we had some questions about Ronde’s tackling, which turned out to be unfounded, and note that our primary concern was that this would mark the “first time the twins have been split.” Both players obviously adjusted just fine during their careers in Tampa and New York despite the separation. As coaches, we all felt good about the 1997 draft.
* * *
From the time our newly drafted players first took the field at minicamp, we were excited about the possibilities. It was still hard to see in the preseason what would happen—our offense was still sputtering—but we felt we had significantly improved over 1996.
To this day, that 1997 season remains my favorite in football. I remember every game from that season off the top of my head, in order, almost play-by-play. The 1997 season was everything I had wanted for 1996 on my most optimistic of days. We played well, and the community became energized. We rode a wave of excitement and renewal that crested in a playoff appearance. People waited outside our locker room to call out to us and encourage us. The prior year, only our families had been there.
The entire environment that year was special. I found that while life drags on when you’re losing, it marches on when you’re winning. I wanted the season to slow down so I could soak it up and enjoy it as long as possible.
Not only was 1997 special for our team, it was a good year for my family as well. Lauren and I were really having fun discovering the Tampa Bay area. Like most of the staff, we rented a home in 1996 because we weren’t sure what was going to happen with the old stadium. Now we were told that we could expect a new stadium and that the team would be staying in Tampa, and everyone felt good about putting their roots down in the community. Lauren and I even began to build a home.