Coaching Confidential: Inside the Fraternity of NFL Coaches

by Myers, Gary

  Dungy was blown away by Manning’s memory. They had not seen each other since that night in Philadelphia. “I just said, ‘Wow, I felt like I have a good memory. I remember the night and the conversation, but I certainly didn’t remember the hotel and all of that,’ ” he said. “I said, I see why this guy is special, just his ability to process information and remember things.”

  Then came the money line from Manning. “I’m looking forward to being coached; we want to win, whatever it takes,” he said.

  The Colts made the playoffs in 2002 but were embarrassed in the wild-card round by the Jets 41–0. It was the fourth straight playoff game in which Dungy’s team failed to score a touchdown. That was not a shutdown Jets defense, either. It was a tough time for Dungy. Jon Gruden had been hired to replace him in Tampa, and just a few weeks after the Colts’ season ended, the Bucs won the Super Bowl. It was the team Dungy helped build, but it was Gruden’s system. The change helped the Bucs. But the change for the Colts and Manning was not paying off yet.

  Manning’s numbers improved only slightly in Dungy’s first season. His touchdowns went from twenty-six to twenty-seven, and he cut his interceptions from twenty-three to nineteen. That was not what Dungy had in mind. Manning was still giving the ball away too much. By their second year together, the message started to get through. In the opening game of the 2003 season, the Colts beat the Browns 9–6 in Cleveland. “We didn’t play lights out, but we won,” Dungy said.

  He thought that was the game when Manning bought into his philosophy. He did not have a great game, throwing two interceptions, but the Colts’ defense kept the Browns out of the end zone. It was 6–6 when the Colts got the ball at their own 24 with 2:39 remaining. The Colts called ten consecutive pass plays as Dungy put the game in Manning’s hands. He completed eight for 65 yards, setting up Mike Vanderjagt’s game-winning 45-yard field goal with one second remaining. The Colts went on to win twelve games and finish first in the AFC South. Manning finally won his first two playoff games but then lost to the Patriots in the conference championship game. The Colts lost again to the Patriots, this time in the divisional round, in 2004.

  The Colts had a huge disappointment in 2005. They were the AFC’s number one seed, finishing with a 14–2 record after they opened the season with thirteen consecutive victories. But they lost to the number six seed Steelers at home in a heartbreaker in the AFC championship game. It was a very difficult time for Dungy. Just a few weeks earlier, his son James had committed suicide in Florida. There was a feeling that Dungy might walk away after that season, but he elected to return in 2006.

  That turned out to be a very good decision for the Colts. Dungy didn’t have his best team, but he had a resilient team. They finished 12–4 and were the AFC’s number three seed. Dungy, who had lost his first playoff game as the Colts coach to his good friend Herm Edwards when he was the Jets’ coach in 2002, beat Edwards in the wild-card round in his first season coaching the Chiefs. In the next round, the Colts beat the Ravens in Baltimore 15–6. Neither team was able to score a touchdown, but Dungy had built Manning a defense. Even though he had a bad game, throwing for only 170 yards with two interceptions, the Colts’ defense shut down the Baltimore offense. Maybe this was going to be the Colts’ year.

  They caught a big break when the Patriots beat the Chargers in San Diego in the divisional round. The Chargers had been the number one seed. But with New England beating them and the Colts beating the number two seed Ravens, Indianapolis would host the AFC championship game against the Patriots.

  Dungy and Manning had lost to Belichick and Brady twice in the playoffs. They beat them this time, 38–34. Two weeks later, the Colts beat the Bears to capture Super Bowl XLI.

  “I just have to say how sweet this is,” Dungy said.

  He had the obligatory Gatorade bucket dumped on his head by his players. They carried him off the field on their shoulders. On the podium Dungy had passed the Vince Lombardi Trophy to Manning. Their relationship began in a limo ride and picked up four years later with the coach feeling the need to win the trust of his quarterback, whereas it’s usually the quarterback who needs to win the trust of his coach. Now they had achieved the ultimate together, which forges a lifelong bond.

  “I’m certainly proud to be a part of his team,” Manning said. “I’m proud Tony is our head coach.”

  Dungy took a deep breath after the game. “It’s tough to win,” he said. “It’s tough to win the Super Bowl.”

  Now the pressure shifted to Fox. He knew he needed to create a system that eliminated the transition time for Manning to adapt to Denver. He could go to school on how Dungy handled Manning after he inherited him. Dungy let him run the offense from the line of scrimmage, building a solid defense around him so that the Colts didn’t have to score 40 points every week. Dungy had the benefit of time. He arrived in Indianapolis just as Manning was hitting the peak years of his career. Fox got him at the tail end, hoping to squeeze a few more years of greatness out of him.

  Eight p.m., Halloween night, 1995, Green Bay, Wisconsin, Mike Holmgren’s house.

  Don Beebe was wearing Brett Favre’s number 4 jersey. Brett Favre was wearing Don Beebe’s number 82 jersey. As they walked toward Holmgren’s front door in a residential area of Green Bay, Beebe said to Favre, “Put it on, baby.”

  Beebe slipped a mask with a pink helmet over his head. Favre pulled a rubber mask over his face. They were accompanied by Frank Winters, the Packers’ center. He was wearing a mask, too. “We’re going to coach Mike Holmgren’s house to get a little candy from the big boss,” Beebe said.

  Four little girls were in front of them. Holmgren, the Packers coach, had just arrived home after a Tuesday night working up the game plan for that Sunday’s game against the Vikings. The Packers had lost at Detroit two days earlier, and their record was 5–3.

  The girls and Beebe knocked on Holmgren’s door. They rang the doorbell. Holmgren told his wife, Kathy, he would get this one. She and Holmgren’s daughters had been passing out candy all night.

  “Trick or treat,” the girls said.

  “You are not going to believe this, but we just gave out our last piece of candy,” Holmgren said. “I am sorry, kids. I am so sorry.”

  He had no idea Favre, Beebe, and Winters were also standing in front of him.

  Holmgren looked down at the girls. He patted one of them on the head. “I like your outfits,” he said. “You are all so beautiful.”

  Then, looking at Beebe dressed in the Favre jersey, he said, “Not you, necessarily.” Beebe said, “You don’t like me?”

  Beebe then stuck his head inside the front door to see if Holmgren was telling the truth. There was no candy. Holmgren gave him one of those “what the hell are you doing?” looks. “I put my hand on his chest. I shoved him out,” Holmgren recalled.

  Holmgren still had no idea it was Favre, Beebe, and Winters. He was thinking, “Big guys wearing masks.”

  The kids were still asking for candy.

  “What if I say that was Don Beebe or Brett Favre?” Favre said from under his mask.

  “I’m sorry. We have none left,” Holmgren said.

  “What about Mr. Gil?” Beebe said.

  That gave it away. Beebe was referring to Gil Haskell, Holmgren’s longtime friend and offensive coordinator, who happened to be at Holmgren’s house that evening.

  “Oh, gee whiz,” Holmgren said as he pulled off Beebe’s mask.

  They all had a good laugh.

  Roger Staubach never went trick-or-treating at Tom Landry’s house. Surely, Elway never went knocking on Reeves’s door, although in his rookie year in Denver, Elway was such a big story that the aggressive Denver newspapers did report on what kind of candy he was giving out to the kids on Halloween. Phil Simms never trick-or-treated at Bill Parcells’s house, and it would be hard to imagine Bart Starr coming in full costume to Vince Lombardi’s house or Tom Brady asking Bill Belichick for a treat. That would be a treat to watch.

  Favr
e, Beebe, and Winters arranged to have their field trip to Holmgren’s house taped, and it was shown at the Saturday night team meeting at the hotel in Minneapolis a few days later. “That’s Brett,” Holmgren said. “He’s a knucklehead.”

  Holmgren was a longtime high school history teacher before he made coaching his full-time profession. Teachers must have a lot of patience, and that quality helped Holmgren in his relationship with Favre. He had worked with Joe Montana and Steve Young in San Francisco—he also coached Young at Brigham Young University—and that provided him with invaluable experience when he was hired by the Packers in 1992. Montana was a coach’s dream, the perfect West Coast quarterback. Young was an incredible athlete who liked to run at the first sign of trouble. Holmgren helped him become a Hall of Fame quarterback. Favre would be a much bigger challenge.

  Near the end of the 1991 season, the Packers hired Ron Wolf as their general manager. He had been an assistant to Jets general manager Dick Steinberg. When Wolf was preparing for the 1991 draft, he had Favre, the quarterback from Southern Mississippi, ranked first on the Jets’ board. The Jets didn’t own a first-round pick, having used it the previous year in the supplemental draft to take Syracuse wide receiver Rob Moore.

  The Jets didn’t pick until early in the second round, number thirty-four overall. When Favre began to slip toward the end of the first round, Steinberg began dialing around the league, frantically trying to trade up. Favre kept slipping. It was not a great year for quarterbacks. Dan McGwire, the brother of baseball slugger Mark McGwire, went to the Seahawks at number sixteen. Todd Marinovich was selected by the Raiders at number twenty-four. Steinberg and Wolf were close friends with the Falcons’ general manager, Ken Herock. They knew the Falcons really liked Favre, but they had not selected him with either of their first-round picks. Instead they took cornerback Bruce Pickens at number three and wide receiver Mike Pritchard at number thirteen. The Falcons’ next pick came one spot before the Jets’ pick in the second round. Steinberg and Wolf were cetain Herock would take Favre in the second round. Steinberg finally was able to find a trade partner, working out a deal with the Cardinals, who were picking number thirty-two, one spot ahead of the Falcons and two spots ahead of the Jets.

  The Cardinals were intent on taking defensive end Mike Jones, so this was a no-lose situation for them. If they flipped spots, New York would take Favre, the Falcons would take Louisville quarterback Browning Nagle, and the Cardinals still would be able to draft Jones. At the last minute, for a reason Steinberg never knew, the Cardinals pulled out. They stayed put and drafted Jones. The Falcons then took Favre, and the Jets took Nagle. That didn’t work out well for the Jets. Nagle lasted just three years in New York before spending a year with the Colts and then finishing his career with one season in Atlanta; that was ironic considering what happened in the 1991 draft.

  Favre barely played as a rookie with the Falcons and fell out of favor with the coach, Jerry Glanville. There were rumors that Favre was enjoying himself too much off the field and that his drinking had become a concern. He even missed the team picture his rookie year. Herock and Glanville have argued publicly for years over who ordered Favre to be traded after the season, but the Packers were the beneficiaries. Just two days after Wolf hired Holmgren, he told him he was thinking about trading one of Green Bay’s two first-round picks to Atlanta for Favre. Wolf still liked him very much despite his forgettable rookie season.

  “Let me get my reports,” Holmgren said.

  Holmgren conducted Favre’s workout at Southern Miss leading up to the draft in front of a dozen teams. Wolf dug up his draft report on Favre to compare to Holmgren’s. “Very talented guy. Could be special,” Holmgren wrote.

  He told Wolf that in his version of the West Coast offense Favre would have to learn to make different types of throws. “He threw the ball so hard all the time,” Holmgren said. “He’s strong, and he threw it hard. He had to get serious about how he handled himself off the field as well. But as a talent, this guy is special.”

  One week later, Wolf made the trade. “It was two guys who had seen him from different teams the year before coming together and agreeing on the fact that this is a talented, talented man,” Holmgren said. “I was cocky enough to think all that other stuff I could take care of. I could mold him a little bit.”

  He knew that would be a challenge. After he conducted the predraft workout for Favre, he remembers sitting down with him for a little talk. The workout went very well, and Holmgren was impressed.

  “How are you going to spend the rest of the day?” Holmgren asked him.

  “I’m going to do a little catfishing, a little beer drinking,” Favre said.

  Holmgren was surprised to hear Favre talk about drinking beer so openly. He was an offensive coordinator for one of the best teams in the NFL, and Favre didn’t seem to be watching his words. “I just registered that a little bit,” Holmgren said. “Of course, he did have a certain reputation. We did our homework. He had a little bit of a reputation down in Atlanta. The quarterback position is so important to everybody, particularly in our offense. We’re as good as the quarterback, basically. I thought I might have to work on this a little bit.”

  Holmgren was willing to give Favre the benefit of the doubt for his rookie year in Atlanta. “It’s not unlike a lot of guys coming into the league their first year and not playing,” he said. “You got money in your pocket, you’re single, you’re in the city for the first time, you’re a professional football player. I don’t think it’s unusual for these guys to go out and cut it up a little bit.”

  Favre did more than just cut it up later in his career. In May 1996, he checked into the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, for a six-week stay after he became addicted to the painkiller Vicodin. He said at the time that the doctors at the clinic stated that he did not have an alcohol problem. It became part of Favre’s legend that when he faced adversity, he played his best. The Packers went on to win the Super Bowl less than seven months after Favre left the rehab center. He threw for four touchdowns and 399 yards in Oakland the day after his father died unexpectedly in 2003.

  Early in his Packers career, Favre would infuriate Holmgren with his schoolyard brand of football. Favre probably would have been happy drawing the plays up in the dirt and winging it. “Here I have this thoroughbred quarterback who is used to winning games by playing a certain way,” Holmgren said.

  The coach believed in a more disciplined approach. He worked hard to get Favre to trust the system, but it didn’t happen right away. “You got those old National Geographics with those two rams on the mountainside banging into each other,” Holmgren said.

  One was Holmgren. One was Favre. Holmgren was trying to break him down and build him up.

  Favre got his break in Green Bay when Don Majkowski was injured in the third game of the 1992 season. Favre took over as the starter the next week, beginning a streak of 297 consecutive regular season starts that didn’t end until late in the 2010 season when he was in the final year of his career with the Vikings. The streak was almost over before it had a chance to really get started. During the 1994 season, Favre’s third in Green Bay, Holmgren revealed that there was sentiment in a staff meeting that Holmgren should give the job to backup Mark Brunell. He had played well after Favre was injured against the Vikings in the season’s seventh game, and some of Holmgren’s coaches were lobbying for him to start the next game in Chicago.

  “I went around and asked my coaches. I went around the room and got their feelings,” Holmgren said.

  Enough hands went up for Brunell that Holmgren didn’t immediately dismiss it. He trusted his coaches. He decided to sleep on it. Favre still had the wild streak. Brunell played under control. The next day, Holmgren called Favre into his office. He had decided to stick with him but never told him that he had considered benching him. Holmgren felt that putting fear into Favre was not the way to motivate him. Some coaches want their players on edge all the time. Bill Parcells always used intimid
ation as his way to get through to his players.

  Holmgren sat Favre down. He didn’t threaten him. Just the opposite. He wanted Favre to know he was completely supportive. He believed that was the way to get the best out of him.

  “You are my guy, and we are joined at the hip,” Holmgren said. “We are either going to get to the top of the mountain together or we are going to wind up in the dumpster together. But we are going to be together.”

  He stuck with Favre and never second-guessed himself. “Sometimes you just have to commit,” Holmgren said. “You are not always right. But it did happen to work out for us in Green Bay.”

  Favre never lost his boyish enthusiasm for the game even if by the end of his career he turned people off with his on-again off-again retirements from the Packers, the Jets, and finally the Vikings. Favre and Holmgren had an interesting relationship. The coach liked to follow a script. The quarterback liked to ad lib. Somehow they made it work.

  “He had a great ability to make me laugh even in the tightest situation,” Holmgren said. “It tied in with his great leadership. He was remarkable that way. Teammates loved him. They played hard for him. But it’s fair to say he drove me a little crazy. When he and I talk about it now, we start laughing so hard. I was hard on him, but for the right reasons. I recognized he was a supertalent, and I was going to get the most out of him. I’d hold him to a very high standard. Maybe at times it was somewhat unreasonable.”

  Nearly twenty years later, Holmgren still has fun telling the story of Favre coming to the sidelines in the final game of the 1995 season against Pittsburgh.

  “It’s an important, important football game for us. It’s cold; it’s really cold in Green Bay,” he said. “We got a big third-down play coming up, and I got a couple of plays I want to call. I call time-out. He comes over. It’s third and short.”

  He started talking to Favre. “Okay, I got two plays. Which one do you like best? He’s kind of looking at me. Which one do you like the best? He’s just staring at me. He doesn’t say anything. Hey, are you listening to me? Which play you like the best? He still just stares at me. So I banged him on the chest. Boom. I hit him on the chest. Hey, pay attention. Which play do you like the best?”