Do You Love Football?! (26 page)

After Joe's big catch, we've got a first-and-goal and we bring out "Y Hurricane" personnel. Warren Sapp, the former Miami Hurricane, jogs out there as an eligible tight end. He makes a big block at the point of attack on the left side and Mike Alstott scores our first offensive touchdown in Philadelphia in three years to give us a 10-7 lead at the end of the first quarter. I'm running down the sidelines yelling, "Should they stop the game and give you guys a Goddang game ball for scoring in the Vet?

Is the commissioner here to make the presentation? That's probably all that we've got left offensively, right? We've got to be maxed out here for another five years, right?"

Our guys are loving it. The fans start booing. They can't believe the Eagles have given up an offensive touchdown to the Buccaneers. Before the day is over, they'll give up another touchdown by our offense, on a nine-yard pass from Brad Johnson to Keyshawn Johnson, as well as one by our defense, on a ninety-two-yard interception return by cornerback Ronde Barber.

It should be noted that, to help him grip the ball better, Brad wore a tacky glove for the first time in his career in that game.

The glove had just started to make its way into football when I was the Eagles' offensive coordinator. With my small hands, grabbing a wet ball is a challenge, but when I tried on one of those gloves, I couldn't believe the difference. If only I could have had one when I was playing at Dayton. I never could convince any of the Eagle quarterbacks to wear one. Randall Cunningham certainly didn't need it with his huge hands. I did get Gannon to throw with one every now and then in practice, but he never wore one in a game when I was in Oakland because we never encountered any really wet weather. But in the final weekend of the 2002 season, I was watching the Raiders play the Chiefs in Oakland during a driving rainstorm. Sure enough, there was Rich with a glove on.

Brad had included that tacky glove in the little kit of extra gear that he carries with him to every game. Most players rely on the equipment staff to supply them with anything they might need beyond their basic uniform. Not Brad. He has his own little kit that has a change of jersey, a change of wristbands, a change of socks, a change of shoes. He keeps it with him at all times. Whereas a lot of guys wait until halftime to change any part of their uniform, Brad will change during a game, right on the sidelines. I'll say, "Brad, let's go; we've got the ball!" He'll be hurriedly changing his jersey or his socks, then go running onto the field. He just likes that fresh feel.

Brad went with the tacky glove that day because even though it wasn't raining or snowing, it was cold-twenty-six degrees at kickoff with a wind chill of sixteen. Throwing a brand-new ball that hasn't had all the slick factory coating rubbed off it is tough enough. Throwing a brand-new ball that's cold can be as difficult as throwing a wet ball. Brad went twenty for thirty-three for 259 yards and a touchdown in our 27-10 win. How much, if anything, did wearing the glove have to do with that? Who knows? All that mattered was that Brad felt good about having it on.

Our playoff journey was amazing in a lot of ways. For me, it felt like a trip down memory lane, like a fairytale.

We opened with the 49ers, the team that gave me my introduction to NFL coaching and employed my dad for sixteen seasons as a regional scout (I know he was rooting for us because blood is thick in our family). San Francisco was where I began to learn all about the "West Coast" offense. It was where George Seifert introduced me to the importance of organization and structure. It was where I got a firsthand look at the confident manner with which a coordinator, Mike Holmgren, is supposed to install an offense. It was where I saw the benefits of a coach, Ray Rhodes, speaking a language that players understand. I had worked with Steve Mariucci, the 49ers' coach, in Green Bay, which was where I found out about the delicate nature of dealing with a strong personality like Sterling Sharpe.

It was where I learned the value of having the courage of your convictions, as Ron Wolf and Mike did in making the bold and brilliant trade for Brett Favre, and learned how to get the very best from a free spirit, as Mike and Steve did from Brett. That ended up being Steve's final game with the 49ers. Now he's coaching the Detroit Lions. Three seasons after leading the Packers to a Super Bowl victory, Mike became executive vice president of football operations for the Seattle Seahawks. Ray is his defensive coordinator.

After our playoff victory over San Francisco, one of our security guys came into the coaches' room and said, "Bill Walsh would like to see you." I couldn't believe it. Bill, who is a consultant for the 49ers, just came down to say, "Congratulations on a great victory." That was a moment I'll never forget. It's almost as if you've come full circle. You run this gamut of emotions, from Dave Adolph coming into your office after you get your ass kicked by Kansas City, and five years later Bill Walsh is coming into your office congratulating you on beating his 49ers.

Who'd have ever thought that would happen?

The next week we were playing in Philadelphia, where I spent three years as a coordinator. It was the last NFL game that would ever be played in Veterans Stadium, because the Eagles now call Lincoln Financial Field-a state-of-the-art facility where I seriously doubt you'll find any cats or rats-their new home. That was chilling to me. That was awesome. I had spent a lot of my life in Philadelphia. It was where I confronted the challenges of overseeing the whole offense rather than just one position. It was where I became involved with difficult decisions, such as benching Randall Cunningham, and discovered the need to adapt and adjust when you encounter the injuries like we did with Rodney Peete and Ty Detmer. It was where I had my first dealings with a player, Ricky Watters, that I simply never could connect with, even though his talent was vital to our success. It was where I received my first taste of high praise and harsh criticism from fans and media. It was where our second son, Michael, was born.

Andy Reid, the Eagles' coach, was also part of that staff we had in Green Bay, along with Dick Jauron, who now coaches the Chicago Bears. I had worked a lot of hours with Andy. If people call me a grinder, he's a double grinder.

I've known Jim Johnson, the Eagles' defensive coordinator, since I was nine years old, when he and my dad worked together at Indiana. Jim's son, Scott, whom I hadn't seen since we left the Cotton Bowl early in that ice storm, was at the NFC Championship Game with his mom and came down to the field beforehand to say hello.

You talk about the weird feeling of coming face-to-face with your past. I saw cornerbacks Troy Vincent and Bobby Taylor, safety Brian Dawkins, and running back Duce Staley-guys I had worked with and coached when I was in Philly.

It seemed to take forever for our chartered flight back to Tampa to even start to taxi, let alone take off. I don't know why, but I suspect maybe a few people who were part of that Philly ground crew were Eagle fans who just might not have been in too big of a hurry to see us depart on time-especially with the Super Bowl only a week away. It didn't really matter because it gave us that much more time to celebrate together as a team.

One of our PR guys updated me that Oakland had a pretty commanding lead over Tennessee late in the AFC Championship Game, so we had a pretty good idea that the Raiders would be our opponent in Super Bowl XXXVII. The pilot would make that official before we took off, but we really weren't thinking about the Super Bowl at that point. We just wanted to enjoy that win.

Obviously the whole angle of me going against the team I had coached in the four previous seasons and the crazy circumstances that landed me in Tampa were going to be big with the media. Some people went as far as to say that you couldn't have written a movie script any better than the way things turned out. I truly didn't care about that. To me, it was all about being in the Super Bowl. I felt so far removed from the Raiders, it was unbelievable. The one year in Tampa was so intense, Oakland felt like it was ten, twenty years ago. It really felt no different from playing against any of the other teams I had coached for.

This was a big game. We had to have this game. It wasn't about going against my former team.

When we landed in Tampa, there must have been about forty thousand fans waiting for us. We had to set up a podium so that we could properly thank them for being there for us and hold up the NFC Championship Trophy. After fighting through all that traffic, we didn't get to bed until about three or four o'clock in the morning. I had to forget about the fact that I can function on almost no sleep most of the time and remember that there are people on our staff who do require a little bit of sleep.

I wasn't going to ask them to lie in bed just for an hour or so and then meet me in the office.

I actually got about four hours of sleep, which was pretty good, considering the circumstances. Later that morning Rich McKay, our general manager, and I called Commissioner Paul Tagliabue to explain that our coaching staff had to remain in Tampa on Monday to work on our game plan. We hadn't gotten back from Philadelphia until the wee hours of Monday morning and we had about a five-hour flight ahead of us to San Diego. We proposed that we would send all our players and support staff out to San Diego on Monday, and then all the coaches would fly in at the crack of dawn on Tuesday to be part of Media Day at Qualcomm Stadium. The commissioner agreed. I wasn't trying to get an unfair advantage, but the Raiders had played at home and had only a forty-five-minute flight to San Diego.

We had a meeting with our players to tell them they were on their own. We appointed Simeon Rice, our killer defensive end, as team chaperone. He would be in charge of bed check Monday night.

"Carry the flag," I told the team. "Represent us well. And don't feel like you have to answer any questions from the media for me. You don't have to fight any of my battles. This is about you guys. It's about you against the Raiders. Enjoy this time because you've earned it. We'll see you guys when we get there."

The first thing we did as a staff was look at the tape of our game against Philadelphia to make sure we saw what the Raiders were looking at. What were we showing? What were we doing? What would they be preparing for?

From there we plunged right into our video cut-ups of the Raiders. I had coaches from our offensive staff briefing me on Oakland's base blitzes and nickel blitzes. My brother Jay, who had helped out on the offensive coaching staff the whole season, and Jeremy Bates, our offensive quality-control coach, synchronized the tapes just the way I like them. We worked until about ten-thirty, eleven o'clock that night.

About 4:30 A.M. Tuesday we boarded a chartered plane belonging to Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban for our long trip to San Diego. Our owners, the Glazers, were able to reserve it for us, I'm sure at a considerable cost. I can't begin to say how huge they came through for us by doing that because it allowed all of us not only the chance to maintain somewhat of our same routine, but also to get a little bit of sleep before heading into twenty hours of game-plan preparation. It was an important asset. It's a classic example of owners providing their coaches with every possible resource to be successful. It just gives you that much more motivation to do everything in your power to come through for them.

During the flight, I got together with Monte Kiffin and gave him some notes about the Raiders' offense that I thought might be helpful. We talked about some of the pass patterns I felt the Raiders were going to run and some of the buzzwords and code words they would use that might help him. I had a pretty good idea about how their snap count was going to sound. I had some inside information about Gannon and about the Raiders' offensive system. I mean, I had been their head coach and I did call a lot of their plays for four years. I realized they had changed some of their playbook, but our defense had still seen a lot of those offensive plays in our practices. Our snap count still was similar to their snap count.

As soon as we landed, around 7 A.M. San Diego time, we had a police escort take us to Media Day. I never saw anything like that in my life-thousands of reporters and photographers from all over the world jammed along one side of the stadium to interview just about anyone wearing Buccaneer red, pewter, black and orange. We were required to be there for an hour.

After that it was the Raiders' turn.

I knew what questions I was going to hear and I just set out to answer them the best I could without giving the Raiders the tiniest bit of material for added motivation (as if their guys or our guys really needed one extra reason to be excited about playing in the Super Bowl). My answers were probably boring, but I was totally focused on the bull's-eye. I tried to stay oblivious to everything else that was going on. I got wind of some of the critical comments that players I had coached in Oakland made about me in the newspapers-how I had betrayed them by leaving, how they were the victims, how I was a selfish guy and all that stuff. But I let it go. Every time someone told me something that somebody from the Raiders said about me, I said, "I really don't care. I don't want to get involved in that. It's not about me. It's about the Bucs and the Raiders. Super Bowl XXXVII."

When we got to our hotel, our video equipment had all been set up, with all the tapes waiting for me. I continued studying the Raiders and-along with our coordinators, Bill Muir and Monte Kiffin, and special teams coach Rich Bisaccia-finalized the game plan late Tuesday night. The quality-control guys Xeroxed it, and we distributed it to the players Wednesday morning for practice that afternoon.

The whole experience was wild. I had never burned it at both ends before like I did that week. I ended up getting sick, really congested to the point where I could barely talk. I had watery eyes. I was fried. It was a long season, but those were the longest three days of preparation for a game that I had ever experienced. They were for a lot of our coaches. Nevertheless, I was confident about our plan. I was confident about how well we would play.