Do You Love Football?! (27 page)

I told our players all week, "We're going to win this game."

We tried to maintain as much normalcy as we could with the players. We gave them Monday and Tuesday off, which is pretty close to the way our regular schedule runs before a Sunday game. We followed our usual practice routine, although there were a couple of little twists. I coached the scout team offense against our defense the whole week. That way I could make little important adjustments that I wanted our defensive guys to see, like certain shifts that I felt the Raiders might do. Sometimes I'd have the scout team offense hurry to the line quickly, when the defense would least expect it, and run a no-huddle attack. The idea was to make our guys play, make sure they were ready for all possibilities.

"These guys are going to throw the ball every play," I told the defense. "They barely ran the ball once against Tennessee.

They think they can block you guys. They're going to send five guys out for passes. They're going to be throwing . . . every . . . single . . . play!"

The other twist came Thursday when I played quarterback in practice. Other than throwing some ball drills in San Francisco and Green Bay, it was the first time I had done that since my senior year at Dayton. I talked about it with Monte, and we decided that I would be under center for our final defensive period that day because it would provide the best simulation of what those guys could expect from an offense and a quarterback that I knew as well as anybody. I was nervous, man. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was look like a nonathlete in front of the players.

Just before I went in there, though, Monte called all the defensive players together and said, "Coach Gruden's going to play quarterback. He's going to let you guys get a little bit of a feel for Gannon-what he might do, how he might sound. He's not going to throw it, but he's going to give you a feel for the plays."

I'm thinking, I'm not going to throw it? I never said I wasn't going to throw it. When I got in the huddle I said, "Yeah, right, I'm not going to throw it. Okay, this is Bunch Left 300 Jet X Slant." I took the snap, I took a three-step drop and, boom, I threw a slant to Karl Williams for a gain. All of the offensive players and the backup defensive players watching let out a big "Whoa!" It was fun. I kept calling plays, using the exact same terminology I felt Gannon might use and calling signals in that same loud and clear style of his: "Red 88! Red 88!"

I wanted our defense to get that sense of Gannon on edge, attacking you every second. I made all kinds of hand signals the way Gannon does. I did a lot of pump fakes like he does because we knew that was how the Raiders generated a lot of their big plays; Rich does a great job of moving people out of position and finding vertical seams. I tried to be very confident, very much in charge. I even gave them the Rich Gannon staredown.

And the thing that really amazed me was that I was actually throwing the ball pretty well. I couldn't believe it. I was making completions. I went no-huddle and we were moving so fast that I changed the play three times at the line because of the extra time we had on the play clock. Somehow I had become a damn good quarterback that day, and I don't care if you do think I sound arrogant when I say that. I was on fire. In a ten-minute stretch, I was Montana, Favre, Young, Brunell, Cunningham and George. I was amazing. At one point, I wondered, Why the hell couldn't I ever play this way in college?

As far as I was concerned, I had put together a hell of a sustained drive of about nine or ten plays. Of course, Simeon Rice told me afterward that he could have easily sacked me three times but held back out of sympathy because he saw I was having such a good time. I'm sure he did. And, yes, he probably would have made those sacks, too.

I don't know how much my playing quarterback helped in preparing our guys, but what it did more than anything was loosen them up. They had fun with it. They laughed their asses off. As I was walked off the field, I was tired. I think I pulled every muscle in my body, but I loved it. Probably the best compliment came from Brad Johnson. He had noticed that I called a "race" pattern, where the X receiver is supposed to run a square in. Our scout team receiver didn't run the right route and I threw the ball incomplete. It looked like I made a bad throw, but Brad knew what happened. "If the X had run the right route, it was open," he said. "That was impressive." I'll never forget that a Pro Bowl quarterback said something like that to me.

I knew we were ready to play on Thursday after we had the best nine-on-seven session that I'd ever been associated with. It was week twenty of our season, we had shoulder pads and shorts on, and it was crisp on both sides of the ball. It was just a lively, spirited, physical, well-executed portion of practice.

I didn't have any huge speech for the team the night before the Super Bowl. At that point there really isn't a whole lot to say.

We were confident. We were prepared. We knew we were playing our best football. All I tried to do was keep everyone focused on the ultimate goal, which meant blocking out everything that could get in the way of it.

"Now you just beat Philadelphia," I said. "You're all excited, but that wasn't your Super Bowl. Tomorrow is your Super Bowl.

The stadium is the same size as the one we play in. The dimensions of the field are exactly the same. The seating capacity is actually very much like Raymond James Stadium. There is going to be a little bit more pregame festivities than you're used to, so prepare for the long wait before they introduce the starting lineups, and there's going to be a longer halftime.

"But you're going to wake up tomorrow and you're going to play your best game ever. You're going to be world champions.

World champions! Just do what you do."

I'll admit it felt a little weird during pregame warm-ups.

When I was with the Raiders, I would always jog out and shake hands with Al Davis, who would be out on the field, watching the players warm up. He'd wish me good luck, I'd wish him good luck, and I'd say, "Let's get 'em, man." When I jogged out for pregame warm-ups before the Super Bowl, I looked over at the Raider players and I saw Al standing out there. I didn't know whether I should run over to him to shake his hand and say, "Good luck," or just avoid him. I decided avoiding him was the best way to go. I just didn't want to create any kind of a scene. That was probably the only weird part about the Super Bowl for me.

There were a lot of emotions running through me as I caught my first glimpse of Jerry Rice, Rich Gannon, Charlie Garner and Charles Woodson in seven-on-seven. As I've mentioned, I always look at the other team's players during pregame just to get an idea of how they look, how they're moving, any bit of information that might be helpful during the game. But that particular day, I kept my eyes off them. I just concentrated on our guys. I didn't want to peak emotionally too soon. I didn't want to become distracted. I was pretty focused on our game plan. I had a pretty good idea as to how we were going to approach them. Those Raider players know I respect them.

Some of them know that I love them.

Just before we took the field for our warm-ups, Brad came up to me and said, "They've got seventy-five new balls for this game. There's no way they could have rubbed them all down.

Do you think I ought to wear the glove?"

"It's up to you," I said.

At the start of warm-ups, he put the glove on and threw some passes. Then it took it off and threw more passes. Then he put it on again. When we got back to the locker room, Brad said, "Seventy-five new balls. I just don't think they can get to all of them."

"Hey, you're either wearing the glove or you're not," I said.

"You're not wearing it for the first series and taking it off, because all that's going to do is create a distraction. Make up your mind. You're the man on this one."

I thought it was important for Brad to take charge of the situation and believe in whatever decision he made. It wasn't about the glove. It was about Brad's confidence. I honestly didn't think he was going to have too much of a problem in San Diego, where the temperature at kickoff was eighty-one degrees and the sky was clear. I should also point out that Brad has a sarcastic wit about him, and I still don't know to this day if he was being completely serious about his concern over the glove or if he was just messing with me in an effort to maybe loosen me up a little bit. Given that we were about to play the biggest game of our lives, I thought I should play it safe and take him seriously.

I don't predict the outcomes of any games, but I will say this:

If we're on our game, my God, anything can happen. When you have a seventy-seven-yard touchdown drive at the end of the half, like we did, and then come back with an eighty-nine-yard touchdown drive at the start of the third quarter, like we did, that's being on your game. And when you play the kind of defense we played, limiting them to sixty-two yards in the first half and intercepting a great quarterback like Rich Gannon five times and returning three of those interceptions for touchdowns, you're on your game.

Brad finally decided not to wear the glove. He went eighteen for thirty-four for 215 yards and two touchdowns in our 48-21 victory. God love Brad. God love all our players.

People want to give me credit for that defensive performance, for putting our guys in a situation where they could anticipate just about everything Rich and the rest that offense was going to do. But the fact is, opposing quarterbacks had a passer rating of forty-four-something against our defense in 2002. It didn't matter what kind of passing offense these guys saw. They got interceptions, they got sacks, they got turnovers, they got touchdowns against everybody. Under the able direction of Monte Kiffin and Rod Marinelli, they defended the pass better than any team in the league. The Super Bowl was no exception.

As soon as the game was over, almost like magic, confetti was flying all over the place and we were up on a platform in the middle of the field, waiting for Commissioner Tagliabue to present us with the Vince Lombardi Trophy. One of my favourite songs is "It's My Life," by Jon Bon Jovi. It basically says what I have always believed-that you've got to live your life while you're here, that you've got to get the most out of every day and every minute. As we're standing on that platform, guess who is on another platform that night? Jon Bon Jovi. He's singing my fight song.

Is that weird or what?

Winning a Super Bowl doesn't make me love football any more than I did the first time I pulled on my Leroy Kelly jersey and that plastic orange Browns helmet. Now, did I feel any better after we won the Super Bowl than I felt after we beat Philadelphia in the NFC Championship Game or after we stunned Kansas City with a come-from-behind win at Arrowhead when I was with the Raiders or after we beat Murray State when I was at Southeast Missouri? Yeah, I probably did, because it was for the world championship. It's a signature game. It's in the record books.

Somebody told me that, at thirty-nine, I'm the youngest coach ever to win a Super Bowl. That's really not accurate.

When you talk about sleep deprivation-when you factor in the alert, nonsleep hours that I've had my whole life-I'm actually one of the older coaches in football history. At least that's what I've heard from many sleep-deprivation experts.

But I can honestly say that nothing about my approach to this job has changed or will change as a result of what took place on January 26, 2003. If you were at any of our practices this offseason or during training camp, you'd have seen the same guy you saw coaching quarterbacks in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and receivers in Green Bay. I can't begin to tell you how proud I was of our red-zone execution on May 4, 2003.

That was the last day of our minicamp. We were eighteen for twenty-one against the number-one-ranked defense in the NFL, and I was so fired up. Honest to God, I was very, very excited about it.

What winning the Super Bowl does provide is validation that all that time I missed with my wife and my kids was worthwhile. At least we have a world championship to show for it.

Maybe now it's a little easier to understand why I get up so early, why I come home so late, why we always work on Fridays. There's also nothing better than sharing an accomplishment of that magnitude with so many other people-with Monte Kiffin and Rod Marinelli, with Brad Johnson and Keyshawn Johnson, with Warren Sapp and Derrick Brooks, with everybody else on the team and in our organization, with my wife and boys, with my mom and dad, with my brothers.

And it was very special to share it with the Glazers, who went to great measures to give me this opportunity. I am forever grateful to them for that. I really enjoyed sitting with Joel and Bryan Glazer, as well as Mr. Malcolm Glazer and his wife, Linda, on the plane ride home and watching a replay of the Super Bowl on the TV monitors. You know you can never live up to that kind of compensation. Hell, who can? I certainly wasn't holding up my end when I was getting my ass kicked in my first game as an offensive coordinator in Philadelphia or when Kansas City thumped me in my Oakland debut or when New Orleans gashed me in my Tampa debut. You've got to get over games like that and show the resiliency to come back. And when you win your first division championship as a head coach and then win another one and then win a Super Bowl, you've got to get over those games, too. You can't sit there and rub your ring and read your scrapbook forever.

Fortunately, I know what a humbling business this is. The previous two teams that got to the Super Bowl didn't even make the playoffs the next year, so you'd better not get too fat and happy. You have to remember that the football gods are always watching. George Hallas is sitting up there. He's with Vince Lombardi and George Allen and Bobb McKittrick and Walter Payton, and they're watching. They're waiting for the Super Bowl champions to go to another banquet, to go have another steak dinner and another big piece of cherry pie. They want you to just fatten up like a big red tomato so that they can take a big bite out of you. Those are guys who love football and hate anyone who disrespects the game.