Quiet Strength (35 page)

Wily mothers and their logic. I’m glad Mark Merrill didn’t post a transcript of that conversation on the Web site of All Pro Dad.

By the way, I’m embarrassed to say that it wasn’t the last time we discussed the plan. I must have called Lauren back five times, trying to convince her to fly home and help me.

Justin slept the entire drive.

At the 2006 training camp, I explained our strategy to the players.

“We’re going to be fine,” I said, “as long as we
think
we’re fine. If we don’t, we’re going to have problems. We’re going to do what we do. Stay the course. Our biggest temptation will be to think we need to do something different.”

That year, my word picture for the players was from a story Denny Green had shared with me about quarterback Joe Montana.

Joe had been with the San Francisco 49ers for a number of years, helping them win several Super Bowls. Year after year, the team ran head coach Bill Walsh’s same offense. At the beginning of each season, Bill installed the offense the exact same way, with the plays installed in the same order. The first play he installed—every year—was “22 Z In.” Joe Montana could run “22 Z In” in his sleep.

When Paul Hackett became offensive coordinator for the 49ers, he installed “22 Z In” just as Bill Walsh instructed him. Paul realized that Joe knew more about “22 Z In” than he did, but when the meeting was over, Paul saw that Joe had taken three pages of notes. He’d documented exactly how Paul wanted to run the play, as well as all of the basics of “22 Z In” and its details. That’s what a professional does.

“That’s what
we
need to do this season,” I told the Colts. “You’ll think you’ve heard it all before, but you can’t get mentally lazy. We have to stay sharp and continue to work to improve—all through camp and all through the season. We are going to do the same things over and over—that’s how we are going to win.”

Then I ran through the same list of goals I use every training camp:

• Top 5 in the NFL in giveaway/takeaway ratio

• Top 5 in the NFL in fewest penalties

• Top 5 in overall special teams

• Make big plays

• Don’t give up big plays

I talked about what we had done in 2005—things we had done well and areas where we could improve. Then I gave them a copy of an article I had read in the
Houston Chronicle.
They had often heard me paraphrase Matthew 16:26, my favorite Bible verse: “What good is it to gain the whole world but lose your soul?” To me, one of the implications of that verse is that Christ not only promises us eternal life but also a life that’s more abundant here and now. But according to the
Houston Chronicle
article, many NFL players weren’t finding that abundant life as evidenced by the following statistics:

• Sixty-five percent of NFL players leave the game with permanent injuries.

• Twenty-five percent of NFL players report financial difficulties within the first year of retirement.

• Fifty percent of failed NFL marriages occur in the first year after retirement.

• Seventy-eight percent of NFL players are unemployed, bankrupt, or divorced within two years of retirement.

• The suicide rate for retired NFL players is six times greater than the national average.

“Guys, please keep this in mind: football is a temporary job. We are going to do everything we can to win, but we’re not going to ruin the rest of our lives over football.”

Then I gave them a handout I’ve given every team that I’ve coached, entitled “Five Things That May Get You in
USA Today
.” I had listed the five things in large print to grab their attention:

1. ALCOHOL OR ILLEGAL DRUGS

2. BEING OUT AFTER 1:00 A.M.

3. DRIVING MORE THAN 20 MPH OVER THE SPEED LIMIT

4. GUNS

5. WOMEN YOU DON’T KNOW WELL ENOUGH (OR THAT YOU KNOW
TOO
 WELL)

I have always believed that if our players were careful in these five areas, they wouldn’t have many off-field problems.

During training camp, I read another article suggesting that the regular season didn’t matter to the Colts, that only the playoffs were important. The author said he didn’t care if we went 16–0, because it was meaningless. The playoffs were all that mattered. I held the article up in front of the team.

“Don’t buy into this trash.
Everything
we do matters. This kind of thinking will destroy us. We cannot have the impression that we will glide through the regular season and into the playoffs, that our wins along the way don’t matter. That is the perfect prescription for
not
making the playoffs. This is the kind of thinking that destroys talented teams.”

We wanted to start the season well. We knew the league would schedule the “Manning Bowl”—Peyton and the Colts against his brother Eli and the Giants—for opening weekend. Following that, we were set to play several division games. We didn’t want to dig a hole for ourselves at the start. And we didn’t.

We started 9–0, but it was different than the 13–0 of 2005. In 2005, we were playing well and winning by large margins. In 2006, we were struggling to win. We were coming from behind, sometimes on the final drive of the game. Often we were beaten statistically even though we were able to win the game. The media didn’t think we were very impressive—and they were right—but I realized that this was a good sign. We were winning games the hard way, showing character and building resolve. We were playing together, even without playing our best.

I kept telling our coaches that here we were, undefeated, and we hadn’t even played well yet. I thought we were in very good shape. Then we lost in week ten at Dallas and in week twelve at Tennessee, although both of those games were decided on the final drive. It wasn’t as if we were being beaten badly.

In week thirteen, we headed to Jacksonville. The Jaguars always played us well, and we knew we would be in for a tough day. We didn’t expect to lose 44–17, however, giving up the second-highest number of rushing yards in the NFL since 1970.

The players and coaches were stunned. We hadn’t lost a game like that in a long time, and most of the concern was with our defense. But when I watched the tape, I didn’t see anything that couldn’t be fixed. I met with the coaches on Monday morning and told them we would be fine. We just needed to play a little faster, a little sharper, a little better. No personnel changes. No scheme changes. If anything, we’d simplify things a little to make sure the defense was playing fast and carrying out the correct assignments.

I told the team the same thing on Wednesday. My talk had the same effect as the talk I gave in 2004 when we gave up forty-five points to the Chiefs: everyone in the room exhaled. Sometimes change is needed, but usually people simply need reassurance and encouragement. This was one of those times.

We split our next two games and headed into our final regular-season game against Miami. We already knew we wouldn’t get a first-round bye this year. No matter what we did against Miami, we’d have to play in the first round of the playoffs. But if we beat the Dolphins, we would at least ensure that we were number-three seed for the playoffs. Because only the top two seeds get that first-round bye, most people didn’t think there was much difference between being seeded third or fourth, but I did.

I told our guys that 2006 might be the year the third seed mattered. San Diego and Baltimore were at the top of the AFC standings, but there wasn’t a dominant team; upsets were still possible. With a couple of playoff upsets, there was a chance the third seed could end up hosting the AFC championship game. And if that happened, we wanted to be that third seed and host the game in Indy.

We came out and played well. Miami was a good test for us in many ways. They had a good defense, and their offense had really started to roll behind their running back, Ronnie Brown. We won, 27–22, and finished the year undefeated at home. Still, we had lost four of our last seven games.

None of the experts were picking us to do much in the playoffs, but I felt good about our chances. We would be getting a couple of defensive players back in time for the playoffs, including safety Bob Sanders, a physical and inspirational leader for us. He had missed eleven games with injuries that year and had not been able to play in any back-to-back games during the regular season. We weren’t certain whether we’d have him after the first playoff game, but we hoped he would at least help us get off to a good start.

We opened the first round of the playoffs against the Kansas City Chiefs, Herm Edwards’s new team, at home. Everybody outside of our building was certain that the Chiefs would be the end of us. We had had a lot of trouble stopping the run in the regular season, and the Chiefs had Larry Johnson, a big, strong back. All the commentators were having flashbacks to the Jacksonville game, especially since we were last in the NFL in rushing defense. One reporter asked me if I thought our run defense could even slow down Larry Johnson. I said that while I didn’t think we would hold him to twelve carries for twenty-five yards, I thought we’d do fine.

When the Chiefs arrived in town for our Saturday game, Lauren and I went to dinner on Friday night with Herm and Lia Edwards. The Bears had earned a first-round bye in the NFC playoffs, so Lovie and MaryAnne Smith drove down from Chicago to join us at P.F. Chang’s in Indianapolis.

Right off the bat, Herm brought up what we were all thinking: Lovie’s Bears had the easiest road in the days ahead. With a bye and home-field advantage, they were the favorites in the NFC. After Saturday, either Herm or I would still have to win two more games to get to the Super Bowl. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that either Herm or I would face Lovie and the Bears in the Super Bowl. If that did happen, we all knew the other one would be there to cheer.

After an early meal, I got up to go because it was time for both Herm and me to head back to our hotels for team chapel and meetings. They didn’t think I saw it, but I caught the look that Herm and Lovie exchanged—a look that said,
Which one of us is getting stuck with the bill
this
time?

Herm broke up laughing as I paid the bill. He claimed it was the first time in thirty years that I had paid. Who knows—he may be right.

A free meal was the highlight of that weekend for Herm, I’m afraid. While we didn’t hold Larry Johnson to twelve carries for twenty-five yards, he ended up with only thirteen for thirty-two, and the Chiefs had only 126 yards of total offense. Our defense was stellar in our 23–8 victory—they had played better and with more energy.

In addition to our defense playing well, I was encouraged by the way we won that game
as a team.
Five years earlier I had stressed that every component was absolutely necessary to our success as a team. Now, on a big stage, Peyton hadn’t played particularly well by his standards, but our defense had stepped up to help carry us to victory. In prior years, if Peyton didn’t play well, we usually lost. This was a welcome change.

Next we headed to Baltimore to play the second-seeded Ravens. We had played them in Baltimore to start the 2005 season. Back then, the return of the Colts to Baltimore hadn’t been much of a news item. Now it was
the
story line.

The Colts left Baltimore in 1984 when Jim Irsay’s father moved the club to Indianapolis via a caravan of moving vans. We saw footage of those vans continuously during that weekend in Baltimore. As I watched the coverage, I noticed that while they may have been packing their belongings in the dark, it didn’t appear that they were doing it in the rain.

With this matchup being portrayed as a “revenge” game for the Ravens—the team created when the Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore in 1996—Clyde and I wondered if we should still take our customary walk. Baltimore’s Inner Harbor is picturesque, but we weren’t sure just how worked up the fans might have become about this game. We weren’t looking for any excitement.

We decided to go anyway, and most of the people we saw greeted us and wished us good luck. And the Inner Harbor was beautiful, as always, on that unseasonably warm January morning.

The ride to the stadium was a different story. We’ve played before raucous crowds in Philly, New York, and elsewhere, but this crowd was vicious. As our bus approached the stadium parking lot, it was obvious that these fans, dressed in purple Ravens gear, were not the same people we had seen in the Inner Harbor.

Fortunately, I had warned our guys about this. I knew we would see the WWE wrestling-style introductions, with their defense coming out through smoke to whip the crowd into a frenzy. But eventually there would be a kickoff, and it wouldn’t matter how much the crowd was pumped up. The crowd wouldn’t be playing. After the opening kickoff, this was going to be a normal, sixty-minute game.

It was, and we controlled it. Baltimore had the league’s top defense, so our offense wasn’t able to get many big plays. We had a number of solid drives but had to settle for field goals. For the second week in a row, however, our defense played lights out, and we led 12–6 in the middle of the fourth quarter. We had the ball and were trying to run out the clock. We relied on our run game and held the ball for over seven minutes, throwing just one pass. We took the clock down to 0:26 as the Ravens called their last time-out.