Bill Belichick: 8x Super Bowl Champion on Winning, Leadership, and Discipline

Eight Super Bowl rings. Six with the Patriots. And a mindset that goes far deeper than football. In this rare, wide-ranging conversation, Bill Belichick breaks down the invisible factors behind sustained excellence: discipline, preparation, and the mental edge that separates contenders from champions. He shares the surprising reason he kept Tom Brady as a fourth-string rookie, why talent alone is never enough at the highest level, and how true competitors find ways to win long after their gifts fade. You’ll hear why Belichick cut a player the week of the Super Bowl, how technology is changing player preparation and locker room culture, and why “we have control of the game” became the rallying belief in the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history. This episode covers everything from how he decides when to push a player—or pull back—to how trust is built inside elite teams. Belichick also explains why the price of success is always paid in advance—and why there’s no shortcut around the work. If you lead a team, or want to lead yourself better, this episode is a masterclass from the greatest football mind of our time. Approximate timestamps: Subject to variation due to dynamically inserted ads: (00:42) Patriots' Employee Guiding Principles (04:25) Talent vs Hard Work (05:43) Competitive Spirit (10:38) You Cannot Win Until You Keep From Losing (15:11) The Drawer and Prioritizing Your Goals (17:07) Social Media, Technology, and Football (24:45) Preparation and Success (27:55) Confidence In The NFL (29:45) Kobe Bryant & Learning To Evolve As You Get Older (31:02) Other Guest Speakers And Their Lessons (32:28) Disciplining NFL Players (39:45) Working Your Way Up & How To Train Staff (47:56) Motivation & Discipline (56:08) Correcting Mistakes and Moving On (58:28) Building A Team vs Collecting Talent (01:00:13) How Has NFL Coaching Changed In The Last 5 Years? (01:01:43) 4 Patriot Rules For Staying Grounded (01:06:11) Super Bowl LI Patriots' Comeback Thanks to our sponsors for supporting this episode: SHOPIFY: Upgrade your business and get the same checkout I use. Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial period at ⁠shopify.com/knowledgeproject⁠ NOTION MAIL: Get Notion Mail for FREE at notion.com/knowledgeproject NORDVPN: To get the best discount off your NordVPN plan go to ⁠nordvpn.com/KNOWLEDGEPROJECT. Our link will also give you 4 extra months on the 2-year plan. There's no risk with Nord’s 30 day money-back guarantee! MINT MOBILE: Shop premium wireless plans at mintmobile.com/KNOWLEDGEPROJECT Newsletter - The Brain Food newsletter delivers actionable insights and thoughtful ideas every Sunday. It takes 5 minutes to read, and it’s completely free. Learn more and sign up at ⁠⁠fs.blog/newsletter⁠⁠ Upgrade — If you want to hear my thoughts and reflections at the end of the episode, join our membership: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠fs.blog/membership⁠⁠⁠⁠ and get your own private feed. Watch on YouTube: ⁠⁠@tkppodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  The big thing about preparation and success is, is the price has to be paid in advance. You have to put in the work before you get any results. If you can eliminate all those things, then you can actually make progress on being a better football player and, and winning games.

• 0:13Shane Parrish?

  Was there ever a time where you kept a player on the roster who might not made it from a talent level, but sheer work ethic sort of kept them around, not only because they were improving, but because they made everybody else prepare harder?

• 0:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely. Let's start with Tom Brady.

• 0:32Shane Parrish?

  Welcome to The Knowledge Project. I'm your host, Shane Parrish. In a world where knowledge is power, this podcast is your toolkit for mastering the best what other people have already figured out. Today's guest is Bill Belichick. Coach Belichick is an eight-time Super Bowl champion who's widely considered the greatest football coach of all time. He is the only head coach in NFL history to win six Super Bowls, all with the New England Patriots. He's currently the head coach of the University of North Carolina football team, and this conversation needs no introduction. This is amazing. I'm so happy to have Coach Belichick on. It's time to listen and learn.

• 1:13Shane Parrish?

  When I thought about where to start, I think the place that came to mind was the sign you had in the Patriots facility. And as every employee walked in, they read these four things. Do your job, work hard, be attentive, and put the team first.

• 1:30Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:30Shane Parrish?

  Why did you want everybody in the organization to read that on the way into work?

• 1:34Speaker 00

  Well, that's really our game plan every day. Didn't matter whether it was a day in the offseason, a day in training camp, or the day before the AFC Championship game, or the day of the AFC Championship game. Those things never really changed, but we all had a job to do, whatever that happened to be, and every job was important. Every member of the team was important, that they do their job well. And being attentive and working hard is really the formula to getting better. That's how you improve. You, you figure out what it is you need to do better, and that's by being attentive and listening to people who can instruct you or, or help you get better, and then put Putting the work in to to make that positive change and always thinking team first. That's that's always the most important thing. What do we need to do to win?

• 2:18Speaker 00

  And what can I do to contribute to the winning cause? And so regardless of what the task was, whether it was a coach, a player, staff member, really any employee, it kind of fit for all of them. So, and again, because we played and practiced in the same facility, as I said, it didn't matter whether it was the AFC championship game, or whether it was a day in March or a day in June. It was the same every day. And so we strove for that consistency.

• 2:47Shane Parrish?

  What does it mean to work hard? There was a term in your book that stuck out to me called eye wash.

• 2:52Speaker 00

  Working hard, sometimes people can come in and put in their time and check the box. You know, a player can come in, put on his gear, go out, run around, break a sweat, take a shower and say, well, I, you know, I practiced today. Well, but if you don't really accomplish anything, then that really is not not working hard. It's actually, we refer to it as a day off. No days off actually means, you know, you come to work and you go to work. You don't come to work, check the box, kill the time and then leave. You need to be productive while you're there. So, you know, that is really just a way of saying, yes, we're going to put in the work, but we need to accomplish the things that we set out to accomplish for that for that day and then build on those tomorrow.

• 3:33Shane Parrish?

  Was there ever a time where you kept a player on the roster who might not have made it from a talent level, but sheer work ethic sort of kept them around, not only because they were improving, but because they made everybody else prepare harder?

• 3:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely. Let's start with Tom Brady. Tom Brady was a fourth string quarterback his rookie year. He had three players ahead of him and,

• 3:56Speaker 00

  and, you know, he just, he just worked his way up. No, no team keeps four quarterbacks at any level, high school, college, the NFL. It's, it's really almost unheard of. And he, he, he would be exhibit A. Steve Neal, you know, a guy who never played high school football, never played college football, was a wrestler in college and then became a, you know, an offensive guard, started for us for seven years, Julian Edelman. Who played quarterback in college and then became a receiver and upon return to positions that he never played in college in the NFL and became very good at them. So yeah, absolutely. That work ethic and that day to day improvement, when you just stack

• 4:39Speaker 00

  those days together on top of each other for a sustained period of time, you know, it levels out the talent. Sure, talent's important, but guys with a great work ethic and who really are committed to improving can catch a lot of players with more talent who don't work as hard.

• 4:57Shane Parrish?

  Is there an example of a player who just had outrageous talent, but didn't work hard at all that sort of ended their career a lot earlier or they never made it, you know, they got to the big league and then they they sort of just faded away?

• 5:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, sure. I mean, there are lots of them. Unfortunately, you know, I referred to one of them in the book that, you know, talked about coming in and being a running back and, you know, being a combination of, you know, two great running backs that were in Hall of Fame. And, you know, I think he had barely 100 yards in his entire career. So it's, you know, talent's one thing, but the application of turning that talent into being a productive football player and a great teammate is it's hard to do it. It's not that easy and talent gets you through high school. It might get you through college, but once you get to the NFL level, that talent, that field levels out. And there are only a few players that have such elite talent that they they don't have to work very hard

• 5:55Speaker 00

  and can stay better than a lot of their competitors. For the other 95%, if they don't stay on it, they're either going to get replaced or in a lot of cases, players that don't trade hard will get injured and their careers will get cut short that way because they don't, you know, commit to a good training regimen.

• 6:15Shane Parrish?

  Are competitive people competitive everywhere? I think of like you, Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, and you're always competitive in every, everything you're doing. And I'm wondering if that's a trait of hyper competitive people or just the ones that reach the pinnacle of success?

• 6:30Speaker 00

  No, I think it's, I think it transcends everything. It's unbelievable how competitive guys are, literally over nothing. I mean, it could be for a T-shirt. You know, there's guys making millions of dollars and it's for a, for a T-shirt or, you know, not having to run a couple sprints or an hour later on curfew. They'll compete and it, and honestly, it isn't even necessarily for the prize at the end. It's just to be able to say, you know, I won, I competed and, you know, I beat you today. Or if they don't win, just the love of the competition, the love of the prize and fighting for that, the pride to say, hey, you know. We would have a lot of team competitive events, like for example, trivia,

• 7:16Speaker 00

  you know, or know your teammate. And, you know, ask questions about different teammates of, you know, maybe what position they played in high school or maybe another sport they play or, you know, some other random fact about teammates and, and play offense against defense or the wide receivers against the DBs or the O-line against the D-line and the rookies against the veterans and, you know, create different competitions. And whether it was free throw shooting or cornhole or trivia or, you know, all different things like that. Guys that like to compete, love to compete and, and it was a lot of fun actually to move some of the targets around for the competition. You know, some guys are good at free throws, some guys are good at trivia,

• 8:01Speaker 00

  some guys are good, you know, closest to the hole golf shots, you know, whatever it is. But it's just fun to see them compete. One of the best things we did Shane was we would have usually one of our rookie offensive and defensive line then would compete against each other to catch a plant. Right. And so you put a, you know, offensive tackle and a defensive tackle back there and, and, uh, you know, you go one at a time and the punter would, would punt and, you know, we'd make sure that it was at least four seconds hang time. So, you know, the ball was up in the air and then, um, whichever, you know, whichever guy caught it first, um, then that group would win and the other group would have to do extra sprints or, uh, the group that won would get out of bed check or,

• 8:44Speaker 00

  you know, whatever it was, but it was a good way of team building because all the players were rooting for their, their guy, who had never caught a punt in his life, probably, right? You know, watching Vince Wilfork and Matt Light back there catching punts, uh, you know, trying to track the ball and catch it. And, and of course I made him punt, you know, so the returner had the sun in his eyes. Uh, you know, I had to deal with that. Uh, but you know, to watch those guys do something they hadn't done before for some type of a reward, uh, was, uh, you know, it was a great team building exercise and, and, um, they, but they, they do, they love to compete. Competitors are, the, the guys that really love to compete.

• 9:25Speaker 00

  You know, are, are honestly the guys that get the most out of their talent. You know, because they just are, are determined to work hard, prepare and, and go right to the very end. They might not be as talented as somebody else, but they, they play and compete, you know, to the max.

• 9:41Shane Parrish?

  You mentioned The Last Dance in your book. What, what was your reaction to watching that?

• 9:46Speaker 00

  I mean, I thought it was awesome. And, you know, Jordan's one of the greatest competitors in any sport ever. And, um, you know, just, just, you know, his competitive spirit is, you know, up there with the guys that he played with, like Lawrence Taylor at North Carolina, those guys, they still compete all the time on the golf course. So, um, I, I thought it was, you know, a great insight into it. You know, Brady's a tremendous competitor. Julian Edelman, Bruski, every time about Bruski came back from stroke and, and continued to play, you know, some of those guys, Rodney Harrison, uh, it's just, it's, it's at an elite level, which it should be in the National Football League, but it's, it's just at an elite level.

• 10:26Shane Parrish?

  I think one thing that surprised a lot of people when I talked to friends who maybe casually follow sports. Um, it was how much, you know, Jordan's teammates had maybe a not love relationship with him always. And do you think that's true?

• 10:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, I wasn't around him enough to, you know, the, the comment about that, but, um, I think if you don't really like to compete, that a top competitor will kind of wear you down and it kind of,

• 10:55Speaker 00

  I don't want to say resist to it, but you know, just to resist to compete at that level. So I have seen that from time to time, but the guys that really love to compete, love to compete and they just join in there and compete with them.

• 11:09Shane Parrish?

  One of the things you said in the book is you cannot win until you keep from losing, which reminds me of inversion from Charlie Munger. What does that mean in a football context?

• 11:20Speaker 00

  Oh, boy. Where do we start? Anything that, anything that prevents you from achieving your best,

• 11:29Speaker 00

  that you control. So it's not the opponent. It's something that happens internally. Examples would be, you know, guys getting suspended for performance enhancing drugs or guys that wouldn't hydrate and would pull muscle. You know, pull a hamstring, pull a groin, pull a calf because they weren't fully hydrated. Those aren't, that's not Buffalo. That's not the Jets. That's us. That's us. And in the game, I'd say two of the biggest examples, well, there's a lot of them, but let's start with penalties, pre-snap penalties. So penalties that happen before the ball snapped, those are our fault. You can't blame them on the other team.

• 12:13Speaker 00

  False start, illegal motion, too many men on the field, delay a game. Like all that, that's, that's our inefficiency. That's not our opponent's. And really for the most part, post whistle penalties, plays that happen after the whistle has blown. Hitting a guy out of bounds, taunting, illegal celebration, you know, stuff like that where you just get carried away emotionally in the moment and cost your team, you know, personal fouls, roughing a passer, roughing a punter, stuff like that, that, that really happens after the play is over. Those are examples of, of beating yourself. You know, you can't win until you keep from losing. Those plays aren't because of what the opponent did. Those plays are because of either our lack of. Concentration, communication, discipline, whatever it happened to be.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  And I'm not just putting it on the players. I put it on the coaches too. You know, that's our responsibility to eliminate those. And other things, turnovers, for example, when, when the offense turns the ball over and the defense doesn't make a good play, it's just the offense fumbling a snap, fumbling a handoff, the ball goes off of receivers' hands, pops up in the air and the defense intercepts it. Plays like that that don't have anything to do really with good defense. The offense just gives the ball away, you know, snap the ball over the guy's head, the quarterback's head, snap it over the punter's head, drop the snap. Stuff like that, just plays that are poorly executed by us. So, as you can see, it's a long list, Shane.

• 13:42Speaker 00

  Some of them are off the field and some of them, you know, some of them are on the field. You know, in college football would be, you know, being academically ineligible. I mean, that's, you know, that's not your opponent's fault. That's, you know, that's, that's a lack of commitment and, and, you know, doing the required academic work to be eligible to play. So, those would all be examples of you can't win until you keep from roots. And if you can eliminate all those things, then you can actually make progress on being a better football player and, and winning games.

• 14:09Speaker 02

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• 14:38Speaker 03

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• 15:04Shane Parrish?

  I remember reading something a while ago, but the difference between being beaten and losing, and it sounds like what you're saying there is kind of hinting at that.

• 15:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely. You know, we've always said more games are lost than won in the National Football League. And when I say lost, I'm saying those type of things, missed opportunities, missed assignments, poor clock management, just, just fumbling the situation more than the other team, you know, really, really playing well to win. A lot of times, if you just kind of get out of the way and let the other team make a mistake, they'll make one and you can capitalize on it and take advantage. Not all the time. Again, you know, as you go deeper into the season and play, play better teams and playoffs and things like that, that happens less frequently. But in a lot of close games, when you go

• 15:56Speaker 00

  back and really look at the way the game, the outcome of the game was, the team that lost really probably should have won, or had, had many good chances to win and, and just kind of messed it up. And more than, like I said, the winning team going out there and making all these spectacular plays. So again, the big thing is, you know, number one, keep from losing. And number two, make the plays you're supposed to make. I mean, sure, there's some great plays out there, but before we get to the great plays, let's just make the, the plays that you know, you're supposed to make, just the, the regular ones, the normal ones. And that's execution, concentration and discipline to do it all the time.

• 16:38Shane Parrish?

  You tell your players to focus on the, the draw to help them focus on what matters. What is the draw and how does it help?

• 16:45Speaker 00

  Draw is a, was a saying that, that we use to, especially at the end of the year, like as you get into the holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, and then the playoffs, you know, the end of the season is in sight and wherever you are, you know, you've put in, you know, all the work back into the spring, training camp, you know, 10, 12, 14, regular season games, whatever it is. And now you're really coming, you know, coming down the home stretch and. And the drawer was just a way of saying, unless it's a family or personal thing that's really important, put it in a drawer, deal with it after the season. You know, you, do you need to go to sign these cards at the mall?

• 17:27Speaker 00

  Do you need to, you know, go look for a new electronic, whatever it is? Can you put those things aside and just finish the season? Spend that time on preparation for our opponents, spend that time on, you know, rest, recovery, training. So you're your absolute best when we really need you here in these last few stretch weeks. And, and as you know, you know, Shane, when you get to a certain point, every, it's a one game season. You know, if you lose, you're done. And if you win, you get to play another week. So when you get into that scenario, put it off until next week. And if you're in it next week, put it off until the week after that.

• 18:07Speaker 00

  But this is what we've worked all year for. Put those things in the drawer and then, and then open the drawer when the season's over. Now, we would joke about it and, you know, guys would say, hey, coach, you know, my drawer is getting pretty full here. So you know what? Maybe you need a bigger drawer or maybe you need two drawers. But the idea was to, to put those things on the back burner and focus on, on the very special opportunity that we had in front of us, which was playoffs or championships.

• 18:34Shane Parrish?

  One thing that seems to have evolved since you started coaching is that time becomes more fragmented now. Players have cell phones, they have more distractions, they're, you know, I don't have an hour to sit there and, and do a meeting. I have all these competing things for my attention. How, how have cell phones changed the locker room culture and made coaching easier or harder? Or technology in that way?

• 18:57Speaker 00

  Well, first of all, we don't have cell phones and Apple watches and things like that in our meetings. So that they're, they're not part of the meetings. But when the meetings are over, you know, a lot of times the guys race to see what, you know, messages and texts and so forth are there. You know, and my thing on that has always been, again, other than, you know, family and, and very personal situations. You know, the guys that are most important to each of us are the guys in that locker room. You know, the guys that you, um, you know, win and lose with and live and die with each day. And that you count on them and they count on you. So, uh, it was really very important for us to, to focus on those relationships. And I, I tried to downplay the, you know, how many likes or,

• 19:38Speaker 00

  thumbs up or whatever you get on different social platforms. I don't even know what those are. Um, but what's more important is what the guy next to you thinks about you. And the respect that, that you guys have for each other and the trust that you have in each other. And, and that's something that, you know, in a, you know, on a football team, you, you just, you earn every day. Um, every day you come to work, uh, as a coach, you know, you earn the trust and respect of your players and, and your other coaches by being prepared, by showing that you're there to help the team and you can help the team win. And again, it's the same thing for every player. And, and when you earn that every day, you build that trust and you build a cohesive team. And when you don't, you know, those are the players that,

• 20:20Speaker 00

  again, that other players don't, don't trust as much. Is he going to run the right route? Is he going to be at the right depth? Is he going to block the right guys? Is he going to be in the right gap? And, and that causes, uh, when you don't know what your teammate's going to do, that causes a lot of hesitation on your part. And you're kind of waiting to see what he's going to do instead of knowing what he's going to do. And then you can aggressively do your job because you're confident of the people beside you. And, um, I learned a lot about that with the, um, especially with the Navy SEALs, those elite teams. I mean, uh, Blue Angels would be another example. You know, those guys fly 18 inches apart. And, you know, the amount of trust and preparation and, and teamwork that's involved in something like that going, you know, 600 miles an hour, seven, whatever it is, um, is, is pretty amazing.

• 21:04Speaker 00

  But, you know, the SEALs, it's the same thing. Like everybody's got a job to do and, and you learn your teammates so well that you can even in a dark room, uh, you know, pick out his, you know, his silhouette or, or something about him that identifies him. And, and, you know, each of you count on each other to do their jobs and accomplish the missions. And, um, you know, that's, obviously that's at the highest level football. We're not talking about life and death here, but we are talking about the championship level of performance, of having that same type of trust and, and, um, and belief and, and confidence in your teammates. So that you're never questioning what they do. And you can be more aggressive in, in, in doing your job and there's never that look over

• 21:48Speaker 00

  your shoulder of, is he where he's supposed to be? You know, if you know he is, then, then you can perform better. So, um, those are kind of the, you know, the themes that we, we tried to instill there.

• 21:58Shane Parrish?

  I remember talking to a Navy SEAL once and he said, you know, when things get hard, you're doing it for the person next to you and you want to quit or when you want to give up or how much of that is in football too?

• 22:08Speaker 00

  I think there's definitely a carryover on that. You're, you know, you're, you're playing for the team, but you're playing for the guy beside you too, you know, and, and especially in a sport like football or in, in a real battle situation like, like the SEALs are involved in, um, you know, you're talking about potentially getting hurt or, you know, or, or worse in a SEAL situation where, you know, that guy beside you, like you have to count on him to, to do his job to, and you do yours for the same reason to protect each other.

• 22:37Shane Parrish?

  One, one of your most famous press conferences, you said snap face or something and I, I literally spit out my water when I heard you say that. I was listening to the, about social media. You're like snap face or whatever the hell it is like.

• 22:51Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, I've battled those social media platforms and, uh, and, and now I'm actually on one. So, um, you know, college football is, uh, has kind of changed that a little bit. I mean, I'm not too active on it, but I am on it. But, um, but again, I look, I don't really have anything per se against social media. It's just, you know, prioritizing it. And, and as I said, I think that in a football locker room, the relationships between the players, the team and the coaches are, are paramount, uh, more so than people you've never met or seen or, or heard of before, what their opinions are. And so I always, you know, try to encourage our players to, um, yeah, not be too consumed with that.

• 23:33Speaker 00

  But, you know, we'll worry about the guy next to you. That's the one that matters the most.

• 23:37Shane Parrish?

  How is technology changing the way that players prepare in the sense of, uh, you know, the story that comes to mind is certain Jaden Daniels last year using VR to get more reps. How, walk me through how technology is changing and where it's really impacting, uh, people who are willing to put in the work.

• 23:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, that system that Jayden Daniels was referring to is one that he used at LSU and then also used it with the commanders last year. It's actually one that we have as well. It's it's one that's very hard to get. It's only available very selectively and so I'm pretty familiar with it. And it's an incredible system. It enables you to see the game, you know, in a pair of goggles in real life and real space. And it actually feels like you're getting hit. It feels like you're you're right in the middle of the game, but you're actually able to see things.

• 24:27Speaker 00

  What you do, and then you can program in what your opponents do to create a very realistic picture. And then you're also able to adjust the speed. So you could actually play the game at, let's call it 105 or 110% of the actual speed. So that theoretically, you're you're having to react even quicker than you would in in a real game situation. So I can see, you know, how that could really help, especially for skill positions like quarterback or on, you know, positions like like that where you can, you, you, you have to see a lot of things very quickly and identify quickly what, you know, what decision you're going to make.

• 25:11Speaker 00

  That's true of every position, the quarterback, especially when you talk about distributing the ball.

• 25:17Speaker 00

  And and also for a player who's who's injured. So let's just say that you had a leg injury and you weren't able to to practice or run full speed for a couple of days. You could actually see the game through this product and get your recognition and your reads without actually having to run and and, you know, be involved in a in a situation that physically you're just not, you know, what not ready for. But I'd say a lot of the other technology is just, you know, things that maybe make it go a little bit faster. Ways of grouping plays together, grouping situations together that, you know, allow you to to research and analyze those things a little bit quicker. But that's probably about across the board, about the same for everybody.

• 26:02Speaker 00

  They all, we all have the same opportunity on that. I mean, ultimately, a lot of those situations come down to preparation, but also maybe a gut feel of the way the game is going.

• 26:12Shane Parrish?

  You said in your book, "The price of success is paid in preparation."

• 26:18Shane Parrish?

  But you also said it was a way of working. What did you mean by that?

• 26:22Speaker 00

  Well, I think the big thing about preparation and success is is the price has to be paid in advance. You have to put in the work before you get any results. So there's no way to to honestly know how good your preparation is or isn't. That's why I always try to emphasize, keep preparing, keep working. You don't know what the other guy's doing. He might be, you know, working just as hard as you are. And that preparation, you know, you can't be after the fact of like, oh, I wish I would have studied more. It's too late at that point. You have to do it on the front end. So getting in condition, you know, studying, preparing on your film and your opponents and all that. Like those things are all have to be done on the front end.

• 27:05Speaker 00

  And then a lot of times there's, I would say, a little bit of a tendency to just sort of let up on the preparation. Well, I've watched some film. Well, I've done some extra sprints. Well, I've done this, I've done that. Well, is that enough? You know, is it really enough? And if you do more, will it make a difference? Not to the point of diminishing returns, but to the point of, you know, comprehensive preparation. So that's really what we try to try to emphasize on that.

• 27:37Shane Parrish?

  The way that I think about that is sort of that, you know, the pain of losing is sharp, but it's over fairly quickly. But the pain of regret, not putting in the work, not doing the things, you didn't leave it all on the field. That lasts forever.

• 27:49Speaker 00

  Exactly. That's exactly it. The pain of regret is much more than than the pain of preparation. Absolutely.

• 27:57Shane Parrish?

  I think you had a 24 hour rule, sort of after winter losses, you have 24 hours to think about it. And then you move on. Is that?

• 28:04Speaker 00

  That's right. Yeah, you play the game, you go back, you analyze it, you, what do we do well? What do we do poorly? What do we need to do better? What adjustments should we have made? What coaching errors did we make? And so forth. And, and then you, you factor all that into, you know, how does that affect this next week? Sometimes there's a lot of carryover. Sometimes the play team you play the following week is completely different. And some of those lessons may not really become applicable for a week or two weeks or three weeks. Until you see a, you know, a similar type of opponent. Say like a scrambling quarterback, you know, maybe you play two or three weeks where those quarterbacks. Aren't too mobile and then when you get up against another scrambling quarterback, you go back and look at, hey,

• 28:45Speaker 00

  how, you know, how, how do we need to, to handle this better against this type of an opponent? So, um, but yeah, you look at all those things after 24 hours, win or lose or draw. You, you take your lessons and, and you decide how you're gonna incorporate any of those things into this week's preparation and practice. What we're going to do differently, or maybe do more of, or do less of, whatever it is. And then you're done with that and you move on to your opponent and, and spend the next, uh, five days, six days, whatever it is of just, you know, digging in on that opponent and, and what they do.

• 29:22Shane Parrish?

  Talk to me about the relationship between the best talent in the world and, you know, you're playing in the NFL. You're coaching in the NFL and confidence.

• 29:31Speaker 00

  Well, again, it's all relative, you know, Shane, I mean, as good as, um, as good as, as the players are in the NFL, um, the guys on the other side of the ball are pretty good too. And, uh, you know, I'd say every team, generally speaking, every team has about, you know, five or six players that are elite, have elite payments, elite contracts. Uh, and then you might have some younger players in their first through fourth year. You know, two or three, four, whatever those that are elite players that just haven't hit those top contracts yet. But they don't necessarily match up in the same position. You might have a tackle. I might have a guard. You might have a linebacker. I might have a corner and so forth.

• 30:15Speaker 00

  So the way those elite players match up is very specific from game to game. And how you want to match them, your matches against theirs and how you want to deal with that is, you know, that's a big part of it. I think the confidence thing is really interesting. I think what really separates the great players is their ability to do it even when the bullseye is on their back every week. Like it was with Tom Brady, like it was with Lawrence Taylor, like it is with Patrick Mahomes. Like it is with, you know, players like that, Lamar Jackson and so forth. Every week, the teams are geared towards stopping those players and game planning against them or putting their best guy on them

• 30:58Speaker 00

  or however you're going to handle them. And for those players to continue to be productive in spite of the game plan attention they get is what truly makes those players, you know, great and elite. And I, I think that, you know, when we had Kobe Bryant come in and talk to our team, I think it was around 2018, 19, somewhere in there. And, you know, Kobe talked a lot about evolving, you know, and he said,

• 31:27Speaker 00

  you know, look, when I was 22, 23, you know, I could just get the ball and drive by anybody and score. And he said, I can't do that anymore. I still score, but I found different ways to score. Moving without the ball, jump shots and, you know, being better in pick situations and all those kinds of things. That, you know, he said, I found, I found ways to evolve my game because I just couldn't do the things I used to be able to do as well. But there are other things I found that I can actually do better. And I thought that was a great message for all of us to hear that as we. You know, as we go through our careers, do the things that are working, do the things that you can do well, but also evolve,

• 32:12Speaker 00

  continue to learn, continue to, you know, find ways to be productive that are maybe a little out of your comfort zone or are not, you know, habitual for you now. But if you can become good at them, they can be great, you know, great tools for you.

• 32:30Shane Parrish?

  Are there any other people that you brought to speak from sort of different sports that sort of had a different message that resonated with you or the team and just stands out in your mind?

• 32:41Speaker 00

  Oh yeah, we had a lot of them. Yeah, we had a lot of them and it was great because, you know, just the guys, you know, I hear a lot of football stories, but it's good to hear all the ones. One of the ones I thought was particularly entertaining, a couple of them, one was Paul Asianti. They won like 14 national championships in a row. They won like 160 some games in a row, matches in a row. I mean, and at the Patriots, we were favored in almost every game, you know, not every game, but most every game for quite a while. And so, you know, I brought Coach Asianti and I said, you know, here's a guy who's won like 13 straight national championships. They won 160 some matches in a row. I mean,

• 33:22Speaker 00

  he talked about being favored now, like they're favored. And, and like, let's listen to what that's really like. And he was great. He talked about it doesn't matter whether you are or aren't, or how many you have or haven't won. Every day is an opportunity. You make the most out of each day and you just get better each day. And you don't worry about what you've done in the past. You just, you look at today's opportunity and make the most out of it. It was great. So one of our, one of our players sticks his hand up and says, hey, Coach, I have a question. What's squash? I thought it was a vegetable. Hey Jimmy Johnson, you know, we were going into the playoffs and Jimmy came up and he was doing a, you know, a story on somebody. And I said, hey, would you mind, you know, talking to him? He said, sure.

• 34:06Speaker 00

  So he said, yeah, let me tell you a little playoff story here. You know, when I was in Dallas, we were getting ready for the playoffs and we were in a special teams meeting. I'm standing in the back and I see, I see one of our, one of our players back there kind of dozing off and, and not paying attention. And he said he wasn't a, he wasn't a starter, but he played in special teams. And he said, it just really annoyed me. And so I went over, I flipped on the lights, turned the lights on in the meeting. And I went over to him. I said, that's it. You fall asleep in this meeting. We don't want you. This is your primary job. You take your playbook and, and go see the job manager. You're done. You're cut. And everybody like, whoa, you know, that, that woke everybody up. And it was right before the playoffs. So, you know, any questions?

• 34:49Speaker 00

  Um, yeah, coach. Um, what would you have done if that had been Troy Aikman?

• 34:55Speaker 00

  Jimmy said, well, I wouldn't have turned on the lights. I probably would have gone over to him and nudged him and said like, hey, Troy, pay attention. And the message was, if you have a lot of pelts on the wall, you, you, you might have a little more slack. If you don't have a lot of pelts on the wall, you don't have any room. You don't have any room. You can't live on what you've done because you haven't done enough. You better know where you are. And until, if you're Troy Aikman and Tom Brady, you, you, but he goes, those guys would never do that anyway. But you, that you might be able to survive that. But if you, if you don't have

• 35:35Speaker 00

  that kind of resume, you haven't had that kind of production for this team. So you, nobody wants that. You're replaceable. They'll find somebody else who will stay awake in the meetings and who will be more attentive. And, uh, it was pretty funny. I'd just nudge him and say, hey, pay attention.

• 35:54Speaker 02

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• 36:48Shane Parrish?

  Did you treat everybody the same? I remember one story and maybe it's just sort of the press doing the press thing. But where you sent Darrel Rivas home from practice because he was like two minutes later or something?

• 36:59Speaker 00

  Oh, we had a few of those. Yeah, we had a few of those. And honestly, those are tough ones, you know, Shane, because when you send a player home, it hurts the team. It doesn't just hurt the player. It hurts the team because, you know, you need the timing and the communication and the teamwork out there. But I tried to treat them all the same, but I do think Jimmy Johnson, I believe that and Coach Parcells, you know, same thing. Yeah, did the same thing. There were certain players got a little more grace than others based on, you know, what they had done for us and they, I would say, kind of earned that. So I tried not to do that, but there were times when, you know, when I did, but I tried to treat everybody

• 37:44Speaker 00

  the same, even though they're not all the same. But you certainly want everybody to feel that, you know, we're all team members and it's not, you know, we don't have an elite society here. We have different ranks and certain players can do some things and other players couldn't. So I tried to make it as consistent as possible, but at the same time, I think you have to be flexible in a professional football environment for some latitude and maybe for some, it's called exceptions to your rules.

• 38:14Shane Parrish?

  You sent one player home from the Super Bowl for having somebody in his hotel room. Was that a hard decision or was that a? How did you make that? Was that team first and you violated the rules, you're out or?

• 38:26Speaker 00

  You know, I made it very clear before we went down there that, you know, it was a business trip and yeah, we had a great year and, and we were all celebrating the, the Super Bowl and, and, and what we had accomplished to get there. But here are the rules and. And you don't have to break the rules. Go to the other person's room if you want to be with them, but our floors are secure. And, and at the Super Bowl in particular, there's a good reason for that. Um, you know, with Super Bowl tickets and, and guys with valuables and stuff like that. If it's not one of our players on the floor, I don't know whether that person is a friend of our players or an intruder. There's really no way to know and no matter, you know, I mean, unless I

• 39:10Speaker 00

  knew the person for some reason, but you know what I mean? You just don't know who that person is. So our policy was players only on the floor, period. That's it. And so, um, you know, it was unfortunate because I wasn't trying to say, hey, you can't have guests or you can't, you know, be with your friends or your, your companions or anything. That wasn't it. It's just, don't do it on that floor. Do it somewhere else. I don't care. And, and again, I was trying to protect the players by not having people on our floor that we didn't know, uh, that could roam in and out of rooms or could, you know? And, and if you don't, if you don't remove those people, then you end up with, you know, potentially somebody leaves their room, then that person walks in and then you have a big mess on your hands.

• 39:55Speaker 00

  So that was our policy, not just in that game, but everywhere. But unfortunately, uh, because that game was, you know, we were there for five days. Um, I just felt like it was a blatant violation of our rule.

• 40:09Shane Parrish?

  I want to come back to confidence for a sec. One of the follow-ups I meant to ask, was there ever a moment where you had your confidence shaken? And how did you handle that?

• 40:17Speaker 00

  Oh, plenty of times. Um, I, I mean, honestly, Shane, there were times when, you know, I wasn't sure if we were going to win another game the entire year. You know, and, and we ended up winning a lot of them, you know? But sometimes you just see, um, problems and, and maybe you want to fix them, but you just don't have the resources to fix them. Where you've tried a couple of different things and it still isn't really uh, the way you want it. And you can see in the future, some real problems coming up with your opponents and some matchups and whatever the case might be. And, and you're like, I mean, I don't know.

• 40:58Speaker 00

  Like, I mean, I'm trying to fix this, but I just don't feel very confident that, that we actually are going to be able to handle it the way we need to. And, uh, And ultimately, you know, in most cases, it wasn't maybe as bad as what I thought it might be. I was expecting the worst and and that usually didn't happen. So that's a good thing. But yeah, I don't know if that's a lack of confidence or what the exact word is, but yeah, you definitely have those apprehensions and certainly opening day is a is a difficult day because you don't know very much about your team. You don't very know very much about your opponent's team. And unless you have a really veteran team,

• 41:42Speaker 00

  you don't know exactly how the team is going to react in certain situations, particularly tough and critical competitive situations. So, you know, even though you have a good team, how are they going to react when you know, you're really in a, in a really a tight ballgame? And that's, that's something that you don't know until you've been in a few. Unless you've been in a few with those guys and it's the same guys.

• 42:08Shane Parrish?

  When you first started in the NFL, you worked for nothing. You were, you worked part-time for nothing and then you switched to full-time for nothing. And one of the things that you said was I did anything and everything. And I think of this as like a taste for saltwater. You do the hard things, but you were snapping the football, but you were like, oh, the benefit was I got to listen to coach, talk to the QB. And walk me through like how that's changed today and what people miss when they hyper-specialize.

• 42:37Speaker 00

  Well, I think one thing that that I see with, you know, some of our younger staff members, coaches and things like that is they're very concerned about their title, you know? Can I be the, can I get this title? Can I get that title? And the coaches of, you know, can I be the run game coordinator? Can I be the blitz coordinator? Can I be the zone coverage coordinator? Can I be the, I mean?

• 43:00Speaker 00

  It's like, what are those titles for? Like, they don't impress me. I know what your job is. I mean, do you need that title to, you know, validate what you're doing? Or is it for somebody else? And I'm not really interested in helping somebody else. I mean, we all know what we do here. I mean, honestly, I was a general manager

• 43:19Speaker 00

  for almost 30 years of my NFL career, and I never had a general manager title. And that was never important to me. I doesn't care about what the title is. You just, you do the job that you have to do. So I see that, but for me, when I look back at it retrospectively, Shane, the big thing was I was so low on the totem pole that I did all the jobs at the very bottom of the organization. I shot film, I lined the fields, I moved equipment out there, I ran off Xerox copies, I, you know, made notebooks, I sharpened pencils, I did all those things. And as you move up in the organization,

• 44:04Speaker 00

  it really helped me because I understood how everything functioned, you know, at the, you know, at the, at the level of, you know, making things work, you know, deliveries and, you know, mail and stuff like that. I mean, all those things that needed to happen. I understood kind of the process of it, how it worked, and what was hard about those jobs and what wasn't hard about those jobs. And, and as I, you know, gained more responsibility in the organization, I was always able to show appreciation for the people that were doing those, like, hey, I know this is really hard. Hey, I know this is a tough week. I could sense what you're going through. And I think that built some camaraderie and trust there. But also, it helped me understand how everything worked. And there were multiple times when people would come to me and say, oh, Coach, we can't do this.

• 44:50Speaker 00

  You know, we can't do this, we can't do that. And I'd say, wait a minute, I've done that job before. We can do that. Here's how you do it. Here's, this is how you make this work. And, and so I felt very confident about all the aspects of the organization, how they fit together and, you know, scouting and coaching and, like I said, equipment and video and security and travel and all those things, because I was a part of those in one form or another at, at different points in my career. So I think, you know, for a lot of people, you know, when I talk about, we need to start at the bottom, you really need to understand how the organization works. There's a lot, I want to skip those steps. There's I want, you know, I just want to jump up and, and coach the line, linebackers

• 45:32Speaker 00

  or the tight ends or whatever it is. And I, I mean, that's okay, but it would really help you to understand what happens in the entire organization. And if you want to really move up and become a coordinator and a head coach, those will be very valuable for you because you'll understand, you know, the, the different intersections of, of various departments and how the organization works and, and where the conflicts are, you know, and sometimes there you just, you know, kind of two people doing the same thing or nobody doing one thing and you, you miss that intersection somehow. And, and that's just part of it. But, you know, how do you avoid those and how do you make that more efficient? So I

• 46:15Speaker 00

  really try to encourage our, our, the younger people, you know, to do those jobs and embrace them. Don't, how quickly can I get done with this so I can go do something else? No, embrace the job and embrace the process and, and, you know, understand it because it's going to help you in the long run. And the other thing is, you know, as I mentioned a couple of times in the book with, um, you know, Josh McDaniels and Nick Casario and Brian Dable, um, if somebody has one of those jobs and they're really good at it and they say, well, I want to move you, uh, you know, I want to move to more responsibility. And I said, well, I want you to move to more responsibility too. But first you've got to train somebody to do your job because what you're doing is really valuable. And that's when Brian Dable hired Josh McDaniels to replace him. And that's when Josh McDaniels

• 47:00Speaker 00

  hired Nick Casario to replace him. And so, uh, but it forced those guys to make sure that the person that was replacing them was not only good, but they trained them to do the things the way they needed to be done. And, and that really heightened our efficiency, but also enabled them to move up to, uh, responsibility, move up in responsibility. And so, um, that really worked out. Well, I was, you know, uh, I thought that that was, for me, that was a good way to handle it because those guys were very invested in making sure their replacement did a good job because they knew they were going back to do that job if, if that person, if their replacement failed.

• 47:40Shane Parrish?

  A lot of people, when you ask them to do sort of the unglorious task, they just look at you and say, that's not my job.

• 47:48Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. It's not my job or I'll get to it, you know, tomorrow, I'll get to it next week or whatever. And those are.

• 47:58Speaker 00

  You know, I mean, I don't like to have those type of people, you know, around. Sometimes it's inevitable and you have to put something off. I mean, I get that. But the quicker you get it done, the quicker you can move on to something else and be more productive. And, you know, the more you procrastinate it, then, you know, it just slows everything down. So there's got to be a priority system. I mean, I'm fully aware of that, but, you know, the people that want to put stuff off and and kind of hope that it won't need to get done, they didn't do very well in our organization.

• 48:31Shane Parrish?

  One thing you mentioned that stands out to me, I think of this like stepping stones where people have a job, but they see it as a stepping stone to the next job.

• 48:40Speaker 00

  Right.

• 48:40Shane Parrish?

  So they're never fully present in the job that they're doing because they're always looking ahead. And those people don't actually tend to do very well at the next level.

• 48:49Speaker 00

  Absolutely. And, and like I said, then they miss some of the things that they really need to understand at the level that they're at. And again, that's just part of your job, you know, that's just part of it is, is everybody has an important job to do. If you're trying to do somebody else's, then you're probably not doing yours well enough. And, you know, be patient and, and, you know, your, your opportunities will come. As long as, you know, you show that you can handle the responsibilities that you currently have. But you're right, a lot of times there's a big rush to move ahead and, and that

• 49:23Speaker 00

  a lot of times also brings sloppy work, incomplete work. And honestly, just a feeling that I don't, not really confident promoting that person because, you know, they're more interested in what they are going to be doing than what we need to do right now.

• 49:39Shane Parrish?

  How would you define discipline?

• 49:41Speaker 00

  Discipline is, is, is doing the right thing over and over again, doing it every time. It's just continuing to do it every time. In the National Football League, the players are very skilled and talented. And, and I would say, you know, all of them can do something. They can all go out there and produce, you know, plays at a very high level. The discipline is what, is what really separates the players is their, their consistency and their discipline to do it over and over again. So you can count and depend on them, you know, at a very high, at a high rate.

• 50:19Shane Parrish?

  Are there any stories in your mind that stand out about discipline or consistency involving players you've coached?

• 50:25Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, I told the story of Edelman, you know, catching balls before the Super Bowl, tennis balls and stuff like that. I mean, those kinds of things that, you know, the players do, they have a routine. And, you know, if a guy's played eight, nine, 10, whatever years, if they skip a day in their routine, I mean, is it going to be the end? Probably not, but they're just so disciplined and so consistent to just continue to do it. And maybe even do just a little tiny bit more to, to make sure that they're prepared for the game, especially the big games, that, that's, that's just who they are. So, I mean, I, I really, I really respect that.

• 51:08Speaker 00

  But, you know, it's, it's a little bit like the shopping cart, you know? When nobody's looking, are you going to take the shopping cart back and put it in the, you know, where it belongs? Or just leave it there in the middle of the parking lot? And it's the same thing with a really disciplined player and teammate. Is, is he going to be disciplined to, you know, go in and get treatment after practice? You know, even though it's two days before Christmas or, you know, whatever it is, where is he just disciplined to not let something get in the way of, of his productive routine? And that's. You know, the, the guys that do that, um, I would say have for the most part have had very

• 51:50Speaker 00

  long and productive careers and, and the guys that haven't have careers that, that go to a certain point with talent, uh, but they don't have the same, the same kind of longevity and consistency, uh, of a player like Matt Slater or Dev McCourty or Tom Brady or guys like that, that people keep saying, you just keep waiting for those guys to drop off. Well, they're a year older, they're a year older, they're a year older, but you don't see the drop off because their routine and their, and their discipline is so consistent that they're able to, they're able to sustain that level of performance. Um, you know, far longer than really what the expectations in some cases are. Do you believe you can motivate people? And if so, how?

• 52:34Speaker 00

  I think you can definitely motivate them and, and it depends on the person. I think there are different types of motivation. Um, you know, we could, uh, there were times where I think you could really, you know, motivate a player by just, you know, flat out challenging them, um, based on something that, you know, somebody else said or intimated or something that might've happened in the past. Uh, I think you can, you know, motivate people by, um, uh, you know, especially, you know, sometimes maybe a more selfish type of player, you could motivate by, you know, making him see, uh, what the reward is for himself as opposed to the team. Um, an example I like to use Shane is if you have a receiver and you want the receiver to come in

• 53:18Speaker 00

  and block on a running play and come in and block a safety, which is a hard job. Um, you know, some receivers don't really want to do that. They're really not too excited about that. They want to catch passes. Um, but if you say, well, look, if you come in and block this guy, um, and we need you to block them as a team, we need you to block them. You've come in and blocked this guy, um, then the next time we come in and, and you'll do the same thing, but fake it and we'll be able to throw you a, a pass when the defense comes up to solve the play. Well, the player's not coming in to block him because you asked him to block him and we really need you to block him. Julian Edelman would do that, but not everybody would necessarily do that. But when they understand, okay, if I come in and do it this time, that opens

• 54:00Speaker 00

  up an opportunity for me the next time, then they might do it, right? And so now I get what I want, he gets what he wants. There's some management motivation in there, but in the end, both parties are able to accomplish their goals. I get the team goal, the player gets the individual goal, he sacrifices for the team, but for the other reasons. So again, I think there are different methods of doing that. It really depends on, you know, how the player's wired and maybe what circumstances, you know, you can use. Certainly, when you've lost to a team previously, that's a pretty good motivator for for most of these guys.

• 54:44Speaker 00

  Because, you know, you take those losses personally. And since we lost as a team, that is everybody. It's not, you know, one guy got a pass caught on him, or one guy got tackled. I mean, it's, it's a full team loss. So a lot of times you can, you know, you can generate a lot of energy towards your opponent by, you know, referencing that, you know, that that loss or situation that might have happened in a previous encounter.

• 55:13Shane Parrish?

  As a leader, how did you know when to be hard on players and when to sort of back off? And I'm thinking, you know, when a player makes a critical mistake in a game and they know they've made a mistake, what's your role in that moment?

• 55:25Speaker 00

  Well, again, Shane, I think it depends on the mistake, you know, if it's sometimes, you know, something that kind of unexpectedly happens and maybe the player made a bad decision or maybe he did something that, you know, he's caught that pass 100 times and he's dropped it once and this is the one time, you know, some of those are a little easier to handle. I'd say the ones where, you know, you've told the player 10 times, this is what you need to do when this happens, and then they don't do it. I'd say the reaction's a little bit differing in that situation. You know, how many times do you have to be told? And you know what, maybe, maybe, you know, you just don't want to do it. We'll put somebody else in there to do it. As I can see that, you know, you're not. You just don't care enough to follow your assignment.

• 56:09Speaker 00

  So, you know, it kind of depends on those. I think one of the biggest things in football is correcting mistakes. And we all make a lot of them. But when during the game, when time is of the essence and you don't have much time, you need to figure out what went wrong pretty quickly and fix it. So let's say defensively, we came off the field and we'd given up a 20 yard run and maybe a 50 yard pass and another third down conversion. And you say, okay, all right, like, what are the issues on these plays? Well, let's say the 15 yard run would be if one person knows that that they messed the play up and just says, hey, it's my fault. I messed it up like that was we were in good shape.

• 56:53Speaker 00

  I was right there. I shouldn't have made the tackle. I just missed the tackle. I'll make that play the next time. Well, great. That clears it up for everybody. We all know we're going to do the same thing we did the last time. And this time I know that, you know, my teammate is going to make the tackle versus,

• 57:09Speaker 00

  you know, kind of a blame game where I was here, I don't know, I should have been there. Should I do this and should I do that and was I too deep and this and that? And then it's, you know, what's the issue? How do we fix it? Right? And so if you know you did something wrong, just own it. All right, admit it and and let's move on. Sometimes it's not that simple. Sometimes you kind of have to figure out, well, I did what I thought I was supposed to do. You do what you were supposed to do. He did what he was supposed to do. We still had a problem. Okay, now that needs to be fixed. And so, but again, identifying mistakes and fixing them quickly is really the name of the game. And if as a coach, you know, when I would say,

• 57:51Speaker 00

  look, that was that play was a bad call. I shouldn't have called that defense against that personnel group or against that formation. That's my fault. It's on me. I'm not going to do that again. Forget about that play. It's not going to come up again because I won't call it again in that situation. Okay, well, then, all right, we'll stop worrying about that play. Let's worry about something else. So owning up to those mistakes and making the corrections is key. If you don't know what it is exactly, then then that's when you have to figure it out pretty quickly. Whether those are players or coaches or some combination. Because if you don't, you're just gonna keep, you know, you'll keep dealing with the same issue over and over again. And, you know, none of us want that.

• 58:31Shane Parrish?

  When I say the words on to Cincinnati, what does that mean to you?

• 58:35Speaker 00

  On to Cincinnati? Well, it first of all means it was a long night in Kansas City.

• 58:41Speaker 00

  You know, we got, we got totally beaten in that game. Out coached, outplayed, out everything. They were just a far superior team than we were. And as a head coach, you have to look at it and say, you know, I didn't have our team, you know, where they should have been. And we didn't play well. We didn't do anything well. And it starts with me.

• 59:04Speaker 00

  But that game's in the books. It's over and there's nothing we can do about it. We can't get it back. So, or we just have to move on to Cincinnati and make sure that we don't perform next week like we did last week. You know, don't let one game become two bad games. Don't let it become three bad games. Don't let it become a habit. Change the things that we need to change. So,

• 59:29Speaker 00

  we played Cincinnati the following week and, you know, our players did a great job of putting the Kansas City game behind us and focusing on what we needed to improve on and, and, and do better and get ready for Cincinnati, who was, you know, a very good football team as well at that time. And so, um, you know, we're able to do that. And, you know, it, it became, you know, one of those, one of those catchphrases, but, uh, really the idea of it was move on and let's start getting ready for next week. It's kind of similar to the situation we had in, uh, 2001, a shame where we buried the ball, you know, we, we lost to Miami. We, we didn't play very well.

• 1:00:11Speaker 00

  Obviously didn't coach very well. And we came back and, you know, we just took the team out there. I got a shovel. I dug a hole. I took the ball. Uh, you know, we, we put it in the ground. Put the dirt on the ball. We stomped on it. We spit on it. We kicked it. We, you know, took our frustrations out, but that was the funeral. Game's over. It's done. We lost. Buried the ball. Buried our feelings. Move on. I'm not saying that was, you know, this great thing, but. Visually, it's sort of, the point of it was, put the game out of your mind. It's over. We've had the funeral. Life goes on.

• 1:00:51Shane Parrish?

  I've heard you say, we're building a team, not collecting talent. What's the difference?

• 1:00:56Speaker 00

  The difference is, it's so it fits together. So that the team is functionally as efficient as it can be. Not just a bunch of guys wearing the same, same uniform with different numbers, but a group of people who function well together, you know, as a team. And when you think about football, Shane, football is a team of teams, right? You have the offense, you have the defense, you have the hands team, you have a punt return team. You have a nickel defense, you have a dime defense, you have a goal line offense and so forth. You have all these teams and they all come together to form one championship team. And so, you know, the idea is whichever team you're on,

• 1:01:40Speaker 00

  you need to be the very best team that you can be in that situation. If it's a hands team, that's a punt return team, whatever it is like that is critical to our success. And you have your responsibilities on that team. I have my responsibilities on some different teams, but ultimately we all come together. And, and those shared responsibilities and those shared teams, so that we can operate together functionally as a team are really what we're trying to accomplish. So it's not just getting a bunch of guys who, you know, can do, have good skills and can run fast and jump high or whatever. I mean, that helps of course, but they have to be able to operate as a team and as a team of teams.

• 1:02:21Speaker 00

  And, you know, a lot of that is a mentality, is a willingness to, to communicate and work with and efficiently cooperate with your teammates. So that collectively, we can accomplish our goals when, when our units out on the field.

• 1:02:36Shane Parrish?

  How has coaching changed in the past five years?

• 1:02:39Speaker 00

  You know, outside of rules changes and, and things like that, you know.

• 1:02:46Speaker 00

  There are some trends and I know I think as, look, when you're on defense, you have to react to the offense, right? If the offense have three, has three tight ends on the field, you're not going to be playing the same defense that you have when they have three receivers on the field. So defensively, a lot of what you, you have to deal with. Now you can say, look, we're going to play the same thing and make them adjust to us. But I mean, there are certain matchups that just become,

• 1:03:11Speaker 00

  you know, difficult to sustain that philosophy. So again, what I'd say is it's important to defensively be able to adapt to what the offense is doing because ultimately you don't control who they put on the field. You just have to stop them. You know, offensively, you know, you take the talent that you have and try to make the most of it. So I would say in college football, which is where we get our resources from in the NFL, you know, some of that's a function of, of what's available, you know, what's coming out, what they're teaching in college, what type of players they're developing. Cause that's really what you have to choose from. So I do think there are some trends, but fundamentally

• 1:03:53Speaker 00

  it, it really comes down to, you know, having good, solid fundamentals and doing the little things right that will enable you to win your one-on-one matchups. And I'd say, I don't think those have changed too dramatically over the years.

• 1:04:07Shane Parrish?

  On the way out of the building, you had a sign that read, ignore the noise, manage expectations, speak for yourself and don't believe the fuel or hype. Can you walk me through those?

• 1:04:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

• 1:04:23Speaker 00

  Well, speak for yourself is, is, you know, pretty obvious.

• 1:04:28Speaker 00

  You know, if you have any comments to make, just make them, you know, personally, you know, don't say things like, we're Shane's looking really good this year. I mean, he should probably have 15 sacks the way he's, he's rushing the passer. You know, and start making expectations and predictions for other people, things like that. Ignore the noise. I mean, there's so much airtime that's filled, whether it's on the radio, on the internet, on TV, of people talking about. Football, all right, and players and matchups and everything. And again, with all due respect, and look, I've been part of that too. So I understand, but you know, with all due respect, the people that talk about it haven't been in our building. They haven't watched us practice. They haven't watched us prepare for the game.

• 1:05:13Speaker 00

  They don't know what our matchups are. They don't know what, you know, they don't know what our game plan is. So with all due respect, what they say as it relates to us, like, doesn't matter. If other fans want to listen to them, I mean, that's great, but you know, when they say, well, you know, Shane Parrish has got to shut down Belichick, or they're going to lose.

• 1:05:34Speaker 00

  That's, you know, it's just hot air. So ignore the noise. It's just ignore what other people who aren't really know, don't know what they're talking about are saying and focus on what the people in our building in this room are saying, what your teammates are saying, how they can, how you can communicate with them, how you can anticipate a play and, and help them react to it and that kind of thing.

• 1:05:56Speaker 00

  You know, don't fuel the hype, you know, when things are going good. I mean, people can't wait to, you know, you're three and O and they're selling Super Bowl tickets and they're already talking about, you know, repeats and all this stuff. And our thing was don't, don't add into that. If other people say it, we can't control that. Once we say it, now, now we have to own it, you know, and so Belichick says, you know,

• 1:06:26Speaker 00

  we should be in the AFC Championship game and we've only played four games. Well, then everybody else has to react to that. Shane, what did you think about what Belichick said? Tom, what do you think about what Belichick said? Gronk, what do you think about, you know, you, it's just creates a distraction. So fueling the hype or believing the hype that four games into the season, we're talking about an AFC Championship game is ridiculous. It's just way too premature. So, you know, don't deal with that one. What was the last one? Ignore the noise. Don't fuel the hype. Speak for yourself. Manage expectations. Manage expectations. Right. And so like, what are realistic expectations? This week, it's to beat the team we're playing.

• 1:07:07Speaker 00

  Like our focus is on beating Buffalo this week. That's who we play. That's where we're at. You know, in terms of winning the division. You know, which is eight weeks away from now. Don't talk about winning the division. Like, that's not an expectation. We can't achieve that right now, even if we wanted to. It's only the fourth game of the year. Now, if this was the game to win the division, then okay, let's talk about winning the division. But until we get to that point, you know, manage the expectations. The expectations are have a good day today, have a good week, and to win this game. Those are our weekly, you know, expectations, you know, not where we're going to be in January, who we're going to play in the playoffs,

• 1:07:49Speaker 00

  or again, managing expectations of like, oh, this guy should go out and, you know, he should have 200, 2,000 yards receiving. Why don't you just worry about what you're going to do and, you know, stop talking about what other people, what your expectations are for them? That's speaking for yourself, but that's also managing expectations. Or a player saying, well, I expect to, you know, I expect to go to the Pro Bowl. Well, is that your goal to go to the Pro Bowl? Or is our goal to win a championship? And let's go back here for a minute. You know, what, what are our expectations? Like, let's, let's think about what's first thing first. Put the team first, you know, and that's, you know, team, teammate, self. That was the whole, you know, progression of, you know, trying to put the priorities in order for, for each of us.

• 1:08:35Shane Parrish?

  I want to end, I usually end with one question about success, but I actually want to change that a little bit here and flip that around. And I want to talk about the Atlanta Super Bowl. You're down 28 to 3. And the thing that astounded me as a fan who's watched a lot of football and a lot of games, was that nobody was sort of like hanging their head. You know, you look at Brady on the sideline, you're down 25 points and he still had confidence.

• 1:09:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, you know, Shane, it's funny. Sometimes you play a game and you feel like you have control of the game, but you don't have control of the score. And that was that game. I felt like we had pretty good control of the game, but we didn't have control of the score at all. There are other games where you have control of the score and you don't have control of the game. You know, maybe you're ahead by 10 points, but you know, they fumbled, they threw an interception, you got a lucky break and you're ahead, but you really haven't been able to move the ball. You really haven't been able to stop them. They've just fumbled it away a couple of times and you'd kind of maybe got a lucky play to, you know, get your points. And so you feel like you don't have

• 1:09:45Speaker 00

  control of the game, but you're ahead on the scoreboard. And what you really want, of course, is to have control of the game and control of the score. But in that game, we had a real confidence at halftime when it was 21 to three that, you know, we'd given up a touchdown on a third and goal from the 12. We gave up a pick six. We fumbled going in. You know, we missed some opportunities to, you know, maybe be tied or could have even been ahead in the game at halftime, 10-7 or maybe 10-10, something like that. And so, yeah, the score was bad, but we felt like we had control of the game. Well, then they go out and score, make it 28 to three. And now I'm thinking, you

• 1:10:30Speaker 00

  know, we might have control of the game. 25 points is a lot to make up and there's a lot of things that have to go right. So two two-point conversions and a strip sack and two kickoffs where we tackled them inside the 15 yard line. So they couldn't get into field goal range and another sack and another holding penalty. And literally everything went right for us in the last, you know, 20 minutes of the game. There was no lack of confidence because we actually felt like we had control of the game. We were moving the ball. We were playing good defense, but we just had a couple of bad plays in there that skewed us and skewed the score. But once that kind of settled down, you know, we were okay. And

• 1:11:13Speaker 00

  And then, once we kind of got rolling, again, we had some plays that we needed to make and and we made them, you know, on both sides of the ball, handling the kicking game on those kickoffs. So everything had to go right and it did. And we were very fortunate in that one.

• 1:11:26Shane Parrish?

  I really appreciate you taking the time today, Coach Belichick, and thank you for writing The Art of Winning. I loved reading it. It was a great read.

• 1:11:34Speaker 00

  Thanks, Shane. I appreciate it. Thanks for the opportunity to be on. It was a pleasure. Enjoyed speaking with you and I look forward to catching up down the road. You know, I just would be remiss if I didn't, you know, say how much, you know, Michael Lombardi has contributed to my career and indirectly to this book. I mean, a lot of the things that that we talk about and I talk about here are things that I share with Mike or that Mike helped me do. And, you know, it's great to be able to work with Mike, you know, at North Carolina. But he's a great motivator, very well organized, very efficient and, you know, is an excellent partner to, you know, to build the program down there. So I really appreciate all of not

• 1:12:18Speaker 00

  only Mike's help, but his guidance and, you know, his, the daily coach and the, you know, the motivation that he puts out on a daily basis is something that, you know, we all look forward to and enjoy at Carolina.

• 1:12:32Shane Parrish?

  Looking forward to getting down there and watching it again.

• 1:12:35Speaker 00

  I look forward to having you, Shane.

• 1:12:37Shane Parrish?

  Thanks for listening and learning with us. Be sure to sign up for my free weekly newsletter at fs.blog/newsletter. The Farnham Street website is also where you can get more info on our membership program, which includes access to episode transcripts, my repository, ad-free episodes, and more. Follow myself and Farnham Street on X, Instagram, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Plus, you can watch full episodes on our YouTube channel. If you like what we're doing here, leaving a rating and review would mean the world. And if you really like us, sharing with a friend is the best way to grow this community. Until next time.