The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Offseason Interview Series: Defensive coaching legend Wade Phillips

Episode Date: June 3, 2021

Wade Phillips, former coach for the Cowboys, Texans, Broncos, Rams, Chargers, Saints, Eagles, Oilers and more joins Robert Mays to talk all things defense. What was it like starting as a coach in the 80s and trying to adjust to today's offenses? How would he compare Aaron Donald to some of the legendary players he has coached like Reggie White? And did he ever hang out with Willie Nelson back in the day? These topics and much more as the Offseason Interview Series continues on The Athletic Football Show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome to the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. Very excited about today's show. It's the third entry in our off-season interview series. And we get to talk to one of my favorite people to talk to, someone that has a deeper knowledge of football in the NFL than pretty much anyone you could stumble across.

Wade Phillips. Wade, how are you doing? I'm doing great. Yeah, doing well. Thanks. It is very good to have you on. You and I have talked about several things over the years. I always love picking your brain about stuff.

But one thing we don't always get to talk about is you. And I remember a couple of years ago, before you guys played in the Super Bowl against the Patriots, I got to do a story that's one of my favorite things I've ever gotten to work on. And I went back through and I talked to, I don't know, 20 guys that played for you over the course of your career. And I essentially asked them a very simple question. I said, what is your best Wade Phillips story?

And it was a hoot. I mean, just an absolute riot, all the things they told me. But I haven't gotten to ask you about a lot of those things. So I'm actually very excited to get to ask you your take on some of those stories. The first one I wanted to ask you about was Earl Campbell told me this and Steve Baumgartner confirmed it. When you guys were in Houston, I want to say, Willie Nelson, I want to say, came to an Oilers practice at one point. Do you remember this? Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. How did this happen? Yeah, we were practicing. We had people show up at times at practice because we had on Saturdays in our home games, on Sunday home games. On Saturday we had, you know, walked through practice like everybody, but my dad invited families, children, dogs, you know, whatever. You know, there'd be a bunch of dogs out there barking and, and,

kids running around and yeah one day Willie Nelson showed up and it was in the daytime you know and they're those guys are night owls so I mean they they were they were hardly woken up and of course they're white as a sheet you know they're they don't have any son they don't get out during the day so so he came up and then you know another one was uh mohammeda ali came by one day He was fighting. Yeah, he was fighting in Houston, and he came by practice. And, I mean, it was, in fact, one of the players, Curly Cope kind of challenged him, you know, said, hey, show me what you got.

And, I mean, he popped him in the face like too bad for it. And the whole team just fell out. I mean, it was just, it was amazing. Yeah. And then I went to, I went to watch him with a lot of people, but I went. went to watch him work out. It was amazing what kind of workout he did. I mean, he was, he was one the hardest workers I've seen, you know, I don't know that much about boxers, but man, he, he went for an hour just straight, you know, boxing and in the ring and stuff, getting ready

for the fight. Of course, he won, but he won the fight. But, yeah, anybody wanted to come, came. So we were, we were lucky to see those guys. And how old were you? during when you run those oilers, when you're coaching for those oilers teams with your dad, how much older were you than Earl, for example? Oh, we were similar age. I mean, I was, I was 27 when I started with the Oilers. Gotcha.

And some of those guys, I curly caught in Elvin Bathay, were older that I was coaching, or older than I was. So, yeah, I just kind of jumped in there. And started with the linebackers, and I had Robert Brazil, who was in the Hall of Fame. and then I've moved to the defensive line with Elvin Belfay and Curley Culp were in the Hall of Fame.

So I thought I was a heck of a coach. Anything I told those guys to do, they could do, you know. And I found out later on that every team didn't have those kind of guys. Oh, you got pretty lucky, though. I'm pretty sure that if you were going to catch some breaks, I was looking through some of the numbers today. So there have been eight guys than have won multiple defensive player of the U. It's in NFL history, okay?

You coached four of them. Six guys won the defensive player of the year while you coach them that season while you were their defensive coordinator. So it might have started off pretty good, but I didn't really tail off for the rest of your career in terms of the type of talent that you got to coach. I want to talk about that in a little bit, but I wanted to ask you, because you were close to those guys in age. And, you know, Andy Doris, who you coached with, I think the Saints told me that you

were you would often spend time with those guys you'd play cards with them you'd be around them do you feel like being that close to them in age and those experiences back then with your dad shaped the way that you wanted to treat players and the way you wanted to make connections with them oh yeah yeah i've always felt that way and i've always told coaches that i've coached with or when i was a head coach you know you know go by and see them when they're you know when they're in the dressing room you know not just in the meeting rooms and when you're coaching them, but, you know, get to know them as people, you know. And I always, it helped me, it helped coaching them a little bit, but it really helped just

life in general. I mean, you know, you, you learn to enjoy, you know, not only what you're doing, but the people you're working with. And they're not really working for you. They're working with you. So, so that, I always encourage that and I always try to do that. My dad, obviously, You know, my dad was one of the few guys, I'm sure, that the players call him by his first, call him bomb. You know, they didn't call him Coach Phillips. All the players call him bomb, you know. And I know Chuck Noe at Pittsburgh, the Pittsburgh players weren't calling him Chuck, you know. They were calling Coach No.

So, but he always had that openness that, and they play, you know, you always want somebody to play hard. Well, you want them to play hard for somebody, and hopefully sometimes it's a coach, sometimes it's somebody in their family or they're close to. But, you know, I didn't think there was anything wrong with it, certainly, that if a player liked you, you know, they used to think, well, the players liked you, well, then, you know, you weren't a very good coach. But, you know, I always felt like, you know, I play harder for a guy I liked and that one guy I didn't like. Do you think that made it difficult when you got to be a head coach? Because you had to be a little bit cold and calculating and you had to make some business decisions that were sometimes for the betterment of the entire team at the expensive guys that you had come to form relationships with.

Remember Simon Fletcher told me that that sometimes the professional aspects of being a head coach weren't your favorite because you just had to do some things that if as a person you wouldn't want to do, but as a head coach you had to do. Yeah, well, there's a lot more involved than being a head coach, certainly, than an assistant coach, you know. So, yeah, I mean, you know, picking the team and, you know, telling guys that, hey, that, you know, you can't make our team that you still, you know, you still gave the effort we wanted and those kind of things.

So those are hard times, but, you know, anytime we cut a guy, I never felt like that was the end of his life, you know, just got to, I mean, I never was good enough to play pro. football and my life turned out pretty good so you know i mean i can think you can do it without being a pro football player or playing on that certain team you know you can have a great life so i got fired plenty of times yeah so i mean i i didn't think it was the end of the world to tell a guy that you know somebody or we didn't think you were good enough for the team this year you know that kind of thing so because i didn't think it ruined their life now some of the guys that played pro football

There were coaches, you know, they took it really to heart because they've gone through it, I guess, you know, but I just, I never got to go through it because I wouldn't even good enough to play, you know. So, but that's the way it was. I know you were on Chris Vass Seward's podcast a couple months ago, and I really enjoyed it. You guys really dug into a lot of the schematic stuff that defined your defense over the years and some of the three, four elements that you'd use and some of the different adjustments you'd make. against certain personnel packages, all of that. I wanted to ask you, when you got, I looked it up today, and I want to say the first time you had the best statistical defense in the league when you were the coordinator was in with the Saints in like 1984.

Right. How different, on day one of install, when you would sit there and draw it up, how different is the defense or the principles that you installed on the first day in 1984 and the first day in 2017 when you got to the ramps? Well, I mean, there's more stuff because there's more offensive stuff. Sure. I first came in the league. You know, everybody, virtually every team was a two-back offense, you know.

And we didn't see three wide receivers except on third down. So, I mean, so a lot of that certainly has changed. Because football has changed over the years. So, you know, we had to come up with more things defensively because they had more things offensively that you have to work out. principles overall of the three, four pretty much, you know, stuck together. We've added zone blitzes and things like that that we didn't have when we first started. And, you know, I wasn't a coordinator at Houston, but I mean, we had the same defense, you know,

and it came from my dad overall. And so I added some basically as we went along as more things came up. And then really when I went with Buddy Ryan, that really had. helped me in that we were in a four three but it was the bear defense and so that some of the stuff or a lot of this stuff I changed or helped move to three four defense used the concepts I'll say of some of the bare things and and that helped career wise or or defense wise help help my three four overall was to have some of the bare concepts that we added after I was with a buddy Ryan.

Which ones would you say? Which ones would you think were particularly important that you feel like you took with you for the long haul? Well, that we could get in a bare front. You know, that we, I mean, it was easy to go. 3-4 was a lot easier to go to a bare front than a 4-3. Just walk somebody down. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, Buddy had to put the free safety down on the, you know, or the strong safety down. I'm sorry, strong safety down on the, as a weak side inside backer. You know, and so, you know, when you got a three, four, you already got two inside backers already. All you have to do is bring the strong safety down on the line of scrimmage, and you've got that same front. You go to a reduced front where you got two, three techniques, you know, but we do that some anyway. And then some of the concepts, the blitzes and things like that, we utilize from that. Would you say that over time, one of the benefits of experience is just the deep knowledge of pressure packages that you can build?

I've listened to Dean P's talk about that too. He's been around for a long, long time. And they're just such a deep bag that you can go into because you can say, oh, I use this and this way in, you know, 1988 and whatever, with whatever personnel we had just because they're so situational that it feels like having a deep bench of them can be useful as you keep going in your career. Would you say that's fair? Yeah, I'd say that's fair.

I mean, yeah, experience certainly helps. I mean, whatever. And having gone through not only, things that were successful, things that weren't successful, you know, and say, I don't want to do that again, you know. So, yeah, we come up against things. And then often, like I said, offenses changed. I mean, we went through the running shoot area, a time where they were doing that, you know, we had to make adjustments to that kind of stuff. But you're always making some kind of adjustment. And, yeah, you keep those back in the back of your mind, and then something comes up that similar,

or you say, hey, well, this is what I would do against it, this, and this is what I wouldn't do. And also personnel, I mean, you know, something against a great quarterback is different than something against a rookie quarterback, you know. I wanted to ask you, with all those changes, the run and shoot, taking a fullback off the field and having 11 personnel now essentially be a base offense, what do you think was the biggest shift,

the one that required the most thinking, the most changing on your part over the quarter, of your career, the biggest offensive shift? You know, when I first started, if they got in a slot, we thought they were, and put two receivers on one side and tied in on the other, we thought they were getting pretty, pretty versatile. So, I mean, I started, and then what happened is they started putting a wide receiver in the backfield as a running back.

And if you treated it as a regular offense, you know, they could beat your linebacker one-on-one with that wide receiver and then they finally just moved him out into 11 personnel moved him out in the slot. But they just started with the guy in the backfield. So it changes as you go. You know, we're seeing a lot more of the jet motion stuff now, you know, that kind of stuff. So there's always something that's novel that comes up. But defense is really recognition.

You recognize plays, that's what you try to do. and whether a defensive back or linebacker or a defensive lineman, recognizing plays, and, you know, that's the key. And so the more you see those things, the more you're able to recognize those. That's why defenses keep catching up with offenses. And then offenses have to come up with something else. What would you say when you were trying to deal with that influx of jet motion as it came about over the last, I don't know, five, seven years, let's say.

What was your thought process about it? What would you first think about it? How did you try to adjust? What makes it difficult to defend when you have all of that motion at the snap? Well, in some ways it's good because if you're going to blitz or things like that, you know, I always thought motion was good defensively because then we know when the ball is going to be snapped. The jet motion stuff, you know, you know, they get right to the tight end or the backside tackle and they snap the ball. So now they're starting, or at least Sean McVay did, he'd go jet motion and then walk out to another formation or jet motion back.

So, you know, you have to, it keep progressing that way. But it's just motion, you know, it's just motion. You just have to do things quicker. You know, you have to make your adjustments quicker. And I think that's where they get a lot of people. Some people have so many adjustments that the jet motion really hurts them because they had, they kind of, they got three different things that might happen and they can't get them called in time. But, you know, we always had at least the players have to know what to do, you know.

And so if it's motion or jet motion or whatever it is, they've got to be ready to change. And it's got to be a quick change. You've got to be good communication. And that's a key. So you almost think that simplifying things and having the call be a little bit more static might be a good way to respond to that just so you don't feel like you're scrambling and changing. a bunch right as the ball snapped. Yeah, that's not simple. You know, I mean, you have to say, hey, you know, for a man to man,

we're going to do it this way. For example, we're going to do it this way. But it can't be a giveaway as which one you're in. So, you know, that's where some of the things come up. But that was the same way. It's the same way with, you know, motion out of the backfield. You know, I mean, Tom Brady's done that for years. Motion the back out of the back field.

Shanahan, his teams have done that. Mike Shanahan used to motion the first. fullback out wide to the weak side to see if you're in manor zone. So I mean, that's, that's always the case as far as disguise is concerned. You mentioned Sean McVeigh, and I was listening to a podcast he was doing the other day. And he said something that you've actually said since we started talking. You said, you used to tell your assistance, you don't work for me, you work with me. And I think that's such a good way of putting it. And I find that so interesting. And that's easy when it's guys you've worked with before, you know, guys like Bill Johnson or Rick Cole or guys

that had been with you for years. But when you got to a place and you were with an assistant that you hadn't been with before, I'm thinking of somebody like Joe Woods in Denver or Aubrey Pleasant, Joe Barry in L.A., guys who are now coordinators elsewhere, how did you fold guys in that you didn't know before and didn't have a deep knowledge of your defense? What is that process early on in the winter, in the spring, when you're trying to get them acclimated to what you want to do defensively? you know, it's just like with the players.

It's a little bit of selling job, you know. You know, that's what it is. I mean, you've got to let them know that, hey, this is going to be a success. Now, what I had going for me was I've been successful in a lot of places. So the players and the coaches that I coach with overall, when I came in, they thought, well, this guy really knows what he's doing, you know. So they kind of took it, you know, hey, what are we going to do and how we're going to do it? So I'd show them and they'd say, well, yeah, that's great.

You know, because good coaches, you know, they know there's a lot of different ways to do things. And, you know, the guys you talked about, you know, and then you let them have participate, certainly, you know, and say, hey, this way we've done this, what do you think, you know, those kind of things. Again, working with the guy, but I went to San Diego with the Chargers and Bogano and Magnuski were there. and they said, you know, I said, well, it calls Will Bullets covered too. And they said, okay, but what, you know, what's the defense? And I said, that's the defense. That's it, you know. Because they hadn't heard it, you know, that simplified, I guess. Yeah.

You have to sell people on what you're doing, the players, certainly. But the coaches that you're coaching with, you know. And as you go into coordinator, you know, they expect you to say, hey, this is. my defense, this is what I won't done. But the teaching progression, I think, is the key to it and say, this is the way we teach things and this is how we get them done. And the fundamentals that we do are just so important as some of the X and Oves. So I was watching, I went back and I watched the 2015 AFC championship game today because

I was thinking about it for something else. I was like, oh, this is perfect timing. I'll go watch it and I'll check it out. And I was at that game. And my memory of it was that you guys just dominated them up front and that Brady was just running for his life and Vaughn and Malie Jackson had this monster game and they played well. But you guys were doing so many three-man rushes in that game. Vaughn had an interception on a fire zone where he was dropping into coverage.

You guys mixed it up so much. And the game plan overall just Brady was clearly uncomfortable and it was really cool to watch because that so rarely happens. So I wanted to ask you and I know you're not a self-aggrandizer, but is there a game plan or a game from your career that you're particularly proud of? of like one Sunday afternoon, we're like, you know what? We really did it today. Is there one that sticks out? No, all the wins stick out. Among the wins.

Yeah. I mean, you know, well, I mean, that one, you know, that, I mean, we hit Tom Brady 24 times in that game. I mean, and it wasn't me or my scheme. It was, you know, I do think we gave. some things he hadn't seen before and seen us play before. And I think you have to do that with the, with the Mannings or Brady's or, you know, some of those guys because, you know, they, they recognize what you do really quickly no matter what. So we threw a few different things against them. Like what? What were the kind of the wrinkles that you decided? Well, the three-man rush,

like you said, three-man rush where we, you know, we drop two guys in the zone and the hook zone. And the zone and then I dropped Vaughn and from a four three front from four man front and we dropped Vaughn in kind of the curled area and that game's a lot of problem because you know we played them we were playing them in the game plan certainly was from the week before they played Kansas City and they threw 35 passes five yards are shorter yeah I mean they killed them but every play was five yard pass you know so we had to get some kind of underneath coverage that we could stop that. We could cover man to man outside technique,

but also have the guys inside playing zone, you know, but you had to have more people. So you couldn't rush four or five. So we tried to mix it up. And then we also played the things that we play well. I mean, some of our cover two or whatever you want to call it. We covered eight at the time and, you know, and cover six. We played some different coverages that we play all the time that we executed well too, you know.

And we had a good rush no matter what. But we still had to intercept the ball with two-point play at the game. Yeah, I know, I know. It was a tight game despite how well you guys played. Yeah, yeah. Actually, the game we played during the season at the end of the year there in Denver when we beat them, we probably played just as good in that game too. So we beat them in overtime.

But the overtime game was they won the coin flip. And I saw Brady just jumping up and down over there. We won the coin flip. We're going to go down and score. And of course, we sacked him all the way back to the eight-yard line, five-yard line. And they had the punt. And we got the ball on the 38-yard line.

And CJ took it for a touchdown. And we played pretty well in that game, too. But that team, you know, we beat Rothensburg. And I mean, the Super Bowl now, we sacked Cam seven times. I remember. Again, I was there. You know, we had some pretty good games, but it was, we had some really good players. And that the three-man rush was an outlier because that year I remember specifically,

you guys went to that five-man rush a ton. You guys just created one-on-ones across the board and essentially told Vaughn and DeMarcus and Malik, go for it. You're going to have one-on-one beat the guy across from you. Is that something that you just felt like if we create those one-on-ones, it's okay giving up a body in coverage because we feel like we're going to get there? Because it felt like that was a big staple of what you did later in your career. No, we did that with the Houston Alders too. Okay.

And the Saints, we had Ricky Jackson, the Saints. Those I did not watch as much. He was playing the Sam linebacker. To get him to rush, you had to have a five-man rush. You're rushing will all the time, basically. So the five-man rush, we had to get him going. So it just depends on your personnel, too, who you have. And you've got to have guys that can cover.

Now, we played a lot more zone than New Orleans. That was the amazing thing about that New Orleans team that led the league and defense was, we played mostly zone because of our secondary guys. We played match-up zone. Probably as good as any team I've ever been around. I mean, because we played in the Dome Stadium. you know, in New Orleans in that stadiums. So the teams that play good past defense are usually up north.

You know, after the season, you can't throw it. I mean, you know, the weather's too bad. But we had a great bunch with those guys. But it just depends on what your players can do, too. I mean, we had some players that can do more. You're going to let them do more, you know. If you've got some great rushers, you get better rush them. And, you know, if you've got two outside backers like the market,

Marcus and Vaughn, which one do you want dropping, you know? I don't need anything. Exactly. Why would either drop? I don't want them dropping or covering. I want them rushing. And so now we ran some pseudo five-man rush in that we'd rush five, but one of them would be responsible for the back or have them, you know, pick up the back if you try to

check through and things like that. So, and we played a lot more four-man rush than people thought. I mean, people thought we rushed, you know, because where a rush was so good. Of course, people think a five-man rush is a blitz overall. You know, and they say, well, you know, Wade's team coming out of the dressing room, they're blitzing, you know. Well, we didn't, I don't know if we ran any all-out blitz, you know, maybe, maybe once or twice, but not very many times, maybe on the goal line, but I always like to get into free safety in the middle of this in case. somebody fell down or something.

So that day was against Brady. You played against Peyton Manning several times. You've done okay against Peyton Manning several times. I think you picked him all four times in Dallas in 2010. He had some rough games against the charters when you were there. There was one, I think, big game that he had late in the season against you guys. But you have a ton of experience against both of them. I'm curious.

When you were game planning for each of them, what was different? What different considerations did you have to apply to Peyton Manning than the ones you had to apply to Tom Brady. Between the two guys are just both those guys. Between the two guys. I mean, I'm sure both of them, there's a lot. But I'm curious what's different about them in terms of game planning for them. Yeah.

Well, of course, Manning was always, he was going to always catch you if you change personnel. You know, so you had to worry about that with him all the time. And for a time there, they could change personnel. And if you change, you know, they could catch you. Now, then they change the rule where the offense, you know, had to give you time to change to match up. But if you tried to change the packages, you know, people have so many packages and stuff,

if you tried to change, he'd snap the ball and catch you with, you know, 12 men on the field every time. So you could never do that against Manning. I think Brady just wouldn't see what you had out there, Whatever you had out there, that's what he was going to do something against. Both of them are great at recognizing what you were in, you know, anything you give away they knew. And both of them after the snap knew what you were in anyway.

So I think Manning was the best at between the two was the best at auditing. You know, he'd audible to a run, whereas Brady didn't, I mean, Brady had a pass call. He's going to throw a pass, basically. you know, Manning, if he had a pass call, he might, he might be audible to a run-in-play. So you had to be careful with some of the zone or some of the zone blitzes and things like that where you open on one side of the other, you couldn't do that against Manning because, you know, he'd run a ball on you. So, but both of them, you know, both of them were so good.

And a lot of those, not a lot of them, but, you know, Philip Rivers was, Phil Rivers was amazing too. I mean, you know, he would point it to strong safety and say, hey, You need to move over if you're going to blitz. You said, you need to move over. I mean, you know, they know what you're in, you know, and they're hard to fool. And that's why you play something you hadn't played against them.

But it's got to be something, like you said, you've got to pull out from your history of what, you know, what you think might be good against them, you know. There's still got to be sound. But it's got to be something they hadn't seen. And, you know, they've seen almost everything. But they're so prepared against what you do and where you line up and how you do it. And the reason you're good is because you do it that way.

But they're so good at recognizing that stuff that you have to give them something different. So how do you balance that? Because I'm sure that your players aren't always comfortable if it's new. You don't know where the weaknesses are if it's new. So how do you try to strike that balance of saying, we're going to do something they've never seen because that's the best way to beat them, but we're also not as comfortable with it? I mean, it's not every play.

you know, it's, I mean, you're still going to play your base stuff, you know, a good amount of the time. But you change up defenses. That's where you, that's, you know, you're going to play them a few times. You're not going to play them every down. He's the same thing. He's going to figure it out after a while. But, I mean, you know, but the first time we dropped Vaughn, you know, we get an interception, you know. You didn't see it coming at all.

Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, that's where you gain some kind of. advantage against those great, great players like that. But like I say, if we had run that every down, he would just wait it and waited and waited until people got open because of the three-man rush. So we had to have four or five-man rush against him some to pressure, you know,

to make them throw. You still, even the great ones, I mean, you still got to put pressure on the quarterback. And the reason you get those interceptions or you stop them or make plays is not normally because you have great coverage, it's because you have great rush. One of the cool things about that game specifically is that they were trying to do a lot of the same things

they'd always done. They get a back or gronk or someone matched up against a safety or a linebacker, an area they think they have a matchup advantage. And your guys that typically would be not cover guys, T.J. Ward, Trevathan, Brandon Marshall, those guys showed up in a big way that day. T.J. Ward had a one-on-one pass breakup against Gras. Ronk on the outside.

I think Brandon Marshall had a pass break about 25 yards down the field on a slot fade. It's got to be nice over the course of a game when you see that even when they think they have matchup advantages, your guys are able to rise to the occasion the entire game. Yeah, well, that team was, that defensive team was hard to get matchups on. I mean, they were so good. It's very true. It's very true. I mean, I mean, those guys you talked about, they were all, they were all, they were good.

past defense players. T.J. was stronger in a run and great and added rush players. So we, you know, that's what he did well. So that's what we try to do with him. Sometimes if we needed help, we would, the outside back would hit the back

and then help Marshall or somebody like that. Gravesant was a really good man-to-man player. So we didn't have to give him much help. So it just depends on the player, you know, is what you do with them. But like I say, it's the, it's the, rush that makes the difference than when he has to throw the ball

or how he has to throw it if he's under duress or if he's just sitting back in the pocket. And even the threat of the rush, having it be in his head and having him have that internal clock get sped up a little bit, even if they're not getting there, I think the threat of guys like that, that

always plays a part. I mean, just getting in the quarterback's mind, it influences the way he plays the game. Yeah, and the two things you could do against those guys, you know, which you you can't do them. Either one of them could run. Yeah.

So, well, I mean, but now you, you know, you don't normally rush and then go in, rush inside. You rush outside. I'm talking about the outside guys, but you give them the freedom to go inside or outside against, you know, the guys that aren't runners, you know. So that's why my homes is so good, you know,

and, and Rogers. But, uh, those, kind of guys, you know, they, they can not only throw it almost as good as those other two guys, but they can run with the ball, you know, and so they can make those plays that, you know, you would never see Brady or Manning run for a first down, you know, against you. So, but those guys can do that. So, so you have to take advantage of that. I mean, you have to, you have to,

you have to give them free rushes, you know, say, hey, I don't care where you go. You just beat your guy, you know. And then you have to, like you said, you have to get one-on-one. with your best players. Everybody I talked to, whether it was Bruce Smith or J.J. Watt or all of the guys that you coach, you gave them a ton of freedom. And that was a staple of your approach as a defensive coach. When you were thinking about guys like that, when you stepped into the room with Aaron Donald for the first time, for example, is the ways you used J.J. Watt and the backlog of experience

you had with the guy like J.J. Watt, did that inform the ways that you tried to use Aaron? did one of them kind of help understand the other? Well, like I said, I started out with some pretty good players, you know. Even Reggie White, Eori Bruce Smith. And did you guys, did your experience with those guys help inform the way you wanted to use star players later on? Do you feel like they were similar enough? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Like I said, I mean, if the guy is a great pass rusher, you've got to get him one-on-one, you know. And that's, whether it's an outside backer or de-linman or whatever, even a noseguard. Even a, if you had a great noseguard to get a rest of the passenger, you, you know, you've reduced down to two, three techniques and make sure it's one-on-one with the center all time. It's simple, but it's not because so many people are so scheme-oriented that we can't do, well, we don't do that, you know. Yeah, but you got Aaron Donald, you better. Of course, when I got there, Aaron Donald was playing a 4-3, and he was the best three technique in the league, you know.

I mean, in football, his best three technique. They said, well, you're coming in with a 3-4 defense. You're going to mess him up. And so what do we play him in a 3-4? Well, we played in the weak side three technique. He played a decent amount of defensive end that year, too, though, didn't he? I mean, you moved him around a lot, but just to get him matchups, right? No.

Yeah. moving around in our four-man front. Yes. Yeah, when I'm passing downs, again, matchups, and so they couldn't double team it. We put him against the worst guard or center or tag, our guard, you know, we might put him against a tackle every once in a while, not much, but, but whichever the weakest interior lineman, the two guards in the center,

on third downs, we're going to, he's going to be against that guy. And we're going to make sure that he's one-on-one. That's, I mean, that seems something. but some people, you know, they're afraid to do stuff like that. I don't know why because he plays this position and he has to do it this way. This is the way we say. But I've always had more success of what they can do. Not some kind of scheme that I thought was great on the board. And you, the freedom you gave those guys, they always appreciated it. I think JJ especially has told me in the past that when he would go back to where on certain plays and other coaches used to bitch at him, you would be okay with it as long as it worked. that's the whole point. Were there guys among those star players that you had? Was there anybody that you ever had to rein in a little bit where they,

they weren't abusing that right, but they were taking it maybe a little bit too far every once in a while? No. That's because those guys, the reason you let them do that is because they make the right decision. Yeah. You know, the reason that you don't let other guys do that is they can't, number one, they can't do as much, but also they,

they don't make the right decision. They go inside and the guy, quarterback gets outside. But, you know, some of them are, I mean, Bruce Smith, I mean, God, the things we could do with him was amazing. And JJ Watt, JJ Watt, we audible things, we audible defensive things where he made,

he would stun inside or go outside on the formation. Now, how many defensive linemen know how, know what the formation is? You know, well, he, you know, He could do that, so we let him do it. You know, so that, those kind of things. But it's what the guy can do, you know, and you have to know their weaknesses. You know, you have to know things that they can't do well.

And I'm talking about every player on defense, but I think that's what you do. And you say, hey, this guy can, you know, this guy is a great bump and run guy, but he's not a good off-cover guy. I mean, you have to know those things, you know, as far as man-to-man, I'm talking about. So you have to utilize those things. And then you get a great one that can do almost everything. What does he do best? Well, let's get him in that situation or at least get him one-on-one.

I've tried to bait you into comparing those guys and some of those guys in the past, and you've always refused to do it, which I appreciate you. You're a man of character. But I wanted to ask you, is Aaron at this point what you've seen in for him over the last four or five years when you were with him and then even last season. Do you think he's reached the same plane as guys like Reggie White in terms of being one of the greatest

defensive players to ever play? Do you think he's on that level now? Well, all those Hall of Fame guys are. I mean, gee. See, you always do this. See? Well, I mean, it's hard to say one Hall of Fame guys better than the other.

I know, I know. Because their era and what they played in, you know, I mean, and I have said this, and I really believe this, Reggie White had the best season, one season that I've ever been around. Yeah. Yeah, because in 12 games, you had 21 sacks. Now, nobody's going to come close to that.

I mean, no, that's, you know, that's an unheard-of record that I don't think anybody could come close to them. Because we had a strike season, and he didn't play the first four games, and then he gets 21 sacks. So I don't know anybody's had another those guys have come close to that. I mean, they all had 20 sacks, but not in 12 games. So that season was unbelievable by one guy. But all those guys, I mean, you know, I mean, T.J. W. could be player of the year again. I mean, defense of the player this year, too.

I mean, that guy's a great player, you know. So, I mean, I think people forget how dominant he was in like 2012, 2013, those couple of years. I mean, he was unstoppable for those few seasons. I mean, it was on a level that I don't think people who weren't watching the sport closely appreciate now. I mean, obviously Aaron Donald and what he does is special. But those few years that JJ had, I think were just as dominant, just as impressive as the stuff that Aaron Donald is doing right now. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's what I say. Those Hall of Fame guys, it's hard to say when I'm better at their peak than the other one. You've had plenty of them. I'm curious, not Hall of Fame guys. Guys that you've coached that maybe don't get enough recognition. Is there somebody that you feel like over the course of your career? I'm sure there's plenty. But is there someone that sticks out that you feel like it was just criminally underrated, just consistently underappreciated that you were around? well you know Simon Fletcher was a heck of a player

and had a lot of sacks when I was with him at Denver and I don't think he got a lot of recognition for that in fact he didn't make the Pro Bowl one year because we coached the Pro Bowl one year and the outside backers I told him I said man you guys are lucky Simon Fletcher and they got mad at me because I told him Simon Fletcher was just as good as they were

the pro bowlers but all guys like that I mean, you know, I've been around, luckily been around a lot of good players. But, you know, it's not all, it's production, you know, and when they get, Merriman was a heck of a player, you know. I mean, he, when he had 16 sacks and 12 games, so he didn't get 21, but he had 16, 12 games. but Jamal Williams was great too on those teams

I think people forget about how good he was those couple years that you had him there. Oh yeah. Oh, he was yeah, he was outstanding

plus he was amazing he'd knocked down more passes than anybody's $6 1 than anybody ever been around so I use him in the example of how to do it because,

you know, he could do that besides just overpowering the center every play. Yeah, he was a great one too. When you were installing defense with the Rams, what was the oldest clip on your teach tape?

Like how far back did it go, any of the examples? We still call everything, you know, Sam, Mike, Mo, and Will, you know? Now, it used to be Sam, Mike, Meg, and Will. And then our guy, our inside backer didn't want to be called Mo. I mean, you want to be called Meg, so we called him Mo. And then we had a weak safety, and our safety didn't want to be called weak safety,

so we start calling free safety. These are the things you don't think about as a coach when you're talking to players. They don't want to be weak and they don't want to be Meg's. That's right. That's right. But, you know, all our terminology stuff is, pretty close to the same from when I first started because it was simple enough to know,

you know, Sam is always on the tight end, Will is always on the open side. Mike is always inside with the Sam on hit the same side over the guard. And then Mo is always with Will all the time, you know. And call Sam and Will, and they know Sam and the linemen know, the three linemen know Sam and Will. It's called Sam and Will. Sam and Will of Russian. And Mike and Mo are covering. It's called Mike and Moe, then Sam and Will are covering, and Mike and Moe are rushing. Or if you just call one of them, it's called Mike Rush within the three other three guys got a cover. So, I mean, it's always worked, and we try to make it not simple, but try to make it fit where the players know what to do. I mean, people just, they go overboard on, you know, changing this guy and that guy and changing the rush when they motion.

and things like that. And you make more mistakes. And more mistakes, you make the bigger chance you've got to get beat. So we try to, the teaching progression, I think, is the best that we've had,

that we've had over the years is the best, because we've been able to go in the first year and change defenses from, like the Texas from 31st to second, you know, you know, those kind of things. So that makes me feel like that, look,

you know now they weren't good that's that's why they that's why i came in because the team wasn't good you know the defense wasn't good well you also got a number 99 your first year there as a rookie that ended up being pretty good so that it helps when the when the players get better too oh yeah well we trained yeah we got johnson joseph we picked up on free agency and and daniel manning in secondary because we had a bad secondary so we brought those guys in and connor barwin we moved to outside backer in a three-four and he was a dominant player so yeah

I mean it's still players that you get I could say it wasn't wasn't me but we still won games and played well in the first couple of years so which made me think hey we're not making and that's part of what we've always done is said hey we don't make mistakes

you know when people I mean our tolerance for mistakes is zero and there's no tolerance tolerance for mental mistakes well those mental mistakes we're the teachers I'm talking about the coaches so if they're making mental mistakes

it's our fault so we need to remedy that you know so that's that's why we say you know we get them to believe hey we're not going to make any mistakes but we're not going to make any mental mistakes and that means if they're running jet motion

and you have to change three different things you might not get them all changed so you better have one way to do it and how you do it. Now, you might change it from week to week, you know, but people don't realize that it's game of mistakes. And more mistakes you make, the less chance you ever want to. Awesome. Wade, thank you very much for doing this.

Thank you very much for taking the time. It's always good to chat with you. You're doing a new podcast with your son, Wes, called Overtime. So people should definitely go check that out if they haven't. you guys, I'm sure, will be talking about all kinds of different stuff. Your son is an assistant with the Rams. So that is definitely something people should listen to. Yeah, we started.

We just dropped one so far. But we're going to talk about, you know, the Dallas Cowboys and the Denver Broncos and the Houston Oilers and the Eagles and Chargers and Buffalo, you know, I mean, I can talk, you know, on all these themes I've been with. And then my dad, obviously, talking about him. And then Wes, you know, Wes has been in the league like 14 years now. So, I mean, there's a lot of things I think people would be interested in. Wes, Wes is a tremendous moderator.

I'll say that for him so far. He doesn't think it's done. But, yeah, I think it's worth losing, too. I think people enjoy it. Awesome. Well, Wade, thank you very much of the time. It's great to chat with you. I'm sure we'll catch up down the road.

Really appreciate it. Yeah, you bet. I always talk great talking to you. I couldn't talk football, Robert. You know what? Anytime. You know I'm always down to do it. I'll talk to you soon for sure.

Okay, good. All right, see you later, Wade. All right, guys, that's all we got for today. Thank you so much for stopping by. And thank you to Wade Phillips for his time. So much fun to chat with him. Always an absolute legend. One of my favorite people to have a football conversation with.

I'm glad you guys got to be in on it this time. We'll be back tomorrow with Nate. We're going to do something about the best offenses in the NFL last year. Just kind of the lessons we learned. from digging in and re-watching some of them, which we've both been doing over the last few days or so. We'll also have another edition of the interview series next week with an NFL head coach, which I'm very much looking forward to.

I hope you guys are as well. In the meantime, please rate and review the podcast. You guys been doing better, which I really appreciate it, on Apple Podcasts or wherever you guys listen. Also, please subscribe to The Athletic. Theathletic.com slash football show. I have a piece out today about the bucks and how they ran it back with all 22 starters,

what that means based on recent history and whether that gives them a better chance theoretically of repeating, which no team has done in a very, very long time. We'll be back tomorrow with Nate. Until then, thank you guys for listening. Talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.