Marty Schottenheimer on Wade Phillips in 2004
Marty Schottenheimer on Wade Phillips
“It’s a very exciting day, certainly for the San Diego Chargers and for me personally. The guy that we’re about to meet and become familiar with is a guy that I’ve known periodically throughout his coaching career. The very first game I ever coached was against his father. There was an article in the paper today which I made sure I pointed out to Wade—I didn’t know if he had seen it. Wade Phillips brings to this organization the basic quality of being a fundamentally sound teacher of defensive football. All those teams that he’s been associated with have always been able to produce turnovers, which become a very, very important part of this game. They have been able to produce sacks, which of course is a big part of field position in our game. Another aspect of it that is interesting is he has a wealth of experience in his 17 years as an assistant and another five as a head coach in working with both a 4-3 as well as the 3-4 defense. What we have here is a guy who can take the defense and be involved in any particular aspect of it that we’re involved with and provide the kind of instruction that I think is critical to the success of a National Football League defensive football team. After having battled wits with him in 1989 when he was in Denver and I was in Kansas City through the ’94 season, if memory serves me correctly, I probably came out on the short end of it more frequently than not. I am just delighted as I might be, and I know the rest of our staff is with the addition of Wade Phillips as our defensive coordinator.”
Wade Phillips’ opening remarks:
“Certainly Marty and I go way back as far as playing against each other and I’ve always admired certainly his teams and the way they’ve played. That’s one of the reasons I’m here. I’ve said it before. I’ve been with some really top head coaches. I’ve been lucky to be with Marv Levy, Dan Reeves and my dad (Bum Philips), who I consider in that group, and now with Marty. It’s a special opportunity to work with a guy who knows how to win. I can tell you from playing against him, he does. His teams know how to win. I’m glad I’m on that side of it. It’s kind of a special deal for me. My dad, his first coaching job was here in San Diego with Sid Gillman and Barron Hilton was the owner. I kept up with San Diego. It’s a great opportunity for me to work for the Spanos family, which I followed. A.J. Smith and I were together in Buffalo, of course John Butler was a special friend also. Then to come here an work for Marty, all those things together really made it a great and special place for me at this time in my career.”
On your impressions of this defense:
“We just stared today. I started looking at last year’s film. I’ve got to get a lot of input from the other coaches and Marty about our personnel and we’ll just have to look into that. We’ll look at the personnel and see what we have.”
On whether you prefer to play a 3-4 or a 4-3:
“I like them both as long as you have good players. We’ve had success in both of them. At Philadelphia certainly we had a dominant defense there with Reggie White, Clyde Simmons, Jerome Brown and those guys and had a 4-3 front. In fact, Marty was playing a 3-4 with Derrick Thomas (in Kansas City). They did a great job with that. We had some great success in Denver in a 3-4. I’ve been in both. Personnel dictates what you do. There isn’t a big difference. Everybody wants to say there’s a big difference. Actually, the end man on the line of scrimmage, if he puts his hand down, it’s a 4-3 and if he doesn’t, it’s a 3-4. It’s really how you utilize your personnel, whatever front you’re playing.”
On the problem with a team that doesn’t take the football away:
“Our approach is, that’s our job, not only to stop the other team. Defensively, when you get into the philosophy of how you play a defense, it’s not to just stop them and make them punt, it’s to take the ball away from them and give your offense and opportunity. We work together; offense, defense and special teams. To be a part of that, you have to take the ball away. You have to change field position. When we address defense, it’s not just stopping them, those stats of how many first downs and how many times you stopped them, but it’s how many times you take the ball away, so that has to be an emphasis also.”
On why have your defenses been so good at the pass rush and how you get more production out of Marcellus Wiley:
“I’ve had a lot of good players that can rush the passer. We try to utilize our personnel and get the best players one-on-one. It sounds simple but it’s not easy to do, to get your best players one-on-one, or come up with a scheme where you don’t necessarily get somebody free, but you get a good match-up. Pro football is match-ups, and we’ve been able, through the years, to be able to get good match-ups and that’s helped us. Certainly the players first and the scheme second. We can scheme it enough to get pressure on the quarterback and give them problems. As far as Marcellus…he’s a great guy and a great worker and I think he’ll respond to our coaching. He’ll have a good year this year. He’s a good player.”
On your ability to get teams in the playoffs quickly:
“I hope it isn’t all luck. The last three times I’ve gone in as defensive coordinator we have gone to the playoffs with a team that wasn’t in the playoffs the year before. We had good players. Another reason I’m here is because of A.J. (Smith). He does a great job of getting personnel. He did that in Buffalo, he and John (Butler). But A.J. was a driving force behind the personnel there too. I think that’ll help us, besides having a good offensive team and special teams.”
On whether you can implement everything you want in one year:
“It depends on the personnel itself. I know we have a lot of young guys playing, but I think we started four or five rookies in New Orleans my first year there. Like Marty said, it’s really teaching. It’s teaching progression. You’ve got to see where you are with the players. Today’s game, especially with the salary cap, you have to get them to play quickly. Whether they’re young guys, or older guys or whatever, they have to be able to play. That’s what we have to do, teach those guys to play in our system as quickly as they can and be successful in that system.”
On how big of a job lies ahead of you:
“It’s a big job, but that’s the nature of this game. All of them are big jobs. You just find out the strengths and weaknesses of the players and you play to their strengths.”
On whether it’s your preference to play bump and run:
“That’s the way you play if you can because you’re going to cut down the number of passes they catch. I’m big on percentages of defense and if you can bump and run, if you get a Ty Law that can bump and run their best receiver and shut them down, you certainly can play better. If you have those kinds of people, you certainly want to utilize them and one of the ways you utilize them is to play some bump and run.”
On whether you’ve seen enough of this team yet:
“I haven’t yet. I like the players that they drafted in the last couple of years, especially in the secondary. They’re young players, but they certainly have talent. When we were watching the draft, we’d say ‘wow, that was a good pick.’ They’ve picked some good players that certainly have talent and we have to utilize their talents.”
On being in the same conference as offensive minded coaches like Dick Vermeil, Mike Shanahan and now Norv Turner:
“Well, we’ve got Schottenheimer here. I have been against a lot of those guys. I don’t know if that’s an advantage because they’re all good coaches and do a great job and their offenses are usually very good. It’ll be a challenge for us, but we’re ready to meet that challenge.”
On the difference in your role as a defensive coordinator as opposed to a head coach:
“Seventeen years out of my career I’ve been a defensive coordinator and most of that, I was a walk-around coordinator where I didn’t coach a position per-se. It’s similar to what I’ve been doing my whole career.”
On whether it’s easier to be a defensive coordinator than a head coach:
“It makes it easier because you know all the things that go on behind the scenes with the head coach and how much pressure there is. No matter what you say, and I’ve been there, it goes on your record. They really don’t put it on the assistant coaches record. They don’t say in the 17 years I was this and this. As a head coach, they said you won this many games, so a head coach and a quarterback are really the guys that the pressure’s on. I’ve been on the other side so I’ll try to help him as much as I can. That’s what my job is as assistant coach.”
On what you learned from your dad:
“He taught me a lot of things. I guess the first thing he taught me is to go to school on time because I got whipped because I went late the first time I went to school. He taught me about everything I know. Football-wise, not as much of the X’s and O’s as you would think, but more about working with people and how to treat people. Coaching is about teaching and that’s one of the first things he told me. You have to be a teacher. He’s influenced everything I have in football basically because he was my dad for my first 20 years and then I worked for him for 10 years. He’s really influenced my whole life as far as football and my life is concerned. It’s been a real positive for me because he’s a special dad as well as a special head coach that I’ve worked for.”
Marty Schottenheimer on Bum Phillips:
“He’s a special person, his father. He is a unique person. I competed against him too. My first loss in the National Football League was your dad. He kicked a 53-yard field goal into the open end in Cleveland.”
More from Wade Phillips on his father’s influence:
“We had quite a victory here coming in to San Diego. The Houston Oilers, I was coaching on that team and it was one of the biggest victories I’ve ever been associated with. The Chargers probably would have won the Super Bowl had we not come in here without Earl Campbell, without (Dan) Pastorini, without Kenny Burrough. Vernon Perry did get four interceptions on Dan Fouts which was unbelievable and we ended up winning that game. It was one of the best victories I’ve ever been around and I’ve been to the Super Bowl. It was pretty special.”
On the most important position you can add to through the draft:
“If you’re lucky and you can get it, I’ve coached Bruce Smith and Reggie White, if you have a player like that it changes what can happen in a ballgame. The defensive linemen certainly can be dominant, although I’ve had linebackers that have been dominant. Bryce Paup was the player of the year with 17 sacks and Rickey Jackson I had in New Orleans, but then I’ve had some great defensive backs like Steve Atwater and Dennis Smith. Any player that’s a great player you can utilize their talents and help yourself. It’s what they can do and you find what they can do and let them utilize that talent.”
On whether playmakers are coached or are they born:
“Hopefully coaching is a big part of it. I wouldn’t be in it if I didn’t think coaching had something to do with it. Once you have a great, great player like Bruce Smith or Reggie White, you have to be able to utilize their talent and let them do what they do well. That’s not hard to do with those guys. It’s not as much to do with a great player, but you really do have to coach great players. Some people back away from coaching great players and just kind of sponsor them and let them play, but actually you can help a great player more than you can help an average player. They have the talent to do almost anything you want them to do. If you get one, you’d like to try to help them be even better.”
On who is a great Charger on defense:
“I know Marcellus (Wiley). People say he didn’t have a great year last year, but he’s a good player and a good person. He works hard and tries to be a good player. I don’t know many of the players overall. I know who they are, but I haven’t studied them enough to say who’s a great player on defense.”
On how you match personnel to the system:
“That’s what the system does. Your system has to be flexible. It’s not what I know, it’s what the players can do. I think that’s the key to it. You have to be versatile enough in whatever you’re in to get your best players doing what they do well. That’s why I’ve never been set on only playing this defense this way.”
On how you’ll determine what kind of defense to play:
“It’s film work and really talking to Marty and the coaches about what the players can do. I can see them on film and it’s kind of like the Senior Bowl. You can see those players on film, but when you’re in the classroom with them and you’re on the field during the game with them, you know more about them. I’m going to find out from these guys really how they are and how they react to change and all those things. How smart they are, how quickly they learn football, those kinds of things. All that needs to be processed first before we decide what we’re doing.”
On how soon you’ll need to decide which defense you’ll play:
“When you start working with the players. We’re in our offseason so we won’t start working with the players until later on.”
On what bothers you about a player:
“I think it’s self-discipline really. We can discipline players, but if they don’t have self-discipline, that bugs me. We’re going to try to get them to do the things that we want done the right way. My dad always said there’s two kinds of players you don’t want, ones that do everything you say and ones that don’t do anything you say. Ones that do everything you say, they don’t have any initiative and the ones who don’t do anything you say are hard to coach. Anybody in between that, I’m alright with.”
On where Bruce Smith fit into that description:
“Bruce would do what you say, but he did do a few things on his own. Those things he did on his own, when he’d do them and make the play, that’s the kind of player you want. That’s exactly the kind of guy he was, same with Reggie (White).”
On who you’d pick if you were starting a franchise today, Reggie White or Bruce Smith:
“I wouldn’t want either one of them to hear that I said the other one because I think a lot of both of them.”
“It’s a very exciting day, certainly for the San Diego Chargers and for me personally. The guy that we’re about to meet and become familiar with is a guy that I’ve known periodically throughout his coaching career. The very first game I ever coached was against his father. There was an article in the paper today which I made sure I pointed out to Wade—I didn’t know if he had seen it. Wade Phillips brings to this organization the basic quality of being a fundamentally sound teacher of defensive football. All those teams that he’s been associated with have always been able to produce turnovers, which become a very, very important part of this game. They have been able to produce sacks, which of course is a big part of field position in our game. Another aspect of it that is interesting is he has a wealth of experience in his 17 years as an assistant and another five as a head coach in working with both a 4-3 as well as the 3-4 defense. What we have here is a guy who can take the defense and be involved in any particular aspect of it that we’re involved with and provide the kind of instruction that I think is critical to the success of a National Football League defensive football team. After having battled wits with him in 1989 when he was in Denver and I was in Kansas City through the ’94 season, if memory serves me correctly, I probably came out on the short end of it more frequently than not. I am just delighted as I might be, and I know the rest of our staff is with the addition of Wade Phillips as our defensive coordinator.”
Wade Phillips’ opening remarks:
“Certainly Marty and I go way back as far as playing against each other and I’ve always admired certainly his teams and the way they’ve played. That’s one of the reasons I’m here. I’ve said it before. I’ve been with some really top head coaches. I’ve been lucky to be with Marv Levy, Dan Reeves and my dad (Bum Philips), who I consider in that group, and now with Marty. It’s a special opportunity to work with a guy who knows how to win. I can tell you from playing against him, he does. His teams know how to win. I’m glad I’m on that side of it. It’s kind of a special deal for me. My dad, his first coaching job was here in San Diego with Sid Gillman and Barron Hilton was the owner. I kept up with San Diego. It’s a great opportunity for me to work for the Spanos family, which I followed. A.J. Smith and I were together in Buffalo, of course John Butler was a special friend also. Then to come here an work for Marty, all those things together really made it a great and special place for me at this time in my career.”
On your impressions of this defense:
“We just stared today. I started looking at last year’s film. I’ve got to get a lot of input from the other coaches and Marty about our personnel and we’ll just have to look into that. We’ll look at the personnel and see what we have.”
On whether you prefer to play a 3-4 or a 4-3:
“I like them both as long as you have good players. We’ve had success in both of them. At Philadelphia certainly we had a dominant defense there with Reggie White, Clyde Simmons, Jerome Brown and those guys and had a 4-3 front. In fact, Marty was playing a 3-4 with Derrick Thomas (in Kansas City). They did a great job with that. We had some great success in Denver in a 3-4. I’ve been in both. Personnel dictates what you do. There isn’t a big difference. Everybody wants to say there’s a big difference. Actually, the end man on the line of scrimmage, if he puts his hand down, it’s a 4-3 and if he doesn’t, it’s a 3-4. It’s really how you utilize your personnel, whatever front you’re playing.”
On the problem with a team that doesn’t take the football away:
“Our approach is, that’s our job, not only to stop the other team. Defensively, when you get into the philosophy of how you play a defense, it’s not to just stop them and make them punt, it’s to take the ball away from them and give your offense and opportunity. We work together; offense, defense and special teams. To be a part of that, you have to take the ball away. You have to change field position. When we address defense, it’s not just stopping them, those stats of how many first downs and how many times you stopped them, but it’s how many times you take the ball away, so that has to be an emphasis also.”
On why have your defenses been so good at the pass rush and how you get more production out of Marcellus Wiley:
“I’ve had a lot of good players that can rush the passer. We try to utilize our personnel and get the best players one-on-one. It sounds simple but it’s not easy to do, to get your best players one-on-one, or come up with a scheme where you don’t necessarily get somebody free, but you get a good match-up. Pro football is match-ups, and we’ve been able, through the years, to be able to get good match-ups and that’s helped us. Certainly the players first and the scheme second. We can scheme it enough to get pressure on the quarterback and give them problems. As far as Marcellus…he’s a great guy and a great worker and I think he’ll respond to our coaching. He’ll have a good year this year. He’s a good player.”
On your ability to get teams in the playoffs quickly:
“I hope it isn’t all luck. The last three times I’ve gone in as defensive coordinator we have gone to the playoffs with a team that wasn’t in the playoffs the year before. We had good players. Another reason I’m here is because of A.J. (Smith). He does a great job of getting personnel. He did that in Buffalo, he and John (Butler). But A.J. was a driving force behind the personnel there too. I think that’ll help us, besides having a good offensive team and special teams.”
On whether you can implement everything you want in one year:
“It depends on the personnel itself. I know we have a lot of young guys playing, but I think we started four or five rookies in New Orleans my first year there. Like Marty said, it’s really teaching. It’s teaching progression. You’ve got to see where you are with the players. Today’s game, especially with the salary cap, you have to get them to play quickly. Whether they’re young guys, or older guys or whatever, they have to be able to play. That’s what we have to do, teach those guys to play in our system as quickly as they can and be successful in that system.”
On how big of a job lies ahead of you:
“It’s a big job, but that’s the nature of this game. All of them are big jobs. You just find out the strengths and weaknesses of the players and you play to their strengths.”
On whether it’s your preference to play bump and run:
“That’s the way you play if you can because you’re going to cut down the number of passes they catch. I’m big on percentages of defense and if you can bump and run, if you get a Ty Law that can bump and run their best receiver and shut them down, you certainly can play better. If you have those kinds of people, you certainly want to utilize them and one of the ways you utilize them is to play some bump and run.”
On whether you’ve seen enough of this team yet:
“I haven’t yet. I like the players that they drafted in the last couple of years, especially in the secondary. They’re young players, but they certainly have talent. When we were watching the draft, we’d say ‘wow, that was a good pick.’ They’ve picked some good players that certainly have talent and we have to utilize their talents.”
On being in the same conference as offensive minded coaches like Dick Vermeil, Mike Shanahan and now Norv Turner:
“Well, we’ve got Schottenheimer here. I have been against a lot of those guys. I don’t know if that’s an advantage because they’re all good coaches and do a great job and their offenses are usually very good. It’ll be a challenge for us, but we’re ready to meet that challenge.”
On the difference in your role as a defensive coordinator as opposed to a head coach:
“Seventeen years out of my career I’ve been a defensive coordinator and most of that, I was a walk-around coordinator where I didn’t coach a position per-se. It’s similar to what I’ve been doing my whole career.”
On whether it’s easier to be a defensive coordinator than a head coach:
“It makes it easier because you know all the things that go on behind the scenes with the head coach and how much pressure there is. No matter what you say, and I’ve been there, it goes on your record. They really don’t put it on the assistant coaches record. They don’t say in the 17 years I was this and this. As a head coach, they said you won this many games, so a head coach and a quarterback are really the guys that the pressure’s on. I’ve been on the other side so I’ll try to help him as much as I can. That’s what my job is as assistant coach.”
On what you learned from your dad:
“He taught me a lot of things. I guess the first thing he taught me is to go to school on time because I got whipped because I went late the first time I went to school. He taught me about everything I know. Football-wise, not as much of the X’s and O’s as you would think, but more about working with people and how to treat people. Coaching is about teaching and that’s one of the first things he told me. You have to be a teacher. He’s influenced everything I have in football basically because he was my dad for my first 20 years and then I worked for him for 10 years. He’s really influenced my whole life as far as football and my life is concerned. It’s been a real positive for me because he’s a special dad as well as a special head coach that I’ve worked for.”
Marty Schottenheimer on Bum Phillips:
“He’s a special person, his father. He is a unique person. I competed against him too. My first loss in the National Football League was your dad. He kicked a 53-yard field goal into the open end in Cleveland.”
More from Wade Phillips on his father’s influence:
“We had quite a victory here coming in to San Diego. The Houston Oilers, I was coaching on that team and it was one of the biggest victories I’ve ever been associated with. The Chargers probably would have won the Super Bowl had we not come in here without Earl Campbell, without (Dan) Pastorini, without Kenny Burrough. Vernon Perry did get four interceptions on Dan Fouts which was unbelievable and we ended up winning that game. It was one of the best victories I’ve ever been around and I’ve been to the Super Bowl. It was pretty special.”
On the most important position you can add to through the draft:
“If you’re lucky and you can get it, I’ve coached Bruce Smith and Reggie White, if you have a player like that it changes what can happen in a ballgame. The defensive linemen certainly can be dominant, although I’ve had linebackers that have been dominant. Bryce Paup was the player of the year with 17 sacks and Rickey Jackson I had in New Orleans, but then I’ve had some great defensive backs like Steve Atwater and Dennis Smith. Any player that’s a great player you can utilize their talents and help yourself. It’s what they can do and you find what they can do and let them utilize that talent.”
On whether playmakers are coached or are they born:
“Hopefully coaching is a big part of it. I wouldn’t be in it if I didn’t think coaching had something to do with it. Once you have a great, great player like Bruce Smith or Reggie White, you have to be able to utilize their talent and let them do what they do well. That’s not hard to do with those guys. It’s not as much to do with a great player, but you really do have to coach great players. Some people back away from coaching great players and just kind of sponsor them and let them play, but actually you can help a great player more than you can help an average player. They have the talent to do almost anything you want them to do. If you get one, you’d like to try to help them be even better.”
On who is a great Charger on defense:
“I know Marcellus (Wiley). People say he didn’t have a great year last year, but he’s a good player and a good person. He works hard and tries to be a good player. I don’t know many of the players overall. I know who they are, but I haven’t studied them enough to say who’s a great player on defense.”
On how you match personnel to the system:
“That’s what the system does. Your system has to be flexible. It’s not what I know, it’s what the players can do. I think that’s the key to it. You have to be versatile enough in whatever you’re in to get your best players doing what they do well. That’s why I’ve never been set on only playing this defense this way.”
On how you’ll determine what kind of defense to play:
“It’s film work and really talking to Marty and the coaches about what the players can do. I can see them on film and it’s kind of like the Senior Bowl. You can see those players on film, but when you’re in the classroom with them and you’re on the field during the game with them, you know more about them. I’m going to find out from these guys really how they are and how they react to change and all those things. How smart they are, how quickly they learn football, those kinds of things. All that needs to be processed first before we decide what we’re doing.”
On how soon you’ll need to decide which defense you’ll play:
“When you start working with the players. We’re in our offseason so we won’t start working with the players until later on.”
On what bothers you about a player:
“I think it’s self-discipline really. We can discipline players, but if they don’t have self-discipline, that bugs me. We’re going to try to get them to do the things that we want done the right way. My dad always said there’s two kinds of players you don’t want, ones that do everything you say and ones that don’t do anything you say. Ones that do everything you say, they don’t have any initiative and the ones who don’t do anything you say are hard to coach. Anybody in between that, I’m alright with.”
On where Bruce Smith fit into that description:
“Bruce would do what you say, but he did do a few things on his own. Those things he did on his own, when he’d do them and make the play, that’s the kind of player you want. That’s exactly the kind of guy he was, same with Reggie (White).”
On who you’d pick if you were starting a franchise today, Reggie White or Bruce Smith:
“I wouldn’t want either one of them to hear that I said the other one because I think a lot of both of them.”
posted by The Gryphon at 7:29 AM
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