Dallas Cowboys Head Coach Wade Phillips

PRESS RELEASES FROM THE INTERNATIONAL SPORTS MOVEMENT

Wednesday, November 7, 2007
How much extra weight are you putting on this game given the fact that you would put the Giants two games back in the division and own the tiebreaker with a win?
This is the biggest game of the year. It is the only one you can do anything about anyway. We feel like it is a really big game and it is a big opportunity for us. Like you said, if we could win the head-to-head series, that would put us a step up on them, but it is a big challenge.
What is different about the Giants now that they have turned it around?
Well, I thought they were a good football team when we played them, I said that, and I still think they are a good football team. I guess they lost to Green Bay and didn’t start off like they wanted to, but they have gotten better and better. They have very good personnel, good coaching, and they do a good job all the way around. To win six in a row… we won five and that was very tough. To win six in a row and then have a bye week and play at home, I think they will be at their best.
Is it surprising that they have been able to turn it around to the degree that they have?
No. I think Strahan was just coming back, I think they were getting used to each other certainly, and a new scheme and so forth. It seems like they have settled into it. I believe they are leading – in fact I know they are leading the NFC in defense, so they have come around really well.
How much is Tank Johnson going to play this week?
We will put him in the rotation and it depends a lot on physically where he is, but he seems in great shape. We will put him in the defensive line rotation.
Tom Coughlin has seemed to make some big adjustments to his style this year. When you have been in the league as long as he has is it hard to make those kinds of changes?
Tom Coughlin has been a really good coach for a long time and he has adjusted to whatever he needed to do. It is just another example of good coaching. We had a team in Buffalo that started out 0-3 one year and gosh, man, it was tough. My hat is off to him and their staff for starting 0-2 and there is a lot of criticism and so forth but to hold it together and do it the way he has done it I think says a lot about him and his staff.
Have you been surprised at all at the celebrity status Tony Romo has developed?
He is really focused on football. He is one of those guys that is a field house rat. He is always around on his days off and so forth. He wants to know things. I really haven’t worried about that with him at all. Since the first day I was here he was here trying to learn things; learn the new system and learn what we wanted from him. I am not surprised because it is the Dallas Cowboys as far as his notoriety and so forth. Anytime you are the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys there is going to be a lot of focus on you.
Is it sort of John Elway-esque?
Well it is and of course Elway established himself and there was a lot of hype about John because John was one of the greatest college players that I or anyone had ever seen. I think people were anticipating that. Here it took a little while for Tony to even start here. It has been a little different ride, but now he is getting great notoriety as Jim Kelly did and as have different quarterbacks that I have been around. They are the focus of the team and if you are winning certainly that helps.
Personality-wise, is he one of the easiest guys you have had to coach?
He is easy to coach because he wants to learn and he accepts his own mistakes. That is a good start for any player. He is always trying to get better. He is a great competitor, that is the great thing about it. In practice every play is a competition. He wants to make a good play every play. Even when we were in the off-season in our mini-camps and so forth you could tell that from him. I think that has been a real positive for him.
Does the notoriety and fan popularity of the Dallas Cowboys change the aspect of playing on the road for you?
I think it is a good situation. The town and the people here expect you to win and they are pulling for you and then you have a lot of fans on the road too. Anytime you feel warmth, so to speak, it makes you feel better, but it doesn’t help you between the stripes, especially playing on the road in New York.
Did you feel any warmth in Philadelphia the other night?
Ha ha. Well at the end of the game some of our fans were left so we did feel some there. It is tougher on the road certainly.
The Giants faded at the end of last season; do you see them having the talent to hang through the end of this season?
They are a very talented team and they are playing really well together. It is a game of streaks too and if you can win six in a row, because at San Diego we had a couple of streaks there, you get more and more confidence and you do better and better. Of course teams learn as they go too. They learn their own identities and certainly the Giants, I said it in the first game, I think they are a really good football team. I thought that the first game and even when we won I thought they were a very good team and I still do.
How surprised are you that the defense you coached last season in San Diego gave up 296 yards rushing to one running back?
We saw Adrian Peterson. He is a great back and he wasn’t even starting when we played him. He had a breakout game against Chicago too who I thought was really good on defense. It doesn’t surprise me that he is a great back and that he makes a lot of yardage. Obviously to set a NFL record is pretty amazing but he certainly has the ability.
Could you have imagined that your defense from last year would have a performance like that?
Well you would never imagine 296 certainly. I don’t pay much attention to [San Diego]. I am trying to pay attention to what we are doing. I know San Diego will come back. I think they are a really talented team with a lot of good coaches and so forth so I think they will do well. The season isn’t over, it is only half over.
What can you say about the Giants’ offensive line?
They are a very solid offensive line. Technically they do things really well. You can’t fool them very much. You can’t surprise them with too many things and then run block-wise they have some backs that can really run with the football. I think their offensive line, I don’t know if they get enough credit, but they should because they really do a good job of run blocking and adjusting to whatever you are doing.
How does it happen that a team can lose its all-time rushing leader and maintain the same level of success?
Good coaching. I think that has a lot to do with it. You have to adjust to your personnel and they have good players. One player certainly is important but they have shown that they have other good players to replace him offensively and their whole team is playing real well. It is coaching and it is the players themselves deciding what they want to do.


CONFERENCE CALL WITH DALLAS QB TONY ROMO
November 7, 2007


Q: In looking at the Giants’ defense, how different are they from the defense that played you guys opening day?


A: I still think they are the same defense. I think they just have gotten more in-tune to their scheme and ………. They are getting more familiar with what they are trying to do and they are playing some good football right now.
Q: When you see a defense getting after the quarterback as well as they have, though, in the last month, does that give you any second thoughts or hesitation about what you have to do back there to survive?
A: No, honestly I go into each game thinking that they are going to do something different; try and come after us and get to us. It will be no different this week. We are just trying to do what we do and I’ll try and get the ball out and let the other guys run with it.
Q: Are you surprised with the celebrity status that you have attained?
A: It is hard to explain when you say ‘surprised’ just because you hope to one day be really good at what you do. You work hard at trying to become a good quarterback and trying to win football games. I think the more you win the more people want to talk about you. But I think that as far as being a national celebrity, or whatever the term you used, I don’t know. But I think it is just something that people talk about and say but I don’t really think about. It is not really a big, huge, thing to me here. I never look at it in the third person and say, “Wow, look at what is going on around me; or look at how everything has changed.” It is just another part of my life that is moving along. You just try and keep going on and trying to set new goals along the way and get better. And do things to put your team in a position to win games. And all of that other stuff is just stuff that goes along with it. That will all fade when it is all done anyway.
Q: Do you think that there is a mystique that surrounds this team?
A: I don’t know. Anytime you play for the Cowboys franchise, it is a special deal in itself. And if you are playing well then I think, in some ways, a lot of people want to hear about it, talk about it and stuff --- whether it is good or bad. I just think that it is a topic of conversation. So it is something that sells, whether it is on TV or newspapers, or whatever. And people like to hear about it.
Q: You seem to be having a lot of fun. And you obviously don’t shy away from public appearances and being seen out in public. Has it been a difficult balance and how do you balance the football stuff and the celebrity status?
A: The reality of it is that I actually feel like that I don’t do a lot of stuff. The difference, though, is that any time I do, they run notes about it. And I think that is just part of the position. And I can relate to people—I told them this offseason - I probably did three things but all three were like television type of things that people could see and talk about it. Gosh, I was around this complex and lived here in Dallas a lot more this offseason but people don’t understand that because they don’t see you on a daily basis. And so you learn along the way to stop really caring about what people’s perceptions of you are. And just do what you know how to do and how to get yourself in a position to get better. I don’t mind all of the stuff that people talk about and you want to go along with it. I’m the only one who really knows whether I’m putting myself in a position to succeed by working and putting forth the effort week in and week out. I learned a long time ago you usually reap what you sow. So you just try and do it the right way.
Q: The Giants are 6-2. Last year they couldn’t quite finish the deal. Do you see them this year as a team maybe with some staying power and one of the teams that you actually have to beat in the NFC?


A: Yeah. I think they are definitely a great challenge for us and for any team in the NFC. They have a lot of talent. They have a lot of players that allow them to do a lot of different things, both offensively and defensively. So I definitely think they are going to be one of the teams you have to go through to come out of the NFC. And I think the coaching staff has them playing well up there. And it is going to be a fun game.
Q: Given what you just said, how much weight are you guys putting on this game knowing that if you beat the Giants, not only do you have a two-game lead, but you also win the tie-breaker?
A: Obviously it is important for the division and things of that nature. But we don’t stress any more importance from one game to the next. If we had lost to Miami in the second regular season game, it still counts the same as a loss to the Giants, that is given knowledge, like you said, that the Division aspect of it. And I think one of the good things that I have seen us doing is that we are just taking each week and we are going through and we are just playing at the same tempo and intensity level. We don’t treat any game much different than another. It is just we have another game on the schedule. You go out and you have to play and you have to try and win and you move along to the next one.
Q: When Tiki Barber retired a lot of people thought it would take the Giants quite a while to sort of snap back from that. Are you at all surprised at how well they have operated without their all time leading rusher?


A: First off, Tiki is an outstanding talent. So you never are really going to completely replace a guy like that. But I’m not surprised also that they are still doing what they are doing offensively. They have some players over there that are real, real good football players that you have to account for. I think that anytime you have that much talent, I don’t think any one player being taken out of the cog is going to really to change the production side of it. So I see them moving at --- I really thought they would continue to use some of the similar things they did last year. And if anything, they have a little more power running game instead of the different things that they did. But I don’t see too much difference.
Q: You go along and have a good game, a good game and all of a sudden you have the Buffalo game. How do you bounce back from that; an inexperienced quarterback having a bad game like that?


A: I just don’t think about it. You play and you hope you throw it to your guy more than the other team and move along when you don’t. You are kidding yourself if you think you are going to get to the postseason without any -- with just all good games. You are going to have ups and downs throughout the year. If you understand that going in, then you just say when it happens, “Okay, well you go back to the drawing board and you work harder next week and you come back and keep playing good, hopefully.” And I think that is what we have done. We have just put ourselves in a position to not really think about what we did last week – whether we win or lose – whether you played good or bad. You just move on and go to the next one and you just keep plugging along and now put some wins together.


Q: Where does that attitude come from? How are you so able to shake that off and the Seattle game last year, too?
A: I think my personality sometimes dictates that I understand that. I have said this before, really. If something on the football field is the worst thing that ever happens to me, then I probably have lived a pretty good life. And so the reality of it is, you want to play great, you want to work your butt off, and you put yourself in a position to be successful every single week. But I’m also very understanding that is not really likely. So sit back, enjoy the journey, work hard, and when Sundays come I really have this belief that you have done all you can. Now just go play. And if you are good enough to do it, you will do it. And if you are not, you aren’t. It is no secret; you just go out there and play. You have done everything you can up to that point. And I don’t think you have to be nervous of any of these things. You just go out there and play. If you have done enough to prepare and if you are good enough, you perform and if you haven’t and you didn’t, then you won’t. There is really no secret.
Q: Have you always had that kind of perspective?
A: Yeah, probably. I think just because --- probably for some reason it allows me to play good, or at my highest level, I guess, that I can play at mentally. It is just about – it is really not always about performance. I know that everyone wants to talk about it, but it is about winning and losing. You can play terrible for three and one-half quarters but if you do what it takes to win the game, then you did something right. And you could play great for three and one-half quarters, but if you do something wrong at the end of the game and you lose the game, well, who cares? It’s kind of like, talked about all of this stuff if you play one way or the other but I just don’t think about it like that. It is just another game you and you go out and you play it and you do the best you can and you prepare your butt off so you can be successful. But I don’t know that it is any bigger than that.
Q: Have you always had that perspective even when you were a kid and who taught you that?


A: Probably my dad. I wouldn’t say that I had it when I was a kid. When you are a kid you are just playing the game and you are just competing. I have always been very competitive as an individual. So that part of it has always been there. But I think as I got older I started to grow into the notion that we are always trying to win the Super Bowl, you are always trying to win this, or you are trying to get to this step, and usually when that happens the funniest part about it wasn’t actually winning the Super Bowl or winning these things, the best part of the journey, the time you took to get there; all of the things you had to do to get to that point. That was really the funnest part of the whole process. So I kind of learned along the way that, “Hey, you know what, enjoy the process; the good and the bad, but enjoy it and you will appreciate it that much more if the outcome ends up coming at some point.”


Q: You seem to be a guy that enjoys the game on the field; you are having fun off the field. Are you able to kind of step back and say, “This is the time of my life, I might as well have fun doing it.”
A: Well, I never look at it as the time of my life. I’m just like, “Hey, I’m destined to no good life after this.” But I think you just enjoy the ride. You get to do something that you love on a daily basis and you get to play a game for a living. Really, that is one of the neatest things, I’m sure, anybody could say they do for a living. You just try not to take it for granted. It is an enjoyable game. You get to hang out with your buddies and go out there and play some football. And I don’t know where else -- why wouldn’t you have fun?


Q: The Giants in recent drafts focused on defensive ends. Do you see them as significantly better equipped to put pressure on the quarterback than most of the teams in the game?


A: Oh yeah. That’s early. They have an outstanding pass rush. The coach puts them in good position with a lot of good schemes and I think that they create problems for other teams just because of their ability to win one-on-one matchups. And that is something that you, as an offense or as a defense, if you can win those matchups, you gain a huge advantage sometimes. I think they present a problem because they are so talented. And, once again though, it is hard for me to talk about it because we kind of just go by what we do. We are going to put our offense in; we are going out each week and see if it works. If teams are good enough to stop it, okay. If they are not, then we are going to do what we do. But it will be fun trying. It will be fun trying to get out of those d-linemen’s way.
Q: What are you going to do after football?


A: Probably just wither away and die somewhere. I’m not sure.
Q: Have you picked a place yet?
A: No, not yet. I’ll probably come to that at some point in the future, but right now I’m still doing all of this in Dallas. I might end up in Dallas, just stay here. I kind of like the area here. But part of me wants to go and just get away……..
Q: Inquiring minds want to know ……………….
A: I don’t know, we will have to wait and see.
Q: How much does the fact that you weren’t drafted – does that still motivate you at all, or is that ancient history?
A: That was never a motivation for me. I know some people talk about, “Hey, these people got drafted in front of me.” And they want to prove to the teams and stuff. I’m pretty realistic about things. I wasn’t very good coming out of college. And if I had been a GM or coach, I probably wouldn’t have drafted me, either. I just steadily improved and tried to work to get myself in a position to play at a level that you could play in this league. And hopefully take the next step and be a good player. But it was something that you had to go through. And it probably helped me in some facet that you don’t really think about. But it is just another walk of life, I guess.
Q: Do you get any strength from the fact – like this week you are going up against a quarterback who was the first pick in the draft?


A: No, the reason they were so highly picked was because they had outstanding college careers. The reason Eli was the first pick in the draft was because he was a great player. That is just part of the process …. He just blossomed a lot earlier than I ever did; that is for sure. So he was rewarded with that and that is more power to him. ……. You can go out here --- come from different places and still do alright. So we are trying to do that.
Q: How is your new income level?
A: It is so much money to me that it is kind of --- it’s almost not real when you think about it sometimes. I signed a $2 million signing bonus last year. At that time I was, “Whew, I’m rich.” That was a real big deal. This one more or less seems …… So I’m not probably quite as excited as I was about the last one. But obviously it is a neat thing and it is exciting. But the best part about it is the fact that the organization is really telling you that we are behind you and you are our guy. And we think we can go to where we are trying to go with you. That means more than the money ever could.