雷もなっているし、
雨もかなり強く降っています。
でもデイビーに着いたとき、車からでようと思っても
全く前が見えない状態のような
スコールを経験してからそれ以上のどしゃぶり雨は
経験していません。
雨もかなり強く降っています。
でもデイビーに着いたとき、車からでようと思っても
全く前が見えない状態のような
スコールを経験してからそれ以上のどしゃぶり雨は
経験していません。
ちょっとみにくいですが、
かもめみたいな鳥がとまっています。
あ～ぁ、Fort Laudedaleに行きたいなぁー
と感じる憂鬱な日曜の午後です。
かもめみたいな鳥がとまっています。
あ～ぁ、Fort Laudedaleに行きたいなぁー
と感じる憂鬱な日曜の午後です。
Q: How are you looking to fill any remaining holes in the team?
A: I think evaluation is the key word in any addition that we make to the club. The key is how well we evaluate the players that we bring to the team and how they are going to impact our success. This is true whether it’s in the draft, in free agency, in the June 1 cuts, or even in the fall, because you are always trying to improve your roster, not just starters, but individuals who can develop into good players. My old coach, Don James, told me once, if you look at the bottom half of your roster, that will go a long way in determining how good of team you have. If you have good players there, you are going to have lots of depth, you are going to have good special teams, and you are going to have pretty good players on the top half of your roster.
We are always trying to make good evaluations of the players we bring in here. Obviously when players have injuries, that makes it very, very difficult because one of the most difficult things as a coach that I have ever experienced is coaching guys when they are hurt. Regardless of what anybody says about their injuries, it’s the player himself who always has to make the decision about what he can and can’t do and how confident he feels about the progress he’s making with that particular injury. That’s what we will continue to do. It makes it really, really difficult when a guy is coming off an injury to try to make a prediction as to what his productivity could be and what his health in the future is going to be. That all affects the contribution he can make to your team.
Q: How are you looking for your draft choices to develop?
A: I think it is important that our top draft picks, especially the first four round guys, make a positive contribution to our team. I think to do that they need to be good football players. We don’t need to make unrealistic expectations for them. There is no reason to make comparisons with anyone else. They need time to develop and make improvement. These guys are all talented guys and we selected them in a place where our team needs them to make positive contributions. If they are good football players and play with consistency, they are going to have an impact on our team.
I think it is very, very unfair to start saying, “This guy is the second pick in the draft, so he should be as good as Peyton Manning.” If we are going to make those kinds of comparisons, make sure we make them apples to apples. Let’s compare that guy’s first year to the other guy’s first year, not to where that player is now after he has been in the league for seven or eight years. Those expectations, just like the sophomore jinx that I mentioned, really make it hard for players to feel good about what they are trying to do. We want our young guys to feel good and confident and enhance their development and not think they have to prove to the world that they have to justify where they got drafted.
Q: What affect do injuries have on your plans for the season?
A: I think that injuries make it even more important that you try to add a quality football player to your team at any position. I think we have some areas of concern, not necessarily with the ability of the players that we have, but in some cases with the health of those players. An example would be the defensive tackle position or nose guard. We have two outstanding players here at that position. Both have been injured. Both missed a significant amount of playing time last year. This is just one example. Just as there is a concern for a player coming in to our organization coming off an injury, there is also a concern for players that we have on our team who are coming off an injury -- how they can respond, when they’ll be ready, and how much practice they’ll be able to get in their preparation to get ready for the season. That’s an area of concern at that particular position, which is a good example of how you evaluate and look at every position on your team and how injuries can affect your team’s preparation and performance.
Q: Is it true that you’re an avid golfer?
A: I try to keep low expectations for what my golf game is. First of all, I don’t play that much. I do enjoy playing. It’s a lot of fun to play. Playing golf is probably the best metaphor for life for anybody who plays it. You stand on every tee, and it’s a beautiful hole. It’s like a day in your life. You hit the ball, you have a nice green fairway down there, you have a rough that you can hit it into, you have the woods that you can hit it into, you have a hazard you can hit it into. You have to deal with the good shots and the bad shots. The most important thing is that you focus on the next shot. When you hit it in the sand trap, you have to make a great shot to get up and down. That’s a lot how competition goes. That’s a lot how life goes. That’s one of the reasons that I like golf so much. I really do have to focus on the next shot because when you are always in the rough, when you are always in the trap, when you are always in the hazard, you really learn how to overcome adversity.
やっぱり新装開店ドルフィンズスタジアムに応援に行きたい
A: I think evaluation is the key word in any addition that we make to the club. The key is how well we evaluate the players that we bring to the team and how they are going to impact our success. This is true whether it’s in the draft, in free agency, in the June 1 cuts, or even in the fall, because you are always trying to improve your roster, not just starters, but individuals who can develop into good players. My old coach, Don James, told me once, if you look at the bottom half of your roster, that will go a long way in determining how good of team you have. If you have good players there, you are going to have lots of depth, you are going to have good special teams, and you are going to have pretty good players on the top half of your roster.
We are always trying to make good evaluations of the players we bring in here. Obviously when players have injuries, that makes it very, very difficult because one of the most difficult things as a coach that I have ever experienced is coaching guys when they are hurt. Regardless of what anybody says about their injuries, it’s the player himself who always has to make the decision about what he can and can’t do and how confident he feels about the progress he’s making with that particular injury. That’s what we will continue to do. It makes it really, really difficult when a guy is coming off an injury to try to make a prediction as to what his productivity could be and what his health in the future is going to be. That all affects the contribution he can make to your team.
Q: How are you looking for your draft choices to develop?
A: I think it is important that our top draft picks, especially the first four round guys, make a positive contribution to our team. I think to do that they need to be good football players. We don’t need to make unrealistic expectations for them. There is no reason to make comparisons with anyone else. They need time to develop and make improvement. These guys are all talented guys and we selected them in a place where our team needs them to make positive contributions. If they are good football players and play with consistency, they are going to have an impact on our team.
I think it is very, very unfair to start saying, “This guy is the second pick in the draft, so he should be as good as Peyton Manning.” If we are going to make those kinds of comparisons, make sure we make them apples to apples. Let’s compare that guy’s first year to the other guy’s first year, not to where that player is now after he has been in the league for seven or eight years. Those expectations, just like the sophomore jinx that I mentioned, really make it hard for players to feel good about what they are trying to do. We want our young guys to feel good and confident and enhance their development and not think they have to prove to the world that they have to justify where they got drafted.
Q: What affect do injuries have on your plans for the season?
A: I think that injuries make it even more important that you try to add a quality football player to your team at any position. I think we have some areas of concern, not necessarily with the ability of the players that we have, but in some cases with the health of those players. An example would be the defensive tackle position or nose guard. We have two outstanding players here at that position. Both have been injured. Both missed a significant amount of playing time last year. This is just one example. Just as there is a concern for a player coming in to our organization coming off an injury, there is also a concern for players that we have on our team who are coming off an injury -- how they can respond, when they’ll be ready, and how much practice they’ll be able to get in their preparation to get ready for the season. That’s an area of concern at that particular position, which is a good example of how you evaluate and look at every position on your team and how injuries can affect your team’s preparation and performance.
Q: Is it true that you’re an avid golfer?
A: I try to keep low expectations for what my golf game is. First of all, I don’t play that much. I do enjoy playing. It’s a lot of fun to play. Playing golf is probably the best metaphor for life for anybody who plays it. You stand on every tee, and it’s a beautiful hole. It’s like a day in your life. You hit the ball, you have a nice green fairway down there, you have a rough that you can hit it into, you have the woods that you can hit it into, you have a hazard you can hit it into. You have to deal with the good shots and the bad shots. The most important thing is that you focus on the next shot. When you hit it in the sand trap, you have to make a great shot to get up and down. That’s a lot how competition goes. That’s a lot how life goes. That’s one of the reasons that I like golf so much. I really do have to focus on the next shot because when you are always in the rough, when you are always in the trap, when you are always in the hazard, you really learn how to overcome adversity.
やっぱり新装開店ドルフィンズスタジアムに応援に行きたい
Q: Can you talk about what Hudson Houck brings to your coaching staff?
A: I think one of the major things you would like to establish is to have a great coaching staff all the way around. Obviously on every staff you have some really strong, experienced guys that are going to contribute heavily to the development of players at critical positions. Hudson Houck has certainly done that in our offensive line. I think that is a developmental position for players. It is critical at every position, but especially at offensive line. There is so much technique involved, so much working together. Hudson’s experience certainly lends a lot of positives to our offensive system and schemes. He certainly categorizes and organizes our offensive system for our players so they have the ability to effectively go out and execute it. I think that is also important because confused players don’t play very well. I am really pleased with the progress that we’ve made at that position. I am pleased with the improvement of the players that we had on our team as well as some of the newer guys and how they are fitting in.
Q: What were you hoping to accomplish during the O.T.A. days the mini-camps you’ve held so far?
A: We talked about our O.T.A. days as being a learning experience for our players. That is really what we want it to be, and I think it is critical. That is why the league allows you to have an extra mini-camp, which we are going to use in the form of six extra O.T.A. days down the road in June.
First of all, I have been very pleased with the players’ attitude and their response and enthusiasm to what we are trying to do, how we are trying to do it on the field and also their understanding why it is important for us to try to do things as a team, to give us the best opportunity to have success together as a team. We have implemented a lot of new things on both sides of the ball. We are pleased with the progress that we have made. We certainly have a lot of additional things to accomplish and cover that happens in a first year learning of a system. On defense, the 4-3, 3-4 combination has gone extremely well. I think the players have bought into it. They like it. There are a lot of challenges and new things for them to learn, which makes it interesting. The upbeat tempo that we’ve implemented seems to be something that they buy into as well.
Q: How have the players responded to the things you are trying to implement?
A: I haven’t found our players here to be set in their ways. We have a lot of good football players who have played a lot of good football here. We added to them four or five new players on defense, and some draft picks. I just see a bunch of guys that are doing the best they can to try to learn what is expected of them, learn what their job is and go out and try to do it with a lot of effort and enthusiasm. Their intensity has been very good. The sense of urgency has been very good. The intelligence that our players have tried to approach to learn the system has been really even better than I hoped it would be. I haven’t seen any negative attitude by any player about anything that we are trying to do.
Q: What is happening with the secondary?
A: We’re always trying to upgrade with any football player that could help our team at any position. When we traded Pat Surtain, it was not a matter of whether we liked him as a football player or not. It was a business decision that we needed to make. We got a second-round draft pick for him and we got a good player with that pick (Matt Roth). In the secondary in general, we have two new safeties.
Will Poole was a second-year player, a developmental player at that position who hadn’t played that much. We were looking to see the best way to use him in our defense, whether it was to be a fifth defensive back, or any other way he could best contribute. His attitude toward making those adjustments was very good. It is unfortunate when players get injured. Will was playing a deep ball in practice and jumped up to make a catch. On his way up, he twisted and came down with an injury. The only reason that we haven’t made any kind of public announcement on this is because our doctors like to do the surgery and find out exactly what they are dealing with before we make any kind of announcement. When that announcement is made, it is accurate. The information is correct. There is no speculation on how long the player will be out and what our plan is going to be with him. That is exactly what we are trying to do with Will. Hopefully we can put him on PUP and maybe get him back at some point in the season. We were pleased in the progress that he was making.
Regarding the rest of the secondary, Sam Madison is the veteran holdover, but basically past that everything is up in the air with the players that we brought in here and Travis Daniels, the player that we drafted. We need some people to come to the forefront and play some good football for us at those positions. The corner position is critical to the defense. I think that is the position that probably can put limitations on what you can do on defense. What they can do determines whether or not you give up big plays. The more cornerbacks can do, the more you can create opportunities for your front seven and allow other people to make plays
A: I think one of the major things you would like to establish is to have a great coaching staff all the way around. Obviously on every staff you have some really strong, experienced guys that are going to contribute heavily to the development of players at critical positions. Hudson Houck has certainly done that in our offensive line. I think that is a developmental position for players. It is critical at every position, but especially at offensive line. There is so much technique involved, so much working together. Hudson’s experience certainly lends a lot of positives to our offensive system and schemes. He certainly categorizes and organizes our offensive system for our players so they have the ability to effectively go out and execute it. I think that is also important because confused players don’t play very well. I am really pleased with the progress that we’ve made at that position. I am pleased with the improvement of the players that we had on our team as well as some of the newer guys and how they are fitting in.
Q: What were you hoping to accomplish during the O.T.A. days the mini-camps you’ve held so far?
A: We talked about our O.T.A. days as being a learning experience for our players. That is really what we want it to be, and I think it is critical. That is why the league allows you to have an extra mini-camp, which we are going to use in the form of six extra O.T.A. days down the road in June.
First of all, I have been very pleased with the players’ attitude and their response and enthusiasm to what we are trying to do, how we are trying to do it on the field and also their understanding why it is important for us to try to do things as a team, to give us the best opportunity to have success together as a team. We have implemented a lot of new things on both sides of the ball. We are pleased with the progress that we have made. We certainly have a lot of additional things to accomplish and cover that happens in a first year learning of a system. On defense, the 4-3, 3-4 combination has gone extremely well. I think the players have bought into it. They like it. There are a lot of challenges and new things for them to learn, which makes it interesting. The upbeat tempo that we’ve implemented seems to be something that they buy into as well.
Q: How have the players responded to the things you are trying to implement?
A: I haven’t found our players here to be set in their ways. We have a lot of good football players who have played a lot of good football here. We added to them four or five new players on defense, and some draft picks. I just see a bunch of guys that are doing the best they can to try to learn what is expected of them, learn what their job is and go out and try to do it with a lot of effort and enthusiasm. Their intensity has been very good. The sense of urgency has been very good. The intelligence that our players have tried to approach to learn the system has been really even better than I hoped it would be. I haven’t seen any negative attitude by any player about anything that we are trying to do.
Q: What is happening with the secondary?
A: We’re always trying to upgrade with any football player that could help our team at any position. When we traded Pat Surtain, it was not a matter of whether we liked him as a football player or not. It was a business decision that we needed to make. We got a second-round draft pick for him and we got a good player with that pick (Matt Roth). In the secondary in general, we have two new safeties.
Will Poole was a second-year player, a developmental player at that position who hadn’t played that much. We were looking to see the best way to use him in our defense, whether it was to be a fifth defensive back, or any other way he could best contribute. His attitude toward making those adjustments was very good. It is unfortunate when players get injured. Will was playing a deep ball in practice and jumped up to make a catch. On his way up, he twisted and came down with an injury. The only reason that we haven’t made any kind of public announcement on this is because our doctors like to do the surgery and find out exactly what they are dealing with before we make any kind of announcement. When that announcement is made, it is accurate. The information is correct. There is no speculation on how long the player will be out and what our plan is going to be with him. That is exactly what we are trying to do with Will. Hopefully we can put him on PUP and maybe get him back at some point in the season. We were pleased in the progress that he was making.
Regarding the rest of the secondary, Sam Madison is the veteran holdover, but basically past that everything is up in the air with the players that we brought in here and Travis Daniels, the player that we drafted. We need some people to come to the forefront and play some good football for us at those positions. The corner position is critical to the defense. I think that is the position that probably can put limitations on what you can do on defense. What they can do determines whether or not you give up big plays. The more cornerbacks can do, the more you can create opportunities for your front seven and allow other people to make plays
Dolphins press release
Miami Dolphins Head Coach Nick Saban sits down for his first Q&A session with MiamiDolphins.com.
Q: How important is fan support to the team?
A: We have a responsibility and an obligation to the organization and to the fans. This is their team, it’s our team. Their support has a tremendous impact on our ability to be an overachieving team and play to our full potential. With their help, we have an opportunity to make Dolphins Stadium the toughest place to play for any team that comes to play here. Every one of our fans can help us compete; they can make a positive contribution to help us win. And when we’re not playing well, their support and enthusiasm can help us overcome those rough times.
Q: People assume that because you’re coaching background has been on the defensive side of the ball that you’re conservative by nature. What is your coaching philosophy?
A: It’s kind of interesting that people make such generalizations about what you are based on your background. I don’t really think that I have been conservative in anything that I have done as a coach, whether it is how we play defense, how we play offense or how even we play on special teams. I think the most important thing is to take the team that you have and try to get that team to play to the best of its ability. Every team has different strengths and weaknesses.
To look at the teams at LSU, we won the Sugar Bowl in 2001 with one of the worst defenses in the SEC, but one of the two best offenses in terms of our ability to throw the ball. Rohan Davey was the leading passer in the league. When we won the national championship, we actually won with balance. We were pretty good on offense, we were pretty good on defense. I think that’s probably how you would see most teams that get to the Super Bowl. They are not deficient in any area and are productive in both. Last year our LSU team probably won a little more with defense. We had an inexperienced quarterback. We weren’t able to do some of the things offensively we would have liked to, to feature some of the players that we had. We probably were a little more conservative and won with defense.
As I mentioned, every team that goes to the Super Bowl plays good defense, but they also have an ability to score points. I think our No. 1 goal as an offense is to score points and as a defense to be hard to score on. What we are interested in is to play winning football. There are some key ingredients to playing winning football, such as not turning the ball over and creating explosive plays. Your ratio between those two things, turnovers and big plays -- how many you give up, how many you get when you play defense, how many turnovers you give up when you have the ball on offense and how many big plays you make -- are really critical factors in winning and losing.
To do this well you have to have an efficient passing team. You have to be effective in protection and how you throw the ball down the field because that’s probably the best way to make big plays. Playing winning football is being a good third-down team, scoring touchdowns in the red zone, and having good balance in running and passing. You also have to play well in special situations like goal line, short yardage, two-minute, four-minute, and taking the air out of the ball, because you have to close the game out. By finishing well, that gives your team the best chance to be successful in those close games that usually are decided in those circumstances and situations at the end. All these things contribute to our ability to be hard to score on and our ability offensively to score points. I think those are the ingredients to play winning football.
Q: What are your goals for the season?
A: Everyone wants to make expectations for the team, but really expectations are very, very dangerous. When you have high expectations, you have high frustration. We’re in the business of trying to be competitors, the best possible competitors that we can be. You want to focus on the next play. You never want to focus on the scoreboard.
As a team, it is just the opposite of being a fan in terms of how you view the game. We have to focus on the next play. We want to be an overachieving team. It’s kind of like climbing a mountain. It’s very treacherous, it’s dangerous. You start a base camp, you go up, and you have to focus all the time on what you are doing and what the next step is. You don’t think about the top and planting the flag until you get there.
When you create expectations or you talk about expectations, I think you just set yourself up, sometimes, for frustration. It’s what the sophomore jinx is all about. You’ve heard of that. Everybody has heard of that. Where does that come from? People that have a sophomore jinx always have a tremendous first year. Then the next year the expectations are high. They gained 1,000 yards, now they want to gain 1,400 yards. That’s all they talk about. They forget all the things that they focused on technically to get to where they want to be. What I would like for our fans to focus on is what do we need to do technically to be the best team that we can be. That’s what we are trying to do here as an organization.
今シーズンはセイバン足固めのシーズンとなるのであろうか？
Miami Dolphins Head Coach Nick Saban sits down for his first Q&A session with MiamiDolphins.com.
Q: How important is fan support to the team?
A: We have a responsibility and an obligation to the organization and to the fans. This is their team, it’s our team. Their support has a tremendous impact on our ability to be an overachieving team and play to our full potential. With their help, we have an opportunity to make Dolphins Stadium the toughest place to play for any team that comes to play here. Every one of our fans can help us compete; they can make a positive contribution to help us win. And when we’re not playing well, their support and enthusiasm can help us overcome those rough times.
Q: People assume that because you’re coaching background has been on the defensive side of the ball that you’re conservative by nature. What is your coaching philosophy?
A: It’s kind of interesting that people make such generalizations about what you are based on your background. I don’t really think that I have been conservative in anything that I have done as a coach, whether it is how we play defense, how we play offense or how even we play on special teams. I think the most important thing is to take the team that you have and try to get that team to play to the best of its ability. Every team has different strengths and weaknesses.
To look at the teams at LSU, we won the Sugar Bowl in 2001 with one of the worst defenses in the SEC, but one of the two best offenses in terms of our ability to throw the ball. Rohan Davey was the leading passer in the league. When we won the national championship, we actually won with balance. We were pretty good on offense, we were pretty good on defense. I think that’s probably how you would see most teams that get to the Super Bowl. They are not deficient in any area and are productive in both. Last year our LSU team probably won a little more with defense. We had an inexperienced quarterback. We weren’t able to do some of the things offensively we would have liked to, to feature some of the players that we had. We probably were a little more conservative and won with defense.
As I mentioned, every team that goes to the Super Bowl plays good defense, but they also have an ability to score points. I think our No. 1 goal as an offense is to score points and as a defense to be hard to score on. What we are interested in is to play winning football. There are some key ingredients to playing winning football, such as not turning the ball over and creating explosive plays. Your ratio between those two things, turnovers and big plays -- how many you give up, how many you get when you play defense, how many turnovers you give up when you have the ball on offense and how many big plays you make -- are really critical factors in winning and losing.
To do this well you have to have an efficient passing team. You have to be effective in protection and how you throw the ball down the field because that’s probably the best way to make big plays. Playing winning football is being a good third-down team, scoring touchdowns in the red zone, and having good balance in running and passing. You also have to play well in special situations like goal line, short yardage, two-minute, four-minute, and taking the air out of the ball, because you have to close the game out. By finishing well, that gives your team the best chance to be successful in those close games that usually are decided in those circumstances and situations at the end. All these things contribute to our ability to be hard to score on and our ability offensively to score points. I think those are the ingredients to play winning football.
Q: What are your goals for the season?
A: Everyone wants to make expectations for the team, but really expectations are very, very dangerous. When you have high expectations, you have high frustration. We’re in the business of trying to be competitors, the best possible competitors that we can be. You want to focus on the next play. You never want to focus on the scoreboard.
As a team, it is just the opposite of being a fan in terms of how you view the game. We have to focus on the next play. We want to be an overachieving team. It’s kind of like climbing a mountain. It’s very treacherous, it’s dangerous. You start a base camp, you go up, and you have to focus all the time on what you are doing and what the next step is. You don’t think about the top and planting the flag until you get there.
When you create expectations or you talk about expectations, I think you just set yourself up, sometimes, for frustration. It’s what the sophomore jinx is all about. You’ve heard of that. Everybody has heard of that. Where does that come from? People that have a sophomore jinx always have a tremendous first year. Then the next year the expectations are high. They gained 1,000 yards, now they want to gain 1,400 yards. That’s all they talk about. They forget all the things that they focused on technically to get to where they want to be. What I would like for our fans to focus on is what do we need to do technically to be the best team that we can be. That’s what we are trying to do here as an organization.
今シーズンはセイバン足固めのシーズンとなるのであろうか？