Peter King: MMQB - Jason Garrett Addresses The 2013 Dallas Cowboys

boozeman

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http://mmqb.si.com/2013/07/21/peter-king-the-mmqb-monday-morning-quarterback/

OXNARD, Calif. — “Life,’’ Jason Garrett told his team Saturday afternoon, pacing in front of his 90 players, “is about opportunities. The NFL! The Dallas Cowboys! Are you kidding me? Since we were this high we wanted to be here.”

I find myself this morning feeling the same as Garrett. Only I’ve got a different team. It’s called The MMQB, a site under the Sports Illustrated umbrella devoted to all things football, using all the means of modern media to disseminate that football prose and information. Unlike Garrett, I haven’t made a speech to fire up the troops. I don’t have much Lombardi in me anyway, and we’ve been too busy working to bring you a new era of football coverage beginning today. I’ll get back to what you can expect from our newfangled website in a bit.

First things first: I’m excited about our first post. I’ve always been intrigued with the speeches coaches make to teams at the start of training camp, in part because I once heard a 1973 tape of Paul Brown’s to his Cincinnati Bengals. I wrote about that speech a year ago. The rules, the expectations, the mundane, the inspirational. In the spring, I knew we’d be kicking off this new site around the start of NFL camps, and I went in search of a team that might let us not only write about a coach’s first speech of the season to his team, but show video of it. In our business today, we’ve all got to get wise to video. So after some convincing, Dallas owner Jerry Jones gave his blessing, along with coach Jason Garrett. And so, on Saturday, in his team meeting room a few long spirals from the Pacific Ocean, Garrett stepped to the front and laid out his hopes, plans, expectations and rules for the new season. To the best of my knowledge, I don’t believe a head coach’s full training-camp speech, the words and video, has ever seen the light of day … until today, in the first post in The MMQB history. We’re proud to bring it to you.


VIDEO LINK - The full 35-minute video can be found here. If you want the short-attention-span four-minute version with some highlights, it’s right here.


Three things I found compelling about Garrett’s presentation:


Notice how silent it is in the room? Never a peep in 36 minutes, and there was a sensitive microphone at work in the room. You notice it especially when the vague topic of leadership surfaces, and Garrett gets animated. “We want guys who are leaders. Leaders!’’ Garrett said, eyes wide. “Step up and be a leader. Lead this football team. LEAD IT! It’s time! It’s time to lead this football team! It’s your time!’’ When he’d pause, you’d hear nothing—not even a cough. It’s hard to read the mood and feelings of 90 men, of course. But the players’ focus is a sign, to me, that Garrett’s still got the attention of his team, after back-to-back disappointing 8-8 years.


• The son of a coach talks like a coach, paces like a coach and warns that players had better be able to take coaching. “The coaches I hate—that I had a visceral reaction to—were the guys who told me, ‘You’re doing a great job.’ … And allowing me to be as mediocre as mediocre could be,” Garrett said. “None of us need help being mediocre—especially me. Coach my ass! … You been to the Pro Bowl eight times? You’re getting your ass coached. You just got here 15 minutes ago? You’re getting your ass coached. First-round picks, free agents who signed for nothing—everybody’s getting coached.” I should hope so.


• Ever notice the NFL’s getting more and more careful with every utterance? Garrett wants to keep it that way. With the media, Garrett said, players should be “respectful, brief, boring and humble … Distinguish yourself with your play, not what you say.” My favorite thing of everything Garrett said is about tuning out the distractions that flood every NFL locker room. “Don’t listen to the noise,” he said. “Think Einstein listened to the noise? Think Martin Luther King listened to the noise? Be strong enough mentally, be strong enough physically” to tune the distractions out.

“We’re gonna establish an identity that lasts forever,” Garrett told his players. “That starts today.”

My aim is the same at The MMQB.

Our site, and football America, owe Jones and Garrett (and Cowboys PR VP Rich Dalrymple) a debt of thanks for educating fans on the hidden ritual that, this morning, is no longer hidden. Let me know what you thought of it.
 

mcnuttz

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boozeman

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Can't get the ADD version to link...you will need to go to the hyperlink at the top of the post to see it.

Interesting speech, although I have heard Garrett say basically the same thing about what kind of coaches annoyed him in Hard Knocks when he was but the lowly HC in waiting.

I don't know if these guys got the right message though. He kept talking about how lucky they were to be Cowboys. How great they were to wear the uniform.

I would prefer a more workmanlike "you are not special" approach rather than be proud of the glitz and glamour that goes with being a Cowboy.

It worked back in the day when the team had a bunch of pimps and a head coach that could manipulate them. I don't know if it works for this group or for Garrett himself.

His wide eyes at times were a bit unnerving.
 

Bob Roberts

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"You look really cute in shorts? You're getting your ass squeezed!"
 

boozeman

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Did anyone snicker after seeing the robot use the F-word? I did.
 

1bigfan13

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Seemed like three-fourths of them were more into their iPad/Playbook rather than listening to his message.

I could have sworn that was Ratliff in the back corner playing Candy Crush at the 17:20 mark.
 

Genghis Khan

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Seemed like three-fourths of them were more into their iPad/Playbook rather than listening to his message.

I could have sworn that was Ratliff in the back corner playing Candy Crush at the 17:20 mark.
I'm pretty sure they had Garrett's speech and all the rules, agenda etc on their iPads, so they probably looking at them because they were reading along. Garrett made allusion to it towards the end.
 

Cotton

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Archer: Jason Garrett gives glimpse to his passion

Archer: Jason Garrett gives glimpse to his passion

Jason Garrett gives glimpse to his passion

July, 22, 2013

By Todd Archer | ESPNDallas.com


OXNARD, Calif. – The popular perception of Jason Garrett is that he is robotic, without personality because of how he often presents himself in the public through the media.

He is careful with his words so as to not give away secrets, whether big or small, so as to not hammer a player, whether he needs it or not.

If you ask his friends, that’s not who he is. He has a sense of humor. He has a passion. He is not what many people think.

Rarely has he let his guard down. He did it after the Cowboys’ win last year at Cincinnati on the day after Jerry Brown died. For five minutes straight he talked about Brown and Josh Brent, who was alleged to have been driving the car, and how the news affected the team. It was a shining moment for him.

On Monday, Peter King’s new Web site, TheMMQB, aired Garrett’s introductory speech to the players last Saturday.

The 35-minute speech touched on a number of subjects. It had passion, emotion and enthusiasm, which is what Garrett tells his players to have every day.

One quote: “The best (expletive) football teams I’ve been on, the quarterback held them accountable, the middle linebacker held them accountable, the pass rusher held them accountable, the tight end held them accountable. This is how we do stuff. This is the Cowboys. We’re trying to do something.”

At his daily press briefing, Garrett said he views speaking in front of the team as the most important part of his job.

“As a leader in any organization (you have to) provide perspective, inspiration and motivation and create a vision for your football team and do everything you can to get the right people to help you accomplish that vision,” Garrett said. “You have to give a path and a road map, but you also have to give some inspiration, you have to give some motivation to get out there each and every day to do the things they need to accomplish what that goal or vision is.”

Why did Garrett allow the cameras in? It wasn’t exactly his idea. He called it a collective decision, which means owner and general manager Jerry Jones had a big say in wanting it done. He did not believe any secrets were given away with a lot of the speech focusing on the dos and don’ts of camp, not the Xs and Os.

“We thought it was pretty innocuous to share,” Garrett said.

But did it help you see a different side to Garrett as he enters his third full season as head coach?
 

boozeman

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But did it help you see a different side to Garrett as he enters his third full season as head coach?
Not really. We saw Garrett address the team during Hard Knocks and with some of the exact same material.

Although he did drop a few F-bombs and give us the soon-to-be-patented Garrett Crazy Eyes:

 

Texas Ace

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Not really. We saw Garrett address the team during Hard Knocks and with some of the exact same material.

Although he did drop a few F-bombs and give us the soon-to-be-patented Garrett Crazy Eyes:

:lol
 

Cotton

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Garrett calls pre-camp speech posted by Peter King 'nuts-and-bolts,' but agrees motivation No. 1 part of his job

Cowboys coach Jason Garrett spent Monday morning as an internet sensation.

His pre-training camp speech to the team was posted by Sports Illustrated’s Peter King, touted as a behind-the-scenes look at Garrett’s motivational ability. Garrett said it was just a routine “nuts-and-bolts” pre-camp address, but he agreed it could be seen as motivational.

In fact, he said that’s the No. 1 aspect of his job.

“What you try to do as a leader of any organization is provide perspective, inspiration, motivation, create a vision for your football team, create a vision for your organization and do everything you can to get the right people to help you accomplish that vision,” he said. “And you have to give them a path. You have to give them a structure. You’ve got to give them a road map. But you also have to give them some inspiration. You have to give them some motivation to get up each and every day to do the things they need to do to accomplish what that goal or vision is. So that’s my job. That’s our coaches’ job. I tell our guys all the time: if you’re a human being, you need inspiration, you need motivation. I don’t care who you are, how strong you are mentally. And it’s just part of what I believe I have to do, what our coaches need to do and really what our players need to do for each other.”

The access granted for the speech was unusual for the Cowboys. Garrett said it was “an organizational decision,” unwittingly drawing laughs from the assembled reporters.

“It certainly wasn’t my decision by itself. It was a collective decision,” Garrett said, smiling himself. “We had some good discussions. As you know, Peter King is starting a website with Sports Illustrated. He’s been a great friend to the NFL and a great friend to the Cowboys for years. We thought it was worthwhile there.”

Garrett said the speech really wasn’t anything to write home about.

“To be honest with you, it was pretty much a nuts-and-bolts meeting,” he said. “That’s a hard meeting to have because it’s a lot of policy, a lot of expectations and those kinds of things. You try to mix in some inspiration, some motivation, perspective, direction, all of those things. That’s one of those nuts-and-bolts types of meetings that we thought was pretty innocuous to share.”

-- Carlos Mendez
 

bbgun

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A 35-minte Red speech? I'd rather attend an insurance seminar.
 
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