HBO Sports examined the friendship and methods of Bill Belichick (BB) and Nick Saban. Here are my notes.
Belichick and Saban meet annually for an annual football conversation. HBO recorded the 2019 narrative.
"...when you get to the top of the mountain, you become the mountain because everyone's shooting at you." - Saban
"But there's another thirty teams in the NFL that I never hear from...I'm an AND and BUT guy...whatever comes behind BUT isn't good." - Saban
"The combine...it's a show." - Saban
"It's a piece of the puzzle..." - Belichick
"With Nick, his father was a perfectionist..."
"...get players to play with discipline, pay attention to detail, play the right way, with effort..." - Saban
"My dad...he was just fair...he made 'em better and he cared about 'em." - BB
"We won the game...why do we have to do this? Because it wasn't right." - Saban
"The biggest thing I learned in college was how to solve problems and how to think." -BB
"It's not really about what you want but what you're willing to do to get it." - Saban
"This isn't about a computer...we can't tackle." - BB
"They are teachers...passing on their defensive knowledge to their quarterbacks."
"Nick was the first coach I hired and the best coach I hired." - BB
Their three-word philosophy emerged (with Belichick and Saban) coaching the Browns, "do your job."
"It's hard to do your job if you don't know what your job is." - Mike Lombardi Don't assume that people know what to do.
The Browns went from last to first in the NFL on defense (points allowed) in four years.
"We had a lot of suffering to get to where we were." - Saban
"Coaches...have to be willing to buy in and do things the way we do here." - Saban
"Be ready to play but don't be surprised if you don't play." - BB
"Who cares how many likes you get from 2000 people you don't know...it's the 53 guys in the locker room that matter." - BB
"If you run the last one faster than you ran the other five, what's holding you back? Your talent is your nemesis." - Saban
"Talent is maximized by effective teaching." - Narrator
"Nobody motivates the tiger...but people we need to motivate them." - Saban
"High achievers don't like mediocre people and mediocre people don't like high achievers." - Saban
"Good players can't overcome bad coaching." - BB
"You never want to let your team down (as a coach)..." - BB
"I don't like to ever walk in a room and feel like we didn't give our guys a chance to be successful." - Saban
"It's amazing to me how people respond better when things go poorly...survival is more human nature than to be special good." - Saban
"When he's talking to the media, it's another chance to get the message to the players." - Ernie Adams (special assistant)
"Players and staff expect attention to detail in every aspect of the game." - Narrator
"When Nick Saban's team is up by 52 with eight seconds left, mental mistakes are still unacceptable." - Narrator
"I study their schemes because if it's good enough for Nick, it's probably good enough for me." - BB
"Everything's important; it all matters." - BB
Summary
- "You become the mountain."
- "Learn how to solve problems and think."
- "Do your job."
- "Don't assume people know what to do."
- "Your talent is your nemesis."
- "Nobody motivates the tiger."
- "Expect attention to detail."
- "Everything's important."
Lagniappe. "Sustainability." Dave Smart discusses the ability to play harder for longer. In "The Coach's Guide to Teaching," Doug Lemov informs attention similarly, the ability to maintain unbroken focus. Better attentiveness during practice can translate to better focus during games.
Lagniappe 2. There are so many ways to defend the side pick-and-roll. This video shows the trap and x-out to cover the pop. We don't have the acumen at our level to protect this way.
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