Friday Super Quotations: The Coaches

From Tampa, Florida

The head coaches brought the media portion of Super Bowl week to an end Friday morning with 30-minute press conferences. They and their players will now be off-limits to the media until after Sunday’s Super Bowl game at Raymond James Stadium.

Here’s some of the best of what they had to say on Friday.

MIKE TOMLIN (left), on his final message for his team on Saturday night and whether he’s prepared anything:

“I haven’t. I make a conscious effort to wing it. I think that’s real. I think our guys relate to that. It’s that way that I deal with them, for the most part. This week has been tougher than most in terms of trying to keep those thoughts out of my mind because there’s a lot to say. But at the same time, I’m intent on doing that (winging it). I’m going to just walk in and communicate with them like I always do. I never prepare for the night-before-the-game speech.”

TOMLIN, on what advantage the Steelers might have because of how many of their players have played in a Super Bowl:

“I think that if there is an advantage, it is in the week leading up to the game. I think the people who have been here before help the guys with some of the things that go along with game: taking care of personal business, taking care of family members, not letting those things be a distraction and helping them stay focused on what it is we need to do in terms of playing. In terms of the game itself, I would imagine whether you have been in it before or not, it’s going to be pretty big. Some people are going to be nervous, and some people are going to be more nervous than others. If they were nervous in the first game, I’m sure they are going to be nervous in this one. The game itself is the game that is going to play out. If there is an advantage, I think it’s in the preparation leading up to the game and in dealing with some of the things that you have to deal with leading up to the game.”

TOMLIN, on what it means to him to be the youngest head coach in Super Bowl history:

“You know, I feel extremely blessed. I haven’t spent a bunch of time dwelling on that, truth be known. Those things are nice things to talk about, but I imagine that won’t be a topic of discussion for long. Maybe next year at this time, there will be guys like (Denver Broncos head coach) Josh McDaniels or (Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach) Raheem Morris standing up here and you won’t be talking about me. That’s football.”

KEN WHISENHUNT, on what his team’s schedule will be on Saturday:

“Saturday will be a normal Saturday for us with the morning meetings and a walk through. They’ll have time in the afternoon to spend time with their family and take care of those things that they normally do, and then we’ll have our normal Saturday night meetings, our normal Saturday night routine. We’ll have a meal, we’ll have a special teams meeting, and we’ll have an offense and defense meeting. I think the biggest thing that you have to do is you have to keep a sense of normalcy with your players. By and large, players in the NFL are creatures of habit and if you can keep that as normal as possible, there’s a comfort level that goes with that. We’ll treat it much like a road game for us as far as Saturday night and what we do on Sunday morning before the game, and then obviously the game itself is a whole different set of issues because of the time and everything. You are there longer and you have more delays in this game, and those are things that we’ve talked about. But hopefully, once again, we’ll have that same normal Saturday night feel and the same Sunday feel, and we’ll play good.”

WHISENHUNT, on what he thought his chances of winning were when he first came to the Cardinals:

“I felt coming out of Pittsburgh that we had something that was good. There are a lot of ways to be successful in the NFL, and the way that we have done it is not the only way. It is something that we felt worked because we had gotten to the Super Bowl and we had won. I felt that we would be successful in Arizona. I felt there were a number of pieces that were in place there, from talent to a new stadium to an ownership that was committed to doing some of those things to win. And I’ve said this before: I was naïve enough to think that we could win in our first year there. What I’ve learned is that it’s a process you’ve got to go through and the biggest thing is getting your players and your team to believe in what you are doing. My first year, we had a little bit of success – we got to an 8-8 record, winning our last two games, and that helped provide the impetus for this season. This season was a little bit up and down for us, but at some point you get into a situation where you either get it as a football team or you don’t. I think after the New England game, our guys got it. Obviously having success in the playoffs has really further cemented that, and our guys are confident now in how we prepare, what it means for us to play Cardinals football, and that’s a big thing.”

WHISENHUNT, on Bill Cowher’s Saturday night motivational meetings and if he has something up his sleeve for this Saturday:

“I hope I have something up my sleeve, at least something that will help. I learned from Jeff Van Note as a player in the league. Seventeen years he was a player and he took notes in every meeting he was in. For myself, when Coach Cowher used to stand up and talk, I wrote all of that down. I told Coach Cowher that I have notebooks with little tabs in there from when he spoke before the Championship game, when he spoke before the Super Bowl, when he spoke at the mini-camp meeting, all of those things. I’d go back and look at those things and get ideas of where he was and what he was thinking about. I’ve been around Coach Cowher, Coach (Joe) Gibbs, Coach (Dan) Henning. I’ve been in situations that I’ve learned from, and when we get into this type of situation, I use those things to help me get an idea of what direction I am going. I also think about our football team and where we’ve come from and what we’ve accomplished and that governs it too. Our guys are ready to play. I don’t know that I have to say anything to get them ready to go. But I do believe that I’ve had a lot of help, some very good mentors, and that’s kind of where I derive a lot of what I say.”