Tony Dungy

I come in Wednesday morning. On my desk, there's two notes. Eric Rhett was supposed to be at an autograph session. He was 45 minutes late. Reagan Upshaw was visiting an elementary school. Supposed to be there, didn't show up. I've got this on my desk. I go into the team meeting room, and I put those two notes on the overhead projector, and I said, you know what? This is our problem. We're not accountable. We're not reliable. I don't know how to fix that. Only you guys can fix it. And I'm not going to talk about the Oakland Raiders. We're not going to talk about game plan, formations, tackles, defenses. You guys fix this. I was a little louder than that. And I left the room. And to this day, a lot of those Buccaneers say that's the only time coach ever blew up on me.

Jason Garrett

Our very first guest on Coach to Coach is super bowl champion Tony Dungy. Hey, let's get right to it. 1996, you get an opportunity to go be the head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a team that had been in the NFL for 20 years, made the playoffs three times, they'd won 30% of their games. It was not a successful franchise by any stretch of the imagination. What were you thinking about when you went down there trying to build the team in Tampa?

Tony Dungy

Well, I was excited. I did know that I only got the job because Jimmy Johnson and Steve Spurrier turned it down. But I felt like they had. We played against them. I was coaching Minnesota Vikings. We played them twice a year, and I saw talented players and guys who I knew could do the job, but I wasn't sure why they weren't winning. And I'd heard all the things from other people. You know, it's. You know, this is going on, that's going on, ownership, everything. But I looked at it as a challenge, and I wanted to establish a winning culture.

Jason Garrett

That.

Tony Dungy

That was my idea. I said, there's talent there. If we can put it together and get people thinking together, I think we can win. And it was. It was fun. It was not easy, but it was fun.

Jason Garrett

You know, you're part of one of the greatest teams, I think, in the history of the NFL and Pittsburgh. When you're thinking about winning culture in Tampa, is that what's going through your mind trying to recreate that?

Tony Dungy

Exactly. I got to Pittsburgh, and it was the middle of the 70s, the Dynasty era. They had won two Super Bowls, and our coach, Chuck Noel, just talks so much about attitude and togetherness and winning, and he Used to say, champions don't do extraordinary things. Champions do the ordinary things better than everyone else. And you win with fundamentals. You do things right all the time, and that's how you win. And I guess I was naive enough to believe that. I didn't realize we had 12 hall of Fame guys on the team and all this talent.

Jason Garrett

We.

Tony Dungy

But it was just everybody coming in, doing their job day in, day out. And the older guys, when I got there, they looked at me like I had an important job. I was a scout team guy, given the looks on defense, I was filling in wherever I could kind of hustle on special teams. But they made me feel like that was important, like I was part of the team. And that's what I took away from that. And of course, Jason, when I got there and we made the team, Mr. Rooney, our owner, our Rooney senior, tremendous man. Every rookie, once you got announced on the team, he'd bring you into his office, sit you down and say, hey, congratulations. You're going to love being here. We've got a great atmosphere, we've got a phenomenal city, great fans. They're going to be waving towels, calling your name, buying your jerseys, but you can't just take it in. And I'll never Forget this. It's 50 years ago, but it's coming to me. And he said, you've got to be part of the city, you got to be part of the community. We want you to move here, make Pittsburgh a better place to live. Don't just win games on Sunday for us. You're representing our family, you're representing the fans and every young guy. When you made the team, that's how you felt. This is the Pittsburgh Steelers, it's the Rooneys, it's the city. Let's go. And that's what I wanted to create in Tampa. Hey, we want to make the city a better place. We want you guys to be role models. I had three young kids at the time, and I told every one of my players, my kids look up to you, and I want them to look up to you. So we're going to win, but we're going to win the right way. And you guys are going to. You're going to be the role models for Tampa. And I think the guys, they got energy from that and they wanted to do that.

Jason Garrett

Yeah, it's amazing how that leadership starts at the top. You know, it's so funny, I chuckled to myself when you started mentioning Coach Knowles, quote, because I was the head coach of the Cowboys for nine years, and we had a Chuck Noel quote on our wall during that time, which is, like, sacrilege, right? I mean, I'm with the Cowboys, but, you know, it came from Rod Marinelli, who was. Who was with you. And we talked about it all the time. The best teams do the big basic, fundamental things better than everybody else. And literally, we had Chuck Noel on our wall. And because you guys represented that, and that's what we really strive for.

Tony Dungy

Jason, I can tell you'd get a kick out of this. My first practice with the Steelers, they've won two Super Bowls. So we come in and we do our stretching, and Coach Noel calls everybody up. Line up. Defense on one side, offense on the other side. Okay? It's block and tackle. By the numbers. Number one is your stance. He put every guy on the team in their stance, and he looked at their stance and, you know, so here's Joe Green, two time defensive player of the year, and he said, no, Joe, your foot's just a little bit off here. You need to be this way. And I'm looking at myself. He's telling Joe Green how to stand after 10 years in the league. But we started. I was with him for 10 years, every year. Started with block and tackle. By the numbers. One was his stance. Two, approach. Three, contact. Four, follow through. He walked every guy through that 45 minutes, first practice for 29 years. And that taught me something. Yeah, that's football. That's how you build things. It's not, oh, we all know what to do, and we're coaching pros. No, start at the basics and go, yeah.

Jason Garrett

You know, people talk about fundamentals and the importance of them. How many live it, you know? You know, there's. There's the great John Wooden story. You know, when John Wooden's coaching at ucla, they're winning all those championships, and every year, the first practice, he would set the team in the bleachers. Alcindor, Bill Walton, the greatest players ever to walk. And he would teach them how to put their socks on. Right? Go back to the beginning. You know, here's how you put it in the stitching, over the top, roll it up. We don't want blisters, how to tie their shoes, you know, and to me, it was so symbolic of that same approach. We're getting back to the basics.

Tony Dungy

And 25 years later, when I became the head coach, that was my approach. I come to Tampa. I don't know why you guys haven't won, but we're going to win with fundamentals. We're not going to Outsmart people. I don't know that many things. We're not going to have these fancy formations and different defense. We're going to run two defenses and we're going to run about eight plays and we're going to execute and you got to believe that. And we did that. The other thing though, Jason, that coach Nolan pressed on me. The very first thing he told us when we got there, our first rookie minicamp. He said, men, welcome to the National Football League. You're now getting paid to play football. It's your profession, treat it like that. But don't make football your whole life. If you make football your whole life, you're going to leave the game disappointed. Now I'm writing that down as a 21 year old rookie and then he gets to that. Don't make football your hole. But he lived that out for us. He was a family man to a T. He did things in the community. He had his son around all the time. We had Saturday practice where all the kids were invited. I was single at the time, but all my teammates have their boys and girls there on Saturday morning. And yeah, the team is important and tomorrow's important, but it's not more important than your family.

Jason Garrett

Yeah, yeah.

Tony Dungy

And that was a great lesson for me to get as a young player and then as a young coach.

Jason Garrett

Yeah. You know, you know, it's a fine line because you want guys who are completely committed, you want to be so important to them. But, but oftentimes it gets to a point where, you know, my value as a person is, is being based on how this practice went, how this game went. If I threw an interception or missed a tackle, all of a sudden I don't, I don't value myself as much and maybe conversely value yourself too much if you do do those things.

Tony Dungy

Yeah.

Jason Garrett

And that get, that gets people out of whack, right?

Tony Dungy

Yeah. And he did. I mean, we practiced hard, we performed, we played hard. But he said, as much as you put in to this game, and we want to put in a lot, we want to win Super Bowls, but as much as you put into it, you've got to put the same amount of time, if not more into your family and your neighborhood and where you live. And, and that, that was a great lesson for me. And I, I saw him not only say it, Jason, but live it out, live it out. And that was, that was, I was so glad I started with him. That was just a blessing to start with him my first 10 years in the NFL.

Jason Garrett

Yeah. You know, I'm thinking about this as we're talking, because, you know, you show up there in 96, you had a lot of football experiences between your time as a. As a Steeler and your time in. In Tampa. But it's amazing when you're part of those championship teams and those amazing people that you say, hey, I go back to that when I'm thinking about what a winning culture looks like.

Tony Dungy

Yeah. And I took a lot. I played and coached for some great people.

Jason Garrett

Sure.

Tony Dungy

I left Pittsburgh and I went to San Francisco, Bill Walsh's first year, and I saw him rock solid even when we were 2 and 14. I'm not changing what I do. I believe in it. We're going to stick with this. Then I go to Kansas City and Marty Schottenheimer, meticulous, thorough guy. No, no. Stone unturned on top of the details. Then I go to Minnesota, and it's Denny Green, and again, energy, togetherness, unity. And I got something from all of those guys. But when I really wanted to build it, what's the foundation? It's Coach Nolan. Those guys must have got sick of me quoting Chuck. No, because it was all. All, you know, hey, this is how we win. This is how we're going to do it. Fundamentals, doing the little things. Right. If it's hard, it's supposed to be hard. If it's easy, we'd have 80,000 people doing it and 47 people watching. It's not going to be easy, just over and over and over again. But they bought into it, and slowly we did change that culture. From a me, so many guys when I got there, oh, we're not going to win. So I better put up the best stats I can. That's how I get paid. And no, if we win, everybody makes out. Everybody does. Well, let's focus on winning. And that was super important. I'll never forget Derek Brooks. In my first meeting, I talk about these little details, how we're going to do it, culture, being role models and everything. He said, coach, do you realize I lost more games my rookie year last year than I lost in my whole life? We got to win.

Jason Garrett

That's exactly right.

Tony Dungy

We're going to win, Derek, but this is how we're going to do it.

Jason Garrett

Yeah.

Tony Dungy

And once he bought in, he became the leader and everybody followed because Derek Brooks bought into what coach said.

Jason Garrett

Yeah. It's so funny, you know, playing with the Cowboys in the 90s. Jimmy Johnson's Our coach. And as you were talking, you know, in my mind, I'm hearing him say, when we Win, there'll be spoils for everybody. If you're a coordinator, you're going to be a head coach. If you're an assistant coach, will be a coordinator. If you're, you know, a starting player, you're going to be a Pro Bowler, and on and on and on. And he said, when. When you're part of these championship teams, it lasts for a lifetime. You have these bonds, you connected with these people, and then you have the lessons to learn.

Tony Dungy

And.

Jason Garrett

And I was fortunate for those experiences. And it sounds like you were. You feel the same way.

Tony Dungy

I really was. I came to a team that just was. They were focused on winning, and we had some great players. One year, we go the Super Bowl, Lynn Swan caught 33 passes, you know, and he's not even concerned. He, you know, he. Yeah, I could go somewhere else and catch 70 or whatever. But we're trying to win, and we are winning. When we get to that big moment, they need me. I'm going to catch the ball. I'm going to do it. But I don't care about stats. I don't care about any that. Let's win. And I saw some of you guys demonstrate that, and then you come to a place where people are thinking, I better get mine, because that's the only way I'm going to make it through. So try. How do I create that and how do I show them? So I had guys come in. I had Mel Blanc come in and talk to my guys.

Jason Garrett

Really?

Tony Dungy

About winning? Yes. And how you establish that? Because Mel came early on when it was tough in Pittsburgh and then saw how it transformed, and I wanted him to share that.

Jason Garrett

Yeah, that's awesome. Okay. There got to be some growing pains, though, early on, right? Trying to try. It doesn't happen overnight. It's not a light switch. What were some of the stories where maybe you had a little frustration creep in? Like, is everybody buying into this?

Tony Dungy

We were. I guess I'm somewhat famous for not losing my temper and blowing my top and screaming and yelling. But the one time I did go off. Jason, we are. Oh, well, no, we're 1 and 8, and we are really struggling. Coming close, but just not getting the job done. So we're getting ready to play the Oakland Raiders, and I come in on Wednesday morning. Tuesday's been the players off day, and we had a lot of players doing community service on their off day. I talked about it, and we did have a lot of guys buying into it. But I come in Wednesday morning. On my desk, there's two notes. Eric Rhett was supposed to be at an autograph session. He was 45 minutes late. Reagan Upshaw was visiting an elementary school, was supposed to be there, didn't show up. I've got this on my desk. I go into the team meeting room, and I put those two notes on the overhead projector, and I said, you know what? This is our problem. We're not accountable. We're not reliable. I don't know how to fix that. Only you guys can fix it. And I'm not going to talk about the Oakland Raiders. We're not going to talk about game plan, formations, tackles, defenses. You guys fix this. I was a little louder than that, and I left the room. And to this day, a lot of those Buccaneers say that's the only time coach ever blew up on us about guys missing appointments they were supposed to be at. Well, we end up winning that game in overtime. We gutted it out, we won. We turned it around. We won five of our last seven games that year. And that was really. I was teased, Eric and Reagan. I said, you guys were the key to the turnaround.

Jason Garrett

That's exactly right. It was a setup. That was awesome. I remember you telling me a story once where you came down in the locker room down there at One Buck Place, and the locker room was just an absolute mess. You, by yourself, were cleaning up the locker room. And that was kind of a moment for you that, like, huh, you know, understanding where we are and what we need to do to go forward.

Tony Dungy

Yeah, it was actually Herm Edwards and I. And Herm was my assistant head coach, and he was a neat freak. And he's the one that. Suddenly, he called me after everybody was gone, and he said, come, come look at this, look at this. And he's over there sweeping and everything, and stuff is everywhere. And we've got bins, garbage bins, but, you know, tape on the floor and just.

Jason Garrett

Yeah.

Tony Dungy

And so we cleaned it up. And then Herm actually was the bad cop. He read the riot to him the next day. But I talked about that, man, are we going to be accountable? Are we going to let somebody else do this, or are we going to be the champions? Are we going to be at this level in everything, not just how we play on the field, but how we. We do life? And are we going to be okay to be just average, or do we want to be the best? Well, that means being the best in everything. And I want this to be the best locker room. I want anybody to be able to come in here and say, this is the Best locker room in the NFL. I've never seen a locker room like this.

Jason Garrett

Yeah, yeah.

Tony Dungy

Can I hold you guys to that standard?

Jason Garrett

Yeah.

Tony Dungy

And by that time, there were a lot of guys that said, yeah, okay, we want to be the best. And they. They policed it and they took it on themselves at that point.

Jason Garrett

That's awesome. How important was it to get a guy like Derek Brooks to buy in and be part of this thinking?

Tony Dungy

It really was. I actually was very, very blessed. 1995 draft, I was defensive coordinator of Minnesota. I had my eye on two guys in that draft, Warren Sapp and Derrick Brooks. And Warren was supposed to be a top three player, but there was rumors he was going to slide because of some character issues. I would have said, if there's some way we can get this guy, put him with John Randle would be fantastic. And then Derek Brooks is just perfect for this defense. So I'm focused on them. We pass on SAP, the Bucs, take him the next pick. So I'm like, oh, my goodness, not only do we not have him, we're

Jason Garrett

going to be playing against the rest of my life.

Tony Dungy

So.

Jason Garrett

All right, well, forget that.

Tony Dungy

I'm going to focus. We got one more number one pick at the end of the round. I'm focused on Derek Brooks. Tampa trades up one pick ahead of us and takes Brooks. And I am just sick. Well, as only God could do it. Eight months later, I'm the head coach of the Bucks and those two guys are sitting there waiting for me. So I called them, the first three guys. I called Derek Warren and John lynch, who was a third year safety man. And I said, you guys don't know it yet, but this defense is built for you. I played in this defense in Pittsburgh. Warren, you're Joe Green. You're going to have a Pro bowl, hall of Fame career, because this defense is going to let you do what you do best. Derek, you're Jack Ham. You're going to roam behind the line of scrimmage. We're going to keep you free. We're going to use your speed, your knowledge. You're going to make plays for us all over the field. John, you're Donnie Shell. You're going to be an interceptor. You're going to be a tackler, you're going to be a physical force, and you're going to be the controller of the secondary. But you guys have to be on board with me, and I'm counting on you to lead. And I think telling them that. That I was counting on them. Yeah, that's what got it going. And when they bought in and they said, okay, we're going to make this happen and we're on board with you, I knew we were going to be in good shape.

Jason Garrett

Yeah, it's a great story. It's interesting though. You have those three guys and I know each of them and the personalities are different.

Tony Dungy

Very different. Very different.

Jason Garrett

As a matter of fact, you mentioned character issues. I mean, Warren South's one of the great characters we've ever met. Right. So how was it coaching those different guys and getting them to come together,

Tony Dungy

really making the team first and we've got to do this and we've got to be together. John was on board right away. Hey, I know he had played for Denny Green, so he knew where I was coming from. He was excited about it. Derek just wanted to win. You tell me what to win, coach, and we'll do it. Warren was a little bit of a different story, different guy. He wanted to be himself. Hey, I'm going to let you be yourself, but I need you to lead in the same way. We've got to be like this when we've got to be matched up. If we are will win a championship, if we're like this, you'll be great, we'll be okay. But we'll never get that championship until we come this way. And he looked at me and said that, that's great, coach. You just tell me what you want me to do because I want to win a championship. And then he told me stuff that I'll never forget. He said, you draw the line and I promise you I'll never cross it because I want to win the championship. Said, okay, I will do that. Then he said, but make sure you draw the line exactly where you want it because I'm going to be right on the line.

Jason Garrett

Hey, what, what were some of the things where he approached the line on that? You had to kind of say, warren, come into my office, let's have a conversation.

Tony Dungy

He always wanted to run through the other team's stretch lines and warm up and talk trash. And I said, I know that motivates you, Warren, but that's, that's not the way we need to do it. We want to be that high class team and we want to be the team that everybody looks at and says they're doing it the right way. He said, okay, I'll just run through the back of the line then, and I won't make too much noise. He always, he wanted to be himself and I had to, I had to find A comfort zone, too. You can be yourself until we get to this point. If it becomes negative, then you know that that's, that's going to be different. But hey, you, you be you and we're still going to be fine. But keep the focus on the team first. And he did that.

Jason Garrett

When did you feel like you go back into your office after a practice or a game? When did you feel like we're on the right path here? I feel like we're getting close. I feel like we got a chance to pull this off.

Tony Dungy

We're 1 in 6, 1 and 7. Fans are grumbling. Those guys were practicing hard every day. They didn't let any of that bother them. They didn't. It never came in. Oh, we need to change this. We need to do something else. Hey, coach, what, what do we want to do? How are we going to get this going? And just their work ethic and their togetherness, even when we weren't winning early, that, that showed me that, that we're going to be close. That second half of that first year, we started winning some of those close games and the feeling, the energy in the locker room, we were, I think we're three and nine or something, but we won a game. And you would have thought we won the Super Bowl.

Jason Garrett

Yeah.

Tony Dungy

And I remember saying, hey, this is what it can be like all the time. We got to capture this feeling and do it week after week after week. But we had some hard workers. They were tremendous in practice, never took shortcuts, always did exactly what the coaches asked. And that was another thing. Jason, I came there and I knew it was going to be a long term rebuild. So I wanted some young coaches and I wanted some teachers. So I had a couple of guys in mind. I had known Herm Edwards. We played together in the Hula Bowl. I wanted her. Monty Kiffin, I knew we'd worked together in Minnesota, and so I knew him. But I asked our scouts, I said, hey, in the college ranks, I don't get to go see these guys. Are there some guys out there who are good teachers, who are encouragers, who are enthusiastic, who are hard workers? And three or four names got recommended to me. Rod Marinelli, who you mentioned, who I think is the greatest defensive line coach ever. I interviewed him and again in five minutes. Yes, this is my guy. Oh, there's a linebacker coach at Ohio State named Lovey Smith and he doesn't get a lot of credit. He's a soft spoken guy, but man, is he tremendous. I called Lovey in, interviewed him Five minutes. Yeah. I want him on my staff. And getting those guys, those young, enthusiastic teachers who just stayed the course and. And love their guys and wanted to help their guys. It was. That was, again, instrumental in us being successful.

Jason Garrett

Yeah. So critical to carrying the message. Right. I mean, you're one voice, but you got to get your people to make it come alive.

Tony Dungy

They become that choir. Who's. Who's.

Jason Garrett

Yeah.

Tony Dungy

Energizing your voice. Yeah.

Jason Garrett

Yeah. You mentioned cover two, Tampa two. You know, you're the architect, you and Monty. I often think about how similar was Tampa 2 that you were playing in the mid-90s down there to the Tampa, to the COVID 2 that you guys played in Pittsburgh. Is it the exact same defense?

Tony Dungy

It was stolen out of the 1977 playbook. I had my playbook there. We wrote it exactly that way. I went to Minnesota, and I didn't know anything about over and under, front, up front. And I knew about COVID two. Monte Kiffin was there already, and he had done a great job in the run game with the fronts, and he had never played cover two. So we get together my first year as defensive coordinator. He teaches me the run fronts. I teach him the coverage, and we end up leading the NFL in defense with the Vikings. Now we've got Chris Dolman and John Randall and Henry Thomas and some really, really good players, but people hadn't seen that in about 15 years, so we have some success with it. Monty agrees to come with me to Tampa and put it in. And we put it in exactly like we put it in Minnesota, exactly like we played it in Pittsburgh. But now we've got John Lynch, Derrick Brooks, Warren Sapp. We draft Ronde Barber. We just have this, the right personnel, the right mentality with the right X's and O's.

Jason Garrett

Yeah. You know, the signature piece for everybody is that deep Mike. Linebacker.

Tony Dungy

Yes.

Jason Garrett

And I'm assuming that's Lambert and Pittsburgh.

Tony Dungy

Yes.

Jason Garrett

And then. And then you have some great ones in Minnesota and Tampa.

Tony Dungy

We put it in, and nobody played too deep. Everybody played three deep. So you had a middle safety protect in that middle of the field. Well, we played too deep. We had a great pass, Russ. People didn't have time, but what they start doing, well, you can't throw outside on that, so you've got to tag down the middle. So everybody starts drafting these tight ends that can get down the middle. Cleveland drafts Ozzie Newsom and the Raiders draft Raymond Chester and Russ Francis and all these athletic guys who are going to get down the middle. So we start getting hit and we say to our middle linebacker, Zach Lambert, if that number two tight end goes down the middle, you've got to go with him. So he's covering Ozzie Newsom 40 yards down the field, a big six five frame. But again, nobody, I guess maybe they didn't have a Jack Lambert. So nobody did that for years until we got back to Minnesota. Well, now I get to Tampa and we've got Hardy Nickerson, our captain who played for me in Pittsburgh, knew the defense, understood what it was. He became that middle dropper. And everybody said, oh, this is Tampa too. We've never seen a middle line before. And hard. And I would just laugh. You may not have, but there has

Jason Garrett

been a middle linebacker that did that before. Is that funny? It's funny. I used to always make the argument that, you know, they talk about Tampa 2 and the scheme and what's on the page and the responsibilities, but what made Tampa too great was how you guys played it. The speed, the get off the pass rush, the sprint to the ball, the no loafs, all that stuff. That's really what the defense is.

Tony Dungy

That's what it was all about. And we told people it's not coverages, it's not X's and O's, it's how you do it. And I got to tell you a Rod Marinelli story that really started things off. We're playing the Minnesota Vikings and Robert Smith is a Big Ten sprint champion, 100 meter champion. He breaks a run around the left side. Warren Sack from his defensive line position, runs and catches him at the 10 yard line. And unbelievable 300 pound guy catching the big 10 sprint champion at the 10 yard line. We watched the film the next day. Rod Marinelli runs it, runs it back, says, warren, that's a loaf. And SAP gets up and says, I caught the fastest man in the NFL. And you calling it a loaf, how can you call it a loaf? And he runs the film back. He said, look at you right here. Now watch you change, you, you change speeds. Right there you picked up speed, change of speeds. If you'd have been running fast the whole way, you'd have caught him at the 15 yard line instead of the 10. That's a loaf. And Sapp looked at him and sat down and he had no argument. And so that became the standard for our team, our defense. If you're ever seen on film, changing speed, if you slow down, that's obviously the loaf. But if you speed up, that means you weren't going 100% at the beginning. So that's a Lopez. And that became our signature.

Jason Garrett

Yeah. You know, Rod obviously was our defensive coordinator in Dallas, and, you know, we had the sign on the wall, what is a loaf? Right. Change of speed was one of the criteria. Yeah. It's great, though, because, you know, you don't always win the games, but at the end of the day, when you coach that way and you play that way and your team responds that way, you can sleep. You can sleep well at night.

Tony Dungy

Yes.

Jason Garrett

Because you're doing it the right way.

Tony Dungy

Yep. And even when we weren't winning, I knew it would. Would come. And I was fortunate. I'd seen some of those. Coach Noel told me about being 1 in 13 his first year, but putting that fundamental building blocks in. And we were 0 and 5. And Dick Vermeil called me. He was broadcasting at the time, and he said, I've seen a couple of your games. You're doing things right. Don't. Don't change what you're doing. Don't get discouraged. You're going to be okay. And that phone call, Jason, meant so much.

Jason Garrett

Yeah.

Tony Dungy

Because as you know, you. You can doubt yourself and. And no doubt get frustrated and Coach Vermilion, just hang in there. You're going to be fine. Man, that was a. That was really awesome.

Jason Garrett

Yeah. You know, it's interesting sometimes when you go through those stretches as a head coach, there's some smarter than he should be reporter that's going to say, hey, do you know what the definition of insanity is? Einstein said, it's doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. And I used to always think about. And you referenced him before. I used to always think about Bill Walsh going 2 and 14 running the west coast offense. If he had said, well, clearly this doesn't work, and scrapped it. History would be different. Right. Chuck Noel and so many other coaches. Part of it is having conviction and what you're believing in. And you certainly adjust as you go. You have to make tweaks. But the core conviction of who you are, that can't change. Right.

Tony Dungy

Can't change. And that's. I was. One thing I was proud of. That was me. Six years in Tampa, seven years in Indianapolis. We are going to be just what we talk about. We're not going to change. We're not going to do anything different. And so many of my players that were on that first team, they felt that was important. Coach, you didn't. You didn't get rattled. You didn't do anything different. We knew what we're going to be. Warren Sapp used to tease. He'd say, I'm the only guy in America that I can tell you exactly where I'm going to be a year from now on Thursday, 9 o'.

Jason Garrett

Clock.

Tony Dungy

It's not going to change. The schedule is not going to change. The routine is not going to change. We know what we're doing, and we believe in.

Jason Garrett

Yeah, okay, so you turn it around in Tampa. It's one of the remarkable turnarounds. And you keep knocking on the door, knocking on the door, knocking on the door. And you can't really break through to that. To that next level and go win a Super bowl down there. Were you ever tempted to say, we need to tweak this somehow? Or were you just, hey, persistent. I still believe this.

Tony Dungy

Yeah, I believe I felt we were close. We were on the right track. We lost the NFC championship game 11 to 6 to the Rams. They had the greatest show on turf.

Jason Garrett

Show on turf.

Tony Dungy

We go 55 minutes, hold them without a touchdown, and we're that close to winning this, to going and winning the game six to five, and we don't get it done the next year, we lose to the Packers. Mike Holmgren had a great team with Brett Favre and Reggie White, and we lose to them, and we lose again to the Eagles and Andy Reid. And our ownership says, well, I knew we're making the playoffs every year and we're doing well, but just not the guy that's going to get us over the hump. So we're going to make a change. And Jason, that was so tough because I felt like we were close. I'd grown so close to these players. Well, what are you going to do? And I just prayed about it and said, I don't know what you're trying to show me, Lord, but I know we're going in the right direction to see what happens. My phone rings, and it's Jim Ursay. And he said, you know, I love what you're doing there in Tampa. That's what I'm on in Indianapolis, and would you come coach my team? So I get to coach the Colts and Peyton Manning's there, and, man, it was. It was a great seven years.

Jason Garrett

Yeah, that's awesome. The winning there was incredible. So you go there after your experience in Tampa. Is it replicated, or were there some things you did differently when you got to Indy?

Tony Dungy

It was actually a little different and a little faster. My philosophy didn't change. Talked about being a team, being unified, being together, being good citizens and good role models. And this time, it Had a little bit more buy in early because I had a track record now. Sure, I was just a young assistant coach at Tampa, and they were hoping it would work, but these guys had seen us, they'd played against us, and so they're buying in right away. And Peyton was tremendous, too. I remember after my press conference, he actually came into my office and hey, I want to be coach. I want to win. I want to be great. You tell me what to do and I'll do it for you. And this was refreshing to hear from your quarterback. And he. He took it that way. He led fantastically. We had some other great leaders on the team, and it happened very quickly in India.

Jason Garrett

You know, a lot of coaches, they put a word on a T shirt or on a sweatshirt. There's a sign on the wall. They talk about it all the time, whatever it is. Compete or relentless or whatever it is, discipline. And they have a great. They have great talking points. And if you're sitting in the room, you're really compelled by the whole thing. And then you put their tape on and it's not quite what they're saying, you know, and especially in this day and age where there's so many coaches who see other coaches talk about these things, I think they craft their messages really well. But then it always. It doesn't always show up on the tape. And for you, when I watch you through the years, certain message, simplicity, we're going to play a certain way, all of that. And you guys did. You guys did in Tampa and you did in Indianapolis. What was the key to kind of transitioning the philosophy to the action on the field for three hours on Sunday?

Tony Dungy

I think one thing is having assistant coaches who believe the same thing, and they poured that into the team. But secondly, you talk about that message. We had six words on our billboard or sign in the locker room for 13 years. Six in Tampa and seven in Indy. And it was just six words. Expectations, execution. No excuses, no explanations. And I wasn't a loud guy, but I told them I had high expectations. I expect us to practice like champions. I expect us to play hard. Nobody's going to outwork us. Nobody's going to out hit us. Nobody's going to outrun us on the field. That's my expectations. How do you do that? You can't just talk about it. You got to practice that way. You've got to meet that way. You've got to be committed. And we're going to. That's what I'm going to demand every day. That's the execution. Why can't we get it done? What are the problems? What are the roadblocks? I don't want to hear any. There's no excuses and no explanations. So if you tell me why we can't get it done, we've got to go somewhere else. And almost everybody that's played for me, if you ask him, what do you remember about coach Dante, it'll be that. Expectations, executions, no excuses.

Jason Garrett

Yeah, yeah. The best ones do that. Right? Because there's a lot, there's a lot of explanations for why things don't work. And the guys who ultimately succeed, they don't buy into them.

Tony Dungy

Yeah. And you just say, hey, this is. And I wanted them to think like champions. That means we've got to do everything right. We've got to be at the autograph session on time. Okay. We've got to be at every meeting and set the tone. We've got to Practice hard. Play one in practice or play 100 in practice, it doesn't matter. We've got to do it that same way.

Jason Garrett

Okay. So when they're not doing it, when they're not sprinting through the line or running the ball or their loaves, is there a consequence? Is it simply, hey, we're not going to play you, we're going to get rid of you. How do we uphold the standard on a day to day basis?

Tony Dungy

Warren Sapp said the worst thing that could ever happen to him was me coming over to him and say, what were you thinking right now? You, you weren't running hard or you didn't do this or you were lined up a foot off. What were you thinking? And that. That was, yeah, the worst than getting cussed out because you had to now explain why you didn't do the job the right way. And that's what I, I wanted to do, establish that standard. This is who we are as bucks. This is how we're going to be. We, we had our shirts tucked in every time, every moment at practice because I said, you know what, we can't play with our shirts out. So why do we practice with our shirts? Yeah, I know we don't have officials here. There's no. But, no, we're going to tuck our shirts in all the time because that's what you have to do in the game. And that's. And that is a sign that we

Jason Garrett

do things a little differently.

Tony Dungy

We have a little bit more into the details and other teams, that's how we're going to win. And so they took it from being mad about it at first to say, yeah, other 10, nobody can keep this.

Jason Garrett

Exactly right.

Tony Dungy

We're different. We're. We're special. And if you come here, you've got to do that. And so.

Jason Garrett

Exactly right.

Tony Dungy

That's what I would try to sell them. What's a Buccaneer? What's a Colt? Not everybody can't be and sell it that way.

Jason Garrett

Yeah, it's a great message. Coach, did you have captains? Did you have a leadership group that you talked to to kind of stay connected with the team? Was that part of the system?

Tony Dungy

Yes. I let the players vote on captains. I wanted to know who their leaders were. Now, I tried to listen to everybody, and I had a senior group, and my. My door was always open, and I. I think over the years, people felt very good about communicating with me, but I really wanted to know who the players thought were their leaders, and then I could talk to them and, you know, get things straight.

Jason Garrett

You know, you talked about the influence of your Pittsburgh experience. I can't help to think about the influence of your parents. Your dad was a science professor. Your mom was a Shakespeare teacher at your high school. Just talk about the impact they had on your life.

Tony Dungy

They were tremendous. Jason and I grew up in a home that. They were both athletes. They were both teachers. They love their students. And it's funny, because I can remember my dad, his philosophy was for my mom and he, to help their students earn A's, not to give A's, but to help their students earn A's. And he used to talk about that all the time. And I still get letters from people who had my parents in school and say, hey, your dad opened up the laboratory at night for me. When I wasn't getting it, he came down and met me. Your mom did this, and she went to bat for me, and it's amazing, but they were really thinking, helping their students as much as they could. Well, that translated over to me, and the other thing that translated over to me was that faith and that belief that you can do it. Don't my dad just say, don't let anybody define you. You decide what you want to do, and you carry it out. And my mom was, you know, it's not what you do, it's how you do it. All of this is coming to me. And when I. My dad used to say, don't let anybody define you. Whenever I would complain, he would say two things to me. He would say. He'd just sit there and listen, and he'd say, okay, I got it. But what are you going to do to make it better? I'm like, dad, what about, you know, they didn't put me in. Don't you feel bad? Well, how are you going to get them to put you in tomorrow? What are you going to do to make it better? And then sometimes he would say, well, they might not want you to fly, so you might have to teach yourself. And I got the message, okay, you know, don't complain. Just get the job done, work harder. If you have to go the extra mile, go. My siblings and I never knew what that meant until my dad's funeral. We go to the funeral and people are talking about him and giving their remembrances. His best friend got up and said, well, yeah, one of our best memories in life was when Will Dungy went in the Tuskegee Airmen. And my brothers and sisters looked at each other, said, that's what that meant. He never talked about it, but he was.

Jason Garrett

Are you kidding me?

Tony Dungy

Yeah, he never told us he was. He told us he was in the service. That was it. But that was, hey, we're going to go in and we don't care that they say we can't be in this regiment or whatever. We're going to learn, teach ourselves how to fly and we're going to go represent, fight the country and be great at it. No excuses, no explanations.

Jason Garrett

That's incredible. I knew, is it Tuskegee Airmen, but I didn't know that. I didn't know that. You didn't know it.

Tony Dungy

He did not know until his funeral and after that that it just made so much sense that, hey, don't take any excuses. Go get the job done.

Jason Garrett

Yeah, go teach yourself how to fly. That's incredible. Hey, you go to the University of Minnesota in the early 70s and Tom Moore is your coach. Tell me what that quarterback room was like.

Tony Dungy

Unbelievable. The best teacher that I've ever been around and just amazing. Full circle story. I'm a 17 year old high school senior getting recruited by a few schools. Tom Moore is the quarterback coach in Minnesota. He starts coming to my basketball games. We developed this relationship. I agreed to go visit University of Minnesota. I'm going to get on a plane I've never flown before. And I called him and I said, coach, I don't think I can get on. I'm scared to get on this plane. He flies to Michigan, comes to my hometown, picks me up, gets on the plane with me to go on the visit, and I end up going to Minnesota. He's my quarterback coach. We run 1973 the same no Huddle, fast paced offense that Peyton Manning ran in the 2000s. We were doing it back then and he's my coach and I'm calling him Coach Moore. 30 years later I get the job at Indy, he's the offensive coordinator, he's there already. And you know, everybody's asked me the question, are you keeping the office? Yes, I'm keeping coach Moore. But now I've got to start calling him Tom. I've called him Coach Moore for 100 years and it's just, it was different. But great man, great teacher.

Jason Garrett

Just what made him a great teacher.

Tony Dungy

He taught you how to do it. Not just what to do, but he taught you the why behind it. Here's where we go on this read and it's 1, 2, 3, because. And if they're in this, we go to this and you're going to have the final say as the quarterback. So you've got to know it. If you don't know I can send in a play, it might not be the best thing for us to run. If you know what to get to, we're going to be successful. If you don't know you're going to run the play I send in and we might waste the play. So you need to know I'm a 17 year old freshman and I wasn't thinking like that but I began to think like that. And he did the same thing for pay. If you know what to do and what to get us into, we're always going to get in the best play. And then he had another Chuck no ism that he used to say to us. He said it to Peyton and Peyton loved it. He, Coach Noel used to say pressure is what you feel when you don't know what to do. Yeah, if you know what to do, you won't feel pressure. So when I was a player I took that as really, oh yeah, you know, I don't feel any pressure. I know what to do. When I got on the coaching staff now I better teach them what to do. If they're feeling pressure, it means I didn't teach them what to do.

Jason Garrett

Yeah.

Tony Dungy

And that's the way Tom always felt. If I teach my quarterback what to do, he's not going to feel pressure and he's going to execute.

Jason Garrett

Yeah. Well, there's so many great examples of his influence on guys putting me in that position. Right. Peyton being the best one but well, he coached Terry Bradshaw. Yeah.

Tony Dungy

He coached Tom Brady in his last Super Bowl.

Jason Garrett

Yeah.

Tony Dungy

You know, just incredible, incredible, incredible 50 year span of coaching.

Jason Garrett

That's awesome. Well, talk about an incredible coach. Incredible guy. Coach, I can't thank you enough for being on Coach to Coach. We could do this all day long. I feel like we're just getting started.

Tony Dungy

So we used to hang out there in the studio, talk ball, and it was so much fun. So have me on again. I'd love it.

Jason Garrett

Okay, we'll absolutely do it. Follow Coach to Coach on social media and listen wherever you get your podcasts.