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Someone has to do it
10:49 AM Sat, Dec 15, 2007 | Permalink
Albert Breer E-mail News tips
In the NFL, the "one game at a time" mantra is all-encompassing. No Cowboy, the coaches will tell you, should be focusing on anything but the Eagles this week.
Unless, that is, your name in Wes Phillips or Dat Nguyen. For those two, the job is to look ahead.
Right now, they're wrapping up work on the Panthers. By the time the players shift their focus to Carolina, the Nguyen and the younger Phillips will be on to the Commanders. That's life for quality control assistants in the league, and for low-level coaches in college as well.
They always work a week ahead. That way, when a game week comes, much of the groundwork has been laid for the team to prepare, with reports on the opponent waiting.
"They’re quite extensive, what they do," Wade Phillips said. "They spend probably more time than anyone on our staff, Wes and Dat. They have extensive reports that tell you about everything you can think of. And they have a feel for (our) team, and help on the gameplan in that way."
It wasn't always this way, though. NFL staffs haven't always been filled to the brim with guys the way they are today. So the freedom to break up the breakdown work wasn't always there this way.
Wade Phillips said he was responsible for breaking down the opponent's film (by play, situation, hashmark, etc.) all the way up until his time as Denver's defensive coordinator, from 1989-92. Without quality control coaches to handle it, he and secondary coach Charlie Waters, the former Cowboy, took care of that work.
"We did it all, when I first started. And not just when I first started, I know through Denver, Charlie Waters and I broke down the film," Coach Wade said. "We didn’t have a quality control guy that broke down the film for you. We broke down all the film, we did basically what the quality control guys do and did the coaching."
That's not the only difference, either. Everything's digitalized now. By comparison, Wade said, he was cutting the film himself when he started his career. And that's in the literal sense -- he was actually getting scissors out and slicing it up to make reels.
The bottom line is that this work serves as the baseline for a team's preparation. Someone needs to do it. It's just that now, with more people, coaches can dedicate staff members to it, and those staff members have a more streamlined process in working on it.
"It’s something that needs to be done," Wade said. "Today, with the bigger staffs, you can break it up more. Before, you still had to get the same amount of work done. You learn as you go. You started in college, and I started it in high school. In college, we cut up the films ourselves. It’s a lot different now, and you can save a lot of time now, with the tape. It took us a lot longer then."
10:49 AM Sat, Dec 15, 2007 | Permalink
Albert Breer E-mail News tips
In the NFL, the "one game at a time" mantra is all-encompassing. No Cowboy, the coaches will tell you, should be focusing on anything but the Eagles this week.
Unless, that is, your name in Wes Phillips or Dat Nguyen. For those two, the job is to look ahead.
Right now, they're wrapping up work on the Panthers. By the time the players shift their focus to Carolina, the Nguyen and the younger Phillips will be on to the Commanders. That's life for quality control assistants in the league, and for low-level coaches in college as well.
They always work a week ahead. That way, when a game week comes, much of the groundwork has been laid for the team to prepare, with reports on the opponent waiting.
"They’re quite extensive, what they do," Wade Phillips said. "They spend probably more time than anyone on our staff, Wes and Dat. They have extensive reports that tell you about everything you can think of. And they have a feel for (our) team, and help on the gameplan in that way."
It wasn't always this way, though. NFL staffs haven't always been filled to the brim with guys the way they are today. So the freedom to break up the breakdown work wasn't always there this way.
Wade Phillips said he was responsible for breaking down the opponent's film (by play, situation, hashmark, etc.) all the way up until his time as Denver's defensive coordinator, from 1989-92. Without quality control coaches to handle it, he and secondary coach Charlie Waters, the former Cowboy, took care of that work.
"We did it all, when I first started. And not just when I first started, I know through Denver, Charlie Waters and I broke down the film," Coach Wade said. "We didn’t have a quality control guy that broke down the film for you. We broke down all the film, we did basically what the quality control guys do and did the coaching."
That's not the only difference, either. Everything's digitalized now. By comparison, Wade said, he was cutting the film himself when he started his career. And that's in the literal sense -- he was actually getting scissors out and slicing it up to make reels.
The bottom line is that this work serves as the baseline for a team's preparation. Someone needs to do it. It's just that now, with more people, coaches can dedicate staff members to it, and those staff members have a more streamlined process in working on it.
"It’s something that needs to be done," Wade said. "Today, with the bigger staffs, you can break it up more. Before, you still had to get the same amount of work done. You learn as you go. You started in college, and I started it in high school. In college, we cut up the films ourselves. It’s a lot different now, and you can save a lot of time now, with the tape. It took us a lot longer then."
