(on whether he talked to the team about off the field distractions this week) “We had a team meeting this morning at about 10:30 before we went through the TSA at the stadium and boarded the buses for the airport. Basically I just laid out the whole week’s schedule, made sure everybody clearly understood the expectations and responsibilities from a scheduling standpoint, and made it clear of the environment that we were going to be working in and the things surrounding this environment. Our players, our coaches, our whole organization is excited to be here. It was an excellent week last week, a very productive week in Green Bay. It’s great to get down here and see the setup that we’ve been provided here at the hotel. It’s been very impressive and we’re looking forward to this week’s work leading up to the Super Bowl game.”(on what it’s like playing the Steelers after growing up in Pittsburgh) “I have a lot of memories of the Pittsburgh Steelers from growing up in Pittsburgh so personally it’s unique for my family and I. But really I am looking forward to getting to the game. I am sure this will be something that we will reflect on as a family. It’s very personal from that standpoint. I have great respect for the Rooney family and their generosity to my family and just the way they’ve always operated their business. Growing up in Pittsburgh is a big part of who I am, but I am a Green Bay Packer and we’ve come here to claim the Lombardi Trophy.”
(on CB Charles Woodson’s speeches to the team) “Frankly it’s something that I’ve been looking at as the head coach of our football team. Everybody talks about leadership and you need more leadership on your football team. I’ve started to look for opportunities to give individuals to grow as a leader. At the end of the regular season, which is customary in Green Bay when you make the playoffs, playoff captains are voted on. There’s two on offense, two on defense, and two on special teams and with that we had a meeting after the captains were voted before our first playoff game in Philadelphia and I told them that pregame I was now turning the prayer over to them and also the final message over to the captains. You six have a vote, you figure out how you want to do it and the last words before we leave the locker room are going to come from our players. It’s a player’s game so it’s important for us all to be on point with our messaging each week. They had a quick vote and QB Aaron Rodgers is leading our prayer and Charles Woodson, he’s been the last one to speak and it’s worked out very well. It’s been something I think has definitely worked. It’s an opportunity for our leaders to step to the forefront and I’ve watched them two grow, particularly this last month, as leaders and our football team has responded in a very favorable way.”
(on whether he is anticipating practicing indoors Wednesday due to the weather) “It’s something that I am going to look at tomorrow. I am going to go to both facilities and look at the setup. Doug Collins, our Director of Security has been here. We talked about it on the plane ride down here today and we discussed it early in the week. With the weather, and the indoor facility, the surface and so forth we’ll probably make that decision sometime later tomorrow.”
(on how the team atmosphere manifested over the last week) “Working in Green Bay, anybody who’s had an opportunity to coach and play in Green Bay clearly understands our setup. I think our quality of work has always been a strength of our preparation. I feel it’s a big part of our success, that’s why we set the schedule the way we do. We came to North Texas as late as possible because I wanted to maximize our time in Green Bay and preparation for this game. With that being said, we’re probably 90 percent ready from an installation standpoint because I do feel it’s important to stay the course and utilize the work that’s ahead of us here Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. But our quality of work as far as our classroom setup, the whole environment, the indoor facility, which is very similar to the environment that we’re going to be playing in the dome on Sunday we just wanted to make sure we maximize that. It’s been a very productive week.”
(on what makes General Manager Ted Thompson and the Packers so effective at building through the Draft) “A lot of credit has to go to Ted Thompson and the personnel staff just the way that they’re structured, their work ethic, the principles are in place. How you evaluate a player, I don’t know if there’s another general manager that hits the road as much as Ted Thompson does. When you’re in a personnel meeting prior to the Draft and discussions are going around the table about a player you know when the final decision is made that Ted has probably had his eyes on him and definitely has done his due diligence. It’s very impressive to watch now for five years and it’s a big part of why we select the right people. We have to
give our personnel department a lot of credit for our season.”
(on whether he feels any ties to Texas) “I love Texas. I think Texas is a great place to raise a family. Austin, Texas my daughter Alex graduated from Lake Travis High School. She’s a freshman at the University of Kansas. I have a lot of good friends in Austin. Sorry we brought the weather with us from Green Bay. This is a great state.”
(on how to stay focused on preparing for the Steelers and not focusing on the fact that it is the Super Bowl) “Just don’t look into the lights that will probably help you. Our players were really excited to get down here today. Just visiting with a number of them one-on-one they’re excited about the process leading up to the game. Like a lot of us, we wish the game was already here. We do want to take this experience. I told them to be very realistic, be practical, enjoy this unique opportunity to be in front the of the media everyday. It will be a great experience for our players and our coaches. At the end of the day this is about playing the Pittsburgh Steelers and that’s what we’re focused on.”
(On what the team did differently in the postseason to match their number of regular season wins) “The time of year has a lot to do with it. We had a couple of road games that we felt got away from us during the regular season. Traditionally we’ve been a good road team that definitely carried over to the playoffs. Our team doesn’t sweat the scheduling leading into home games and leading into road games we try to keep it as similar as possible. Our players like that routine. We played in good weather in all three road games this year, I think that definitely helps offensively. I know we were only three and five during the regular season, but over our tenure in Green Bay we’ve always considered ourselves a good road team.”
(on his summer job working in a tollbooth during college) “It didn’t pay much. It was a summer job. It was something that I felt I needed to do between graduating (college). You get your Masters degree and you go collect tolls. That doesn’t quite add up but that was my plan and path. It was a good experience. It was something really just to make some money before the season started at the University of Pittsburgh before we went to training camp. I know a lot has been made of it. I don’t want to disrespect the Pennsylvania turnpike. I did my job. I studied while I was there when there were no cars coming through the booth. It was a good experience. I always felt that was the normal way to have summer jobs and do those types of things. I’m glad I took the path I did as being exposed to those types of things.”
(on whether he sought out advice from coaches who have Super Bowl experience) “We have a couple coaches on our staff and this is something that you don’t really prepare for the week after the NFC Championship game. I’ve always picked other coaches brains on how did the Super Bowl week go. A lot of coaches call and offer suggestions. I feel that I’ve been given a lot of good advice but more important you have to stay true to how your football team has been trained as far as the scheduling and so forth. There were a number of things that were brought to the table where I thought that’s an excellent idea, but it just doesn’t fit to what I felt was in the best interest of our football team leading up to this game. We don’t want to get too far away from our mode of preparation. We feel that’s a strength of our football team, the way that we prepare for our opponent and we’re going to stay as true to that as possible.”
(on the fan send off and greeting) “It was awesome just like everything that involves the fans in Green Bay. It was great. We actually left the visitors locker room on the buses for the TSA procedure. I couldn’t tell you how many people but there were signs, a lot of excitement, a lot of enthusiasm. The police escort to the airport people were lined along the sidewalks and so forth. Special as always. We’re looking forward to the return.”
(on drafting LB Clay Matthews two years ago) “I’ve said this time and time again of Clay Matthews. When Ted Thompson hits the road during the regular season, he usually comes back in town on a Thursday or Friday morning and then we have an opportunity to get together. When he got back from USC’s workout that year, he was the one player that he talked most about. He saw something in Clay. I know he played with his uncle in Houston when he was a Houston Oiler. He was really excited about Clay Matthews. As the process went on leading up to the Draft it was no surprise where we had Clay ranked and when the opportunity presented itself that we stepped up and selected him.”
(on when and why he made the decision to never attend a Super Bowl and whether he will embrace this on a personal level) “Embrace it on a personal level, frankly my number one priority is I have a job here to do. I don’t want to disappoint you, I don’t really look forward to these types of moments. It’s part of the job. The media is very important and I know I represent the Green Bay Packers but the environment leading up to the game, I am sure I am like every other coach in the past, when your season is over I really didn’t want to be around the participation leading up to the big game. I just always waited until this moment and I am glad I did. I have family coming here, my daughter is coming in Wednesday night and the rest of my family is coming here Thursday, so I am sure there will be certain things we do within the realm of what I’ve always done in a week of preparation. I’m not going to go far away from my normal schedule, especially during the biggest week of the year. I don’t know if that answers your question. I am going to do as little as I possibly can to enjoy myself I guess.”
(on the extent that the team is built for sustained success) “If you look at our roster and everybody clearly understands the age of our players, but those are really questions for next year. We don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves. I really like our team. I really like our structure, our program. We draft players, we develop them. We’ve been successful in doing that. We need to continue to do that because every year is a new year. This year for us is a great example of that. There are challenges out there in front of you that you don’t know that you’re going to hit and when they hit you have to be prepared and you have to fight through the adversity of every season because it’s always different. Every team is different, every season is different. I think the future is bright for our football team but once again, we’re focused on this game.”
(on whether he believes the lack of Super Bowl experience is a disadvantage) “Not at all. I’ll tell you exactly what I told the football team. I don’t know exactly how many players they have, nine or 10 or however many, players they have on their 53 that played in the game but their Super Bowl experience and their advantage is today through Sunday. That’s why we spent the extra time going through exactly every single day and we’ll meet as a football team, meeting every morning at 7:45 make sure we’re crystal clear on what is expected of us because the preparation is the prize. That’s what we’re after. We want to be the best prepared football team. We understand they’ve been through it. That’s an advantage to them, but we feel we do a very good job preparing our team to get ready to play games. We’re going to stay true to that. As far as the game, it’s another football game, every game is. I understand the big stage, we clearly understand the different schedules that go on leading up to the game. We’ve already talked about as a football team we have things in place that we’ll deal with the long pregame, we’ll deal with the long halftime. I don’t think it’s going to be a factor. We’re really focusing it on keeping it between the lines. The advantage Pittsburgh has over us in my opinion is today through Saturday. We’ll continue to work and educate our football team. They are a dedicated and focused bunch so I’m not really concerned about it.”
(on Charles Woodson’s transformation to becoming a team leader) “I think Charles, like a lot of us on our football team both players and coaches, everybody has the opportunity to grow. Everybody has the opportunity to improve. You can always improve and Charles has been given more opportunities to do that in the area of leadership. He has really stepped up big time. I think it was very evident in his talk after the Chicago game. He’s had a couple. Philadelphia and Atlanta were excellent too. It’s about opportunity. You talk about trust, you talk about opportunity, you talk about focus, but you have to make sure you’re creating the environment for that to exist and grow. I think he’s a perfect example of that.”
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