Mudd’s Passion

For those who haven’t been by PE.com recently, Dave Spadaro has posted a really good interview with new OL coach Howard Mudd.  I encourage everyone to read it.

I came away thinking that Winston Justice will either push for a Pro Bowl spot or be an ex-Eagle at the end of 2011.  Howard is tough.  He’s hard on his players.  Those that can handle it, thrive.  Those that can’t…hit the bricks, pal.  Check out this quote.

“A weak-minded player has no chance with me. This is a tough game and it is a tough world. The quarterback doesn’t care if you feel sorry for yourself. He doesn’t care. He’s on his back. That’s all he cares about,” says Mudd. “It’s not OK that he is on his back. What’s OK is to recognize that what you did was a failure, so let’s go fix it. I have a list of excuses, so I say to a player when he starts explaining what happened, ‘Just give me a number. I have the list, about 10 or 12 of them.’ Players say, ‘The back knocked me off my block,’ or, ‘I slipped,’ or, ‘I did what you told me but it didn’t work.’ All excuses. None of them are reasons.

“Eventually, if you are going to survive in this world, you can’t dance around the truth. You have to confront it and you have to be honest with yourself and if you want to excel, you have to commit yourself to that concept.

Winston has the talent to be an outstanding RT.  He showed real flashes of that in 2009.  Howard is here to get Justice back to that form, and better.  If Justice buys in, the sky is the limit.

One of the reasons I like Howard so much is that he’s not trying to re-invent the wheel.  He is a believer in fundamentals and repetition.  Football can be a pretty simple game when you really break it down.  Learn certain basic techniques and then spend time perfecting them.  You’ll never do it, but the pursuit of perfection (as Lombardi talked about) is what leads to really good things.  More from Howard:

“Uniformity is a big deal to me. We’re going to do the same things the same way every time. We’re going to do a few things and do those things extraordinarily well,” says Mudd. “I’ll live with that principle forever and ever and ever. I will tell the players this: We’re doing to do the same drills on the first day of training camp that we do on the final day of practice before the Super Bowl. We’re going to hit the same sled. We’re going to do the same footwork and I’m going to make you do it right. My job is to make them do it right. That’s the way the world is. You can either embrace it or not embrace it. But that’s the way we’re going to do things around here, because I know what works.”

We all want to see better OL play in 2011.  I think the addition of Howard Mudd will have a big impact on the guys.  He’s not inheriting chopped liver.  Jason Peters is a Pro Bowl player.  Todd Herremans has shown flashes of that kind of ability.  Justice has big time potential.  Jamaal Jackson at C and Mike McGlynn at RG are more uncertain.  JamJax can be a good C if he just returns to form after a long layoff.  RG is the mystery position.  I”m assuming McGlynn is the guy there, but don’t know that for a fact.  Howard is likely to get a G pretty early in the draft to work with.  He’ll also have Max Jean-Gilles.  Hopefully he can find a solid starter out of that group.

I came away really fired up after reading what Mudd had to say.  He’s not a jerk, but is hard on his players because he wants them to be at their best.  Tough love, I guess you’d say.  Players need to be pushed.  Graig Nettles (star 3B for the Yankees in the ’78 World Series) said the key to being a coach/manager is figuring out which guys to kick in the ass and which ones to kiss on the ass.  I get the feeling that Howard very much understands that principle.  Ted Daisher rubbed a lot of guys the wrong way because he pushed, but never praised.  Sean McDermott, to a lesser extent, had a similar issue.  Players have to understand you’re being hard on them for a reason.  If not, they think you’re a jerk and tune you out.

Now all we need is the resumption of football so Howard can actually get a chance to interact with his new players and “coach ’em up”.

p.s.   anybody get the title reference?