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Polian on Mike and Mike

Woke up to Golic and Greenburg talking to Bill Polian and caught some really interesting points.

Polian spent hours talking Tony Dungy into returning after last season and kept his promise to Tony not to do the same this year.

Polian told 3 stories about Dungy,

  • about first hearing his philosophies and recognizing it from Marv Levy, a coach Dungy never worked with but Dungy is a coaching decedent of through Bill Walsh.
  • Dungy's response to the Jacksonville disaster, everyone else was wringing their hands and didn't think they would be able to pull it together. Dungy told them, we can do this, we just need a few changes and to do some things better.
  • How Dungy dealt with fighting. First year with the team, two players got into a fight in practice. Coach Dungy stops practice and tells the team, "I don't like fighting. First of all because you might hurt yourself, secondly because it always hurts the team with a 15 yard penalty. If you fight, you will be standing next to me and you will not play." According to Polian there hasn't been a fight since.

On Caldwell, Polian said that there won't be a lot of difference that the public sees. Caldwell is the same kind of quiet, determined guy as Dungy.

He is allowing Caldwell to make any changes on the staff that he wants, and are discussing that today.

There will be no philosophy or scheme changes on either side of the ball. Caldwell has been part of the offense for the last 7 years so it's his style and he's commited to the Tampa-2.