Mike Holmgren
Mike Holmgren
Michael George Holmgrenis a former American football coach and executive, most recently serving as president of the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League. Holmgren began his NFL career as a quarterbacks' coach and later as an offensive coordinator with the San Francisco 49ers, where they won Super Bowl XXIII and XXIV. He served as the head coach of the Green Bay Packers from 1992 to 1998, appearing in two Super Bowls, and of the Seattle Seahawks from 1999 to...
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth15 June 1948
CitySan Francisco, CA
When you look at the two teams, (the Patriots) have been in more situations like this and they are more experienced than we are. They are a very veteran and smart team, and that's our goal, to get there. What I have to do is get our guys to believe they can be there. I believe we're going to be a better football team at the end of the year than we are right now because each game our young guys get better.
We had a good game plan, and we wanted to come out passing the ball. Matt's not unlike a lot of quarterbacks who hit their first two or three passes and then are off and running.
One of these years, we're going to win a playoff game and take that next step.
We have played better than we did tonight. Unfortunately, it's the biggest game of the year.
I think that can be overstated just a little bit. If you have a very untalented guy who is a high-effort guy, you are going to lose every week. You like them like that, but the better player is going to win more games for you. The trick is finding those guys that are really fine football players and really don't think they are that great; they are always trying to get better.
That was very distasteful to me, to retaliate so to speak like that (against the Vikings). I do believe the commissioner should look into these kind of clauses. We work so hard on trying to gain labor peace and a new collective bargaining agreement and then we as clubs allow agents to get cute and circumvent it. On the playing field there are rules and there are unwritten rules about how the game should be played in the spirit and the fairness of it all. It doesn't make sense to me that we had to lose such a fine football player this way. I was surprised by the ruling.
I said to him (Alexander) that if I were to put him back in the game and he were to get hurt, I would never speak to him again. I told him that, and he said, 'No, I'm OK. Don't worry.' I'm really glad that we could do that and he could score.
I think that has always stuck with me. I put the ball in the hands of the best player in the world, in a fairly safe pass and I almost lost the game for our team. That stuck with me a long time in that situation.
He came out of that game pretty sore. Washington is a tough physical defensive football team, and we got banged around a little bit, but both he and Engram practiced today.
I talked with (defensive coordinator) Ray Rhodes and we both agreed that that was as fine a game executed as we could remember, all around. They were better than good. They were really good. Physical, smart, and they made key plays. They just set their mind to it and did it.
We played in noisy games on the road. I don't anticipate it being like that, but I think we will be the visiting team in that stadium I'm pretty sure, so we're going to work on that the next couple days.
We are going to approach it just like we have attempted to approach every game we have played this season.
He's one of those guys that when you prepare for them, you better have a plan to make it a little more difficult for him. Otherwise, he can take over a game by himself.
I know they're not OK with it. I wanted them to keep their heads up. There's no need to apologize for anything. We lost the football game and we lost it because of the reasons you lose most games ... mistakes.