The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Players all in on Gregg Williams
Tretter: ‘His leadership has been very strong’
as interim head coach of the Cleveland Browns, Gregg Williams is affecting change on the entire team.
This is how Gregg Williams introduced himself on Jan. 20, 2017, in his first press conference with reporters covering the Browns:
“If you can’t affect change, then you don’t belong at this level.
“… Mental toughness precedes physical toughness. So when we talk about attitude, it’s mental before physical. How we go about exuding body language. You know, I’m studying every one of you all, and some of you are slumped. You won’t slump in my meeting room. You’re going to have your feet flat on the first day and we’re going to talk about how you sit in your chair when I walk in the room, and how you focus and pay attention.”
Williams was hired to replace fired defensive coordinator Ray Horton on that January day nearly two years ago. He affected change on the defense, though it didn’t show up until this season because the players were so inept in 2017. Now as, interim head coach, he is affecting change on the entire team.
The Browns (4-6-1) beat the Bengals, 35-20, in Cincinnati on Nov. 25 to win their first road game after 25 straight road losses. They are on a two-game winning streak for the first time in four years.
Standing on the outside and reaching the conclusion the Browns are more disciplined under Williams than they were under Hue Jackson, who was fired after going 3-36-1, is one thing. It carries more weight when players say the same thing.
“Discipline has been great,” center JC Tretter said Nov. 26 on a conference call. “I think it’s something we desperately needed. He’s really reined everybody in and has everybody focused on one single goal.
“His leadership has been very strong. He fires up the team. He has that personality; I think everybody knows that. He’s done a great job of rallying the troops to one cause. I think you see that on Sundays.”
So what, exactly, is discipline as meted out by Williams? Is it writing “I will sit up straight in meeting rooms” 500 times if he catches a player slumping? Tretter has the answer. “The rules and what’s expected of each person on the team when it comes to penalties, missed assignments and all of these little things are spelled out for you,” the Browns center said. “There is no confusion on what’s going on. Gregg has in every meeting hit on all of the same points over and over again to where there is really no gray area to what’s expected of each player on this team. That’s kind of something that I think has helped us to really take that next step that everything is kind of spelled out for you and what it’s to be a pro.”
Williams pounds the message into his players – win the meeting, win the practice, win the day, win the game.
“He’s a good public speaker and he’s a good leader from the front so he has good messages in team meetings that I think the team has been rallying behind,” linebacker Joe Schobert said. “Everybody kind of needed to refocus, and he’s done a good job of keeping everyone refocused.”
It is worth noting before a Gregg Williams statue is sculpted to stand alongside the Jim Brown statue that Williams was 17-31 as head coach of the Buffalo Bills from 2001-03, but, so far, so good.
The CBA prohibits teams from fining players for penalties. But there are different ways to punish. Taking away playing time is one. Williams holds players accountable to each other.
“I believe this and I’ve believed this my whole life,” Williams said on a conference call. “We as athletes, we as young men and we as grown men, we crave discipline. We want discipline. We just want fair discipline and understand that discipline signifies a lot of the things in our life.
“It’s when all of a sudden other things slide by or (some) people don’t have to do what other people have to do – that’s when things start to tear you down from the inside.”
The conference call with Williams might as well have been an interview with Browns general manager John Dorsey to strip the “interim” tag from Williams’ job title, or, if not with Dorsey, an interview with other general managers who will be on a head coach hunt in January.
“I don’t want to overblow it at all – I say what I mean and I mean what I say,” Williams said. “It’s about being on time, doing things the right way, not doing things halfway and doing things all of the way. That’s what’s needed at this level.
“Ability alone doesn’t win at this level. You have to go above and beyond. When you go above and beyond in doing things the right way and doing things the best that you individually can do, then the team will get better too because everybody trusts each other.”
The Browns will have to “go above and beyond” in their next game. They visit the Texans, 7-3 and winners of seven straight before hosting Tennessee on Nov. 26, in Houston on Dec. 2.