You will find a way to make your message fresher. You'll find a way to make your connections in a way that will continue to inspire and direct and motivate. That's what I'm banking on.

Recruiting is the lifeblood of any program, so you can't put anything above that, ... But it wouldn't matter who you had here if you didn't have the right mental attitude and work ethic. You need all those elements to come together to do something like we are doing.

Each person holds so much power within themselves that needs to be let out. Sometimes they just need a little nudge, a little direction, a little support, a little coaching, and the greatest things can happen.

It's not that you're not smart anymore; it's that you're unwilling to do it. Coaches who coach know what I'm talking about. You just keep battling to help your coaches and your players, to refine your scheme, to break down your opponent, to find ways to travel and take care of your players.

I had no plan for that year but it wound up being one of the most important years of my football coaching career. It hit me along the way that I needed to really get at the heart of what's really true to myself. And then I was able to mold it and shape it in the years at SC to become the approach and the concept and the culture that we try to create here at Seattle.

I learned a tremendous amount about what was important to me as a head coach in that I was not in charge. I didn't have final say about what was going on, and I was always having to represent other people's views, and it was very difficult to be real, to be authentic, to be true because there were a number of people who had say about what was going on.

I really admire the job that not just coach Belichick has done but that Robert Kraft and his family have done, and the decisions that they made to let Bill do what he's capable of doing. I think it's a great illustration of a way to structure an NFL organization when you let the coach really run the thing.