By CHAREAN WILLIAMS
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER

Wade Phillips


(how do you begin)
Well, put a good staff together is the major thing you have to do when you take over. You can’t
do anything without a staff. That was the first thing we needed to do, and we got it done fairly quickly,
especially coming in late. A lot of coaches were under contract and those kinds of things. We ended
up putting a real good staff together, and we ended up getting a couple of guys from teams that allowed
us to talk to their coaches – Wade Wilson in Chicago who was under contract and Ray Sherman at
Tennessee. Both of those guys we ended up getting, which you usually don’t get. You don’t get that
opportunity a lot of times. So some of that worked out well. Jason Garrett was hired before I got there,
because they knew he was a good coach. And I kept several coaches on the staff. A head coach gets
all the glory and all the blame, but the assistant coaches are the ones who are the soldiers for you.


(so you feel you’ve got a pretty good Army then)
Yep. We’ve got a good group. Like most coaches, they work really hard. I think they’re real
talented, too. We’ve got two guys from Princeton (Garrett brothers, Jason and John). That’s
almost like the University of Houston.


(how would your dad have interacted with those Princeton guys)
Well, real well, because they’re both really great guys. I don’t know what a
normal Princeton guy is but these guys are really good.


(after you left San Diego, a lot of other coaches left too)
The head coach left too. (do you suppose that was an expression of dissatisfaction) No. Two
guys got head coaching jobs. Three guys got coordinators jobs. So that’s five guys that moved up.
That’s a reflection of the success we had. We were not only 14-2 last year, but the three years I was
there, we were 35-13. I don’t know many teams that did a lot better than that. There were a lot of
really good coaches there, and I think people noticed that.


(what’s the chore with a team that really had opportunity to advance further in postseason)
Usually when you come in, you’re in a situation where they’re rebuilding. Every job I’ve ever come into,
the team didn’t have a winning record the year before. This is a lot different and I’m pleased I got the
opportunity to do that. You still want to do better. Instead of having to build from the bottom, I’d rather
have a team that’s been successful and didn’t go where they wanted to go,
but at least had a really good year last year.


(pressure like you’re sitting at wheel of Ferrari that just hasn’t gotten to finish line yet)
I’d rather have the pressure of a team that’s going to win, or has a chance to win than one that is
rebuilding and expectations are low. I would rather have a team whose expectations are high.


(jerry optimistic about this season)
I’m optimistic too. I think most people in the game are optimistic. No matter where you are, even
if the team had been coming off a real poor season, I think everybody would be optimistic about the
next season and the new guys. I don’t think we’re any different that way. It will be interesting to see
what kind of talent we have. I’ve seen them on tape, but until you get on the field with them you know
their strengths and weaknesses. You don’t see those things [on tape]. The coaches that were at Dallas
that were looking at our San Diego guys, they said, ‘Boy, this guy is great at this and this and this,’ and
I said, ‘Yeah, but you don’t know that he can’t do this or that.’ So until we get in there and see what
everybody does and see the chemistry of the team and the leadership and all those things, there
are a lot of things we don’t know right now.


(when you left buffalo, did you feel only a matter of time before you became a head coach again)
It was a matter of a long time. You know, actually I thought I would get one fairly quickly, but it didn’t come that quickly.


(ever a time when you thought you might not get another head coaching job)
You know I don’t worry about those kinds of things. What comes along, comes along. I’m not a big
self-promoter kind of guy. I’ve always been happy with the job I had. I got to work for Dan Reeves
and Marty Schottenheimer in the two stints I had after Buffalo. I’d been with Dan before, but both
those guys won their 200th game while I was with them. I still gained a lot more experience
under winning coaches, so I think it helped me.


(how did being out as a head coach during that stretch help you)
Well, I was still a coordinator. Both of those guys let me run the defense, which is kind of a head
coach’s defense. It wasn’t like I wasn’t controlling a lot of things. But just to see how they handled
football teams and reinforce some things I thought you ought to do as a head coach, and a couple
of things I thought well, if I was going it here, I’d do it a little bit different. You just
learn as you go in this business.


(success you have had in 3-4, why hasn’t it come back quicker)
I don’t know that everybody knows how to coach it. I think it’s your background in some instances.
Sometimes you sprout off from different places. It seems to be doing that way in the 3-4 with different
guys gone from Pittsburgh and now some of the guys who have worked for me. I don’t know why
it left for while. When I was at Buffalo, it might have just been Pittsburgh and Buffalo and we were
the top of the league, both teams. Just like any defense overall, the 3-4 or 4-3, if you have half the
teams playing both those defenses, one of them is going to be at the top and one of them is going
to be at the bottom. It’s how you coach it, and it’s the players you have certainly.
That makes a big difference too.


(is it harder to find quality linebackers for a 3-4 than defensive linemen)
It’s harder to find defensive linemen to play a 4-3 and pay for all of them. In this day and age where
salary cap is so important, D-linemen are the highest-paid guys and to get the guys we had in
Philadelphia with Reggie White and Jerome Brown and Clyde Simmons, there’s no way you could
keep those guys [in this day and age]. They didn’t keep Reggie anyway. But I think linebackers,
in reality, are a little bit cheaper and you can find more of them. You can find more guys who are
instinctive who can run. Some in-between guys sometimes are good at outside backer. It seems
to fit better as far as the personnel and really the money that you have to spend on guys on defenses.


(bum play 3-4)
When I was at Houston, we were the first team to play the 3-4 full time. Curly Culp was the
nose guard. We traded for Curly Culp, and he was the first nose guard. Elvin Bethea went into
the Hall of Fame as a defensive end in that scheme. We did move them and stunt them in those
days and didn’t play two-gap, which has continued to this day.


(do you feel like you’ve filled your holes in the off-season with Leonard Davis and Ken Hamlin)
Jerry and I talked about. He knew a lot more about the team than I did. I could look at them on tape. When
I came in, our real weakness on the team was offensive line. Now we re-signed our center (Andre Gurode)
and we re-signed Colombo at tackle and then we signed Leonard Davis. And now we feel like maybe a weakness
is more toward a strength. That was an area we addressed. The next concern was the safety position, really
a quarterback at safety. At San Diego, we brought in Marlon McCree last year who really helped us. We were
good on defense before, but he was kind of a quarterback type. Besides being a good player, he could get
everybody in position and so forth and help everybody anticipate things, and we see Hamlin doing the same
thing for us in Dallas and also playing free and in the middle. Everybody knows Roy Williams needs to be
close to the line of scrimmage and do his thing going after people. It gives us a chance to do that. Those two
areas were the areas that there was concern, and you don’t always get them addressed in free agency
certainly, but we think we did.


(hamlin’s role change going from 4-3 to 3-4)
No. Really the secondary doesn’t change hardly any in a 3-4 or 4-3. The coverages you play are pretty
similar, so it shouldn’t change a lot. In a 3-4 or a 4-3, there are four guys rushing most of the time. Obviously
in the 4-3 it’s the four down linemen. In the 3-4, it’s the three linemen and somebody else. That’s where
we get an advantage is they don’t’ know where the somebody else is coming from.


(how did bum strike on idea of going to 3-4)
Well, we coached it in college. It was kind of a college defense. It used to be called the Oklahoma
defense from Bud Wilkinson way, way back. It was the Okie or Oklahoma defense. My dad had been
in high school and college and like the 3-4, but when he went to pro ball with Sid Gillam everybody played
4-3. He tried to get Sid to play it when he went to San Diego. I think they played it one game, and they did
well, but Sid said, ‘Nah, that’s not a pro defense.’ When Sid hired Bum in Houston, part of the deal was,
Bum said, ‘I’d like to play a 3-4,’ and he said, ‘OK, play whatever you want to play,’ and that’s how it worked out.


(when was the last time you coached the 4-3)
Philadelphia. We ran the Buddy Ryan defense. I say that but we had Buffalo in the middle of one
season, we got all the linebackers hurt. We were playing Miami at home and all our linebackers
were hurt, so we ended up in a 4-3 that day against them and beat them. Again, it’s the players
you have and how you coach them, not necessarily the scheme or anything.


(one safety you’ve had that Roy Williams compares to)
Well, I had Smith and Atwater at Denver. That kind of player. They were physical guys that
were really talented. I don’t know if you intimidate people, but they’d scare me if I had to go
across the middle I know that. They were real talented players like Roy. That kind of player.


(Atwater was a great hitter)
Yeah, but Dennis Smith was too. Dennis Smith was actually a better hitter than Atwater,
but Atwater got that one hit on Okoye (in 1990) on national TV.


(how important SLB spot and where are you with Bobby Carpenter)
The strongside linebacker, I’ve been lucky to have some real good ones with Merriman being
the last one. Ricky Jackson and on and on. I’ve had quite a few real good ones. Greg Ellis right
now if he comes back is really a key guy as far as that’s concerned. Obviously when they lost
him last year that hurt them a lot. He’s kind of an ideal guy for that spot. Bobby, again I don’t
know the players except what I saw from last year. Bobby played real well in the Seattle game,
which I’m encourage about. Where exactly to put him? I want to start this off-season putting
Bobby outside and inside and try to get a feel for exactly where he needs to have an opportunity
to play, because he is a talented player. He’s big and can run and is smart. You just kind of look
for fits, where people should fit in and give them an opportunity to play.

(sounds like you have doubts about greg ellis)
I think that (with) any (injured) player, an Achilles’ especially I would think. We’ve seen
players that didn’t come back. We’ve seen players that came back. His rehab has been real
good. He’s starting to run now. It’s been real positive as far as him being able to come back.


(your strength is relating to players. obvious question about how you get along with TO)
I’ve never really had a problem with players. I guess never, never is false on the college test.
I just treat the guy the way I treat players and people and expect the same from them and see what happens.


(your different coach than he has had)
Yeah. Different. Sometimes different is good. We’ll see.


(have you spoken to TO much)
Jason Garrett is in Miami right now and he’s talked to him this week. They’ve been communicating
more than I have with him. But I’ve talked to him, yes. He’s excited about it.


(he’s a high-maintenance guy)
A lot of real good players are high-maintenance guys. Thurman Thomas is going in the Hall of Fame,
and if everybody wore blue, he wore red at practice. Which is OK. I think you have to let individuals
be individuals within a team concept as long as they stay within the team. That was the great thing
that Marv did and I learned that from Marv. You can have individuals as long as they play together
as a team and for the team. Actually, Shawne Merriman is a lot like that. He does his Lights Out Dance
and all stuff, but he’s a team guy and that’s why he’s such a good player and players like him.
Thurman was that kind of guy. Yeah, sure, he said things at times and same kind of deal.


(no different rules for different players, though)
I think you have certain rules certainly. I don’t think you go through life or football or anything
without rules. But I’m not a rules guy. I think everybody in treated as an individual. We coach guys
at the same position and tell them to do different things, because they’re individuals. Ted Washington
at nose guard, we played him right in the middle. We played a one-gap defense, but he played two
gaps and we told him you’ve got this one because he was so big. And sometimes four gaps. I had Jamal
Williams and we offset him on the center and played one side of the center. It’s the same position, same
assignment, but different players. I played nose guards that had to stunt to that position. You treat
them as individuals within the team. They’ve got to follow certain basic rules and I think you appeal
to them, ‘As a team player, you do these things because of the team.’


(how do you define ‘team guy’)
I think they put the team above themselves in the situations you need them to. After they make
a sack, they might put themselves above the team, but playing the play, they’re putting the team
ahead. Not making dumb mistakes is being a team player, not hitting a guy out of bounds. There
are a lot of things involved in it. Not getting in a fight after the play. It hurts the team, 15 yards,
just because you’re mad at somebody. I think those things are involved in team play also.


(5-yard penalty for spike in field of play)
We’re going to spin it. We’re going to have spinning class. We’ve done celebrations in the end zone
and what you can’t do. They’ve got to learn those things. I don’t blame the league. Guys having 4-yard
plays are spiking the ball and throwing it down the field.


(you appreciate players’ personalities)
I think you have individuals within the game. It is really a No Fun League if you don’t have any
kind of emotion, because it is an emotional game. To train them to what emotion when is part
of what you have to do, because certain things you can do and certain things you can’t do.


(buffalo bills players enjoyed playing for you)
Some of the enjoyment was winning I think when it comes down to it. You can do a lot of things
and it can be fun and all that but if you don’t win games, it’s not. I think some if it is slanted that
way because we won a lot of games. That’s the way I’ve always coached. I won’t be any
different. If it’s a positive reaction, I’m glad.


(buffalo bills days, case where it was time to move on)
No, Ralph made me move on. It wasn’t my choice. That’s his prerogative as owner. If you feel like
it isn’t going the way you want it go that you can certainly change it. I enjoyed every day I coached
there and I appreciate everything he did for me.

(without music city miracle you might be in buffalo still)
I don’t think it was that completely. I wish they wouldn’t have let them throw a forward lateral.
We’d have still been playing in the playoffs, I know that.


(do you find yourself looking for talent you’ve had, like a jamal williams
here, a steve atwater there, a ricky jackson)
I think you can kind of spot guys that you feel like will help you because, again, experience
and coaching the same kind of defense a long time, I think I can see certain guys
in certain positions that really give us a strength.


(have some of those guys jumped out at you on this defense)
Yeah. Ware and Ellis both, those two guys coming off the corner are going to give people problems
I can tell you that right now. I like that starting out. We’ve got some other guys who I think are
talented that we’re going to use a little differently. I’m optimistic about what I’ve seen,
but again, we have to wait and see on the field.


(good numbers on the line to rotate guys through)
Yeah, but I’m not a big rotation guy. It depends on what we have. I don’t want to rotate
a great player too much. A lot of people it’s just numbers, it’s how many plays he played
and we get somebody else in, but I’m not that way. We played Merriman a whole lot. We
played Jamal Williams a whole lot. They’re going to play, if they’re the best player, by far.
Now if you’ve got other guys who can help you, I believe you ought to rotate them in.
Just to rotate people, I’m never been for that.


(anybody ware reminds you of)
He’s more talented than... He’s a natural rusher. Ricky Jackson was a natural pass rusher
and he reminds me a little bit of him there, but Ware is a lot faster than Ricky. A different
type of player. Not really. I’ve had some that have led the league, but they weren’t quite like him.
I think he’s a special talent.


(code of conduct/character important)
I think we get mixed up sometimes on character. I know a lot of young people that have
made mistakes, and I’m not talking about football players, that are really high character people.
We tend to say well, a guy got a DUI, he’s not a high character person. So what character is is
not necessarily what we’re labeling some of these guys in our league. But I’m certainly for people
with character, because I think they get better as football players. You don’t have a whole lot of
them that don’t have pretty good character. They didn’t get to the college program they were in
without being fairly high character people. As always, there are a few people that have problems
and we tend to concentrate only on those people, where 90 percent whatever of
the league never had any problems.


(chargers defense this season)
It’s going to be great.


(hard for you to leave them in that sense)
It’s hard to leave a place. You spend a lot of time and lot of effort and a lot of friendships and
a lot of bonding and a lot of things you’re in coaching for. The last three years we’ve kind of
built. They were 4-12 when we went there and the defense was kind of a big problem for them.
You certainly miss all that and especially what you quote built up, not only the play but the players.


(terence newman)
He’s a real good player. We loved him coming out. We thought he was going to be kind
of what he is, a guy that’s really talented that can do about anything he wants to do.
I really like him. I think he’s a special cornerback.


(romo compared to rivers)
It’s similar that both of them made the Pro Bowl and are young quarterbacks. They’re obviously
a lot different. See the gleam in Tony’s eye and the smile he has and the personality he has,
you can see he’s got a lot of charisma. I think that’s what the quarterback needs. He’s got the
intangibles to go along with what his obvious talent is. He’s still got some work to do and he
knows and he’s a good worker. He’s going to go from there.


(calling plays)
We’ll work that out. We really hadn’t gotten into that. We’re putting all the calls together right now.
We’ll start working this next month on throwing routes and doing that type of stuff. Like I said before,
the guy who’s going to call the plays is Tony Romo.


(holder)
I don’t know that our punter can do it. A lot of people’s punters can hold for them. We’ll have to
address that obviously. (mat mcbriar let a long snap go through his fingers a few years ago in
the opener in minnesota) Brad Johnson can hold.


(level of excitement with potential of defense. you’ve improved it everywhere you’ve been)
It’s been g ood for a long time because I don’t know reputation or whatever when I come in.
They’re looking for something. Usually their defense hasn’t been good. Both those things. They
feel like you can help them. It’s a good position to be in, coming in coaching-wise, because they’re
looking for something. They’re looking for something to help them be better. You can’t get in a
much better teaching situation than that, than your class to want to present something to
them that they think can help them.


(do you believe defense wins championships)
I don’t know about that. Offenses certainly are really important. I don’t see many teams winning it
without a good offense. Our league wants it to be that way. Offenses are little bit ahead of defenses,
because of some of the rules and so forth. You’re going to score 20 something points a game. The
real good defenses certainly make a big difference. Whether you can win it all just with a great defense,
it’s been a long time since somebody has won it with just an overpowering defense and not a great offense.


(how do you explain disastrous results from defense last year)
Well, I don’t know. That’s why I’m there. I’m not there to explain; I’m just there to try to help.
It surprised me a little bit, but you never know. They did have injuries. I don’t know.
I’m not analyzing that part. I’m just seeing what I can do.


(jason ferguson)
He’s a combination of guys. But the way he plays the position and the way they had him playing
the position was very difficult. I think we can help him that way. To play a two-gap at the nose and
read the center and if he goes this way and take that gap, he’s already got an advantage on you,
to take that gap is hard to do. He did a pretty good job of that. If we can change that up a
little bit, I think we can help him. (one gap) Yes.


(where is Bum living)
Ranch halfway between Beeville and Goliad. It’s about an hour and a half south of San Antonio in
south Texas. (dad will be at training camp some) Bum is 83 now. He still wears his boots and rides
his horses. He rides his tractor more than he rides his horses.


(free agency allows you pick best player)
That’s what we’ve come down to now. It’s not that we don’t have needs; we do. But they’re not
dire needs. It’s not something that you just have to have to be able to play a game or start. We
don’t have to have a starter to come in and be this or that. You still want to get top people at
any position. But it gives us a little more versatility in the draft as to who we pick.


(do you know how long it’s been since cows drafted offensive player in the first round)
I know it’s been a while. A few years.


(bill walsh)
I remember when we played them in Cincinnati. He was coaching in Cincinnati. I don’t know
why it was the West Coast offense, because he was with Cincinnati. But he was running that
offense that really most teams are influenced by now. I don’t know that you have an offense
in this league now that wasn’t influenced and run some of the plays that Bill Walsh ran all the way back.


(how good are the young QBs in the league)
We hope that Romo kid is real good. (there are so many of them, though) Yeah, it seems like
there are quite a few blossoming at the same time, which is certainly good for the league. It’s
such a key position. You have to keep trying to find them. It seems like more of them are starting
to get opportunities. It still takes a couple of years for them to be ready to play, though. You don’t
want to get the expectations so high on a first-year guy. But within a couple of years
you know whether you have one or not.


(young QBs)
They don’t win many games. Neither did Peyton Manning. It takes a little bit for them to get
to the point where they can not only be a good, young quarterback, but also help their team win games.


(when to play young QBs)
Different guys do it different ways. Jeff Fisher started out and when he felt like the kid was
ready to play, he played him. I think that’s what you have to do with him. You don’t want to
throw them to the lions, so to speak, too early. Unless the Lions aren’t very good
and then you play the Packers.


(TO conversations)
Not a lot, but I haven’t had a lot of conversations with all the players. But I have talked with him.
I’ve talked with a lot of my players. Off-season program started this week and when I get back
this evening, tomorrow I’ll be in there with them. I think we have almost all of them working out.
I’ll get to really see all of them, which I haven’t been able to do, because we haven’t been together.


(conversation with TO)
Real good. Yeah.


(thoughts on leonard davis)
I have some huge thoughts about Leonard Davis. A guy with 20 shoes. He’s just such a big human
being. His weight... Usually guys that big have weight problems, and you worry about all that. He’s
never really had weight problems. He told me he’s been about 340 since high school – at least 340.
It just amazes me he can manage his weight that well. Just a huge guy. I tell you he’s a good football
player. He’s a real good football player and a real good athlete. We’ve got him in the off-season
program, which I think is going to be key for him to fit in with our team.
He’s willing to do that and he’s willing to work.


(davis has been labeled a bust; how does he get to that next level)
I think if we win, he wins. I think that’s part of it. He’s played well. The team success has
hurt his success. I think they’ll recognize him. He’s committed to working hard and getting
ready to play and showing everybody what he can do. That’s a good place to
have a player with that kind of talent.


(davis)
He came in last week before we even started and started working out. I’m encouraged about that.


(davis wasn’t there in arizona; lazy)
I only know the one I see right now. Like I said, he came in last week. He bought a house
in the Dallas area. He’s ready to go. That’s a real positive sign to me, besides his real obvious
talent. So much football is attitude. Our players, not because I’m there, I think our strength
and conditioning guy does a great job. Bill Parcells had great participation and I think
that’s carried on and that’s going to help us.


(best example of a player who didn’t click in one place and succeeded somewhere else)
There’s been a lot of them obviously. We had Steve Foley at San Diego. He didn’t really play at
Houston at all. He came over and had 10 or 11 sacks the first year and was a dominant player
for us the first two years that I was there. Randall Godfrey had been a good player for a good
while and was in Seattle and we picked him up and he had an outstanding year for us. There
are a lot of players who maybe sometimes fit in better. I don’t know if they change attitudes.
I don’t know what happens to them, but sometimes they click better at other places.


(how does that click with coaches)
Yeah, right place at right time is good for everybody I think. I think there are places where a
coach fits in well for whatever reason. I think he has to be a good coach to do that. There wasn’t
a better time for my dad to coach the Houston Oilers than the time we had. The country was
country and western and Houston was the place for all that and he was the coach there at that
time. We went to two AFC Championship Games. Sometimes there’s a right fit.


(why your dad was so popular in Houston)
I don’t know. I think it was just right place at the right time as far as dad was concerned. And he
was a good football coach. Winning was certainly the key. People win somewhere they’re popular
there. Belichick is lot more popular in New England than he was in Cleveland.


(getting a second chance; what did you learn in your other stops)
I’m pretty well set on how I want to do things. For me, it was just getting another opportunity,
which some guys get and some guys don’t. I appreciate the opportunity and I think I know how
to handle things and work with players and with people and we’ll see what happens.


(romo’s dropped snap in seattle game)
I talked to him about I thought he was really noble about taking all the blame, but he wasn’t the
quarterback when he dropped the ball. He was actually the guy that got them down there to win
the game at his position. And there was a minute and 15 seconds left in the game, and the team
had the ball on the 2-yard line and Dallas had three timeouts. If we stop them right there in three
downs and make them punt, we’ve still got a chance to win the game. He probably would have
brought them down there again. They would have had field position. The game wasn’t over. I just
thought he took too much blame, and I told him that. I think he’s gone on from there now. It’s
not one guy and one play no matter what happens. It certainly wasn’t just that play. He played a
heck of a game. Being a defensive coach, I thought the defense should have stopped them on
the 2-yard line. They had three timeouts and you’re still going to win the game. But I’m kind of
glad it didn’t turn out that way. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be sitting here.


(how will defense look different than last season)
Technically, certainly it’s going to be big difference. I think the players will say there’s quite a
bit of difference. We’ll run a lot more zone blitz than they did last year. A lot of the
techniques and assignments are difference.


It’s a player friendly defense in that you can learn it quickly. That’s part of my success in being
able to come in quickly on defense and turn it around. To be able to do that, players can’t make
mistakes. The reason they don’t make mistakes is we teach it so they can learn it quickly and
utilize their talent rather than worrying about assignments. We’ve got it down pretty good
where we can go in in a year and they won’t make many mental mistakes.
You can’t say that about a lot of defenses.