This morning at The Breakers Resort in West Palm Beach, Fla., all 16 NFC head coaches took an hour out from their schedules at the NFL owners meetings to meet with reporters over breakfast. Delivered by three NFC coaches, here are notable thoughts that have some relevance to the Vikings.
Vikings coach Leslie Frazier on how Peyton Manning will energize things in Denver …
Why it's relevant to the Vikings: It's not really. Other than the fact that everyone in the world has weighed in on the Broncos' quarterback situation in the past few weeks. So why not give Frazier his say?
Frazier says: "I think it will be a little bit different for Denver [than it was with us and Donovan McNabb]. Just having an offseason to integrate Peyton into the locker room, into the new system and just being around his teammates and coaches for an entire offseason. It's going to be a whole lot different. My knowing Peyton, how he works and the leadership that he brings, it'll be quite different because he's going to be the first guy at practice. He's not going to miss any workouts. So guys being around him the offseason will see his work ethic. Whereas we started on the fly trying to introduce everything to Donovan. Which was hard. Hard for him. Hard for the coaches. Hard for everybody. So having an offseason where the coaches and players can be around Peyton, they respect him right now because of what they've seen and heard. But when they work with him daily in this offseason, they're going to be like, 'Wow,' this guy is truly the leader of our team."
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Lions coach Jim Schwartz on the biggest building blocks needed for a team to transform from a last-place laughingstock into a legitimate playoff team ...
Why it's relevant to the Vikings: Detroit earned a wild card berth last season just three seasons after going winless. The Vikings, coming off a 3-13 season, could use all the advice they can get.
Schwartz says: "I don't know if it had anything to do with my fingerprints or anything like that. It was about a process. And it was about getting good players in place and having them fit a scheme and being able to play well in that scheme. … [As far as a mental overhaul to the team], I could say, yes there was one. But none of that means anything unless you get good players there and have players that fit. All that other stuff? Self-help books don't work a whole lot if you don't have anything to work with. You could show a hundred movie clips, you could have a hundred different sayings on the locker room wall and hand out a hundred different T-shirts with a slogan on them. None of it means anything if you don't have good players. You have to draft well. You have to sign good players. And then when you have him, you have to develop them and put them in schemes that fit. If you do that, you can be successful for a long time. If you don't, you're about to be stuck with a lot of slogans."
