As the regular season got underway this past weekend, Winning In the Trenches co-author, Andrew O’Toole asked Forrest Gregg for his thoughts on how a coach gets ready.
“Preparation for the first week of a new season is no different than any other week of the season.
The coaching staff watches films of the first opponent. Unless there was a coaching change, you might want to look back to the previous season’s last couple games. But if a new staff is in place, as is the case with the Broncos this year, Coach Lewis of the Bengals will probably watch some film on New England, Josh McDaniel’s previous team. With new offensive and defensive coordinators also, the Bengal staff will study past tendencies.
The next step is preparing a game plan–matching your team’s strengths against your opponent’s defense.
For the first week in particular, you want your team healthy for the game. If need be, you hold a player out of practice to assure he can play on Sunday.
It’s a drastic change mentally, from that last preseason game to the initial game of the season. You want your players ready physically and mentally to a game that counts.
As we used to say, “You can’t win them all unless you win the first one.”
