Mike Zimmer

You've talked about creating a culture here, or setting expectations. What have you found is the most effective way to do that? Is it harder to do when you're managing a whole team and not just a defense?

Zimmer: Sometimes I get frustrated because I want us to do things better than what we're doing. I try to be consistent with everything I'm trying to do. I think some of it is, just the way I talk to the team, the things I preach to them every day or in the meetings. It hasn't been harder to do it with the team, as opposed to just the defense, but I know as coaches, we talked a lot about -- because I'll get frustrated sometimes, and they'll say, 'Hey, you're trying to create a new culture, you're trying to do all those things.' I said, 'I know, but I expect it to go faster.' And then I think back to Cincinnati -- it was different defensively, but it was kind of the same. We were trying to create a mindset and a toughness and a physicality, and playing smart, and playing a team concept. I guess, sometimes it just doesn't happen quite as fast as I want it to. I have to realize, it's not done in a week. It takes time. But that's the thing I like a little bit about where we're at. You've got guys like [Anthony] Barr and Teddy Bridgewater. Barr is a young guy that's a really good football player, and as a rookie, he doesn't say very much because he kind of understands his place. Teddy's a little bit the same way. But three years from now, when those guys are in their third year and they're really good football players and they're the leaders of this football team, if we keep bringing up the right kind of guys and teaching them exactly how we want it, that could be pretty exciting to see. Not that I want to wait three years, but I can see Teddy and Anthony Barr being the cornerstones of this franchise in three years.

As you get into the second half, and you've had a chance to set up what you want to see happen, what is the next step? Do you feel like players pretty much know what to expect from you, or is there still more of that work that needs to be done?


Zimmer: I think they have a pretty good idea of what to expect from me, and how I am, and how I go about things. A lot of times, I hear the players say, 'Don't listen to how he says it; listen to what he says.' Things like that. I think they get used to me, and in the same way, I understand a lot of the players better, too -- which ones to push a little harder, and which ones to back off. Like, with Xavier Rhodes, some of these younger players that I expect to be consistent all the time with what we're asking them to do, it takes time to do that. But when they have success, and they see themselves having success -- a guy like Sharrif Floyd, who's a young guy [who] a lot of people said things about -- when he starts having success, and he starts saying, 'Wow, this guy knows what he's talking about,' it just breeds more confidence. When they get out on the practice field, I don't know when it will all happen, but I'm hoping at some point that everything we do is natural for Xavier and Sharrif and Cordarrelle [Patterson] and all these guys, and it just clicks. That's when you become a really good football team -- when guys are thinking about playing and having fun and kind of free-flowing.