I confess that I don't know Joe Philbin well enough to vouch for exactly where he's coming from. I don't always know when he's kidding or serious. I don't know if he's a fiery motivator or professorial schemer. I can guess, but I cannot say I know 100 percent.
So today I asked coach if he's got a pregame or night-before speech ready to go for Saturday night or Sunday.
"I've got some ideas," Philbin said. "Sometimes I go on instinct but there's some thoughts I have, a couple of things I'm toying around with. They'll be different than some of my famous ones in Green Bay that I used to do the day before. I have to change up because I can't be quite the way I was when I was an assistant."
Um, ok, I'll bite: What was your most famous speech, coach?
"Probably the one where I dressed up like a pilgrim the day before a Thanksgiving Day game," Philbin said. "That's probably the most famous one."
Seriously?
"I'm totally serious," said the former Green Bay offensive coordinator. "I sent my wife out to the costume store. I had the buckles and the big hat and the whole bit. The point was we were playing the Lions and so it was Thanksgiving and they knew that over the years I'd done some spoofs on the Boston Marathon and the midnight ride of Paul Revere. I'd rubbed Massachusetts in their face. So the real point was we have to stick together like a family and play like a team. That was kind of the message."
