More from Johnson/Tresey Q&A

2) What is your core coaching philosophy?
Mike Johnson: "My overall offensive philosophy probably would be a balanced attack. I want to be able to run the ball effectively. And there are a number of ways to do that. You can run a power run game, a spread run game, where you have zone principles. I just believe in running the ball effectively. I believe in having a strong run-action passing game. Everything you run in the run game should have a pass-action that comes off of it. And a protection that is sound to protect the quarterback and give him the opportunity to make those throws.
You have to stretch the field horizontally as well as vertically. You have to make the defense defend the entire field. You have to have plays go a certain ways then misdirection. Reverses, screens, all those things to combat what a defense does to you.
That goes into the balanced attack - you want to run it, throw it and stretch the field both horizontally and vertically."

Joe Tresey: "I think the most important thing at our level is that players have to be able to play fast. That's my No. 1 deal. They have to play fast. You can be good fundamentally, you can be very good athletically. But if you don't - when the ball is snapped and you can't react and play fast in this scenario -your chances of success diminish.

I think the second thing is playing with great effort. Yeah, you got kids who are athletic and they can play fast, but is their motor going to run every down, every snap they're in there? We really want high-motor guys, high-energy guys, guys who play very urgent. We're trying to build that just running on and off the field. Ones, twos; ones, twos. That's a mindset. That creates an urgent mindset. Everything we try to do, we try to do with urgency because I believe you can condition your mind to become an urgent person, when you need to be.

So I think playing fast, playing with great effort is extremely important. I think communication is huge. You notice I haven't even talked scheme or tackling or fundamentals. I'd say communication is huge. If the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing, and they're not on the same page, that's when people get out of gaps, people blow assignments. Communication is huge. We're trying to get our guys to understand that.
Just up front, when you're running a game between one another, there's got to be communication. When you're running a stunt, there's got to be communication between the linebacker and the guy up front, because gaps are changing, their gap is changing. We're a gap-oriented defense. In the secondary, just reminding the corners, cloud fours, the safety talking to the corner, the corner talking to the safety. I think when you're able to articulate your responsibility, not only does it help the person next to you, but it reinforces what your responsibility is. That's really important.

And then, from a fundamental aspect, being able to meet and beat blocks. Being able to come to balance in space. Those are all very dear to my heart."