Kendall Fuller Knows a Championship Culture
The reason why past Washington coach Jay Gruden and many of his predecessors failed wasn’t so much lack of talent or being outplayed on Sundays. No, some games were lost during the week.
Practices under Gruden were more playtime than work. Players stood around all too often waiting for another segment to begin. They would joke and play. The focus was just not there.
Cornerback Kendall Fuller spent two years in Washington before traded to Kansas City in 2018. His two years with the Chiefs ended with a Super Bowl ring before re-signing with Washington. He knows the difference preparation makes.
WATCH: Defensive Backs Coach Chris Harris on Kendall Fuller
“I think one of the main things I picked up from Kansas City is just when you’re in the building, the work never stops,” he said via Zoom on Wednesday. “They always had us doing walkthroughs a little bit earlier before practice. If we got out there 5 or 10 minutes early, getting out there just to get more reps.
“If you’re in a period and you’re not doing anything, instead of just sitting on the sidelines, let’s get up and do something even if it’s just playing catch, little ball drills and things like that. I think that was probably the biggest thing that stood out to me. If we were on the field, there wasn’t any sitting around, we were working at all times. I know Coach Rivera is already like that, but it’s definitely something I took to Kansas City.”
WATCH: Kendall Fuller's Training Camp Press Conference
Gruden was hardly alone running unproductive practices. Predecessors Jim Zorn and Steve Spurrier’s workouts were mind boggling. Players were bewildered by some of Zorn’s bizarre drills not to mention in “Z-screens” that players stood under to escape the summer heat. But, that meant they were standing around and not working on something during the two-hour practice. Spurrier himself practiced his golf swing with quarterbacks during special teams drills rather than working on anything that might help. Both coaches were 12-20 over two seasons.
But, there has been so little success since 1993 that it’s hard to say if coaches with better practices won more because they roughly didn’t. Coach Norv Turner arrived in 1994 off two Super Bowl victories in Dallas and often screamed during practice. If a play was botched, he yelled to do it again. There was no down time and eventually the team improved annually and even won the 1999 NFC East title. They were mostly a .500 team during Turner’s tenure, but at least they entered Sundays prepared.
Nobody ran a tougher training camp than Marty Schottenheimer in 2001. They were twice daily full-pad practices that aren’t allowed now under the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Schottenheimer even ran the tackling drill “Bull in the Ring” during his first practice that I’ve not seen otherwise in the NFL. Schottenheimer made players run on Mondays when they were sore from games. After an 0-5 start, Washington finished 8-8 before Schottenheimer was fired in a power play by owner Dan Snyder. It remains the biggest mistake of Snyder’s 21-year tenure because the team was poised to become a contender under Schottenheimer’s tough system.
Then again, Mike Shanahan ran hard practices, but saw only one winning year in four before fired by Snyder in 2013 in another power showdown. Shanahan’s bigger problem was poor communication with players. Joe Gibbs ran organized practices that netted two playoff appearances, but an overall 31-36 mark.
So there’s no one way to coach practices, but odds of success increase if you not swinging an imaginary golf club or players goofing off. Upon his return, Fuller sees a difference under new coach Ron Rivera.
“It’s way different, and everybody is still trying to figure it out,” Fuller said. “Coach Rivera is just trying to build that culture, kind of just shifting everyone’s mentality. I think the good thing about it is just everybody’s trusting him and just going full steam ahead and just giving all our trust to him. Like we said, just trying to build that culture, a sustainable culture. We have to do that day-in and day-out to build that, so that’s what where focused on.”
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Rick Snider is an award-winning sports writer who has covered Washington sports since 1978. He first wrote about the Washington football team in 1983 before becoming a beat writer in 1993. Snider currently writes for several national and international publications and is a Washington tour guide. Follow Rick on Twitter at @Snide_Remarks.
