ALBANY — They hear it from Perry Fewell in every meeting.
“It’s an old movie — ‘Mo’ Better Blues’ . . . he always says, ‘Mo’ Better,’ ” Barry Cofield said. “It just gets you excited. He doesn’t want to reinvent you as a player, he just wants you to do everything you did, he just wants you to do it Mo’ Better. You just smile and you laugh with him, and he brings an energy that you want out of a coordinator.”
Fewell, following Bill Sheridan, has brought the same kind of atmospheric change to Big Blue that Rex Ryan, following Eric Mangini, has for the Jets.
It means Mo’ Better Big Blue.
“I’ve told him with my Notre Dame education that that’s not proper English,” Justin Tuck said with a smile, “but it seems to get a rile out of guys, and we all know exactly what he means by that. It basically comes down to the fact that we do some good things periodically, but it’s about consistency, it’s about you’re never gonna reach your ceiling, and he definitely believes that and I know a lot of guys on this football team believe that, too, so we’re always striving to be Mo’ Better.
“Mo’ Better is a phrase that is kind of picking up around here, and don’t be surprised if you see it on the back of a shirt a couple of weeks from now.”
How often does Fewell say it?
“Constantly,” Tuck said. “One meeting he might say it three times, another meeting he might say it 40 times. It just depends on the scenario. But it’s constantly embedded in him, and we’re starting to get it embedded in us.”
Mo’ Better.
“You gotta find that extra inch,” linebacker Dave Tollefson said. “Everybody has a way of saying that. And that’s his way of saying it. I like it, man. Have a little attitude, you know? It’s football. We’re not sitting in a cubicle, you know?”
Fewell is certainly Mo’ Steve Spagnuolo than Sheridan.
“He pays attention to detail, but he’s got a fire and a love and a passion for the game that we haven’t seen in a long time,” Mathias Kiwanuka said. “I think Coach Spagnuolo was a very passionate guy and he also understood personnel and defense and they’re very similar in their approach to the game.”
“They both have their heart on their sleeve,” Tollefson said. “They’re gonna call plays emotionally . . . you have to have an attachment there, football’s an emotional game, the ups and downs, the ebb and flow of the game, you have to have that feel, that connection with it. And Steve had that, and Perry has that. You gotta know when to shoot your gun and you gotta be not afraid to shoot it, you know?”
“A completely different type of personality, a completely different way of interacting with players,” Cofield said. “Spags was passionate, but Coach Fewell’s more energetic.”
And Mo’ inspirational than the rookie defensive coordinator he replaced.
“I think Coach Sheridan was a great coach, but I think we needed somebody to motivate us and that just wasn’t his personality,” Terrell Thomas said. “He’s not a rah-rah guy, and I think Coach Fewell is gonna get in our face and let us know when we need to step up.”
And Mo’ communicative.
“Everybody talks about his enthusiasm, and how passionate he is about the game, but when you have a question, or you go talk to him, you’re talking to him almost as a player-coach,” Kiwanuka said. “He understands your thought process, and he doesn’t belittle you, he doesn’t put you down when you ask the same question for the third time in the day. But you know he wants perfection, you know that he’s gonna pay attention to detail, but he’s somebody that you can relate to at the same time.”
And Mo’ mojo.
“Fewell on the practice field is like a kid in a candy store,” Cofield said. “He’s easily excitable. He loves to see the defense excel. He loves when a play’s made, he’s sprinting down the field . . . he’s sweatin’, he’s breathin’ fire out there. It’s positive on the field. If practice wasn’t a great practice, when we get in the video room, the tone can turn. It can turn to a, ‘That’s not acceptable.’ So it’s a guy who you can laugh with, but when things aren’t going the right way, he expresses to you in very frank terms, ‘That wasn’t acceptable,’ and I like that about him.”
Mo’ Better Big Blue.