NBC football analyst and former Colts coach Tony Dungy appeared on the Dan Patrick Show on Monday morning. Patrick asked Dungy if he could re-inact the pep talk he gave to his team the night before winning Super Bowl XLI against the Bears in 2007.
Dungy obliged. He stood up and delivered an impassioned speech, talking about honor, togetherness, fight—all the things you would expect to hear from a great coach. During his talk, he told his team that it had been an up-and-down year and that at some time during the game, they’re going to encounter “a storm,” but they have to stay together and weather it.
After the re-inactment, Dungy delivered the kicker.
“We had decided all week that we were not going to kick the ball to Devin Hester,” Dungy told Patrick. “That night after the meeting, I thought that [not kicking to him] was playing scared. So, the next morning as we’re going to the game, I told the team I hope we lose the toss because if we do, we’re going to kick it right down the middle to Hester. We’re going to pound him. Then, they know we’ve taken their best threat.
“They’re going to be finished. Thirteen seconds later he was in the endzone. Everybody is looking at me saying, who’s that? I went back and said to them, I told you we’d have a storm.”
Devin Hester: ‘I still have it’
