Jeff Hartings Quotes (44 Quotes)

I expected (Lions president) Matt Millen to come in and do a great job. He's a great football guy. I just think things haven't gone his way with some draft picks.

I tell him all the time, 'Play your game, don't stay in the pocket for us,'

He would always have his head down in the huddle, looking at that wristband of his all the time. Now, he has his head up. He's confident he understands what's going on.

It really comes down to calling the right play at the right time. Hopefully as veterans we can pick up some of those stunts and then have Willie see it, and with his speed we should hopefully take advantage of it.

What Willie has learned to do real well is recognize where the holes are going to be on a certain play against a certain defense. He's taken the 3- or 4-yard gain instead of trying to get 10, 15 or 50 all the time.

Practice -- quite frankly, I think he loses interest a lot of times, not unlike a lot of us players. But come game day -- I was talking to Hines the other day and I said, you know, he'll be ready, and he was. He moved around, I didn't see any effect of the knee.

I don't think anybody could have seen the way Willie has come on, but he stepped in when Jerome and Duce were hurt and took advantage of the opportunity, and we've been able to take advantage of his speed and his big-play ability.

Obviously, it would be an unbelievable week for him. That would be icing on the cake. He deserves it. He's one of the best offensive linemen ever to play the game.

I used my regular locker from when I was a Lion. Any comfort zone you can find.

Never. I said that last year. Once you lose it's over, it's done. It's not going to make you feel any better to win this year. Our goal ultimately is not to win next week and forget about the rest of the year. It's to go to the Super Bowl and win the Super Bowl. They're just the next step.

I always felt we needed to play more in games and even in practice. As a veteran, I also realize you want to go into the season healthy. That's why I'm glad it's the coach's job.

It's probably going to be a little tougher now with all the attention, but that's OK. It's a battle between the spirit and the flesh. Now, it's going to be a battle between the spirit and the flesh to not hold my head too high.

Actually, he's surprised me. I know veteran players can pretty much just get through training camp and turn it on the first week. I didn't know if he could do that. But he's shown that he can.

I'm grateful because I think he's a great coach and the Lions may have missed out on an opportunity to get a great coach. Selfishly, I'm glad he stayed in Pittsburgh, because I want to stay in Pittsburgh, if at all possible.

A lot of times, you might think you're just playing football for yourself, for your teammates. But it did make me realize how passionate the Pittsburgh Steelers' fans feel about our team. In 25-degree weather, they came out to congratulate us, and share in the accomplishment. It was pretty special.

We basically took on his personality.

Nobody has the perfect locker room. Everybody has their problems. The difference is that good teams take care of their own problems before they get out of control.

I had to treat it as if they were just another team in free agency. I think, more than anything, the day we knew there wasn't a deal there was just a lot of uncertainty in my head because free agency brings a lot of uncertainty. You really don't have any idea where you're going to go.

I think he came into that first game a little scared, and he maybe tried to do too much, too soon. But I felt all along that Ben, deep down, wanted to be the starter. That's the kind of competitor he is. This year, he wants to be the guy to make plays to help us win games. Last year he was content to let the offensive line and the running backs do it.

I give him a lot of credit to these last seven weeks. He was the guy after losing three in a row that really didn't say a word in front of the team or anything like that, but more so in our huddle.

I felt all along going into training camp we have four great backs. Two of them are down right now, so we still have two left.

He does stuff like that all the time.

We had a chance to make history, and that motivated me a little more. You can make history by going 16-0 and winning the Super Bowl and we did the opposite. We made history by winning as a sixth seed.

To play nine years falling short, you almost stop thinking about it. I was really able to enjoy the (Super Bowl) week, have a lot of fun. If we can go into next year with the same focus and attention to detail we had the last eight weeks, that will give us a chance again.

I don't know if you call it giving up on the run. We knew if they put that safety down (on the line of scrimmage), we were going to try to throw the ball, and we did. We put up 31 points and over 300 yards passing, so it wasn't a bad decision.

We probably should have lost that game, really. We made a lot of mistakes. You don't expect them to miss two field goals and get that many chances, that's for sure.

Almost every game you watch of theirs, they're ahead by seven points, so that puts teams in passing situations. They're good at blitzes and line stunts, and every guy works hard. You don't see anybody standing up and not pass rushing. They don't quit until that whistle blows.

I knew we were going to have to give him a lot of help.

I am definitely proud of that 1994 team. We still have five guys from the offense who are still playing in this league. He (Brady) just keeps getting bigger and better ever year and that is a credit to Kyle and the hard work he puts in.

Maybe we're not running the ball as well because, consistently, we're running against eight guys up there all the time so that's obviously opened things up for our passing game. On game day, we'll see what happens. Do they want to stop the pass and see if we can run the ball to win Or do they want to stop the run first and make us pass to win We'll have to do whatever they give us.

We act the same. The crazy guys act crazy and goofy. He and his wife, they walk around. They say hi to every one of us. They know every single one of our names. They know what's going on.

He's the best player I ever played with. I wanted to make sure I took it all in.

It shouldn't be, necessarily, but I will admit when (the media) are not asking you all the Super Bowl questions because they don't really expect you to get there, then you don't think about it.

It's obviously a big challenge. Nobody's ever done it (as a sixth-seeded team). We're going to try to make history and be the first ones.

I personally feel like it was divine intervention, because I wanted to come back. God changed Matt's heart about the whole thing, and obviously I'm very happy about the way things turned out.

I had a choice to come back to the Lions, at least I felt like I did. It was a good contract. It wasn't exactly the contract we wanted. It was on the table for four or five days. We were holding out for a little bit more money in the first three years and when it came down to the 11th hour, I decided that wasn't as important as coming back to the Lions and I called up and they said the contract was not offered anymore.

The biggest compliment I can give to him is that we went to the playoffs a couple times with him and that was with a lot less talent than what we have here. I definitely think we can win with him.

Every game it seems like they have a little different game plan, whether they pinch the ends or run stunts in the middle. I don't think the Seattle defense does as much as just that the middle linebacker is just that good. He's fast, he's quick and when you have 320-pound lineman running after you and you're 230 and run a 4.4 or 4.5, you're going to be free a lot of the time. It's hard to get on him.

The game plan is different with him, to take advantage of his speed. I don't know if there's another running back in the league who can get down the sideline as fast as he does.

It's worked out all right. They were going to basically clean house, and I didn't know at the time if I wanted to be involved with something like that, especially when we were not very far away from becoming very competitive.

I don't know if I ever thought it was a mistake. It was kind of how it worked out, and it's worked out all right.

I talked to him on the sideline and I kind of got a sense that this might be his last game. As much as I think he'd like to come back, I think he realizes there is not a whole lot left in the tank after 13,000 yards. It's tough for me to think about going through this whole thing again. That's why you have to take some time. You take a month or two and evaluate as soon as the emotion is out of the way.

We still have four games to play. And we've still got a chance. I think we're going to need some help, probably. Hopefully, we'll get some. But you can't be the kind of team that keeps looking around at other teams and what they're doing. You've got to take care of your own business these last four games.

We'll make it be known that it's time to focus and pay attention to details. Alan usually says something in the huddle and makes sure everybody understands what we need to do. When you hear things from a five-time Pro Bowler like Alan, you listen.