Rich McKay Quotes (69 Quotes)

Michael Vick the person I would say gained from it, because I'm sure he felt like he faced about as much adversity as he could face, and he survived and he finished strong. He won a bunch of games down the stretch. So it wasn't a lost year for him as a person.

We're just trying to save a little time in trying to move replay along at a little faster pace.

I'm sure there will be some light shed on that. And I think they're going to do that maybe Monday afternoon. So we'll see after that.

I thought he was a good athlete who played quarterback.

It helps the defense in a sense - I don't want to accuse the offense of stealing signals, let's just assume they're borrowing the signals. We think it would be good to give the defense that ability.

The No. 1 (criterion) in my mind for drafting a player is tape. How did he play as a college player The second-most-valuable piece is going to be the character side, football and personal. That gives you a better way to predict how he'll be as a pro. Those two things will tell you.

I don't know that the Palmer play was the driving force (for the proposal), but it was certainly a force. Every year, we look at all the injuries. We additionally spent a lot of time this year looking at the quarterback tape and the quarterback injuries. So when a defensive player has an opportunity to avoid, he must take that opportunity to avoid.

There were not many days in recent years when he didn't wear his USC sweatshirt,

I'm sure there are teams that have room and therefore will be active but I think there will be less activity. There are a lot of teams that won't have room. We'd love to front-load, back-load, do-whatever load but we can't begin to load. We don't have any place to put it.

As far as the window goes, the window is purely a function of the draft in my mind,

Even when we went back and looked to see if there were a lot of obvious playoff caliber teams excluded from the postseason before the eight-division realignment, once we analyzed the numbers, the answer in our opinion was no. So it didn't make any sense to act at this time.

I think Drew would look back at that and tell you it was a mistake. I know Errict probably would. And that doesn't say it was a win for the Buccaneers. It wasn't.

Because I remember Saturdays sitting in my dad's room, and we'd be at the one-story Holiday Inn in Green Bay, or wherever we were, saying, 'It's going to be ugly.'

The salary-cap system makes you make choices, and some of them are not very popular choices. But because the money is so big, the choices have big consequences if they don't work out. It has a trickle-down effect on the rest of your football team.

I don't think this issue will continue to haunt us, ... What I heard was there's enough sentiment in the room among NFL owners, executives and coaches that they're comfortable with the risk-reward factor of the sudden-death overtime system. I don't think this is something we're going to be debating every year.

That's too much of a wait and too much of a risk.

I think Mike works hard and has a lot of responsibilities. They went to the Super Bowl this year, and I think he needs a little time off. I didn't think it was driven by the calls on Super Bowl Sunday, I really didn't.

The first one and the one that will get the most talk will be about the quarterback, low hits on quarterbacks, putting a little more burden in the proposed rule on the defensive player.

Our intent going into free agency was to try and add a veteran receiver who had started in the league to give us three,

Nothing comes easily or early when it involves NFL owners, and a quipping Tampa Bay general manager Rich McKay said it best in March 2000, when asked when he thought realignment would become a reality When is our self-imposed deadline to vote on realignment ... June 1, 2001 Talk to me on May 31, 2001.

Because of his injury and our current situation, we felt it was in both of our interests to release Brady at this time. In these salary cap times, you cannot ensure that Brady will not be back as a Falcon before the 2006 season.

The last capped-year rules that are in place are much different to the rules we've operated with to date. They capture a lot of the tricks of the trade that otherwise would allow you to extend salary-cap dollars. Labor peace has been great for us in the National Football League. It has made life easier, and I think it's been good for the players.

Competition Committee co-chair and Tennessee coach Jeff Fisher complained, and he's a defensive guy. It started before last year, actually. In our last three annual reports to the teams, we said we had to do something about the illegal contact. There was just getting to be too much of it. And as we went through last season, I don't want to use the term 'death threat,' but there was going to be a clear emphasis made on clarifying the rule after the season. By the end of last year, it was well on our radar screen.

Yes, I would, absolutely, ... There are prototypes that have proven somewhat true over the years. I think it's valid, and there's something to that. But I'm never going to look at just one or two guys and live by that deduction. You cheat yourself doing that. The Florida receiver thing makes a nice story, and it is supportable with the names you've got to work with, but that kind of trend is true in a lot more places than just Florida, and it's true at more positions than just receiver.

He wanted to see it turned around. He wanted to see the loop closed. After our NFC title game loss in St. Louis three years ago, I talked to him as soon as I got back that night. I think he was more disappointed than I was, for me and for the fans. But he'd be very happy this week.

Almost from the day I got here, I heard complaints about the field in the indoor facility. It was too hard. Guys would feel like they took a pounding on their legs. The material that was in there before was produced by a company that no longer exists, so it wasn't like we could do anything to make it better.

It is certainly back in business.

They did what they did and they knew there would be consequences. But they won championships doing it. They made the trade-off.

Let's just assume they're borrowing the hand signals.

The reason we wanted big receivers is based on the offense. The ability to block and be a factor on the inside is a huge factor. In the passing game, tall guys present huge targets as they cross the field. In the West Coast offense, you have so many horizontal routes and you have so many guys crossing the field that you need bigger targets.

Let's not take away individualism. Let's not take away creativity. Let's just make sure there are bright lines to follow.

It's totally untrue. I keep hearing that and I just shake my head. The AFC Championship Game last year may have been the straw that broke the camel's back, but the camel was already well-saddled-up. We were going to do something about it already.

We want to make sure they actually see the foul.

We did what we were asked to do at the meeting in March, which was to go back and re-examine the whole issue from a competitive standpoint with all the statistical analysis,

You can't see it from here, ... You cannot see it from here. That's Hawaii. Take a look over that Pacific Ocean. Do you see it You don't see it from here. That's a long time ago. But it was really hard on the fans. Here's a new franchise, a new team, everybody's jacked and then, whack, these guys aren't even competitive. It was very difficult.

Seventy-six Seventy-six was the longest 17 years of my life,

He looks like one of those guys that will play in the league for a long time. But as soon as you say 'can't miss,' something bad will happen, so I never say it and I won't say it. He does look the part, though. Whoever drafts him is going to be happy.

To say he looks like one player, I don't know who that would be. He's a combination of a lot of players. In the open field, when you watch him on film, Gale Sayers.

Without a doubt, the player costs are highest in this deal, and a good portion of the burden is going to fall hardest on the lower-revenue clubs. But we did what was in the best interest of the entire National Football League by reaching an accord.

It's made the (GM) job tougher and more unpopular. Because the easier way to go is to sign the popular veteran that's really a good fit in your marketplace, but not a good fit in your salary-cap management. In my mind you make at least three or four of those decisions on a yearly basis now. You used to have one of those, at most, every two or three years.

The quarterback sits in a defenseless position when his feet are on the ground and he's throwing the football. We have to find ways to try to protect him. We're going to put a little more onus on the defensive player. When the defensive player has an opportunity to avoid (a low hit), he must take that opportunity to avoid.

In Brady's case . . . the problem was it was bothering him even though it was assumed he was going to play. And then game day, it didn't feel any better. It felt worse.

It probably took us more time to discuss it and all the different aspects this year than any year I can remember. It is one that has drawn a lot of media attention, and I think the league and the teams have talked a lot about it.

Because of the magnitude of the games, there's an indictment of the system.

When he has an opportunity to avoid, he must take that opportunity to avoid. When the quarterback has his feet on the ground, he's really defenseless.

As much as I'm one who says you've got to pay attention to defense to compete for championships on a consistent basis, we're a team that has Michael Vick , and we can never forget that, ... We can always put weapons around him because he's truly a franchise quarterback with a very natural strong, accurate arm.

We hope to get away from offenses - I don't want to say stealing, so borrowing - signals from the sideline (for defenses).

It will be re-emphasized again in the second year. Our feeling has always been that you need to re-emphasize points for at least two years to make sure people understand what conduct is allowed and what isn't allowed and to try to create more consistency with respect to the officiating of the rules themselves.

It got talked about a little bit and I think we'll spend more time on it (next month) in Naples. We didn't spend a lot of time on it here. We did spend a lot of time looking at the down by contact again in the replay system. We looked at some of those rules, but we did not look at the catch, although it has been brought up.

I don't like where we find ourselves. I find us really stuck in mud. You really don't know which way this thing is going to go. So you spend a lot of time evaluating players, you spend a lot of time preparing, but you're preparing on two different paths and you can't begin to execute either one. To me, it's a very unusual time.