Tuesday, October 6: DeAngelo Hall On Ignoring The Outside Influences
Posted by Matt Terl on October 6, 2009 – 9:54 am
After Sunday’s win, the players generally sounded one consistent message: there was no panic in the locker room, not beforehand and not at halftime. The team was confident that they would win, and the coaches spent halftime making the necessary tweaks to the gameplan.
DeAngelo Hall, always entertaining to listen to, was no exception.
“Weren’t any rah-rah speeches going on,” at halftime, he said, “wasn’t any silence. They were just making adjustments, every coach around their guys, trying to figure out what we need to do to get better. Trying to figure out what mistakes we made, what we had to correct … you know, it was just normal halftime adjustments.”
But it wasn’t just in-game that the players were focused, according to Hall — they also took no note of any pregame negativity. “I didn’t hear no shots” about his play, he said, “so we’ll just keep it moving.”
He continued, “Y’know, I don’t think nobody in this locker room really paid attention to all the he-say, she-say stuff and everybody’s comments. We knew what we had to do. We knew we had to come out and get a win. 2-2 in the first half of the season, obviously you want to be better. But you take it where you can. You take it where you can, keep moving along, just keep getting better.”
You’ll notice a recurring theme here: getting better, and ignoring things that don’t help you get better.
I got a strong look at this focused mindset almost immediately, when I asked Hall what his helmet-slapping post-interception celebration was all about.
Hall looked at me and paused for what my recording tells me was only three seconds, but which felt much, much longer. It was certainly enough time for me to reflect on how asking questions about exuberant celebratory displays does not contribute directly to “getting better”.
Then Hall shook his head and offered a resigned explanation. “Just turning it up,” he said. “Turnin’ it up. No significance.”
And then it was back to talking about “getting better” and “good to get a win.” Still: really strange celebration.
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