RAMS ’94 / SEASON PREVIEW : Moore Just Enjoys Talking the Talk : Football: Other coaches say his discussions can become a stream of semiconsciousness if you let him get out of control.
Ram wide receiver coach Steve Moore speaks, and Sominex goes out of business.
“If it got late at training camp and we couldn’t sleep, we called Moore down to talk to us,” said Joe Vitt, Ram assistant head coach. “Never failed. We’d nod off right away.”
True story: During a recent interview with Moore, the tape recorder in use drifted off.
“I don’t always talk like that,” Moore said. “I say . . . every once in a while.”
Yes, he can cuss like a real-live professional football coach, he knows his X’s and O’s as well as any of them, and his track record as an offensive strategist has been well documented in NFL record manuals.
But it’s his spiel, his proclivity to chatter in a language foreign to the gridiron that demands ear plugs or prompt a good night’s sleep.
“The best word for Steve,” said Mike Martz, Ram quarterback coach, “is different.”
Very different. Vitt and Martz talk Vince Lombardi and Bill Walsh. Moore gushes Edward Demming.
“He helped turn us into a war machine for World War II,” Moore said. “At the end of the war, when (General Douglas) MacArthur was given the task of the reconstruction of Japan, Japan asked that Demming come over and redesign how they do business.
“He is probably the single most important reason for the economic miracle of Japan. Today the most important business award given on TV in Japan is the Demming Award.”
Is this guy for real?
“All I remember,” said Martz, who played for Moore at UC Santa Barbara, “is he kept wanting to hang garlic in my locker.”
Garlic?
“I found when I was playing for Steve,” Martz said, “I just didn’t ask many questions.”
Indeed, there is no pause in Moore’s delivery.
“Demming was a statistician. He had 14 points of focus, the first of which is to get a clear aim. He’s heavy into process. He’s heavy into upper-lower control limits of variance analysis, which means he’s going to be a very fact-based decision-maker.”
Yeah, yeah, but what position does he play?
“And the feedback loop, which you get as a result of having statistical measurement, is what allows you to get better,” Moore said.
As a public service--for those still here--be forewarned that driving or the use of heavy machinery is not advised while reviewing the following material. Also, some terms used below defy explanation.
“For example, Boeing may have 30,000 errors per million,” Moore said. “To be in the sixth sigma level of total quality management you operate at 3,000 errors per million. There are companies in Japan who are not measuring errors per million anymore; they’re measuring errors per billion. It’s reducing the variance of errors. Are you with me? And it has a tremendous amount to do with what we’re doing around here.
“Now just put that off to the side for a minute and let’s talk about the Pareto Principle. He (Vilfredo Pareto) was an 18th century Italian economist who found that like 80% of the food producing land is owned by 20% of the population. That 80-20 rule . . . if you identify your most significant two challenges that are holding you back, then you’re going to improve 80% of your results. Are you with me?”
Can Mr. Pareto explain why the Rams lose eight out of every 10 football games they play?
Moore pays no attention to such asides. “In football, for example, if we can make sure we’re doing the most important things well, and finding ways to give ourselves feedback to continually improve them, I think that’s a pretty good message. If you don’t go out with some sort of objective measure of improvement, then it’s just, ‘I think this,’ or ‘I think that.’ There’s no accountability or the structural tension to create the energy to improve.
“By structural tension I mean this motivation . . . when there’s this separation between the way it is and the way you’d like it to be. There’s a creative tension to close the gap, and unless you are provided feedback: Here, let me draw something for you.”
“If I have no goal at all, there’s still some motivation. As soon as I establish a long-term goal like we’re going to win the Super Bowl, what happens to a team is that motivation goes down because we’re going to get around to it. Long-term goals by themselves are meaningless.
“When that long-term goal is supported by a short-term goal (win one game at a time) there’s a nice increase in motivation. When that short-term goal is supported by a process goal or how we’re actually going to do it, then motivation goes way up here like this. If I’m not provided feedback, I lose that benefit.
“If you can identify key things, soon that problem disappears and there’s another biggest problem to take on. Now you’re dealing with the theory of constraints.”
Hello, is anybody home?
“I think all these things have everything in the world to do with football,” Moore concluded. “I know I might come off half-goofy, but I’m not.”
Chuck Knox, the hard-core football coach, hired Moore: to teach the Bills; to teach the Seahawks; to teach the Rams.
“Steve Largent gave Steve Moore a lot of credit for the success he had,” Knox said. “He’s a very bright guy who knows a lot about football.”
Moore worked as Knox’s offensive coordinator and the Seahawks led the NFL in third down efficiency in 1988 and set a club record by averaging 5.4 yards a play in 1986.
“He starts off every meeting with either a psychological theory or some sort of story from the business world,” said wide receiver Todd Kinchen. “He’s very down-to-earth, but he’s also very intelligent. It’s a different approach, but I was a psychology minor at LSU and so I appreciate some of the things he communicates with us.”
Demming had to rebuild Japan, but Moore’s challenge appears far more daunting: Make something of the Ram receivers.
Flipper Anderson has been living off a reputation made in 1989 and 1990. The past three years he’s been just another mediocre receiver.
Jessie Hester returns to Los Angeles after getting fired in Indianapolis. The Raiders dealt him to Atlanta in 1988 and then the Falcons cut him in 1989.
Isaac Bruce and Chris Brantley are two rookies who aren’t good enough to beat out Hester yet.
“I’m supposed to be a football coach, but I’m really a teacher,” Moore said. “The night before we practice I have each player write down what they want to get out of practice. I don’t want a dozen things, but just take the thing that’s holding you back the most and let’s get that done tomorrow. Are you with me?
“Now that’s the theory of constraints. Now, did you record the number of catches, the number of balls that hit both hands and number of times you caught the ball? Mark that down--now that’s goal-setting and feedback tied to process. Are you with me?
“If you’re setting out to improve, you better have a record of your improvement. Each of our players has a catch chart. We’re trying to catch 95% of all catchable balls--that’s a ball that touches both hands.
“That’s how I do it. That’s how I teach. Does it make sense?”
Wide receiver Richard Buchanan provides the answer: “This preseason we didn’t have any drops. If you look back, I think that’s a definite improvement from what’s happened here before.”
Moore rejoined Knox & Co. this year after spending the previous five years in private business. His company, Moore Solutions, did strategic and operational planning for financial institutions--far removed from the gridiron.
While never much of a fan of football, he couldn’t escape the game’s lure, and began looking for a way to return two years ago. Offensive coordinator Ernie Zampese’s departure to Dallas and wide receiver coach Milt Jackson’s departure to Atlanta allowed Moore the opportunity to reunite with Knox.
“He has his books, his motivational and goal-setting stuff and he will quote from those,” said Chick Harris, Ram offensive coordinator. “That’s Steve, and now I know who Drucker is.”
Played for the Cowboys in the early ‘70s, didn’t he?
“Peter Drucker,” Moore said. “He’s probably the best known business writer of our time.
“You know, I just mess with people all the time. There’s a lot of good information there, too, but I tease with it.”
Tease him about being the wacky football coach, however, and he doesn’t like it. He works very hard, too hard, some say, at being the best football coach.
“I work hard, try to outwork everybody because I thought that was the only way to become successful,” he said. “I didn’t think I was quite as smart as everyone else.”
On the practice field he is a cheerleader, providing direction and an immediate assessment cloaked most often in positive reinforcement. In staff meetings, he’s the nagging voice at the back of the room challenging the way they have always done things around here.
“I’ve been cantankerous in the past, but not here,” Moore said. “Sometimes I get such a sense of urgency.
“But I do challenge every assumption that doesn’t make sense to me . . . I hate authority, absolutely hate authority, assumptions and being painted into a box and I hate people telling me we can’t do this or can’t do that.”
He was offensive coordinator in Seattle, but now he’s working for a guy (Harris) who used to work for him.
“I think I’ve got the most important job in the world right now,” Moore said. “I’ve always had long-term, short-term goals, but what I decided to do when I came here was suspend any long-term plans and enjoy the now. It’s very unlike me.”
Moore continues to study videotape, however, and run morning to night as if a posse were in pursuit.
“Watch his players,” Harris said. “They practice and play with the same energy level that he has.”
Moore says his football players are brilliant, yes, brilliant.
“They were brought up jocks and they don’t know how brilliant they are. All you need to do is let them discover that and present information in ways that they can get it, as opposed to ways they were always taught in schools. The way they were taught in schools was modeled after the Prussian army by the way.”
About that garlic hanging in the locker . . .
“Let me tell you about self-efficacy,” Moore said.
Garlic stinks.
“Albert Bandura, a wonderful researcher at Stanford,” Moore said. “Most cited researcher in the world. He says people are limited more by their beliefs than their ability. That is self-efficacy. It’s my perception of my ability to make things happen.
“You may know all about that, but I kind of like knowing the name of this stuff. I kind of like knowing there is a body of science that supports such a point of view.
“Are you with me?”
Yo, wake up.