http://www.pennlive.com/steelers/index.ssf/2017/01/steelers_wr_belichick_mann.html
PITTSBURGH - Plenty of what separates the Pittsburgh Steelers wide receivers coach can be found in turns of phrase.
Richard Mann explains better, his receivers said, picks out where in a route they can win their battle with the cornerback across from him and gives different names for moves he wants them to do it with. What other coaches refer to as an in-and-out, Mann calls a double-up. The new words click the idea into place.
"Every coach I've had has been like 'Yo, you got to give him a move in and out. OK, I gave him a move in and out, whatever," said Darrius Heyward-Bey, an eighth-year veteran. "But [Mann] would be like 'Nah, you got to give him the double-up' and show him what a double-up is. And you're like 'Ah, I got you.'"
Where his words end, Mann turns to his VHS tapes. They're the same ones he takes to clinics around the country. He pops them into a VCR to shows his Steelers receivers tape of plays made before most of them were born by receivers whose names they didn't know.
Mann's methods had to work. For a season that started with the Steelers having already lost their No. 2 receiver to suspension, began with their then-No. 2 wideout going down with a shoulder injury, the next breaking one finger then another on the same hand and Heyward-Bey missing six games with a mid-foot injury to include an AFC Championship game, Mann had to mold a former undrafted rookie free agent, Eli Rogers and two practice squad players, Cobi Hamilton and Demarcus Ayers, into a competent receiving corps.
Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin has a couple theories about getting his players ready to deal for shenanigans. Much of it involves him saying very little.
"This is probably one of the worst ones I've had," Mann said of the year in injuries. "I mean, legit injuries, also. But that said, we just got to coach them all up. That's one of the things that I try to do staring in camp is coach everybody, so when it's time to move on and the guy that's on the practice squad or whatever you don't have to start all over.
"So that's what we were doing and I'm just grateful that we did it that way simply because it's helped us out a lot, I think."
With tape from the time he coached alongside his opponent in Sunday's 6:40 p.m. kickoff, New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, at his disposal, it has.
Despite Antonio Brown being the only consistently healthy, experienced receiver on Pittsburgh roster this year, all seven Steelers receivers who have played this year have caught touchdowns this year.
Opposing NFL coaches know they can't, but despite the Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver's unorthodox route tree and improvised connections with Ben Roethlisberger, they try to get a scout team look at the Steelers' star wide receiver. And though one head coach gave up on the matter, here, we peer inside what goes into preparing a defense to play Brown, albeit with a much less accomplished fill-in.
"The things haven't changed. It's a little more detail and technique to it, but it's just to remind us now that game hasn't changed," Ayers said. "It's just technique, the way guys have been doing it for a long time and he just has proof that it works in this league."
Ayers saw film of former Cleveland Browns wide receiver Webster Slaughter beating defensive backs off the line of scrimmage. Slaughter, a small wideout in his time, watches the Steelers on TV and sees the same.
The current receiver said he drew extra pointers from Slaughter's game tape. Slaughter was taught to focus on putting one foot in bounds and dropping a second to toe drag at the sideline in the style Steelers do.
"Just when you're a young guy, most coaches don't have time to really deal with you," Ayers said. "They're used to being around veterans and I don't think that they don't like dealing with us. It's just you're supposed to be a professional and they want you to be professional in your work on an every day basis, versus working with Richard Mann, he takes time to coach everyone the same, he doesn't have favorites."
Slaughter played with Mann as his receivers coach from 1986-91 in Cleveland.
Other coaches didn't want to work with Slaughter, the team's second-round pick in 1986, he said. Marty Schottenheimer never wanted to talk to him, Slaughter said. The young receiver said he was too emotional at the time.
"If you got in my face, I was going to get right back in yours," Slaughter said. "And most of the coaches didn't want to deal with me. They'd always send Rich to deal with me. And so Rich would come over there and say some things to settle me down. And me and Rich had a good relationship.
"He would always tell me things that he maybe shouldn't have told me, but he'd always tell me because he knew I wouldn't say anything about it."
At a 1991 Browns practice, Slaughter warned Raymond Clayborn, a corner trying to cover him, that if he fouled him again, they would fight. Claiborne did, Slaughter swung and Claiborne swung back, Slaughter said.
Belichick threw himself into the middle of the scuffle, trying to break it up. Someone struck the head coach on accident. Belichick stepped back with a question for the team.
"'All I want to know is who hit me?'" Slaughter said Belichcik said. "And that sent up an uproar of laughter through the whole thing and kind of calmed the thing down."
Mann still keeps cool with receivers when other, younger coaches, Steelers offensive coordinator Todd Haley said, don't.
When Steelers receivers mess up, Mann tells then. But when Steelers receivers tell him why a play didn't work, Heyward-Bey said, Mann listens.
This year, he needed to. Throughout his career, he always has.
Mann credits Belichick for teaching him about coverage schemes, and how to break them. Belichick marveled at Mann as the only receivers coach he knew at the time who memorized blocking schemes to show his players how to adjust their routes to the pressure that would attack it.
"If you could ask any head coach that knows Richard Mann or has coached with Richard Mann to put his all-time staff together," Jon Gruden said. "I'm sure Richard Mann's probably your receiver coach."
Steelers receivers said they're aware that Mann is nearing the end of his career, though Heyward-Bey said it doesn't distract him from trying to get through the team coached by Mann's former boss.
Belichick too recognizes the greater body of work, the latest piece of which threatens to end his dynasty's current season.
Said Belichick: "The game's been good to him and he's contributed a lot to the game."
PITTSBURGH - Plenty of what separates the Pittsburgh Steelers wide receivers coach can be found in turns of phrase.
Richard Mann explains better, his receivers said, picks out where in a route they can win their battle with the cornerback across from him and gives different names for moves he wants them to do it with. What other coaches refer to as an in-and-out, Mann calls a double-up. The new words click the idea into place.
"Every coach I've had has been like 'Yo, you got to give him a move in and out. OK, I gave him a move in and out, whatever," said Darrius Heyward-Bey, an eighth-year veteran. "But [Mann] would be like 'Nah, you got to give him the double-up' and show him what a double-up is. And you're like 'Ah, I got you.'"
Where his words end, Mann turns to his VHS tapes. They're the same ones he takes to clinics around the country. He pops them into a VCR to shows his Steelers receivers tape of plays made before most of them were born by receivers whose names they didn't know.
Mann's methods had to work. For a season that started with the Steelers having already lost their No. 2 receiver to suspension, began with their then-No. 2 wideout going down with a shoulder injury, the next breaking one finger then another on the same hand and Heyward-Bey missing six games with a mid-foot injury to include an AFC Championship game, Mann had to mold a former undrafted rookie free agent, Eli Rogers and two practice squad players, Cobi Hamilton and Demarcus Ayers, into a competent receiving corps.
Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin has a couple theories about getting his players ready to deal for shenanigans. Much of it involves him saying very little.
"This is probably one of the worst ones I've had," Mann said of the year in injuries. "I mean, legit injuries, also. But that said, we just got to coach them all up. That's one of the things that I try to do staring in camp is coach everybody, so when it's time to move on and the guy that's on the practice squad or whatever you don't have to start all over.
"So that's what we were doing and I'm just grateful that we did it that way simply because it's helped us out a lot, I think."
With tape from the time he coached alongside his opponent in Sunday's 6:40 p.m. kickoff, New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, at his disposal, it has.
Despite Antonio Brown being the only consistently healthy, experienced receiver on Pittsburgh roster this year, all seven Steelers receivers who have played this year have caught touchdowns this year.
Opposing NFL coaches know they can't, but despite the Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver's unorthodox route tree and improvised connections with Ben Roethlisberger, they try to get a scout team look at the Steelers' star wide receiver. And though one head coach gave up on the matter, here, we peer inside what goes into preparing a defense to play Brown, albeit with a much less accomplished fill-in.
"The things haven't changed. It's a little more detail and technique to it, but it's just to remind us now that game hasn't changed," Ayers said. "It's just technique, the way guys have been doing it for a long time and he just has proof that it works in this league."
Ayers saw film of former Cleveland Browns wide receiver Webster Slaughter beating defensive backs off the line of scrimmage. Slaughter, a small wideout in his time, watches the Steelers on TV and sees the same.
The current receiver said he drew extra pointers from Slaughter's game tape. Slaughter was taught to focus on putting one foot in bounds and dropping a second to toe drag at the sideline in the style Steelers do.
"Just when you're a young guy, most coaches don't have time to really deal with you," Ayers said. "They're used to being around veterans and I don't think that they don't like dealing with us. It's just you're supposed to be a professional and they want you to be professional in your work on an every day basis, versus working with Richard Mann, he takes time to coach everyone the same, he doesn't have favorites."
Slaughter played with Mann as his receivers coach from 1986-91 in Cleveland.
Other coaches didn't want to work with Slaughter, the team's second-round pick in 1986, he said. Marty Schottenheimer never wanted to talk to him, Slaughter said. The young receiver said he was too emotional at the time.
"If you got in my face, I was going to get right back in yours," Slaughter said. "And most of the coaches didn't want to deal with me. They'd always send Rich to deal with me. And so Rich would come over there and say some things to settle me down. And me and Rich had a good relationship.
"He would always tell me things that he maybe shouldn't have told me, but he'd always tell me because he knew I wouldn't say anything about it."
At a 1991 Browns practice, Slaughter warned Raymond Clayborn, a corner trying to cover him, that if he fouled him again, they would fight. Claiborne did, Slaughter swung and Claiborne swung back, Slaughter said.
Belichick threw himself into the middle of the scuffle, trying to break it up. Someone struck the head coach on accident. Belichick stepped back with a question for the team.
"'All I want to know is who hit me?'" Slaughter said Belichcik said. "And that sent up an uproar of laughter through the whole thing and kind of calmed the thing down."
Mann still keeps cool with receivers when other, younger coaches, Steelers offensive coordinator Todd Haley said, don't.
When Steelers receivers mess up, Mann tells then. But when Steelers receivers tell him why a play didn't work, Heyward-Bey said, Mann listens.
This year, he needed to. Throughout his career, he always has.
Mann credits Belichick for teaching him about coverage schemes, and how to break them. Belichick marveled at Mann as the only receivers coach he knew at the time who memorized blocking schemes to show his players how to adjust their routes to the pressure that would attack it.
"If you could ask any head coach that knows Richard Mann or has coached with Richard Mann to put his all-time staff together," Jon Gruden said. "I'm sure Richard Mann's probably your receiver coach."
Steelers receivers said they're aware that Mann is nearing the end of his career, though Heyward-Bey said it doesn't distract him from trying to get through the team coached by Mann's former boss.
Belichick too recognizes the greater body of work, the latest piece of which threatens to end his dynasty's current season.
Said Belichick: "The game's been good to him and he's contributed a lot to the game."
