It's Never About the Fall...

This week I'm looking for complete togetherness as a team, bringing everything together...offense, defense, and special teams. We should go take care of the business that we need to take care of. We're playing against some young ball clubs coming up, and the 49ers are a very good team, they're young in a lot of different places and we need to play like the veteran club we are. We need to go establish that we are a team to be reckoned with. And that's getting a win on the road for the first time this year.

Message of the Week: It's never about the fall. What is your mindset thru the journey. Character is found thru adversity.

Because the season is young, you have to ask yourself as a team, 'What's the big picture?' And the big picture is Arizona [Super Bowl XLII]. When you find yourself in a hole, whatever the hole may be, when you find yourself losing a game like we lost to Cleveland, giving them the game the way we did, you have to understand everybody's going to go through that. Everybody's going to go through a downside. But the bottom line is, what do you do when you come back to practice? Do you worry about what you messed up in Cleveland, or do you say, 'When I come to practice I'm going to get better.' As a team, we've got to understand one thing: OK, we lost. We're 2-2, let's deal with it. And that's why my message is what it was. You can stay stuck in misery, you can stay stuck in doubt, you can stay stuck in fear. But, when you've got your eye on the prize, there's only one thing that matters, and that's the next week...win, lose or draw. So that's why it is what it is. What is your mindset? Do I come back to work and get better, to understand that this is a 16-game season? And in the first-quarter of this season, we're at .500. Here we go. Same thing last year, [after] we started off 4-0, we lost 2 in a row and it was perceived that everything was wrong with us. We couldn't score, defense couldn't get anything done -- we finished 13-3. I have been on both sides of things... I've started off hot, I've started off cold...but, the thing is to get the kinks out now. Because late in November and December, that's when you need everything clicking. So, if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change anything. Of course you want to win, but if you do lose and you find yourself in a difficult position, how encouraged are you in your mind? What makes you come back? And for me, that's why my message is what it is.