Friday, January 11, 2013

Hackett all about 'foundation' ... he said it 10 times

BY NICK ST. DENIS

The Bills' new offensive coordinator wants to build a foundation in Buffalo. He's pretty serious about it.

Nathaniel Hackett, brought in by new Bills head coach Doug Marrone, explained the significance of doing just that when trying to restructure an offense that boasts plenty of talent but is in desperate need of direction. (photo credit: BuffaloBills.com)

“I think the critical part is to create the foundation. Start from the ground and create a nomenclature to have a system and a language that the players believe in," Hackett, Marrone's former offensive coordinator at Syracuse, told BuffaloBills.com Thursday.

"Once you find that out and you create that then you find out what players do well within that foundation. From that point you get to change your tempo, you get to change what you do and really work to what they do best. I think right now the biggest part is the foundation and then evaluating the players to see what they can do within that foundation and then from the tempo standpoint, you go from there.”

Hackett served as the Bills' quality control coach from 2008-09 and assumed the same role with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers the two years prior.

During that time, Hackett learned the importance of -- you guessed it -- foundation.

“As a quality control coach you are in charge of everything," he said. "You are kind of the foundation. Not trying to use the same words, but it is all about the foundation. You are the foundation of putting a system together."

We covered seven of the 10 "foundation" bombs. The other three can be found in the interview transcript here. Joking aside, Hackett should certainly breath some fresh air into a Bills program that has finally decided to steer away from the retread route.

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