Mazz22
From Chapel Hill to Title Town
Me too. I also realize how much Bill the GM cost him several more rings ...
Tom Brady & Patriots Dynasty Divinity Thread
- Thread starter Ice_Ice_Brady
- Start date
Ice_Ice_Brady
the executioner’s face is always well hidden
Don’t forget Bill the coach
Mazz22
From Chapel Hill to Title Town
Yes. 2017 stands out like a neon bullseye.
| Every week, I sit down to reflect on the events of the week before, extract their lessons, and gameplan how to apply those lessons toward greatness and growth. It’s a system that has always worked for me, it can work for you too. Welcome to The 199! Sign up here if this email was forwarded to you. And it all comes down to this… The do-or-die, one-and-done atmosphere of playoff football is special. Unlike any of the major sports, football’s postseason magnifies an essential aspect of my beliefs around winning: that the outcome of every game will come down to a handful of plays, and because you’ll never know which ones they are until the game is over, it’s your duty to be locked in for every play. All in, on all the details. From the moment you walk in for the first day of practice to the moment you walk off the field after the final whistle, you’ve gotta know your job inside and out and be ready to take advantage of any opportunity you get. We just entered the ultimate month-long test for fourteen teams. Ten have already gone home. Come February 8th, we’ll find out which of the remaining four teams had the most guys who were the most locked in when it counted. Before then, I want to talk about this locked-in mindset: what it looks like, why it’s important, and how you can cultivate it, because it applies far beyond football. |
[td] |
REFLECTION Of all the big games I was involved in, the one where you can say the outcome came down to a single play, was also one of the greatest games I ever played in: Super Bowl XLIX. Patriots - Seahawks. The Malcolm Butler interception game.The fourth quarter alone made that an epic game. We took the lead on a touchdown pass to Julian Edelman with two minutes left. Then Seattle came right back and went 79 yards in about a minute. Now it’s 2nd down at the 1-yard line with 30 seconds left and the clock’s running. Seattle runs a little pick play to the weak side of the formation to free up Ricardo Lockette on a quick slant. Malcolm Butler crashes down, avoiding the pick Jermaine Kearse is trying to set, beats Lockette to the ball right at the goal line, and makes a great catch on a hard-thrown ball by Russell Wilson. Interception. Game over. Patriots 28, Seahawks 24. [td] |
Second, we ran that exact play a half-dozen times in practice. Every time, Malcolm was getting beat and the offense scored. The coaching point was to attack the line of scrimmage on the snap instead of sitting back. Get downhill, over the pick. Don’t get swallowed up by it. Beat the receiver to his spot or it’s an easy score.
Most importantly, people forget that Malcolm was an undrafted free agent rookie who spent half the season on the practice squad. He wasn’t a seasoned vet. He didn’t have the blue chip pedigree of a first round pick. Be he was proof that you don’t need any of that to be locked in and focused on the details of your job. Malcolm knew his responsibility, he executed on the coaching point to a T, and his play all game, but especially on that final drive, helped secure us a Super Bowl.
LESSON
The intention of every great team is to get all the details right as often as possible. That doesn’t just happen. And you don’t find it on the field, in the game. You find it in practice, like Malcolm did, which is why it’s so important that you practice just like you’d play. All the attributes that make you a great player—intensity, focus, quickness, etc.---have to show up, first and foremost, in practice, because how you practice is inevitably how you will play.People who call themselves gametime players love to quote (and misinterpret) Allen Iverson’s famous 2002 press conference rant: “We’re talking about practice?!?” But Michael Jordan was a maniacal practice player. So was Kobe. So was I. Who was right? Count the rings and let the math decide. What I can say from experience is that practice is where having a locked-in mindset has always made the biggest difference for me.
Of course, being locked in at practice doesn’t guarantee wins. There are no guarantees in life or in professional sports. Going into the playoffs that 2014 season, for example, we won 10 of our last 12 games, but our season didn’t start out so hot. We played very average football and were a shaky 2-2 going into our Week 5 matchup against the 3-0 Bengals. But then something clicked for us. We realized that while we’d been physically and mentally locked in on our jobs, we weren’t really emotionally locked in. I don’t know why. That produced poor play, which produced disappointment, which produced anger, which produced the motivation we needed to lock in on all three phases of the game–offense, defense, special teams–and all three phases of individual performance–physical, mental and emotional.
[td]
[/td]
There are roughly 150 plays in a typical NFL game. On every play, there are 22 players on the field. Each player has a specific job based on the nuances of the play call and the coverage. When someone messes up their job, there’s no one there to save the day because every other guy is accounted for with other responsibilities.
Let’s say you call a run play to the left. If you’re a left tackle, you’ve got to hold up your block and keep that defensive player from going left. If you’re a tight end lined up to that side, maybe your job is to chip that defender then do everything in your power to reach the linebacker and wall him off from getting to where the ball is going. If you’re the running back, your job is to secure the handoff, read your blocks, and hit the gap as hard as you can. My job as quarterback was to read the defense, adjust the blocking angles as needed, then make a clean exchange.
For that play to be successful, all 11 of us on offense need to do our jobs well. This requires understanding angles, leverage, timing, distance, and violence. Then we need to apply all that knowledge in 4-5 seconds, at full-speed. If we’re on the same page, it’s a 12-yard gain. If we’re not, it’s a car wreck. Either way, we have to do that 65 more times over the next three hours.
The team that does it right more often, is usually the team that wins.
APPLICATION
For a pro football player, everything you do during the week is building toward being locked in and at your best during those three hours. Sleep, nutrition and taking care of your body are a big part of that. But strictly from a football perspective, the key is knowing every detail of your job on every play that might be called. Because you don’t get to choose which details matter. At the end of the game, you’ll be able to count 3-10 plays where you say to yourself, “man, that one really was the difference…”, but you’ll never know in the moment. Which means they all matter. Every play. Every detail.
The way you nail those details is to be physically, mentally and emotionally locked-in. That starts in practice. What you practice consistently well becomes what you do consistently well in the game. And the converse is true. If you’ve been unfocused in practice, messing things up and missing assignments, there should be no confidence that once the game kicks off, things will all go right for you.So how do you get on track with all that? And how do you practice being good at practice?
First, you have to bring awareness to problems and shortcomings. You need a team with the right values, where exposing failures creates opportunities for learning and growth, not resentment or division. Then you need guys who are willing to sit in the pain, like I talked about last week, and to feel what it’s like to let their teammates down. You need a culture of accountability. And finally, you need to have the daily competitive stamina to do the right thing as often as possible, day in and day out. This is what separates a great team from a good team from a bad team. The great teams do things consistently well in meetings, walkthroughs, practice, with the media, in recovery, and on off-days. They are locked in everywhere, on everything, because it all matters.
This idea extends well beyond football. If your kid has to take the SAT, but they don’t study or take as many practice tests as they can, they’re probably not going to like the number they say when they get their scores back. If you’re giving a wedding toast and you’ve never given a speech before, if you don’t go through a few drafts and rehearse it a few times, the chances that you’ll nail it on the day is next to zero. If you suck in job interviews and you half-ass your preparation when you’re up for a new role, what do you think’s going to happen when you’re on the other side of the table from the person who holds your future in their hands?
And here’s the thing, locking in is really hard if it’s something you don’t care about. But you have a choice. If the grind of greatness is too much, you can do something else, something less competitive or stressful. But if you choose to stick around–whether it’s football or business or a relationship–understand that how you practice is how you will play. How you prepare is how you will perform. The devil is in the details, and so is success; which is why you need to have the urgency every day to get things right.
When you lock in your effort, you unlock your truest potential to maximize your own unique abilities. [/td]
[td] |
HSanders
Well-known member
06 I see where people can blame bill. Because he should have gotten the Deion branch deal done. He gets that deal done and they can score enough to win the a f c c. perhaps that's why he went buck wild for 07 with moss and welker.
PATS16N0
Well-known member
Periodic reminder that Tom Brady wins two more rings if Aaron Hernandez isn’t running around Boston killing everybody.
Beyond just him being on the field, Gronk likely suffers fewer if any injuries if he’s complimented by Hernandez.
Denver never sees the Super Bowl in 2013 and never wins the Super Bowl in 2015.
Brady finishes with 9. Peyton finishes with 1.
Not even sure anymore how many that would be in a row.
Fucking Hernandez.
Beyond just him being on the field, Gronk likely suffers fewer if any injuries if he’s complimented by Hernandez.
Denver never sees the Super Bowl in 2013 and never wins the Super Bowl in 2015.
Brady finishes with 9. Peyton finishes with 1.
Not even sure anymore how many that would be in a row.
Fucking Hernandez.
Ice_Ice_Brady
the executioner’s face is always well hidden
Naaahhh, Mister Hudson would have fucked it up. Tanked 2015 with his infamous “the number 2 seed is just as good as the number 1 seed” speech. Going for on 4th and 13 to blow a perfect season. Benching the team’s best CB to wreck a 3 peat. He would have found a way to sabotage it all by being a genius contrarian whose intelligence cannot be measured.
Ice_Ice_Brady
the executioner’s face is always well hidden
Brady is a known playoff dropper…lol…universally known as most clutch player in NFL if not all sports
Brother is getting cooked in the thread by the Pats/Brady fans lol hes trying to use averages and not realizing that Tom played in a much more defensive era than what Kermits been used to
Ice_Ice_Brady
the executioner’s face is always well hidden
HSanders
Well-known member
PATS16N0
Well-known member
Similar threads
