Preparation makes all the difference

Original post:  October 20, 2011

I am reading "Games that Changed the Game" by Ron Jaworski. He is an ex-NFL quarterback who is now an analyst for ESPN. He's selected seven games from the history of the NFL that mark turning points in strategy and tactics for professional football.

I've enjoyed watching the NFL as long as I can remember. As a child, I enjoyed playing football. As I grew older, I learned about the complexity of the game and began to appreciate the chess match. Innovations on offense are soon countered by new twists on the defense. A subtle change in defensive strategy stifles the offense, and they invent a new system to defeat those twists. I find the mix of intense action combined with the battle of wits to be endlessly entertaining.

For the casual fan, most professional sports may seem like the polo matches in a previous era--a battle of millionaires that is nothing more than a pleasant distraction on a Sunday afternoon. The brutal reality is that there are forces that relentlessly push teams toward mediocrity. It takes titanic efforts in practice and planning in order to outscheme and outwit the opponent on game days.

The NFL is geared to keep all of the teams on a relatively equal playing field. There is a salary cap that forces teams through all kinds of odd contortions to keep their best players. It helps to equalize the talent levels (more or less). At the end of the season, the more successful teams are "rewarded" with more difficult schedules in the following season. As an additional equalizer, the worst teams are awarded the earlier choices in the annual draft for incoming rookie players. That helps them get more talented players to bring them back up towards the median. It is not uncommon for one of the worst teams in the league one year to rise the following year.

The mark of an outstanding organization is to stay at a high level of achievement year after year. We are fortunate in New England to have one of those high-performing teams because we have committed ownership and a great coach. They routinely spend fourteen to sixteen hour days preparing for the next game. All of that time helps them put in entirely new game plans from week to week. That is quite uncommon in the NFL. It's that extraordinary effort that helps their leadership overcome the obstacles to success.

The next time I'm watching the Patriots play, I'll try to remember the countless hours of work put in by the coaching staff to help make those efforts on Sunday successful.