I’m no doubt endearing myself to the dozens of you Practical Nerds that happen to be New England Patriots fans, but I don’t like Tom Brady. I haven’t for a long time. My biggest beef with him was his attitude that he was just flat-out better than you ever will be. I pay enough attention to football and other major sports that I know you have to have a swagger about you that makes you great. No problem. But I always hated the Patriots for running up the scores during their undefeated* season when clearly they had games in the bag. No need to throw a 30-yard pass to Randy Moss when there’s 3 minutes left in the game and you’re up by 21 points.
Anyway, I was sitting back watching the Baltimore Ravens and the Patriots do battle last Sunday (my other option was watching the Bears-Lions which, while being a division matchup, was boring as sin during the second half). It was a fun football game with lots of back-and-forth momentum. Oh, and then this happened:
I’m not a big fan of Ray Lewis, but he scores big points for me here. And Rodney Harrison has single-handedly made NBC Sunday Night Football worth watching with his comments, because guys like Keith Olbermann just make me want to throw my laptop through my television.
Brady was grazed by a lineman that clearly was just falling in his general direction and he yelled at the referee to throw a flag for roughing the passer. For those not familiar with football, it is illegal to hit a quarterback with full force after he’s thrown the ball. It’s a big penalty. Tom Brady went down for the season last year after a lineman crashed into his knee during Week 1, so now he’s paranoid about getting hit again. The call was not justified, in my opinion. If the guy gets bumped, he gets bumped. It’s football.
That aside, what can we learn from this? Life, like football, is full of hard hits. No matter what you do, you’re going to have to take a few. Like a helmet and shoulder pads, you need to protect yourself to take the full force of life with things like a positive attitude, a strong moral compass, and taking personal responsibility.
When you get hit in life, do you start looking around for the referee? When life throws you a little hiccup, do you cry “foul” to whoever will listen to you? Sometimes you won’t see them coming, as Brady didn’t see the guy crashing into his knee last year. And yeah, the consequences could be huge. But you can’t go through life trying to avoid all the hits. It will just make them that much more devastating when they land.
And they will land. It’s not a matter of “if”, but a matter of “when”: loved ones die, you lose a bunch of money, you get laid off, the love of your life can leave, your car can break down, etc. These things happen. You need to prepare yourself for these problems and be able to pick yourself back up quickly.
Need some more similarities between the game of life and the game of football? Here are a few:
- You don’t have all the time in the world. In football, it’s 4 quarters. You don’t have forever on Earth either. Start making progress now.
- You don’t always get the first down on every play. When I was younger, I never understood why teams would make plays for 4 or 5 yards if you need 10. But what they are doing is setting themselves up for success. They’re taking steps to reach their goals. You should, too. Instead of going for that “Hail Mary” pass all the time, try taking smaller steps. You’d be surprised how effective it can be.
- Take some time to “review the game film”. Every week, coaches and players watch footage of their last game to see what they can improve on and learn from. You should be always reviewing and analyzing yourself and your actions and learning from them. It’s the only way you will get better.
- You can’t play the game alone. The quarterback is the most important position in the NFL, and it is highly scrutinized. I live in Wisconsin – nobody understands that better than we do! There are tons of Brett Favre-Aaron Rodgers debates around here at all times of the day (especially since the just played against each other). But what many people fail to realize in these debates is that there are a LOT of other guys on the field! You can’t win alone – you need friends and family to help you out in life.
- Taking a big risk can payoff big, but it can also hurt big. The bigger the risk, the bigger the reward. Want to make up a ton of yards downfield? Throw a bomb up and try to get it to your top wide receiver. But if you underthrow it even a touch, it can be intercepted. Taking risks in life are what makes it so great, but be prepared to deal with the consequences of your actions.
- Not everybody’s playing for your team. There are people in this world who just want to bring you down, just like the defense. Fight them head-on and you will have some success. Grind out a few yards at a time.
- Everybody’s got a role to play. Peyton Manning is a great quarterback, but I wouldn’t trust him kicking my field goals. Ray Lewis is a top player on defense, but he’s not going to return kickoffs. Everybody has something they’re good at and you need to have a wide variety of people in your life that are close to you. That teamwork will pay off.
The game of life has considerably more “plays” than football, but your approach should be very similar. Your thoughts?