The mental component is a huge often overlooked part of football
As anyone who has ever played sports can attest to, the mental part of the game is a huge factor. Do you remember back when you were playing sports when another team would get on a roll how hard it was to overcome that. It would be really hard to break that trend. At the same time, your team would have a streak of mistakes that cost you dearly in the game. Once your team started screwing up, it was really hard to break that trend as well. That is because of the mental aspect of sports.
The football guys refer to it as momentum, but it goes deeper than that. What you really want to do is get to a point mentally where you just do not lose your focus. If you can do that, you won’t ever lose your momentum during the game. The other team might think you lost it after they make a big play. But, if you can keep a strong mental focus and not let them get inside your head, you are taking away one of their best weapons.
Mentality during the Marv Levy Superbowl years
Okay, so we never won the big one. Still, do you remember how often the Bills used to come from behind and destroy teams during the last few minutes of the game during the regular season? I remember hearing guys like Andre Reed get interviewed. They were always saying that they just knew they were going to win the game. They still felt they were going to win the game even if the team was down by two scores in the fourth quarter. How in the hell could any opponent get inside their heads when they had this conviction that they were going to win?
When the other team would score a second time, these guys were thinking “Oh well, we are still going to win”. Can you imagine how humiliated the other team was by that mentality? The opponents had to be intimidated playing against all stars like this who were still convinced they were going to win even when it looked hopeless.
It was games like this that gave those great players that mentality.
Having the right mentality prevents the other team from exploiting your mistakes and opens you up to opportunities as they present themselves. You just have to wait for the other team to make a mistake that you can capitalize on. That is when you take their momentum away and get inside their heads. If you refuse to let the other team get inside your head, you will almost certainly get inside theirs.
NFL coaches tend to neglect this aspect of the game somewhat
In fairness, I don’t know what they say in the locker rooms or on the sidelines. I do see what is happening on the field though. I can tell from watching what is happening, that the vast majority of teams fail to seize an opportunity to demoralize the other team mentally. Because they ignore so many opportunities, I can only assume that they don’t put as much stock in the mental part of the game as I do. If teams paid more attention to the mental aspect of the game, you would see them obviously trying to exploit their opponent’s mistakes. You would see more teams throwing a deep pass on the first play after their defense caused a turnover.