REFLECTION
At the Patriots, Bill Belichick had a saying that was at the core of his coaching philosophy: Do Your Job. He got it from Bill Parcells, and passed it on to Nick Saban. It became something of a mantra for us, because it was simple and effective.
For some people, their job did not change from day to day. For others, it changed week to week. If you were a player, it changed on every single play. But none of that mattered. The principle stayed the same: do your job. Not somebody else’s job. Not some other job you think is being overlooked, or that you are selfishly interested in.
Your. Job.
It was our belief that only when a team has the right people, with the right values, who all do their job to the best of their abilities on a consistent basis (who fulfill their duty with integrity, in other words), will the team develop the kind of culture necessary to win consistently at a high level and to put ourselves in a position to reach for those improbable goals—Super Bowls, conference championships, a perfect season, things like that.
It all comes down to doing your job.
LESSON
Since retiring from the NFL, life has taken me not away from football, but closer to it, by becoming a broadcaster for FOX and a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders.
As a broadcaster, I want everyone who tunes into FOX on Sunday afternoons to feel like they got their money’s worth for the three hours they entrust to our entire team. Those are precious hours for busy, hardworking people. We owe them a return on that investment, which is to do our jobs to the best of our abilities. For me, it’s to entertain and inform and to help create a great viewing experience by drawing on the deep well of knowledge and wisdom I have gained from playing high level football for nearly thirty years.
As a limited partner in the Raiders, I want the Silver & Black to return to the glory of those amazing years under Al Davis and John Madden. I want the team to have talented players who have we-first attitudes, who are coachable, who have the right values and do things the right way and know how to do their jobs in pursuit of team success. I have a deep desire to help refresh and reinvigorate the culture of a franchise with cherished traditions and a long, storied history in professional football.
I love football. At its core it is a game of principles. And with all the success it has given me, I feel I have a moral and ethical duty to the sport; which is why the point where my roles in it intersect is not actually a point of conflict, despite what the paranoid and distrustful might believe. Rather, it’s the place from which my ethical duty emerges: to grow, evolve, and improve the game that has given me everything.
I love talking football with anybody. Fans, friends, players, coaches. I love being able to utilize everything I’ve learned to help others achieve their potential in the sport–young players, young coaches, even vets going through new experiences or facing tough decisions. Like I talked about last week, that was a big part of what motivated me to play so hard for 23 years, and why I’ve always been very open to helping anyone with questions about how to improve or to be the best they can be. I want them to have a chance to experience the kind of success I had. I want that for all the guys we bring into the Raiders organization and I want it for all the guys playing their guts out in each game I broadcast. I want everyone to play well, to do their best, to do their job, and ultimately to succeed. Football as a sport and the NFL as a business depend on it.
I believe that if I do my job as a broadcaster the right way, as best as I know how to do it, with passion and openness, with a helpful, positive, optimistic mindset, the result will be more informed fans who grow to love football the way I do. Fans who understand the game better. Fans who come to identify, appreciate, and expect the kind of we-first team play that was a central part of my success as a player and a key factor in the joy I got out of the game.
If I can bring my knowledge and experience to bear inside the Raiders organization to ensure there’s one more team that does things the right way; and then I can apply it in the booth so millions of people know and enjoy what the right way looks like—then I will have lived up to the expectations I have for myself, and I will have done so in service of a much greater duty. One that I believe every person involved with pro football shares, whether they know it or not.
APPLICATION
When you live through uncertain and untrusting times like we are today, it is very easy to watch a person’s passions and profession intersect, and to believe you’re looking at some sort of dilemma. Because when you’re blinded by distrust, it’s hard to see anything other than self-interest.
People who are like that, particularly to a chronic, pathological degree, are telling on themselves. They’re showing you their worldview and how they operate. They’re admitting that they can only conceive of interests that are selfish; that they cannot imagine a person doing their job for reasons that are greater than themselves. (These kinds of people make horrible teammates, by the way.)
But there are millions of great human beings out there whose actions are guided by a purpose greater than themselves, by duty and integrity. That’s most coaches and teachers I’ve met, as a matter of fact. Personally, I spent my entire pro career focused on interests that were bigger than me. In retirement, nothing has changed. These days when it comes to football, I’m motivated, very much like a coach or a teacher, to grow and improve the game by sharing my knowledge and wisdom in support of the young people who play it. I’m driven not by what football can do for me, but what I can do for it.
I first noticed how powerful this can be when Nick Saban retired from Alabama and joined the College Gameday crew. His first broadcast was two weeks before mine, and watching him that Saturday, I could already see the impact of being able to spread his knowledge and wisdom to all fans, not just Alabama fans. I have experienced something similar in my role, and it’s changed my relationship with the fans and their understanding of me.
I was in Kansas City and then in Philly for games, for example, and I got the most heartwarming reception from fans. They said the nicest things to me. I think, because they realized that I'm not the enemy anymore. I’m actually trying to make their football experience better. I’m trying to add to their joy instead of taking away from it as the quarterback on the other side of the ball from their favorite team. It’s been one of the truly unexpected pleasures of my FOX role, and I look forward to it each week.
Maybe you would have to know me to understand that (it’s part of why I’m writing this newsletter, actually), which I get. You can always hope for the benefit of the doubt, but you can never expect or demand it. The problem is, there’s a strange phenomenon that occurs when people judge the motivations of others or the meanings of things that they don’t fully understand. They fill their gap in knowledge with worst-case scenario thinking and negative assumptions. There is rarely any benefit of the doubt. There is no discipline to “have no opinion,” as Marcus Aurelius would say, about things you don’t understand or can’t control, but trigger your emotions nonetheless. I don’t know what it is about judgmental people, but their judgments never seem to be positive or optimistic.
The solution to that problem, ironically, is the same for paranoia and distrust. It’s doing your job with integrity. It’s finding fulfillment in doing the best you can. It’s living up to the duty you have to yourself, to your employer, to your family, to the culture, to your fellow citizens. It’s educating yourself and filling your knowledge gaps not with assumptions and judgments, but with facts and figures.
It’s knowing your shit. And in knowing it, coming to the realization that, despite our differences and difficult times, the vast majority of people are generally good. They do their job. They love their families. They try to do things the right way, for the right reasons. They want the best for everybody.
You might not be able to see it at first, but that may be because you haven’t been willing to look. Or you’ve forgotten how. That can happen when we neglect our ‘Why’ and lose track of what drove us to do our jobs in the first place.
I am grateful and fortunate that I’ve never lost sight of mine. Of my love for the game and my teammates. Of my passion for the nuances of the game’s principles. Of my appreciation for good competition and my commitment to the relentless pursuit of excellence.
These things have always been with me, and they’ve kept my eyes and my heart wide open.
