REFLECTION
My first start in the NFL was Week 3 of the 2001 season against Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts. The Colts were coming off back to back winning seasons under Peyton. We were coming off a 5-11 season, and I was coming off the bench. I didn’t do anything special in the game, statistically speaking. 13-23, 168 yards passing, 0 TDs. But I also didn’t throw any picks and I only got sacked once.
We crushed the Colts 44-13. It was a complete team victory. Six different guys touched the ball in the run game. The O-line kept me clean. I threw to eight different receivers. Our front seven tormented Peyton all game, racking up three sacks and four turnovers, including two pick-6s. Otis Smith for 78 yards near the end of the first half, and Ty Law for 23 yards at the beginning of the fourth quarter to ice the game.
In the locker room afterward, Coach Belichick handed out two game balls. One to Otis and one to Ty. But not for their pick-sixes. He singled out each guy for the blocks they threw on the other guy’s touchdown.
On Otis’s pick, Ty sealed off Dominic Rhodes at the top of the return, which allowed Otis to turn the corner and then Ty followed the play all the way down the field and made a second block on a lineman who had the last chance to make a tackle.
On Ty’s pick, Otis, who was playing off his man on a deep route, appears out of nowhere, gets out in front of the play and blocks Marcus Pollard at the 5 yard line so Ty can basically walk it in.
It was art. The art of unselfish, championship-level football.
But that was only part of the story. On both plays, the Colts were in second and long because Bryan Cox, who was in his eleventh season and on his fourth team, had blown up a screen pass and a reverse on respective first downs. He played out of his mind in that game. Like Lincoln Jefferson in Fast Times at Ridgemont High after he hears that someone from the other team wrecked his car. In fact, our entire defense played that way. They kicked the Colts’ asses so completely that even the CBS broadcast team noted that the offense quit on each interception return.
What’s funny is that, statistically speaking, we were not all that special. We had the sixth ranked defense, but on a yardage basis, our leading receiver ranked 10th and our leading rusher ranked 12th. I was 22nd in passing yards and 14th in touchdowns. And yet, we won 8 of our last 9 games (in which I never threw for 250 yards) on the way to becoming Super Bowl champions for the first time in franchise history.
Going into the season, our Super Bowl odds were 60-to-1.
LESSON
The 2001 New England Patriots had a champion’s mindset. We had a bunch of vets and future Hall of Famers who led by example and showed all the young guys, myself included, how to practice, how to prepare, and how to do all the stuff, on and off the field, that doesn't show up on the stat sheet but is instrumental to winning games.
What we did not have were a bunch of “stars.” We had big-time playmakers, but every team has those. You can’t make it to the NFL unless you filled out the stat sheet in high school or landed on SportsCenter all the time in college. Every player on every NFL team was the best player on their team at some point in their life, and remains an elite athlete capable of making amazing plays.
A star is someone who only cares about that. The highlight reel play. Getting on SportsCenter. Getting endorsements. Getting paid. And in our current era of social media, self-promotion and personal branding, that stuff gets rewarded over sacrifice. If a player can sell jerseys and put butts in seats, and his personality and playmaking ability maybe compel the league to give his team an extra primetime game or a holiday game, there are more than a few owners who will happily give him the bag.
The problem with that, of course, is that a star is me-first, not team-first. And it’s already hard enough to win a professional football game. It’s next to impossible when you're constantly dealing with people who are saying, “what’s in it for me?” The cold hard truth is that you don’t win titles with a team full of stars, you win when you have players with a champion’s mindset.
When you have a champion’s mindset, you do two things. You care about the team, and you care about what the team is trying to accomplish. The last thing you care about is your individual success or your own personal agenda.
We didn’t have guys like that in 2001. Guys who were stat-hunting or taking plays off if the ball wasn’t coming their way enough. You didn’t hear a lot of guys in our locker room wondering out loud when they were going to get theirs or complaining about whether they would hit their contract incentives. We had champions. Guys with the right values and the physical, mental, and emotional makeup that allowed for their individual success, but only in furtherance of the team’s success.
APPLICATION
So how do you identify teams or players with a champion’s mindset? You need to listen to how they talk about the team and their goals. More importantly, you need to watch what they do—“Actions speak louder than words” is a saying for a reason—and then you need to evaluate their choices against the values and the mission of the team.
Do they have the right work ethic?
Do they put the team first?
Do they work hard, regardless of whether it impacts their stats or their contract status?
Do they care about headlines, or do they care about the team getting a victory?
Will they do whatever it takes to win?
Are they willing to do the unsung things that don’t show up on paper to allow other people to succeed in ways that get them attention or accolades?
Do they practice hard and make their teammates better?
Do they face adversity head on?
Do they show up in the biggest moments?
Do they show up with a positive attitude, regardless of their standing, whether they're starting or a backup or a reserve or on the practice squad?
Do they perform through adversity, or do they look for an easier route to success?
Do they take the credit and pass the blame? Or do they pass the credit and take the blame when things don't go right?
Do they lead?
Ultimately, what you’re asking is “do they care about other people and their success?” Because nobody wins alone. Nobody gets a first down or scores a touchdown or picks off a pass by themselves. How often those things happen, and therefore how successful a team is, depends on things like the receivers blocking for the running backs down field to spring them for long runs, and the running backs blocking in pass protection to allow the quarterback enough time to deliver the ball down field to the receivers, and the defensive backs blocking for each other on interception returns.
Consistent success depends on whether or not you have players on your team who care enough about other people to not just play with them, but play for them. This is a truism of the champion’s mindset that I believe extends well beyond sports, to life and business and family. Do you pull for each other? Do you make each other’s lives and jobs easier? More fruitful? Is your success, their success, and vice versa?
As I prepare to get back in the booth with my team at FOX, these are the kinds of things I’m going to be looking for and the questions I’m going to be asking about the teams we see each week. Are they a bunch of wildly talented individuals who can make amazing plays that thrill fans and fantasy owners, or are they a cohesive unit with a shared set of values and a single, unshifting goal? Are they stars or are they champions?
