Monday, January 28th, 2008 by Adam Wagner
The Patriots can teach you about life
The New England Patriots have done what every sports story over the past 15 years has been unable to do (excluding steroids) and transcended the sports page, pushing the Iraq War and the Presidential Candidate of the Week for press coverage.
Much of this coverage is negative, focusing on Bill Belichick’s attitude or Tom Brady’s various female relationships/child raising abilities instead of the team’s generally outstanding play and perfect record.
That first word, “perfect,” is where the issue lies. In a nation where a pointless war is being fought about as imperfectly as a war can be fought, the Patriots are accomplishing the seeming impossible while the Bush Administration and other sources (this is not just focused on the war) are blundering the extremely probably. Worse yet, the Patriots are accomplishing their feat with style, be it Randy Moss’ sunglasses or Tom Brady’s . . . well, you’ve all seen the pictures.
The Patriots are well aware of how good they are and know that any of the other teams in the NFL would need to play an almost perfect game to even have a chance against them. This contributes to a cockiness that directly contradicts the modern American attitude, where failure and negativity seem to be lurking just over the horizon in the forms of terrorism, outsourcing, bad politicians and other nefarious forces.
The Patriots, by doing everything right, remind us too much of what we are doing wrong and what we should be doing right.
When asked about a victory, a Patriot player will respond by not speaking about the victory, but instead about the importance of the next week’s game. The team never lets satisfaction, or the malaise that accompanies satisfaction, seep into its mindset and impact their performance.
When asked about an issue of potential controversy, the Patriot player will either dodge the question or claim that he is not the right person for the question to be asked of. The Patriots do not want any distractions (look at how fast that Randy Moss battery story went away) and will do anything to avoid them. At the same time, the team also preaches accountability. If you do something wrong, you own up to it, fix the problem, and move on.
By focusing on one goal, as a unit, the Patriots avoid any and all potential pitfalls.
Due to their success, the Patriots have become the team that everyone wants to play for. Moss is the best evidence of this, as he went from being a malcontent in Oakland, where his career seemed ready to start winding down, to having one of the best seasons by a wide receiver in NFL history for the Patriots this year.
Moss still displays his attitude and is still contentious with the media, but he is no longer a distraction. He has learned how to maintain his individuality while working within the tight-laced, focused system that is Patriot football.
If the Patriots can turn Randy Moss around, they can do just about anything. And America should be watching on learning, accepting two lessons as the most important.
One, focusing on achieving success is valid, but obsessing over failure is not.
Two, once success is achieved, sitting back and accepting it as the end goal is a recipe for failure (see: 2006 Pittsburgh Steelers).
After all, if everyone is as successful in their chosen field as Tom Brady is in his, maybe every guy can follow the Bridget Moyahan/Gisele Bundchen path of dating, or however else you define perfection.
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