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Super psych 101 Posted: Monday February 04, 2002 6:16 PM
There's a strange psychology at work involving extreme pressure. I have never heard an adequate explanation as to why people react so differently when the stakes are highest. I've never heard psychologists explain how they could predict which people would act in a certain way, and I don't think they will ever be able to, because this goes deeper than anything that can be measured. Combat veterans know about this better than anyone. I've always been fascinated by the stories of mild, bland, nebbishy individuals who, all of a sudden, carried along by some unexplained instinct, perform at the highest level of courage and intelligence when faced with the ultimate challenge. Or, conversely, dynamic people, seemingly wearing the mantle of heroes, who freeze up or screw up when there's the most to lose. Well, lives are not lost on the football field. It's a much less significant arena, but still, it involves young people, many of whom are facing the greatest pressure situations of their lives when they play the game at its highest level, such as the Super Bowl or the contests leading up to it. Unless a player has come through time and again, you can't look at his personality and predict how he'll react. The young Joe Montana -- "personality like a stone," his teammate, Matt Millen, once said about him -- forced out of bounds by three Cowboys rushers in the game that launched the 49ers on their road to greatness, the 1981 NFC Championship, puts the ball onto the fingertips of Dwight Clark in the most important play in the team's history. Scott Norwood pushes the ball to the right on a kick that could have won a Super Bowl for the Buffalo Bills and created a dynasty. Who could tell ahead of time? Things might change, of course, but right now the newly crowned Super Bowl champion, the New England Patriots, represent, at least to me, a team of guys who simply came through when they had to. I have a notebook full of X's and O's and defensive alignments and pass patterns and crossing routes, and it's all part of the big picture, but I can't think of a team that stretched less talent, at least on paper, so far. I mean, when the season began, did anyone write "The Patriots, keyed by Adam Vinatieri, one of the most feared kickers in the NFL ... " He was a middle-of-the-pack kicker, a 28 year old from Rapid City, S.D., but has there ever been a more dramatic kick than his 45-yarder in the snow against Oakland? Sure, his 48-yarder that won the Super Bowl. Tom Brady, 24, zero on his resume before the season began, taking his team 53 yards in a minute and a half with the ultimate coolness, looking for all the world like a young Montana, to put a capper on the biggest game of his life. It's an amazing collection of come-through athletes. The defense simply has to stop the Raiders on third-and-inches toward the end of the divisional playoffs or it's over. No AFC title game, no Super Bowl, no nothing. So a rookie tackle named Richard Seymour stones his blocker and stops 240-pound Zack Crockett cold. The defense is worn out and sagging against Pittsburgh in the AFC Championship Game, the quarterback is out with a sprained ankle, so the Patriots force two interceptions on the Steelers' last two series. And how about those defenders who held off the Rams so long and so well in the Super Bowl? Sure, they tired at the end and St. Louis got on the board -- I mean, you're talking about one of the greatest attacks ever put together -- but it was their spectacular work that got the Patriots their lead in the first place and gave Brady a chance to win it with his final drive. Castoffs, rejects, ex-Jets who had overstayed their welcome, guys who were led by a coach, Bill Belichick, whose cerebral schemes had convinced them that his way was the only way they could win it all. The best description of Belichick I ever heard came from a former Patriots tackle of his, Chad Eaton. "People make the mistake of thinking that a coach motivates you through emotion or locker room speeches," he said. "It's not true. Nothing motivates you more than the feeling that the guy really knows what he's doing. And with Belichick, you feel that he's smarter than the people you're playing. He tells you they're gonna do something, and they do it, and when this happens over and over again, well, that gets you psyched." Talent also kicks in, of course, and Belichick managed to convince his players to forget what happened with the other clubs, You're my guys, and I know I can win with you, and he did. To me, no one represents that more than Otis Smith, a Jets reject, a 36-year-old cornerback with marginal speed who was called upon to match up against the most feared set of wideouts in the league. Don't worry about running with these guys, Belichick told Smith and Ty Law, the other corner, a burly guy who can run, but not in the class of Isaac Bruce or Torry Holt or Az Hakim, the Rams' burners. In our zone the safeties will pick them up deep. Play them physical, bang 'em around, reroute them, screw up Kurt Warner's timing and force him into misfires. "No clean releases," Law said after the game. "Make them work. They don't like that. They like to go waltzing into the secondary and make their catch and hit the ground. It always amazed me how corners are afraid to bump the great receivers, Jerry Rice, Randy Moss. They give 'em a clean release and it's easy for them. Coach Belichick wouldn't let them get away with that. We didn't blitz much because Warner's so quick on his hot reads, but we got on his receivers quickly and made him throw to the wrong area or pull the ball down, and by then the rush was on him." So Law ran a pick back 47 yards for a TD and Smith knocked Holt off his route and got a 30-yard interception that set up a field goal. The Rams caught two balls on Smith all day, an eight-yarder and a five-yarder, both by Holt. Until the late-game dramatics, he'd have been my choice for MVP. "If you don't challenge a good receiver," Smith said, "he'll do what he does best. If you challenge him, you're doing what you do best." I heard some technical talk after the game from people who make their living at it, guys from other clubs. "Two-deep, man under," one guy said, describing Belichick's primary alignment. As simple as that. "Crossing route against a double-zone," another one said, referring to Troy Brown's 23-yard catch that set up the winning field goal. Sure, but you've got to have the people to do it and do it right. Take Antowain Smith, tailback for the Patriots, a key man in their offense that produced not a lot of yardage but enough to run time off the clock and keep the St. Louis attack at bay. Given up on by Buffalo this year, but he outrushed Marshall Faulk, 90 yards to 76. Big game, big performance. Or how about Mike Vrabel, sometimes a strongside linebacker, sometimes a down rusher from the outside. A reserve in the Pittsburgh system, overlooked, hardly missed when he free-agented to New England. But a key man in the Super Bowl, sometimes in coverage, sometimes on the rush. It was his pressure on Warner that forced the Law interception. I could go on. Belichick's lineup is full of players like that. He's not an emotional type of person. I talked with him in his little coaching room about an hour after the game was over, after he'd come down off the podium in the interview room and accepted all the congratulations, and he laid out the defensive scheme and talked about the roles everyone was expected to play, and the sacrifices they had to make. Defensive end Willie McGinest, for instance. Not the demon rusher he was against Pittsburgh. His job Sunday was to chip on Faulk, to get a piece of him, and make sure he wasn't comfortable going into his pattern. It took away from McGinest's rush and at times made him a target for the run. "He had to sacrifice," Belichick said, "and he did it and did it willingly. That's the key." "Put a capsule on what we saw today," I asked the coach. "Team defense, team defense, team defense," he said. Before the game a precedent was set. Instead of having the offensive or defensive units individually introduced, Belichick sent out his whole team en masse. It drew a few snickers in the press box. Grandstand play and all that. I didn't think so. I think it was part of what we saw after the whistle blew. The first person I saw in the dressing room was Drew Bledsoe, who had been benched for Brady. His locker was right next to the door. "Congratulations," I said. "The young guys don't understand," he said, practically in tears. "They don't understand how great this is, how great a moment this is. You can only understand it if you'd been here and lost." Maybe this was a magic moment that won't be repeated by this team. Perhaps it is the start of something lasting. Knowing Belichick and the level at which his team performed on Sunday, I lean toward the latter. Sports Illustrated senior writer Paul Zimmerman covers the NFL for the magazine and CNNSI.com. His "Inside Football" column and Mailbag appear weekly on CNNSI.com. To send a question to Dr. Z, click here. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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