It was reported by NBC Sports, that 114.4 Million people watched the Superbowl game! I wonder if more that 100 people actually learned the most important lesson that was taught in that game.
So the title of this blog post gives you a hint of the lesson that we can learn from. What is it that makes the difference between 59 minutes and 30 seconds versus 60 minutes NOT being about 30 seconds. Since I have already mentioned that the lesson comes from this year’s Super Bowl game, you may have guessed that it has something to do with winning versus loosing and you would be right! But the real lesson comes from a comment made by Bill Belichick. At the end of the game Bill stated that he was so proud of his team because they played the full 60 minutes. That is extremely key to this lesson!
The final outcome of the game could have been very different if they had only “Played” 59 minutes and 30 seconds! The difference is they would have lost the game and would not have been the Super Bowl Champions! Instead the Seattle Seahawks would have most likely been the game winner and thus would have earned back to back Super Bowl championships! The Pats could have had the “Wind knocked out of them” with the pass that was remarkably brilliant catch and heads up play by Jermaine Kearse at the 6 yard line and was finally pushed out of bounds at the 5 yard line! At that point The Seahawks were 5 yards from the end zone with 54 seconds remaining in the game. If You saw the look on Tom Brady’s face he counted it a foregone conclusion that he would have less than one minute to get at least 3 points on the scoreboard to tie the came at 31, because he was sure that the Seahawks would score 7 and go up by 3 points with only seconds left in the game making it virtually impossible for the Patriots to win! But in an interview right after the game, Brady told reporters that he immediately put his mind into high gear as to how he would drive the time to get the final points to as a minimum tie the score!
At the same time the Patriots defensive team did not give up either! They were set for their final goal line stand to try and defend against the run which was inevitable! The Seahawks ran a running play play that got them only to the 1+ yard line because of the Pats strong goal line defense! But there was 30 seconds left on the clock. The very next play Wilson hands off to Marshawn Lynch and he caries to the 1 yard line! Patriots call a time out because time was running out! Things were looking bleak for the Patriots! Then what no one would have predicted, Russel Wilson of the Seahawks threw that short pass trying to out-smart the goal line defense! In many ways it was a brilliant call because no one would be expecting anything other than the run for the goal line, especially with powerful Marshawn Lynch as the running back! Lynch had just gained 4 yards and now he only had one yard to go! So just put Yourself in the shoes of any of the Patriots shoes! How discouraged would YOU be? Think the wind might have been knocked out of your sails? Even still with every player on the defensive team, their minds were focused on but one thing! The one thing they were ALL focused on was stopping the Seahawks from scoring! Eleven players, one Goal! If somehow they can stop the Seahawks from scoring for the next 25 seconds they win the Superbowl title! If they can do that they win and they succeed in accomplishing what they started out to do way back in September when the season kicked off! If they failed to keep the Seahawks out of the end zone, it would almost be a forgone conclusion that there would not be enough time to pull of a win and would have ended up failing in their mission to be the best team of the 2014 – 2015 season! Success or failure boiled down to just the last 30 seconds of the game! So when Russel Wilson put up that pass to Ricardo Lockette the Patriots Left Cornerback, Malcolm Butler, had his mind totally tuned in on what has become the Patriots motto, “Do your job” and he totally focused and made the game saving interception!
So the lesson that we can take away from this game is that no matter what the odds are, no matter how discouraging the results may seem, we must never give up or call it quits, before the game is over! For those of us building a business or trying to achieve some goal in the corporate world, we simply can’t let our emotions take control of our lives. We can’t quit before the end of the game, or before we have accomplished the goals we have placed before ourselves! But that is not the only lesson that we can learn from this past Super Bowl game! We also see the rookie, Malcolm Butler up against the 4 year veteran and Wide Receiver, Ricardo Lockette, and you know that Butler must have been feeling the pressure! Did Butler let that pressure be an excuse for not getting the job done? No he did not! He just focused on doing his job for that one play and that focus paid off with the final result that the Patriots went on to run out the clock with a 28 24 victory over the Seattle Seahawks, and ultimately winning the 2015 Super Bowl game, thus completing their 2014 – 2015 season goal successfully!
So what other lessons can we learn as individuals? Well we need to continue to learn and master our craft so that we can do our “job” even when things look bleak for us, and we could easily be discouraged! That training and mastery will kick in automatically when we need it most! Another important lesson is how important it is to work as a team! Even if we are running our own businesses and we don’t have any other “employees” we still have others around us that support us and contribute as team members! Butler could have thought to himself that the “Goal line defensive team members” need to do their jobs, but his wasn’t important would have totally changed the outcome of the game and the Super Bowl!
Undoubtedly there are other lessons here that we can learn from. I would love to hear YOUR perspectives on these lessons as well. Also I am sure that some of my future posts will pick up on some of the other lessons from this Super Bowl XLIX game, so If you want to follow this or any other of my posts, be sure to click on the link below my signature to get registered to receive my updates!
Make it a great day!
Larry A. Coates