This past Sunday, the world got to see one of the best football coaches in Bill Belichick face off against a very underrated coaching staff of the New York Giants. Week after week New England fans continued to hear Coach Belichick say to his players “Do your job, just do your job,” when in reality, maybe he didn’t do his job as well as he could have. One the other sideline of Super bowl XXII was Tom Coughlin and his aggressive coaching staff. Now this is a team who flew under the radar for the past two weeks, and well just did their job. In this blog I am going to touch upon 5 tips on what it takes to coach and maintain a championship team.
1. Get your team healthy and in championship form. Whether you are coaching at the collegiate level preparing for a national championship, or you are a head coach in the NFL preparing for the Super bowl, your team is given some time off. These few weeks off are crucial to the performance of your team. Let’s say you are the head coach about to coach in the Super bowl, since this is what was most recent. That first week following your AFC or NFC Championship, you should give your team some physical time off. I think that the player’s should be allowed time off to simply get there body healthier and to mentally prepared for the task at hand. Now I do not believe you should allow your players to run off on vacations with their wives for a few days. I feel as though you should require some studying of game film to keep the athletes focused. I also believe that you must require any banged up or injured player’s to report to trainers whether they are their personal trainers or the team’s trainer’s. Once you make your players report back to the field, you may only want to go full contact for a few days and then save the athlete’s legs by only going in “uppers” (shoulder pad and helmets.)
2. Do not allow your team to get complacent. Complacency is what kills championship teams. Lets again look at New England for example. Here is a team that ended the season undefeated including the prior post season games leading up to the Super Bowl. Physically they knew they were the better team, as a matter of fact the entire world knew they were the better team, and the Patriots let it get to there head. They were satisfied with people already saying they were the best team ever before they had even closed out the deal. The team that enters the championship that is more focused and more driven to take home that trophy will rightfully do so, like the New York Giant did this past Sunday. Tom Coughlin and his coaching staff did not allow their team to sit back and be satisfied with the run they made to get to the championship, where they ran into the powerhouse of the New England Patriots. They told their team that the goal was not yet completed and that they could make this happen, which brings me to my next tip, game planning.
3. Game plan, Game plan, Game plan. If you are granted two weeks to come up with a game plan for a championship game, you better come up with a championship caliber plan. As a coaching staff, you must watch hours upon hours of film on your opponent. You must take note of the opposing team’s tendencies in every game time situation, along with their personnel and their personnel’s tendencies. Nothing helps more in this great game of football then finding out your opponent’s tendencies. If you can figure out a team’s tendencies you can then come up with the best situational play call for every single down in the game. My hat goes off to Steve Spagnuolo (defensive coordinator for the Super Bowl Champion Giants), who came up with an unbelievable game plan to attack Tom Brady and the monster that is the Patriot’s offense. He knew that his front seven could create great match ups on the front line of New England, and that he wanted to attack this match up as much as possible. One of the greatest personnel moves that I noticed on Sunday, was to putting Justin Tuck in the middle of the line to attack the middle of the Patriot’s line with speed. Especially once Stephen Neal went down, the Giants knew that the middle of the line could potentially be weak, so it was a smart move to put a player with his athletic ability along with numerous stunts putting constant pressure on Brady. Coach Spagnuolo knew that once he got Tom Brady and the offensive line on their heels that the game could be won. His game planning along with the great play of his front seven is by far the reason that the Giants are now able to bring home the Lombardi Trophy.
4. On Game Day, keep things loose, but focused. If you allow your team to become uptight about the game, telling them about how this is the biggest game they will ever play in their lives, may not necessarily help your cause. I feel as though if you let your team be loose in pre game as long as they are not losing focus of what is at hand, then your team will perform much better. You must let your team know that they made it this far for a reason, so do not get tense now that you are on stage, just play to the best of your ability and the rest will take care of itself.
5. Finally, the most important tip a football coach can remember is, be prepared for game time adjustments. In every single football game, every team must make mid game adjustments. The team that makes the best mid game adjustments are those championship caliber teams. Game planning does not stop once the actual game starts, one of the biggest mistakes many coaches make, is being too stubborn and sticking to their routes. If you think about it, as much game planning you did in the past two weeks, the other team did just as much. So they may come out with something you have yet to see. This is where your mid game adjustments must be better then theirs. You must be able to think on the run because if you don’t, the other team is going to make their adjustments and they will come out victorious.
A football game is not simply won between those lines. It is won in the preparation and game planning prior to stepping onto that field. In order to become a coach of a championship team, you must be able to lead your team into the battle with the right mindset, along with the right amount of preparation.