Don’t Fall Into Week 1 Trap
August 25, 2021 at 3:58 a.m.
Don’t Fall Into Week 1 Trap
By Roger Grossman-
The bad seems unbearably bad and the good is cause for unsquashable rejoicing and celebration.
And there is a cautionary tale to be told there for both sides it.
The reason why football is a sport of over-reaction is because there are so few games. A pro season is now 17 games long. Hockey and basketball have about that many games in a month.
Because there are so few games in football, added weight is poured onto every matchup.
Think of it this way. There are 162 baseball games in a season, and 17 football games. That means one NFL loss is equal to almost a 10-game losing streak for a baseball team (ask us Cubs fans about that—we’ve done it twice this season). Conversely, a win on Sunday is the same as a 10-game winning streak for baseball.
The beauty of football for us, the consumer, is that our teams only play one game a week. That means we spend about a day dealing with the pain or savoring the fruits of the last game before we start focusing on the next one.
And we wait…and wait…and wait.
And that’s where the trouble starts.
We have so much time in between games that we suffer through a condition called “paralysis by analysis”. We break down every muscle twitch, every head turn, every eye-blink to the point that we over-think the game and every aspect of it.
It’s a big part of why Mitchell Trubisky failed in Chicago.
Did anyone see him Saturday against the Bears? He lit them UP! That’s the same kid that got run out of town just a few months ago.
The point I am trying to make is this: an unrealistic weight is put on the first football game of every season.
Yes, it is the tone-setter.
Yes, it is the first impression.
Yes, not winning means you have to win the next two games to get above the .500 mark.
But the results of Week 1 don’t have to cast the die on how the whole season is going to go.
The example, here, is Tippecanoe Valley and Wawasee.
They played each other Friday and I was really glad to see it. I think that’s a good matchup for both.
Valley won 42-7.
Just because Valley looked really good and Wawasee really didn’t doesn’t necessarily mean anything for the long-term—well, it doesn’t have to, anyway.
Just because Warsaw scored seven touchdowns against perennial Ohio powerhouse Dublin Coffman Friday was terrific, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the Tigers are going to go undefeated.
I have never coached anything more than adult men’s slow pitch softball at the CCAC, but I would offer to you this original concept: The most important moment of every team’s season happens where and when no one can see it—in the first 15 minutes of the first practice after the first game.
I listen to Dr. Chuck Swindoll a lot, and he says “life is 10-percent what happens to you and 90-percent how you react to it.”
He is so correct!
No matter the score from Friday, for example, the resolve to get better is tested the very next time out.
I can remember a year where Warsaw won their first game but lost every other game in the regular season. Looked great against Columbia City, struggled every week after that.
50-percent of the teams that play any sport lose their first game. So what?
It doesn’t have to be the end of the season. It doesn’t have to mean the cause is lost or hope fades to black.
But that lies in the heart of each coach, player and parent. No one can control that except for them.
And for the teams that won, resting on your accomplishments after one game is like leaning on a table with no legs—you’re gonna fall on your face and have to start all over again.
Remember last week, when we talked about the optimism of the start of fall sports?
I hope for your team, no matter what sport that is, still prepares for their next game with that same optimism.
Because they should.
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The bad seems unbearably bad and the good is cause for unsquashable rejoicing and celebration.
And there is a cautionary tale to be told there for both sides it.
The reason why football is a sport of over-reaction is because there are so few games. A pro season is now 17 games long. Hockey and basketball have about that many games in a month.
Because there are so few games in football, added weight is poured onto every matchup.
Think of it this way. There are 162 baseball games in a season, and 17 football games. That means one NFL loss is equal to almost a 10-game losing streak for a baseball team (ask us Cubs fans about that—we’ve done it twice this season). Conversely, a win on Sunday is the same as a 10-game winning streak for baseball.
The beauty of football for us, the consumer, is that our teams only play one game a week. That means we spend about a day dealing with the pain or savoring the fruits of the last game before we start focusing on the next one.
And we wait…and wait…and wait.
And that’s where the trouble starts.
We have so much time in between games that we suffer through a condition called “paralysis by analysis”. We break down every muscle twitch, every head turn, every eye-blink to the point that we over-think the game and every aspect of it.
It’s a big part of why Mitchell Trubisky failed in Chicago.
Did anyone see him Saturday against the Bears? He lit them UP! That’s the same kid that got run out of town just a few months ago.
The point I am trying to make is this: an unrealistic weight is put on the first football game of every season.
Yes, it is the tone-setter.
Yes, it is the first impression.
Yes, not winning means you have to win the next two games to get above the .500 mark.
But the results of Week 1 don’t have to cast the die on how the whole season is going to go.
The example, here, is Tippecanoe Valley and Wawasee.
They played each other Friday and I was really glad to see it. I think that’s a good matchup for both.
Valley won 42-7.
Just because Valley looked really good and Wawasee really didn’t doesn’t necessarily mean anything for the long-term—well, it doesn’t have to, anyway.
Just because Warsaw scored seven touchdowns against perennial Ohio powerhouse Dublin Coffman Friday was terrific, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the Tigers are going to go undefeated.
I have never coached anything more than adult men’s slow pitch softball at the CCAC, but I would offer to you this original concept: The most important moment of every team’s season happens where and when no one can see it—in the first 15 minutes of the first practice after the first game.
I listen to Dr. Chuck Swindoll a lot, and he says “life is 10-percent what happens to you and 90-percent how you react to it.”
He is so correct!
No matter the score from Friday, for example, the resolve to get better is tested the very next time out.
I can remember a year where Warsaw won their first game but lost every other game in the regular season. Looked great against Columbia City, struggled every week after that.
50-percent of the teams that play any sport lose their first game. So what?
It doesn’t have to be the end of the season. It doesn’t have to mean the cause is lost or hope fades to black.
But that lies in the heart of each coach, player and parent. No one can control that except for them.
And for the teams that won, resting on your accomplishments after one game is like leaning on a table with no legs—you’re gonna fall on your face and have to start all over again.
Remember last week, when we talked about the optimism of the start of fall sports?
I hope for your team, no matter what sport that is, still prepares for their next game with that same optimism.
Because they should.
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