Team Sport

Football is a team sport. You need all 11 working together to succeed. The lineman, both offense and defense, must to do their part so the team can win. Offensive linemen are the least visibile members of the team. I feel like they’re the garbage collector of the team. No one has anything to say when they’re doing their job (no pat on the back). But, when a block is missed (trash not picked up), everyone has some advice. Receivers need to catch the ball. Running backs need to hold on to the ball, hit the hole, and run the ball. The quarterback needs to deliver a catchable ball, read the defense, and help his offensive line out. The kicker needs to make the easy field goals. The punter and special teams, needs to flip the field. There’s a lot more interdependencies, but I’ll only mention those for now.

I mentioned those because I think that’s enough to illustrate at a basic level, that one man cannot take over the game like in other sports. If one person, much less one position group, is not doing their task it is very difficult to win the game. Take the Chiefs vs Bucs super bowl for example. Patrick Mahomes played an unbelievable game. But his receivers and tight end were not catching the ball. One person, could not win the game by himself.

Whether you’re a corporate employee, spouse, parent, or just a member of your community, it takes other people to help you get things done. You can’t do it all by yourself.

Personal Lesson

While playing cornerback my senior year in high school, our defense kept getting beat on about a 10-yard curl route. We were playing cover 3 so it was not in my zone to defend. I could not stand our defense getting beat by the same route on the same play over and over again. I was not sure what my teammate was doing, but I decided to take away the 10-yard curl route myself.

My original assignment in cover 3 as a cornerback was the deep third of the field on my side of the field. The time had come where the other team ran the play with the route I was going to take away. I stepped-up to get infront of the opposing player so that he wasn’t open. Lo and behold, another receiver was streaking down the sideline in the area I vacated. That was a painful lesson of why I needed to do my job, and let my teammates do their job.