My favorite professional football team is the Dallas Cowboys. And last they played one of the most important games they have had for several seasons. For what seemed years, we had be mired in an amazingly average 8-8 season. Not good. Not bad. Right down the middle.
But not this year. Not this season. At first, analysts said we'd be lucky to get there. Then they began to talk post-season and Superbowl. With good reason. With the new O-Line, Dallas looked good. Maybe not a favorite for being the Champs, but not totally out of the conversation either.
The previous week, the Cowboys beat the Lions in a wild card playoff game. During the course of the game there was a controversial call that gave the Cowboys a slight advantage and, according to Detroit fans, and some analysts, clinched a playoff berth for the Cowboys.
Cowboys fans, however, took a different tact, saying that it was the multiple fumbles by Detroit, and the Cowboy offense that won the game. With which I agree.
However, in the game versus the Green Bay Packers, the tables turned on the Cowboys and they were on the other side of a controversial overturned call that went Green Bay's way. Dez Bryant made a phenomenal play, and had it been ruled a catch, could have solidified the Cowboys victory, or at least taken the wind from Green Bay's sails. However, it was ruled incomplete, and Green Bay received the ball soon to win the game.
My Facebook and Twitter feeds exploded with comments from Cowboy's fans, claiming that the game was stolen from them due to a overturned call, that the refs were blind. That the replay booth was wrong. Etc. Etc.
Personally, I thought it was one of those calls that could have gone either way. I can see the refs and Green Bays point, but as a Cowboy fan I can see it as a catch as well. Honestly, letter of the law, I think it was incomplete, spirit of the law though says it was a catch.
However, whether it was, or wasn't, a catch, isn't the point of my blog today. My point is: I do not think the Cowboys won the game against Detroit because of a call, and I don't think Dallas lost the game against Green Bay because of a call.
Do I think the calls helped Dallas and Green Bay. Absolutely. Dallas a little and Green Bay in a HUGE way, but they weren't the be all, end all to the game.
Rather calls in a football game are simply unexpected events. They can help and they can hurt, but there isn't any real way to plan for them, other than they WILL happen, and I don't think they are the single cause of the outcome to a game.
Weather and injuries fall into this same category. For example, I may have a kicker who is going to kick a 30 yard field goal in the final seconds of the game to win, when a sudden gust of wind knocks the ball off course and they lose the game.
That field goal kick did not lose the game for Team 1 any more than it won the game for Team 2. The outcome of that particular game was based on luck, good or ill depending on which side of the win column you are on.
Or the star quarterback goes down on a particularly nasty sack and the mediocre second stringer comes in, who is woefully unprepared to play at the level that is required.
Truly elite teams are able to rise above random events like this to win the game. Teams that are able to slough off random, potentially devastating random events, and move forward.
Had the game not been so close, Dez's incomplete pass might not have been so devastating. Green Bay could have gotten the ball back, but they might not have been able to immediately go into victory formation, meaning there would be a chance for a turn over by Dallas' defense. Or the choice could have been made to run the ball rather than throw it. It is a lot of "what ifs" but it is those decisions and moments that lost the game for Dallas not an overturned call.
This analogy translates very well to life. In the course of our day to day operations, we make mistakes that either increase our propensity to risk, or decrease our propensity.
Successful people, like successful sports teams or organizations, are the ones who make sure that when the unexpected happens, they aren't in a position that wins or loses the game for them.
That doesn't mean don't take risks. The throw Tony Romo made to Dez Bryant was VERY risky. 4th down and two, no timeouts. And had it been ruled a catch we would be sitting here today talking about how amazing of a comeback it was, Instead, it went the other way, and all us Cowboy fans have to wait till next season.
In your own life, learn from that. Learn when it is OK to take the risk of a deep pass, and when it is smarter to play it safe and run the ball. Make sure that when you take risk, the price of failure isn't everything you've worked for.
Bad things are going to happen. The best you can do is make yourself flexible enough that you can ride out the storm.
Success is not dependent upon unpredictable factors, but that also means that neither is failure.
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