Inside the deep state of winning on Sunday
An unusual surplus of front office news lit up the NFL last week— a major trade between the Carolina Panthers and San Francisco 49ers, a major blow-up between Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and New England counterpart Robert Kraft, a major boost in the hot seat temperature for Washington owner Dan Snyder by league powerbrokers who dearly wish he was the former owner — but the most intriguing insight on the current state of the game surfaced in a postgame coach’s presser. At least to me. Generally the realm of shallow observations, un he slinging, and little information of any real use, the postgame media scrum left its comfort zone last Sunday in New Jersey, where New York Giants coach Brian Daboll said something I’d never heard in my 85 years in the business.
The question had to do with the Giants’ resilience this season, a rather general query for theminutes after Daboll’s clubhad improved to 5-1 with a fourth-quarter rally against the Baltimore Ravens, but this iswhat he said.
“This league is hard. It’s not always gonna be perfect. There’s gonna be a lotta people down on ya. You might be down on yourself. Wish you could do better. But we keep on gettin’ back up. Keep on swingin’. Keep on competin’. Regardless of the score or the situation of the game, and that’s not easy to do, right? Not easy to do when you’re down. Sit on the bench and start complainin’, that’s easy todo. It’s hard to stick with it and get ready to play the next series and not worry if you justgot beat on a pass, or if you just got sacked. You’ve got to flush it real quick.
“Dr. Lani does a great job, our team psychologist, of talking to the team. And I think our guys, each week, we get a little bit better.”
Daboll might have been the first coach to credit the team psychologist in the first moments after a big win, so I’ll bet some ears perked up around the NFL, and not just among the people who had Dr. Nohelani (Lani) Lawrence in their psychologist fantasy league.
Dr. Lawrence, whom the Giants hired to a full-time position two years ago, is the club’s director of wellness and clinical services. Prior to joining the Giants, she was a clinical and sport psychologist at the University of Southern California, where she provided performance-enhancement and mental health support to 21 teams.
When the season began, there were seven NFL teams with full-time psychologists, not including the Steelers, which is not to say they don’t use one. Through their association with UPMC, the Steelers have a psychologist who spends a great deal of time around the club in multiple aspects of the operation, from the draft to training camp to the day-to-day support that’s often necessary for players to cope with the unique pressures of competing at the highest level.
Unlike the Giants, the Commanders, the Seahawks, and some other clubs, the Steelers do not identify their psychologist, which seems prudent in a football climate where offensive linemen who commit multiple penalties can now expect death threats online. Aftera win.
Oh, did I forget to mention that story?
“I’ve been a fan my whole life, but I’ve never felt like I had the right to tell someone theys hould die,” said Steelers guard Kevin Dotson, who reported to Twitter 10-12 death threat she got after last week’s 20-18win against Tampa Bay. “Then people come behind themand say, ‘It was bad they gave you death threats, but we’re fans and we should be able to say what we want.’ You can feel what you want to feel, butto say you can give someone a death threat is just wild.”
Let’s just posit then that thereare very few people walkingaround who could not benefit from regular conversations with a licensed psychologist. Whether you’ re an alleged well-adjusted productive member of society, nursing a mild case of the Statesboro Blues, actively calling for thedeath of a NFL player online, or plotting to overthrow the government through violent means to prevent a cabal of cannibalistic pedophiles fromraising your taxes, you could benefit from some psychological counseling.
Inthe case of most NFL players,their psychological needs require methodologies to manage stress and performance pressure by training their minds to be calm and confident and optimistic. The brain, psychologists say, has a default mode network designed for survival (generally a good thing ), but it can con strict performance and are the kinds of challenges that might be beyond the academic training of the classical coaching staff.
With the league’s habit of identifyingand exacerbating trends,you know as well as I thatif the NFL can survive intothe 22nd Century, it will, by then, be conducting a Psychologist Draft.
With the first pick of the NFL Psychologist Draft, the Pittsburgh Steelers select Dr. Anthony Roberts from Michigan State.
“They’vegot a can’t-miss psychologist there ,” psychologist draft expert Me linda Kiperwill say. “Top of his class at one of the best programs, expert in advocate for empiricism, and I never bought any ofthe negative reviews on what he says about introspection and psychophysics. He’s go ta tremendous upside.”