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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, my first job was a grocery sacker, and I believe that if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share life lessons I learned from watching football last weekend.
Today’s Fun Fact of the Day is: The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army. G.P. for ‘General Purpose’ vehicle.
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What I Learned Yesterday:
Yesterday’s episode was all about change, and one of our listeners, Linda, asked me if today’s episode would be about hope. My response: I HOPE you don’t mind that today’s episode is about football.
I love football. I grew up in a family that practically worshipped football. Every Saturday in the fall was devoted to OU football games. We scheduled all other things around what time the game started, and when it did, it was all eyes on the TV. My grandpa recorded every single game, and if it was a good one, it went into his video library. He had hundreds of football games in his collection.
Over the last few weeks we’ve been treated to some really fantastic football games. If you’re a college football fan, then this year’s playoff was right up your alley. Maybe you’re like me and your team didn’t make the playoffs, but I still enjoyed watching every second of it. I didn’t think Ohio State would even make the playoff, let alone go on to win the National Championship.
If you’re an NFL fan, you’ve probably liked these last few weeks too. Sure, there have been some controversial calls, and some games haven’t been close, but there’s been some great games too.
Today I want to talk about some lessons I learned from watching this year’s NFC Championship game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Green Bay Packers. I don’t have an NFL team that I am a diehard fan of. I guess that comes from living in a state without an NFL team. But the team I root the hardest for is the Green Bay Packers.
I know that Seattle is one of the toughest places to win in the NFL, so I expected it to be a hard game for Green Bay to win. However, things could not have gone better for the boys with heads of cheese.
For their opening drive they took the ball 51 yards down into scoring position. Just when it looked like a touchdown was heading to their side of the scoreboard, Aaron Rodgers threw an interception. Don’t worry, it get’s better for Green Bay. You see, 3 plays later, Green Bay intercepted a pass from Russell Wilson. They only needed 18 yards to score a touchdown, but were only able to get a fieldgoal. Still, it was points, and Green Bay was in the lead.
Green Bay then kicked the ball off to Seattle, and Seattle fumbled the return. Green Bay now had the ball only 22 yards away from the Seattle goal line. But just as they had before, Seattle held Green Bay to a field goal, making it Green Bay 6, Seattle 0.
The next two drives for Seattle consisted of 6 plays totalling 3 yards. Meanwhile Green Bay scored a touchdown, bringing the score to 13 – 0 in favor of Green Bay. Seattle went on to throw 2 more interceptions and Green Bay tacked on another field goal so at halftime it was Green Bay 16, Seattle 0.
At this point in the game the folks from Seattle are not feeling good about the game. I chatted with a friend of mine named David during the half. I told him that I was surprised at what Green Bay was doing, but I would feel a lot better if they’d been able to convert some of the field goal drives into touchdown drives. He agreed, but still didn’t like the way things were looking for his team.
The third quarter started with neither team having much success and each swapped punts. Then with just over 4 and a half minutes to go in the 3rd quarter, Seattle finally got on the board and scored a touchdown. It was only the second time all day that they’d been able to build a drive that included getting a first down. The score was now Green Bay 16, Seattle 7.
Green Bay wasn’t done though. As the game moved into the 4th quarter, they scored with another field goal, raising the score to 19-7 in their favor. Meanwhile, following their lone touchdown, Seattle followed it up with two short drives ending with punts, and another drive ending with another interception. If you’re keeping track of turnovers, Seattle has now had 4 of them.
That final interception came with 5:13 seconds left to go in the game. Green Bay was up by 12 points, and things seemed to be all but settled. As I’m watching the game on TV, I remember that one of the commentators, Troy Aikmen, said that it wasn’t over and things could get very interesting. Troy was right.
Green Bay then made one of the biggest mistakes that teams make. They had dominated the game all day. Sure, they had missed opportunities to score touchdowns and had instead settled for some field goals, but they had really controlled the entire game. At this point in the game they stopped playing to win, and they began playing to not lose.
They didn’t try to move the ball down the field. They didn’t even try to run the ball aggressively. Instead, they ran three weak running plays up the middle that resulted in a loss of 4 yards. Yes that’s right, for the first time all day, they had a drive that resulted in negative yards.
Energized by this, the Seahawks took the ball 69 yards in 7 plays and scored a touchdown. Seattle was still in a tough spot. They needed a two point conversion AND one more scoring drive to win the game. In what was one of the most unbelieveable plays I’ve seen, Russell Wilson threw up a desperation pass into the end zone and they managed to get the two point conversion.
Now the entire stadium and all those watching on TV were on the edge of their seats. If the Seahawks could somehow recover an onside kick, they just might be able to complete the come from behind victory. However, the odds of recovering an onside kick in the NFL are only 20%. Things were still looking good for Green Bay.
Well, I doubt I’d be telling you this story today if Green Bay had recovered that kick. Seattle recovered the kick, drove down the field, and scored a touchdown with only :44 left on the clock. For the first time all day, Seattle was winning the game.
Now fueled by the incredible events that had just unfolded, Green Bay took possession of the ball with determination. If they could at least get close enough to make a field goal, they could send the game into overtime. In 7 plays they traveled 48 yards and Mason Crosby split the uprights to send the game into overtime.
However, any hope that Green Bay had was quickly gone. It took only 3:19 and 6 plays for Seattle to find the endzone and end the game. The improbable comeback was now complete. Seattle is going to the Super Bowl, and Green Bay is going home.
Here’s what I learned.
This game represents one of the biggest things I love about sports. For much of the game, it looked like Green Bay was going to win. They were in control on both sides of the ball, and playing with confidence. They seemed to be prepared for the raucous crowd, whirling wind, and pelting rain. They seemed to be able to totally shut down Seattle’s offense, and do most of what they wanted to do when they had the ball.
On the other hand, Seattle looked like they were simply not cut out to win the game. Every time they got the ball it seemed like they were punting it back to Green Bay almost instantly, or turning the ball over to Green Bay almost instantly.
Green Bay was the top dog, the dominating force. They looked unstoppable. However, football games do not end when there is still 5:04 left on the clock. They end when the clock hits zero. Green Bay decided that they didn’t need to finish strong, and they let their foot off the gas. Seattle saw the opportunity and exposed it.
In life, we are always in a competition. You may not see it as that, but it is. There’s always an opportunity coming down the road for a job promotion, business opportunity, or even opportunities to better ourselves. When we’re young and have the whole world ahead of us, it’s easy to see that.
However, as we get older and we get “stuff” it’s easy to take our foot off the gas and coast to victory. But doing that will only make us more vulnerable. I look around me and I see people all the time that have been in a certain industry for so long, they think they have all the answers and they place security in their tenure. Likewise I see people all the time that look out at the landscape around them and see people doing what they want to do. They’re intimidated by those other people and think that because those other people already have so many roots put down that they can’t be uprooted.
The truth is, opportunity abounds. There is opportunity all around each of us to go out there and achieve our dreams. If we’ve already reached most of our goals in life and think we have it made, we can’t take that for granted. We have to continue to push to do the best we can. But not everyone will do that. Many, in fact, will take it easy and overlook the changing landscape around them. In their lapse of judgement, they will leave themselves open to be overtaken.
It is never over until it’s over. We never win if we never step off the sidelines and get out onto the field, and we can’t make the world a better place if we give up early. Do your best, never give up, believe you can win. You just might find your way to the Super Bowl.
I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
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