Kerb Hohl wrote:th87 wrote:Didn't intend to single Rodgers out for this. The others were definitely more to blame than Rodgers was (Grant, Finley, etc.); I brought Rodgers up to simply illustrate that he wasn't as sharp as he normally is, as an example. And to me, those other players seemed to make mistakes that they wouldn't normally. You're right on that.
But to me, the team just looked tight as a whole. I don't expect to convince you, but I do believe in stuff like this. The Schottenheimer teams and the 90s Oilers had a certain feel during the season, and then a different one when the playoffs rolled around, for example. Again, just my opinion. I fully expect mocking "looks like they're not tight today" type posts in game threads when we're blowing people out.
There was a good article about Bill James recently written
http://sportsworld.nbcsports.com/bill-james-statistical-revolution/.
It kinda splits the difference here on what we're talking about. He and other stats-junkies have caused this skepticism in most things, and rightfully so. That said, he also apologizes for adding too much skepticism in "leadership added" and things that are similar to what you are talking about. They are tough to quantify, but people like me use that as a "it must be BS" measure.
He also discusses other factors, though, like talking about a football team losing. An example of a team struggling on the road in the 1st quarter and then crushing a lesser opponent in quarters 2-4. The announcers then decide that it must be because the road team got in late and didn't sleep in their own beds. Empty stadium, etc.
Kinda a sidebar here because it's an interesting topic. I think "leadership" "toughness" whatever your mental analysis characteristic exists. That said, I think it's a huge crutch. "They lost a big game, must be a soft coach." I tend to look at the players on the field a lot, because that normally will tell you the story.
That's an excellent article. It's definitely true that there is BS being spewed that gets played off as actual analysis, and it's also true that the pendulum has swung the other way as well. As with anything in life, a balance is necessary, and the more time a person spends actually exposed to a concept, without preconceived notions, the better they will be at analyzing stuff. Most don't care to though. Nobody will ever be perfect, of course.
I recommend Gladwell's book, Blink. In it, he discusses unexplainable inputs that cause "gut feelings", and becoming good at "thin slicing" situations as you gain expertise. Of course these things may be abused, and people tend to overestimate their powers in this, I agree.
But I do think there's definitely something to the mental aspects of sports (perhaps significant), and perhaps a coaching staff has influence on these things. This is not to say the Packers are a "soft" team or whatever - I don't necessarily agree with that assessment as it has been abused, but I wouldn't dismiss the concept of team psyches right away.
The concept of "Flow" in psychology is another fascinating concept:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_%28psychology%29. For those unfamiliar, it basically constitutes the complete, hyper-focused immersion into a certain activity. I think Rodgers periodically goes into that (with the most memorable example being his march through Atlanta in 2010). For those of you who play sports, hasn't there been a time where you couldn't be stopped? That everything slowed down, etc.?
Maybe certain teams/players/coaches are better than others at reaching this state.
And if this exists, then the opposite certainly does, where you just can't seem to get right, and nothing is working. You can't perform the same way you normally do. We hear about inexplicable basketball slumps (e.g. Nick Anderson), or batting slumps. For example, when people lose their immersion and start to focus on aspects of the activity, or external factors, and thus lose sight of the "sum" of the activity, then their performance becomes varying degrees of "not-as-good" compared to the Flow state.
These players are human, and thus I think this can happen to some extent. Players often describe the nervousness before a game, and it's certain that "external" factors have the theoretical ability affect a player. How much it does, I think, depends on the player, the mood he's in, how he feels about what he ate, whether he remembers exactly what his detractors said, how he handles crowds, his ability to block out distractions, etc., etc. So basically everything, I think, contributes a theoretical percentage to a player's mental state.
In professional sports, where the margin between good and not good is so small, this could definitely have some non-trivial effect.
Which brings me to the concept of "clutch." Many believe that there's some extra level that, say, Eli Manning reaches when the chips are down. But it's probably not that. Maybe it's that when a game is close, *everyone else* starts getting nervous, starts to press, starts worrying about what the papers will say (or whatever), and starts to lose their Flow. People start playing worse. Maybe the "clutch" player has a slightly better ability to block out these thoughts and continues to play at his normal level, while everyone around him gets worse, giving the illusion that he's elevated his play.
