Why Mental Toughness Will Dominate the 2nd Half of the NFL Schedule

Many teams start off fast and fizzle out by Christmas. Champions are built to win games late in the season, even if they start the season off looking sluggish. In a violent sport, you may be surprised to hear that mental toughness is what it takes to dominate the second half of an NFL season.

Tired and worn out, bruised and battered, utterly exhausted—yet they’ve only reached the halfway point. When entering the NFL, one of the more noticeable things a rookie will experience is how long the season is. In college there are no preseason games, no playoffs—teams usually get several weeks to recover before they get ready for their bowl game (if they’re lucky enough to be in a bowl).

In addition, about 80 players per team are allowed to participate in the game depending on the conference, whether they are home or away and several other factors. This depth of player participation, like when a game is out of reach and they bring in the backups to get experience, allows for players to stay fresh throughout the course of a season.

During an NFL game, not every position has its own backup, which forces these players to remain in the game the entire time, regardless of the score.

The college lifestyle also offers more diversity in a player’s day-to-day schedule, which helps guys to avoid the potential for oversaturation of football and the daily grind that comes with it.  

Few realize the true test of attrition is oftentimes the mental grind of preparation, the dedication of endless hours during the week followed by waking up earlier than the sun, studying the opponent. Learning and memorizing the game plan for that week while familiarizing yourself with your opponents weaknesses and tendencies can have players staying after practice late into the evening.

When I was with the Jets, I would have to stay after practice for several hours creating pass-rush cutups on the computer to give all the linebackers a presentation about my observations. Keep in mind this all comes after a hard, physical day of practice that started at the break of dawn and ended around nine or 10 in the evening.

By the time you get home, you just want to collapse on the couch and turn your brain off. The sad thing about that schedule is you know that closing your eyes would just bring about the next day even faster, and that meant starting the whole thing all over again.  

Aside from the cutups of scouting your opponent’s physical tendencies, you would also be quizzed in front of the whole team about the team's situational tendencies. This meant we would have to convert tons of knowledge each day to memory whether it was about our own approach or the opponent’s tendencies.

By the end of the week (or sooner if you want to impress more in practice) all of this data would have to be readily accessible so you can make split-second decisions in the heat of the moment without being thrown off guard or left in the dust because of a delayed reaction.

I often hear fans make comments about how NFL football players make all of that money to work one day a week for half of the year. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

If you ask anyone who plays or has played professional football, he will tell you that the easiest day of the workweek is game day. Sure, the game might be the most physically destructive part of the week, but the preparation leading up to the contest is undoubtedly the most demanding, and ultimately, the most draining over the course of several months.

On the lighter nights as the game gets closer, most players learn to use that time to relax, unwind and recover from endless cram sessions.

As Matt Chatham (former teammate and NFL LB for the Patriots and Jets) points out in his Football by Football website, the importance of having a Friday night to unwind during the season is critical. He goes on the say this:

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Burnout is an omnipresent danger in the game of football.  It's so strenuous and stressful.  So physically and emotionally draining.  If I didn't give myself a regular reprieve and get weird, I'd be a puddle by the middle of November.    

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Even during the mandatory day off each week, nearly half of the team is in the facility getting some sort of treatment for their injuries.

Being healthy during the fall and winter months has a different meaning in the NFL than it does for most anyone else. By football standards, healthy simply means you’re capable of pushing through various degrees of pain scattered throughout the body enough to run, change directions and articulate your hands and arms in a football movement.

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Most people don’t realize the type of nerve damage suffered by quarterbacks Carson Palmer and Peyton Manning are not injuries exclusive to that position. In fact, they are quite common, despite it being something we rarely hear about.

As the NFL weeks mount and the trees shed their autumn leaves, training rooms become filled with guys in walking boots, crutches, casts and braces. Even still, most of the injuries are silently endured—cast aside for more immediate pains or pending opportunities.

Some guys could push opponents around like they were on skates but would wince in pain trying to extend their arm over their head or put on their shoulder pads. But as long as they can still do their job, they either tolerate the damage or put it off till the spring.  

Among the biggest, strongest, baddest athletes in the world, it should come as no surprise that toughness still reigns supreme.

Endure the physical violence of the NFL is just the first step to surviving the 16-game season. Because of this, most physical pain is never allowed to reach the surface—it’s internalized—passed off as normal wear and tear of a brutal sport.

This “survival of the fittest” aspect of the game is one of the more underappreciated elements, yet it’s such a big reason why I have the utmost respect for guys who can play this game for years without missing a single game.

It's simply phenomenal what some people can do.

By midseason, the grind of pouring your heart out for each team begins to take more of a toll on the mind and body of a player.

When a microphone or camera is shoved in a player's face, he assumes the proper role and conforms to a series of carefully crafted responses. One of the more common of these conformities is when a player hides the added excitement for a certain opponent or tries to sell us on the idea that preparing for a team like the Raiders is no different than preparing for the Broncos.

This giant waste of time is the result of players echoing the rhetoric of their coach who must emphasize this mindset to his team to avoid his players from falling into a lull. This is where the quintessential “trap game” spawns from. A “trap game” is aptly defined as the type of game where an underdog can catch an overly confident team unprepared.

Though it may sound good for players on the record to pretend like emotions are static during an NFL season, the reality is quite the opposite.

Trying to exert an equal amount of energy into each opponent every week for over 16 weeks is just not a realistic expectation. Emotions and motivations fluctuate on a weekly basis and oftentimes the less talented team prepares harder and wants it more.

This is a huge reason why the NFL is so unpredictable from week-to-week and why a team like the Colts can shut out the Bengals one week and allow 51 points to the Steelers the next.

You can also be sure both Peyton Manning and Tom Brady are extra excited and preparing harder than usual for their much-anticipated matchup this Sunday.

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These types of games inherently grab the attention of the players significantly more throughout the week.

This focus makes it easier to push yourself, to study and to approach the game with the ideal level of motivation and vigor.   

But most games are more challenging to match that level of focus—especially as the season wears on and the need to take the pedal off the metal starts to consume you.

For these reasons, the second half of the season will always reveal the teams that are both built and properly trained to edge out the competition in December and January.

Ryan Riddle is a former NFL player who writes for Bleacher Report