Getting It Dungy Done!

Indianapolis is, again, in the playoffs.

This team is focused like the one that won the Superbowl. Manning is having an average season—by his standards—and is still good enough to get the W.

The Running game is getting it done, but has been somewhat inconsistent.  

Marvin is having a declining year, but is still a true threat. Reggie is gaining in stature and is pushing his way to the top. Dallas is consistent and on the positive side of reliable.

The offense is in drive mode and doing well.

Defense...well, the defensive line is again peaking at the right time. This last game with the Jags was a little sloppy, but a single game letdown at this time of the season is par for the type of defense that they play.

The key to this defense is remaining injury free. The second factor is backup potential by players that are playing when starters are healing and this is where a big time coach like Dungy really makes a difference. 

This coach is truly a total team coach, unlike a coach of a team that is preoccupied with starting players and finding reasons why the team under performed.

Backups have gotten this team into the playoffs. I think the players will tell you the same thing every player that played for him has said, going back to Tampa Bay. This man believes, as once said by his mentor Chuck Noll, "it is never as bad as it looks and never as good as it seems." 

Lets dissect this from a psychological stand point. 

This statement breeds sanity, and in the NFL, it is the Tylenol we all reach for when we have that headache. Yes, these players are human beings just like you and me.

Yet, they are held to such a high level of accountability that headaches are quite common and these headaches get worse before they get better. The synonym for pain relief is a coach that can make sense of it all and guide the key players into doing what would be most productive—not as players, but as a team. Two entirely different concepts.

The team is the key to this coach and this analogy is simple enough. Strike a wall with your fingers extended and feel they effects. Individual accomplishment's are these fingers extended. Now, strike the wall with your hand.

Life is not complicated. We complicate them by playing hero and individual over team success, and we all pay dearly for those individual accomplishments. This is where little brother Eli has done much to show big brother Peyton how to gain insight into the intangibles of being a leader.

These two are at the top of their game and each week they try to do their part and do it well.  Trying to do too much when you don't have it is damaging. Doing enough is accountability, responsibility, and wisdom.

So, if Tony Dungy has been Tony Dungy for his entire life, why did he not achieve the success he has had with the Bucs—a team that won a Superbowl only after Tony left.

Well, I have the answer and it is that the horses didn't want to drink the water.

Simply put, the players did not do what the coach coached them to do on game day and sold him out when things were not going well. Again, fingers extended are easily broken.

Team is a fist and fingers are broken. Team IQ seems to go up with coaching changes. That is, if it has been under-performing but for how long? Long enough for everyone to overcome the hangover of seeing one damn good coach leave.

For the Bucs, it really helped the players to know that the team that Tony built and the coach that was a part of that team shared the same heart. A winner is a winner and the word quit, finger pointing, and losing has no place on their team.

Whether you are the Gatorade man, or the starting middle linebacker, or even Bob Sanders, you are a member of the Team. I don't need to mention Peyton or even Tony.

The Colts take the field with a purpose and a purpose that has pulled them together as a team on a mission to Win.