Psychology Of Sports

The Giants simply outplayed the Patriots. The Giants played with abandon and intensity and mental toughness. Being able to overcome a number of mental mistakes (letting the play clock expire, having two many men on the field, missing wide open plays, and not scoring in the red zone in the first half) all talk to mental toughness and they just beat the Patriots up. Besides a great game plan–the Patriots could not match the Giant’s intensity. That is a good lesson for anyone who wants to compete at any level.

If you listened to the Giant players you heard them say they never stopped believing they could win this game.  When you make mistakes you need to recover. The Giants did just that.

Preparation+Intensity+Belief= Success.  You saw it last night.

I woke up this morning and strangely have the same feeling–that Big Blue is going to win. I have had it all week. I think that feeling is going to dissapear once the game starts and I see the Patriots going down the field. I have been speaking to people all week, the Patriots are going to have to play very poorly and the Giants are going to have to minimize their mistakes. Actually, if you look at turnovers-penalties and such it is obvious that you do not want to have them as we have been told over and over. I think more importantly is when and how you made the turnover–error and what happens from there that counts. These factors affect the teams psychologically and emotionally. At times you can feel the air go out of a team though the television set. Just as it does through you.

I think the players did a great job this week. The media was at an all time high. While it is part of the players job to answer questions imagine how you feel when your child or parent asks you the same question over and over and over…… Not only that your every word is being recorded, written or typed. Think about how well you would do. We all see on reality TV what happes when they bring cameras into a home. Think about it. You say it is part of their job, it is.  Well whatever you are doing is part of your job.

Finally, what do you expect players to say when asked if they are going to win? If the players on either team do not believe they have a chance to win–or at least feel prepared to win–then they should not be playing the game.