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Super Bowl LVIII and the Art of Keeping Your Shit Together
Almost halfway through the second quarter of the NFL title game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs, 49ers Linebacker Dre Greenlaw was standing on the sideline with the rest of the defensive unit waiting eagerly to get back out on the field following a 49er punt to start a new series against the Chief’s offense. As the defense started to take the field as a unit, Greenlaw had only taken a step or two before he collapsed to the turf just inside the sideline. Greenlaw’s Achilles tendon had snapped, taking him out of the most important game of his life and bruising the team’s momentum, having built a narrow but valuable lead with alot of game yet to go.
Defensive end Nick Bosa watched in stunned silence as Greenlaw hobbled the few feet to the sideline, where medical staff began treating him. Moments later, a teary-eyed Greenlaw was taken to the locker room on a cart.
“It was hard. Sometimes when things like that happen, it could sway the momentum just because it’s such an emotional feeling,” Bosa said. “Dre is a one-of-one human being. He was pushing through so much this year, and I think 99% of players wouldn’t have been able to do what he did. He put his body on the line for this, and it sucks we couldn’t get him [a win].”
We still hear alot from our sports punditocracy about the quarterback play, of the seasoned veteran Patrick Mahomes and the impressive if wobbly rise of “Mr. Irrelevant,” Brock Purdy. If we have the stomach for deeper analyses from the talking heads and the columnists, we can immerse ourselves in the comparison/contrast between the coaching practices of Kyle Shannahan and Andy Reid.
But when it comes to the most Supreme of Bowl games, what this football fan has consistently seen for most of my football-watching life, is that the team that can hold it all (or at least enough of it) together for the duration of the managed chaos will likely emerge triumphant. Surely, this is where coaching comes in, but that element has to have been established through long-term punishing mental and physical training way before the playoffs. And a winning team also must sustain itself by having its best players on the field.