Jimmy Johnson - philosopher

Jimmy Johnson (former Dallas Cowboys head coach) makes some good points about human nature in his article about the NFL Playoffs.
So when you want something, try your hardest.  And learn to value that "constructive criticism" in addition to the praise you get when you do well.

--pws

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It's human nature for the Chargers to believe they can't beat New England. But they must find a way to prepare and overcome those thoughts. People don't try (to win) because they don't want to be hurt and they don't want to be disappointed. That's why a lot of people don't try in life. A lot of people don't try to attain things because the mental process is too much for them. They don't want to be hurt by failure and disappointment. So rather than put out the effort to prepare, they give themselves an excuse and don't prepare, believing that they can't win anyway.

Well, I think Turner has to really explain this to his players. He has to say, 'How do you know you can't win?' Maybe there is only one chance in a 100, but if you don't try and if you don't prepare, that one chance won't come into play. That approach is a hell of a lot better than not trying.

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Finally, I want to say that I'm not really sure what happened to the Cowboys over the last month of the season. I don't know if they simply got caught up believing what people were saying about them. I mean, we were all saying they were really good.

But they were not efficient in the end. It is only human nature to pull back from your preparation and effort when you are having success. This is why I say that being a head coach is so hard. It is such a difficult job because you are dealing with highly paid athletes who are constantly being told how great they are. When that happens, the players don't work as hard. I don't know if that's the reason or not for the Dallas collapse. For some reason, the Cowboys did not get better as the season went along, and that's shocking to me because they do have so many great players.