I’m a sucker for Patriots/Tom Brady/Bill Belichick content. They’re one of the greatest sports dynasties in recent memory. Their quarterback/coach tandem was one of the most successful of all time. And their coach is principled and disciplined man with a hard-shelled and opaque exterior. What’s not to love.
So of course I’ve been watching the new docu-series on Disney+ about the team. With first-hand interviews from Tom Brady and many players in the league, it’s a great inside look into what made the Patriots tick. And I think one of the things that made them tick is coincidentally the title of another documentary about Bill Belichick (can find this one on YouTube). They have this mentality of “do your job”.
The “do your job” mentality is very simple. And yet it’s simplicity is part of what makes it extremely effective. You can’t care about everything. You can only care about what you can control.
There’s a particular instance in the Disney+ docu-series that illustrates the “do your job” mentality very clearly (although it’s also evidenced as an underlying thread running through every episode so far). During the episode on the 2014 season, the Patriots suffered a humiliating defeat to the Chiefs, 41-14. Tom Brady played poorly, with a fumble and 2 interceptions and led an anemic offense. He was benched late in the game in favor of rookie quarterback Jimmy Garappolo. The game was well out of hand at that point, but it didn’t stop the frenzied media speculation that this was the end of Tom Brady’s era as the Patriot’s starting quarterback. Perhaps also the end of the Patriot’s dynasty of success.
Tom was 37 years old at the time, old for an NFL quarterback. And the scene on the field bore an uncanny resemblance to 2001, when then starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe got injured and young Tom Brady took the reigns. The Patriots went on to win the Super Bowl that year, led by Tom Brady, and he never surrendered those reigns back. So the question on everyone’s mind after the Chief’s loss was, “who will be the starting quarterback for the Patriots?”.
This context led to one of the most iconic press conferences of all time. Bill Belichick seemed to answer every reporter question with “we’re on to Cincinnati.” Reporters speculating about a quarterback controversy? “We’re on to Cincinnati”. Reporters speculating about whether Tom Brady is finished as a quarterback? “[Scoff] We’re on to Cincinnati”. Every question about the direction of the team was met with “We’re on to Cincinnati”.
During the docu-series episode, Tom remarks on how this mindset impacted the team:
A season’s not over if you lose one game. It’s just not. You’ve gotta stop the bleeding, and you’ve gotta win. And then get back on track. And i think that’s what that was about for us. “We’re on to cinciannati” was, we’re focused on what’s ahead. Cause we’re not gonna let one game become two.
Lesser teams could have folded after a loss like that. A quarterback controversy and ensuing media circus can kill a locker room. It’s very distracting and toxic for the team. The media machine can churn out both hype and criticism in quantities far in excess of what we are built to handle. So if you listen to the criticism, or you plug in to the hype, you lose focus on the one thing you can control, which is your own effort.
But the Patriots didn’t fold. They. Just. Kept. Working. They rallied together after that game, spurred on by team leaders and their own relentless focus. They would beat Cincinnati 43-21 the next week. That season had many other challenges they had to overcome, but it eventually culminated in a Super Bowl victory. It was Tom Brady’s 4th Super Bowl win of his career (out of 7 total, 6 with the Patriots and Bill Belichick).
That press conference let us peer into what the Patriot’s were like as an organization - helping piece together what contributed to their success. It set the tone that the team doesn’t listen to the noise - neither criticism nor hype. They tune it out and work.
“Do your job”