Lessons Learned from Super Bowl XVII

A couple of months ago I wrote about my love to the Patriots, and how odd it is to support such an amazing winning team. Till yesterday, they had an amazing ability to overcome any situation and be the first at the finish line. Every time you would watch a Patriots game you would know, that no matter what, the end result will be a victory.

Till last night.

So much has been written about this game. I decided to take the VC view (BTW – I am not the first one, check out Furrier.org). If E.T. would land on this planet today, and hear that a team had an 18-1 record, he would assume they are the champs. After all, why lose the last game, when you can lose one of 16 regular season games and still be champions (and the best team in the history of football). Clearly, the Pats should have lost the last game of the regular season (to the Giants) and not the last game of the Playoffs (to the Giants). What is the VC analogy to this? It reminds me of a company that receives a huge up-round valuation and then goes out of business. That's the big lesson of the day. Focus on the end game, not optimizing on the milestones along the way.

One more thing: I love playing "what if" in sports. Till today, my #1 "what if" moment was the goal missed by Rensenbrink at the 1978 World Cup finals. This will now be replaced at #1 by the "almost tackle" on Eli Manning with 1:05 remaining on the clock. If he would have been tackled, it would have been a very different outcome.

See you next year.

Comments

[Guy Horowitz]

Great post. It's good to be the underdog.
My top-5 "what if" moments in sport, in order of importance (all Soccer, of course) -

1. The decision *not* to substitute Israel Cohen (or just take him out...) in the infamous Derby, when it was obvious that he is not acting rationally. Moments later he fouled Maccabi Haifa players seven straight times, forcing the ref to award a penalty. That started Hapoel Haifa's doom that season.
2. Same game, a penalty not awareded to Hapoel just minutes before the abovementioned penalty.
3. Same season, Victor Pacha's dribble in his own 16 meter box that resulted in a injury-time Maccabi Tel-Aviv goal, ultimately leading to Hapoel's relegation.
4. Ronnie Rosenthal and Shalom Tikva missing open goals in the 0-0 draw of Israel and Colombia in Ramat Gan Stadium, in the game that should have sent Israel to the world cup of 1990.
5. Same stadium, 12 years later - a last minute foul, bad wall positioning, lousy goalkeeping - Andy Hertzog scores for Austria, ties the game against Israel in the 91st minute, and sends Austria to the world cup playoffs against Turkey.

[Aner]

First of all, as a long time Giants fan I was absolutely ecstatic about the game and the outcome. I was fortunate enough to have lived in NY during the 1986 championship season (we all went nuts) but this one was so much sweeter because it had all the right ingredients.

The VC analogy is nice, let's take a different angle. The Giants won the title despite being anything but a "VC play". They didn't have the best record, defense, offense or special teams. Their coach is anything but a serial winner (Coughlin vs. Belichick or Dungi? come on!), their QB never "made an exit" (E. Manning vs. Brady, Romo or Favre???), they had no star player like Randy Moss or T.O...they just put together a very good team with a burning desire who believed in themselves and who knew how to execute perfectly at exactly the right time. When Eli Manning hit David Tyree you could tell it was over, they simply wanted it more, had it in them and they were destined to win it all!!

I personally love this type of victories. It shows us all that execution, team chemistry, soul and modesty are much more important than past records and putting together a gallery of stars.