On his broadcast Monday night, former Colts and Broncos Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning let the cat out of the bag when announcing to NFL fans that the term “halftime adjustments” was the biggest fallacy in the game. As his brother Eli said, there isn’t much time to do anything but pee, get a drink and get back to work. The brothers are so right. This is why the game is never about halftime, it’s broken into three parts. The first part relies on evaluating the first quarter, assessing the game plan, and making sure the prepared strategy was correct. Then, the second part uses the second and third quarters to adjust within the framework of the strategy, and finally, the third part makes the fourth quarter becomes a stand-alone game. Adjustments must occur quickly in between series, and the best play callers on either side of the ball anticipate the moves and never react.
Divisional weekend will show us which coaches can adjust, and which coaches fall victim to the wonderful Mike Tyson line: Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Some team will get punched in the mouth early—like Dallas did last year at home when the 49ers went ahead 10-0 in the Wild Card round. Dallas never punched back; they never understood how to play their opponent and operated as if the game was being played in Week 6 of the season.
More than any other weekend in the NFL, this weekend requires head coaches who understand style over scheme, and how to align their three phases—offense, defense and the kicking game—perfectly with one another. It will require perfect harmony between each unit, coordinators who call the game as a head coach, not focused on their individual needs. As Mickey Corcoran (Bill Parcells' high school coach) would tell Parcells, there is always a way to win a game, you just need to figure out how. The figuring-out part isn’t as easy as it sounds. And once you have it figured out, being able to execute the plan is another hurdle to overcome.
The execution hurdle was the reason the Jags lost to the Chiefs in Week 10. When you examine the game, the Jags understood how to play the Chiefs, had the perfect strategy, and they still lost by ten points. The Jags knew the style; they just didn’t play well, and their best player quarterback Trevor Lawrence didn’t have his greatest day. He protected the ball, but he missed too many throws. and in the Divisional round missed throws are huge mistakes. Yet not all is lost for the Jags. Like the Giants last week in Minnesota, the Jags understand what it will take to win and how they can handle the crowd. They know they cannot have empty possessions or missed field goals, and Lawrence cannot miss open receivers. They will need the ball last and will need to score as the clock runs out. It’s doable, but if they fall behind like they did in the first game, or as they did last week, they won’t be able to come back. < /p>
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