DETROIT – Pressure is a strained quadriceps. A charley horse that’s gone purple. It’s the effects of last Sunday’s concussion, or the knee swelling that needs ice every afternoon.
For any professional football player, pressure is like that lingering injury that has been there so long that he becomes numb to it.
There’s always that hidden pressure from the opponent who’s trying to ruin your day. From the backup who wants to steal your starting spot. From the simple fact that no roster spot is guaranteed (no, not even yours, Walter Jones – not when your base salary balloons to $7.3 million per year at the end of your current deal).
Pressure is lurking at every moment.
But like that lingering injury that is just one cutback away from returning to mental prominence, pressure can spring upon a player suddenly and be accompanied by the weight of the world.
And there is no greater pressure than Super Bowl Sunday.
“That’s why they practice; that’s why they put in the time investment,” said Dr. Patrick J. Cohn, director of Peak Performance Sports. “It’s so you can perform well in the big game: the state championship, the national championship, the Super Bowl – whatever it may be. It all comes to a head, and as an athlete, you want the payoff.
“The opposite of that is: you don’t want everything you’ve invested to go for naught.”
Cohn, a self-described “mental game coach” who has worked with the Miami Dolphins and a number of NASCAR drivers and professional golfers, said the key to the Seattle Seahawks and Pittsburgh Steelers handling Sunday’s game is channeling the inevitable emotions in the right direction. Some handle big-game pressure like Michael Jordan; others like Scott Norwood.
“The best athletes in the world, when there’s more on the line – like Super Bowl Sunday – they step it up,” Cohn said in a phone interview Thursday. “They step it up because they channel all that emotion into their performance and execution. They’re able to go deeper into a zone because there’s more on the line and they’re more focused.”
The players most prone to succumbing to the pressure are the ones who will be playing in the Super Bowl for the first time, which includes all but five Seattle Seahawks and one Pittsburgh Steeler (veteran Willie Williams, who probably won’t even play Sunday). Many of them will see the lights, the cameras and the leftover emotion from a pre-game concert and freeze in the moment.
“There are a lot of people watching. You don’t want to make any mistakes,” said Seahawks defensive line coach Dwaine Board, who was named the defensive player of the game in Super Bowl XIX while playing with the San Francisco 49ers. “When you get there, you get a lot more antsy and the pressure builds. The pressure really doesn’t build until around Thursday (before the game). Then everything comes together.”
Nolan Cromwell, another Seahawks assistant coach who has played in a Super Bowl, said the key is for a player to keep his emotions in tact despite the importance of the game.
“The biggest thing for the guys is not to get too excited,” said Cromwell, who played in Super Bowl XIV with the Los Angeles Rams. “It’s hard not to. But in most cases, after the first play or two, when they’ve gotten a couple hits on them, you can pretty much relax, and it becomes a game again.”
The easiest way to cut through the pressure is through experience. For Seahawks players Grant Wistrom (two Super Bowl appearances), Joe Jurevicius (two), Tom Rouen (two), Chartric Darby (one) and Robbie Tobeck (one), the fact that they’ve been there before is half the battle in that they know what to expect.
“It’s not the pressure of the game. That’s minimal,” said Wistrom, who won one Super Bowl and lost another while playing with the St. Louis Rams. “Once you make that first hit, it doesn’t matter anymore. What’s a pain in the butt is all the distractions the week of the game.”
Thursday marked the final day that players were available to the media, so most of the distractions are now behind them. Today and Saturday, the Seahawks and Steelers will focus only on football before playing the biggest game of their lives.
But their preparations won’t necessarily get them ready for an opponent that might carry more weight than a 350-pound lineman: pressure.
Cohn, the “mental game coach,” named one key mental factor that might separate the winning teams from the losing teams in Super Bowls.
“The coach of the team that’s been best prepared to deal with any adversity and for what they’re going to see in the big game,” he said. “If the coaches prepared them to focus on execution and understand what it’s going to feel like, that’s what’s going to separate the players that can deal with it from those who don’t.
“As far as Sunday’s game, I don’t know who that favors. Both teams have experienced coaches who have been there before.”
The Seahawks, who represent the second franchise head coach Mike Holmgren has taken to a Super Bowl, believe they’ll be prepared to show grace under pressure.
“When you’re prepared, pressure is nothing to you,” defensive back Jimmy Williams said. “You’re prepared for what you expect to see, prepared for every situation. It’s a moment you’ve dreamed of since you were a kid, so you just relish it. You just take it on, head first.”
Both teams have spent almost two weeks going through game plans and player-on-player matchups, yet the key factor in how Sunday’s game turns out might well be something as simple as how the team handles the pressure.
“Pressure is something that’s perceived by the athlete,” Cohn said. “It’s not so much the big game, but how the athlete interprets the big game. Some players feel more pressure because of the expectations they put on themselves. Sometimes there’s that fear of failure: ‘The whole world’s watching. Let’s not screw it up. That would be awful.’”
For a player who made it all the way to the Super Bowl, buckling under the pressure would feel like being crippled by that sore hamstring that has plagued him for months.
“I don’t think we’re going to look at it as pressure,” Seahawks running backs coach Stump Mitchell said. “I think our guys are going to look at it as: we’re going out and doing the things that we’ve been doing all year long.
“… I don’t think, just because it’s the Super Bowl, our guys are going to allow any distractions. We’re going to go out, we’re going to be prepared, and we’re going to get it done.”
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