Welcome to this post, “10 Life Lessons From The Super Bowl”!
First of all, did you see the game last weekend!? I personally am not a Bengals or a Rams fan, but I can confidently say that was one of the best Super Bowls I’ve seen in a long time! Everything from the ads to the halftime show to the game itself was amazing!
The entire time I couldn’t decide who to cheer for. I wanted the Bengals to win as the underdogs and for the comeback story. But, I also wanted the Rams to win as they had several players on their team who really deserved it. I went back and forth as each team took the lead. I couldn’t help but cheer for both teams and was really happy about how close of a game it was.
If you haven’t heard by now, the Los Angeles Rams won the Super Bowl. Sorry about the spoiler…haha. However, it was a back and forth game as the Rams took the early lead, the Bengals made a promising comeback to take the lead in the middle of the game, but ultimately the Rams pulled it out.
I’ll be the first to tell you that this post has nothing to do with our traditional topics of finance, business, etc. However, after watching the Super Bowl this last weekend, I couldn’t help but notice a few things for us all to reflect on. So, I decided to write this post as a way to talk about what we all just witnessed.
Without further ado, here are 10 life lessons from the Super Bowl!
Life Has Weird Coincidences
To start things off on a fun, less-serious note, life sometimes have some weird coincidences. Some may call it luck, others may call it a coincidence, others may brush it off entirely. The fact is, there are some weird things that happen sometimes. If you paid attention during the broadcast, you may have noticed a few interesting statistics being shown. First of all, for the last 7 (now 8) years, the team who has won the coin toss has lost the Super Bowl. In this case, the Bengals won the coin toss but lost the overall game. Also another weird coincidence is the fact that the last 2 cities to host the Super Bowl (Tampa Bay and Los Angeles) have had their teams win the Super Bowl.
Sometimes In Life You Have To Go All In
If you know anything about football, or anything about the Los Angeles Rams, you know they went all in this year. They gave up just about everything they had to give to put together the team they had. They gave up years of first round draft pics and millions of dollars to bring in players like Matthew Stafford, Odell Beckham Jr., and Von Miller. These are some of the best players in the league for those who don’t know. Going all in is fine, but you can’t do it every year. The Rams will struggle in future years to keep their team young and performing at the same level without draft pics and without a lot of room in their salary cap. The Rams made it clear from the start that this year was Super Bowl or bust for them. Luckily, it worked out for them. As a matter of fact, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers created a similar dream team last year and it worked out for them as well. Maybe this will be the new go to strategy for NFL teams. If nothing else, it’s a good lesson for all of us that sometimes you have to go all in.
Hard Work Pays Off
I don’t want the first two points of this post to diminish anything the Los Angeles Rams or any of their individual players worked for. Take Matthew Stafford and Cooper Kupp for example. These two would get together everyday at 6:00am to talk and work on all things football. Clearly, this hard work paid off as these two led this team to a Super Bowl victory. Cooper Kupp just had the single best season in the history of wide receivers and Stafford had one of his best seasons ever as well. These two worked hard and got rewarded for it.
Life Has Ups and Downs
It was all sunshine and rainbows for the Rams this year. They got off to a hot start going 7-1 in the first 8 games of the season. The only team they lost to was the Arizona Cardinals, a clear favorite for the Super Bowl this year. However, panic time set in during the middle of the season when the Rams went on a 3 game losing streak. They lost to the Titans, 49ers, and Packers, all of which were very good teams this year. Matthew Stafford struggled to perform at a high level during these games, and for a few other games this season. It was clear that his season had ups and downs along with his team. However, after this losing streak they quickly turned it around only losing 1 more game the entire season and finished the season 12-5. Not to mention, the Super Bowl game itself had ups and downs for the Rams as the Bengals led during the middle of the game and things looked nearly impossible for a Rams comeback.
Consistency Gets Rewarded
The next lesson is that consistency gets rewarded. If you look at some of the Rams best players, they had been working hard for years without ever getting a Super Bowl ring. In this case, we can look at players like Andrew Whitworth, Aaron Donald, or Odell Beckham Jr. These players are some of the best in their position across the league but had never won a Super Bowl. In this case, we see the hard work and the consistency to perform their best year after year pay off big time in a Super Bowl victory for them all.
Never Give Up
Along those lines, we can look at someone like Matthew Stafford. Stafford was drafted in 2009 and has played for the Detroit Lions for all of those 12 seasons. If you didn’t know, the Lions have been a pretty terrible team throughout that entire time. Of those 12 years, the Lions had a winning record for only 4 of those years, but 2 of those 4 were barely above .500. I think it’s fair to say that the Lions have been one of the worst NFL teams over the last decade. It would be easy for Matthew Stafford to be a sore-loser, complain, and even retire without ever having much success. However, Stafford never gave up. Eventually, he had his lucky break through when we got traded to a team that actually had some potential. We see his years of not giving up pay off big time over a decade after he was drafted.
Have Fun
I want to briefly interrupt this post with a reminder to have fun in life! This was evident in the Super Bowl when Bengals kicker decided to stay out of the locker room with his team and instead watch the Super Bowl halftime show. It was a pretty funny moment to watch. The announcer said something to the effect of, “It’s a pretty close game, only a field goal separates the two teams. You would think Evan McPherson would be nervous, but is he nervous? No, he stayed out to watch the halftime show.” The camera then pans to Evan McPherson laughing and dancing while watching the show. My family and I got a kick out of the whole situation and I think it was a good reminder to not take life so seriously. Here this guy is about to potentially kick a field goal that could win or lose his team the biggest game in all sports, yet he’s still having fun!
Finding A Way To Perserve
Back to the seriousness. Another great life lesson from the Super Bowl was that sometimes you need to find a way to preserve. The Rams head coach, Sean McVay, found himself with his back up against the wall. During the first half of the game, Odell Beckham Jr. (#2 receiver behind Kupp) was hurt in a non-contact play that made it have to leave the game. The problem was that the only other Rams offensive weapon besides Kupp was Tyler Higbee, who was declared inactive before the game. This meant the only weapon left in the game was Cooper Kupp. However, it’s very easy for a team to defend a singular offensive weapon. All they need to do is double or even triple cover one man. Sean McVay needed to get creative to dig his team out of that hole. He helped Stafford get the ball to a few other players besides Kupp and even called some creative plays that somehow still managed to get to Kupp.
Comebacks Are Possible
Not only was a comeback very possible for both teams throughout the Super Bowl Game itself, but the Bengals were a great representation of a comeback overall. Over the last 2 years, the Bengals team won only 6 games. The Bengals were one of the worst teams in the entire NFL. Seriously, if you would have told me 3 years ago that the Bengals would be playing in Super Bowl 56, I would have laughed you out of the room. Thanks to the help of their #1 draft pick, Joe Burrow, they quickly turned their franchise around. However, it wasn’t all easy for Burrow. In the 2020 season Burrow tore his ACL which resulted in a season ending ending injury. It says a lot about Joe Burrow and the Bengals to come into the 2021 season and play the way they did, the comeback was impressive to say the least.
Be Tough
Finally, the last lesson from the Super Bowl is to be tough. If you watched the game, you know that both Stafford and Burrow had injury scares throughout the game. Both quarterbacks had their lower legs folded up weird by big lineman. There was a period in time when each of them could be sitting out the rest of the game. In football, if your quarterback gets injured, your team has pretty much lost. If either quarterback were to have sat out the rest of the game, the game would have been over easily. However, both quarterbacks toughed it out, kept playing, and gave their teams a shot at winning. It says a lot about these two guys for them each to fight through the pain. It’s a good lesson for us all to stay tough.
The Takeaway
That’s it! I hoped you enjoyed this post on 10 life lessons from the super bowl! I hope you had some valuable takeaways or if nothing else, at least found some entertainment in this post. Please feel free to leave any comments, questions, or concerns down below! Otherwise, thanks for reading!