In October of 2020, amidst the coronavirus pandemic, the then undefeated Tennessee Titans played against the Buffalo Bills, who at the time were also undefeated. The Titans were supposedly at a huge disadvantage; not only were they locked out of live practices, physical activity, and facilities as a team, an outbreak of the coronavirus attacked them, leaving a multitude of players to quarantine for 2 weeks.
The only form of practice the team had:
Zoom meetings.
Due to the amount of players not able to participate, and limited amount of practice, sports analysts were predicting the Titans to make plenty of mistakes, turnovers, and be rusty as a unit, ultimately losing the game. One “expert“ even predicted that the Titans would set the new NFL record for penalties in a game!
On top of all of that, the Titans were playing with an uncertain quarterback with relatively limited experience due to injury while the Bills had a “superstar“, and possible MVP caliber, quarterback coming into full bloom.
Although the Bills were expected to outplay the Titans in every aspect of the game, and with the Titans low number of players, the actual result was the Titans handing the Bills a loss with a final score of 42 – 16. The Titans head coach Mike Vrabel wisely said about the win,
“We owned all of the excuses, we just chose not to use them.“
Marketing expert Dan Kennedy once said, “It’s a matter of resources versus resourcefulness, the latter one being far more important.” In the Titans case, this is exactly what led them to victory. Their resourcefulness at overcoming the hardship they were facing was greater than the resources they had to prepare. Just as the old saying goes:
You can make money or you can make excuses, but you can’t do both.
From everyone here at Pinecrest Practice Growth, we hope that you choose to not use excuses in your practice going forward this year, and that you continue to thrive as a result!