A Few Thoughts on Competition

After watching the Ravens-Jets game this past Monday night, I was extremely pumped up by the performance of Baltimore’s secondary because this group has been the most heavily scrutinized out of any position on the team, and has probably gotten the most negative press out of any position group on any of the preseason-picked Super Bowl contenders. I was especially impressed by guys like Chris Carr and Haruki Nakamura, who in the preseason were not supposed to be opening day starters or even get significant amounts of playing time, but put forth great efforts in locking down the Jets’ receivers all night. Even though the Ravens will face much more dangerous passing attacks throughout the season and the Jets may have the most run-oriented game plan in the NFL, it doesn’t take away from the fact that their passing offense was completely dominated.

This is a prime example of the beauty of competition and its ever-present impact on the game. For the Ravens, at least in the Monday night opener against the Jets, a weak and vulnerable position group was turned into a strong and dominant one (with help from the pass rush, of course) because of the competition leading up to the game. Because of injuries, there were spots on the defense where there was not a clear-cut starter, so there were opportunities for a number of players to make names for themselves and earn playing time. And once they earned that time, they had to produce. When jobs are on the line, it is a wonderful thing for a fan (and probably even more for a coach) to see everyone raise his respective level of play, as Carr and Nakamura did.

Situations like this happen all the time in the NFL, and any other team sport for that matter: guys come out of nowhere to become starters and stars because they see an opportunity for themselves and they don’t take it for granted. For sports fans, these are “feel good” stories because most of us never have a shot at even coming close to playing in the NFL, so we are happy for the underdogs who have the slightest of chances but never give up on their dreams and keep working hard until it eventually pays off.

And for the same reasons that we root for the underdogs, we are infuriated by the guys who take their situations for granted and p--- away their opportunities. While the underdogs are the ones who lack size, speed, or strength, these are the guys who possess all of the tangible attributes over which scouts and coaches drool, and therefore with dedication should absolutely succeed. These are guys like JaMarcus Russell, Maurice Clarett, and Matt Leinart to name a few.

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You can’t blame a player who greatly underperforms if he suffers a serious injury or multiple injuries throughout his career. In my opinion, you also can’t really blame a player who doesn’t have the mentality to survive in the NFL, as frustrating as it may be to witness (i.e. Kyle Boller) – some guys just don’t have it up there, and that’s not something that can really be improved in the weight room or film room. They may care about the game, but that doesn’t stop the game from being too big for them. But you can blame the guys I mentioned above, because they had an opportunity that very few people have, and they just didn’t seem to care enough about it.

Leinart’s case is the most recent, and it is one that really made me shake me head. When it was announced in the preseason that backup quarterback Derek Anderson was challenging Leinart for the starting spot and that he would even be the starter over Leinart in the following preseason game, reports came out that Leinart was not too pleased, and that he didn’t even know it was a competition … Really? Has he done anything in the NFL to prove he deserves to be a starting quarterback?? After hearing this, and later hearing other reports that he has always felt entitled to things and never spent much time in the film room, it is easy to see why the Cardinals eventually released him, even though he had batter overall numbers in the preseason than Anderson. Nothing points to him ever being a successful NFL player, and it just boggles my mind as a fan that someone in his position would turn his nose up at being put in a competition.

In college, one of my coaches had a sign on his wall that read: “There’s always someone coming to take your spot!” I guess Matt Leinart never was given this message, although I don’t know how much it would have even resonated with him. Maybe if you are someone like Peyton Manning you don’t have to worry about competition, but I bet even he is driven by the fear of failure and the desire to continually improve; his resume sure shows that he is. Competition breeds success, and it is a beautiful thing to see when competitiveness is manifested on the football field.

By: Greg Miletic
ProFootball-fans.com Baltimore Ravens Correspondent