Part VI: Doing it all over again
Shaq Thompson knows staying too high, too long, doesn’t help the following week.
“You got to take that pot off the stove,” Thompson said relating it back to cooking. “That’s because you’re going to burn the sh** out of it. Can’t burn the pot, you have to use it next week. So, you got to learn how to calm down.”
For many, to completely calm down, you must face the music. That means learning from the game tape, making the corrections needed to see improvement, and putting the game to rest.
“On Monday, I come back in and go through the game in my head, make the mental corrections of what I did wrong to know how I’m going to fix it,” Reggie Gilliam said. “We get to the film room and coach is going to tell you everything you did wrong and right. After I leave the building for that day, that game is put to bed.”
“People ask me, ‘How can you just move on?’ ‘How can you forget.’ I’m like, ‘I don’t have a choice.'”
Players know bringing the mental load from the previous week into the next week is not sustainable. A fresh start is what’s preferred heading into a new game week.
Before the Bills begin the pattern of preparing for another game and mustering up the right mindset, they disconnect, just for a bit.
“I am taking that 24 hours from Monday to Tuesday to not think about ball,” Gilliam explained. “When I come in the building Tuesday morning, that’s when I turn the page to the next opponent.”
It’s a cyclical life that requires a massive amount of physical and mental strength. Thompson believes not everyone is fit to ace the test.
“You’ve got to be a little bit crazy,” Thompson said of the mental strength required for a season. “That’s why we all play the sport is because everybody loves contact. You get to go out and hit people for fun, and then you come back and do it again. You got to have some type of screw loose in your head.
“I know I do when it comes to football. That’s the only way to play this game.”
The making of a game day mindset is complex, full of layers. It requires skill, strength and the ability to move forward. It’s a labor of love that gifts you a happiness that can’t be matched when everything operates according to what you visualized.