On my television screen, I watched the opposing team break their huddle. They then lined up opposite the defensive players of my favorite team.
The opposing quarterback barked out some instructions, and the lineman snapped him the football. The quarterback looked around and saw nowhere to throw the ball. So he darted to the left edge of the field as defenders converged upon him.
Great, I thought. We’ve got him!
But as the quarterback neared the white paint of the sideline, he turned the corner with a burst of speed. Now, he was racing past my team’s defenders for a touchdown.
As I sat there, stunned, I overheard the TV commentator breaking down the play.
As a defense, you’ve got to set the edge, he said. You can’t break contain.
That phrase — Break contain — sounded strange to me. It was nothing more than two verbs smashed together. And yet, it perfectly described what had befallen my favorite team in the moment.
As the season went on, I found more commentators using that phrase to describe a capitulation in defensive technique. Apparently, Break Contain is common lingo in football circles.
That said, it might have some legs in other areas as well.
Not long ago, the United States government released a declassified report on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena — what we commonly call UFOs.
The government documented strange instances in the skies that it couldn’t identify. Then, it listed five possible explanations for them: airborne clutter, natural atmospheric phenomena, U.S. government/industry programs, foreign adversarial systems, and “other.”
Many people reading the report fixated on that “other” category since theories about extraterrestrial life would fall under it. But I was fascinated by the U.S. government programs category.
Here was the United States government — an entity with an endless trove of information — saying it didn’t know the scope of its own operations. Effectively, some military or research exercises could have been classified as UFO sightings, and our guess was as good as the government’s as to what was actually happening.
This was stunning to me. Had the government broken contain?
I had never really considered the implications of that before. Sure, the government had many secretive programs —the Manhattan Project, CIA Black Ops, sealed FBI indictments. But there was always some entity overseeing the task. Someone was in the know, even if that person swore that they knew nothing.
But the thought of these programs running rogue? That was truly terrifying.
U.S. government operations being confused for UFOs would just be the tip of the iceberg. All kinds of other calamities might potentially result. After all, this is the equivalent of an airport without air traffic controllers or a freeway without entrance ramps.
But then again, things might be just fine. For there are many entities that break contain regularly, without the ensuing mass calamity.
For instance, Google uses machine learning for its search engine algorithms. Even the engineers overseeing that product have no precise understanding of how it works in the wild anymore. Artificial intelligence has taken over the show.
And weather patterns often vary a bit from the forecasts meteorologists put together. Pop-up thunderstorms and wind gusts are phenomena that can’t always be precisely predicted. Only Mother Nature determines what actually comes next.
Examples like these bring variety to our lives. By removing absolute predictability, they keep us agile. This, in turn, makes us sharper and better.
So perhaps, breaking contain is not something to fret over. It might even be something worthy of applause.
If breaking contain can work so well, why did that moment on the football field go so poorly?
Much of it has to do with what happened after the opposing quarterback turned the corner.
At that point, Plan A was finished. The defenders had succeeded in preventing the quarterback from throwing the ball. But they hadn’t kept him from advancing up the field with a head of steam.
It was a decidedly mixed result. One that the coaches would surely revisit in practice later.
But Plan B was still on the table. There was still an opportunity to minimize the damage.
While the opposing quarterback was charging down the field, he had few teammates nearby to clear the way for him. So defenders had an excellent chance to bring down the quarterback if they all sprinted in his direction.
Yet, Plan B didn’t happen. It wasn’t even attempted.
At the moment of truth, the defenders were mesmerized. And they practically gifted their opponent a touchdown.
This was a failure of execution. But it was also a failure of preparation.
The team had clearly never considered what would happen if the opponent broke contain. There was no damage mitigation strategy.
Meanwhile, other entities that might find themselves in a similar situation — Google’s search division, the U.S. government, meteorologists — are prepared for when things take a left turn. Through a well-practiced game plan, they can manage what chaos might ensue. This allows them to cede absolute control, but not absolute responsibility.
Therein lies the conundrum of breaking contain — it’s only effective if there are guardrails to mitigate the damage. Bending without breaking is key.
My favorite football team had no such guardrails in place. So, when the opposing quarterback beat the defenders to the edge of the field, they were done for.
Why focus on breaking contain? Why allow for the chaos that comes from agility?
Because staying rigid is no less risky.
A system of centralized controls might seem airtight. But should the figurehead in charge fail, the system will fail with it. It’s boom or bust.
We understand this, and we try to plan for it. Succession plans for companies and data backup redundancies for computer networks are two examples of such planning.
But all too often, these solutions are labeled as Emergency Options. And that makes people reluctant to break the glass.
Such reluctance does us little good.
The question shouldn’t be whether our best-laid plans might someday go to waste. The question should be about what happens when they do.
So, let’s test our boundaries. Let’s break contain. And then, let’s focus on the fixes we can make once the best case scenarios are already out the window.
A stumble is survivable. A capitulation is not.