The kicker placed the ball on the tee, while his teammates lined up on either side of him.
The crowd in the stands waited anxiously.
The kicker took a few steps back, raised his arm, and ran toward the ball, booting it high in the air.
At the far end of the football field, a member of the opposing team caught the ball. He ran toward the sideline, with the kicker’s teammates in hot pursuit.
Suddenly the ball carrier broke free of the pack and strode toward the end zone. It took a last-ditch effort from the kicker to get him to the ground.
This sequence wasn’t ideal. It wasn’t going to end up on any coach’s highlight reel.
But it wasn’t calamitous either. The opposing team didn’t score. No damage was done.
At least, that’s the conventional wisdom.
Ask 12 people what they want, and you’ll get 16 different answers.
This adage has some truth to it, as we pride ourselves on our uniqueness.
And yet, there are times when we’re destined to be part of the pack. There are moments where our erstwhile individuality regresses to the mean.
Our fascination with David vs. Goliath is one of these areas.
It’s a story that many of us know so well. The diminutive David felling the mighty Goliath with a well-aimed slingshot.
David vs. Goliath introduces us to mismatches – how they appear to the naked eye and how they play out in real life. We love the characters in such a saga – the bastions of might and the plucky underdogs.
But our fascination can quickly devolve into obsession. We tend to view any matchup we come across as a David vs. Goliath contest — mostly because that’s what we want to see.
But such depictions are often inaccurate. In fact, many times, the combatants in these encounters are more evenly matched.
This is particularly true in the game of football. There might be some matchups at the youth, high school, or college level that end up lopsided. But the playing field is much more even when you get to the pros.
There are too many good players dispersed across the league for one team to dominate. Indeed, we’ve gone nearly two decades since a team won back-to-back Super Bowl championships.
This parity can sometimes yield great theater. Epic back-and-forth games. Entire fan bases holding their collective breath.
But all too often, it yields a slog. A slugfest between two evenly matched foes that is, for all intents and purposes, a draw.
When such stalemates take place, the smallest things can make all the difference. The bounce of the ball, the timing of a turnover, or the performance of special teams.
Special teams are the player units that handle possession changes. When the team kicks the ball off or punts it to the opposing team, the special teams unit is on the field. The same goes for field goal attempts and the extra points that follow touchdowns.
Special teams can seem mundane and technical — as forgettable as they are obligatory. And since special teams units spend so little time on the field, it’s tempting to explain away their flubs.
A near catastrophe might leave points off the scoreboard, or put the opponent in scoring position. But that might not really decide the game. The workhorse units – the offense and defense – can compensate for these shortcomings.
The same goes for special teams in other sports. A hockey team can win plenty of games even if it struggles on the power play. Soccer teams can still get results, even if their corner kicks are hopeless.
Those moments when the opponent has a player in the penalty box, or when a set play is drawn up – they don’t necessarily decide the game.
But they’re hardly insignificant.
Every morning starts the same way for me.
I get up, shave and brush my teeth. Then I make my bed.
Pulling the covers neatly into place, unruffling the sheets, straightening the pillows – this all might seem insignificant. If I waited until later in the day to take on this task, or if I failed to tackle it at all, my world wouldn’t fall apart.
And yet, I am determined not to leave home without a made bed every morning. Because there is no substitute for attention to detail.
I’ve come to recognize that the little things can make a big difference. That setting a good foundation, and preserving that bulwark, can drive sustained success.
Sure, the big ideas might grab the headlines. But the details allow them to see the light of day.
And yet, we seem to have forgotten this.
You see, it’s become fashionable these days to skip the fundamentals. To ignore the minutia and focus on solely on the big concepts.
I’m not sure where this movement came from. Perhaps its origins are tied to the recent tech boom, whose ethos states that we can innovate our way around every problem. Perhaps the growth of the attention economy is to blame.
Regardless, such lopsided focuses are hopelessly misguided.
We didn’t land a man on the moon simply by building a rocket. There was a team on the ground checking every detail at every step along the way.
Without that group, the men in the spacesuits wouldn’t have had a chance of setting foot on the moon. And without us focusing on the little things, we don’t have a chance of seeing success.
Special teams matter.
On a snowy winter night, the Green Bay Packers took the field for a home playoff game.
The Packers had earned the right to be here. They’d won the most games in their division and conference, earning them the right to host all playoff football games until the Super Bowl. They were led by the eventual league Most Valuable Player. And they sported a stingy and tenacious defense.
Yet, the Packers had a glaring weakness — an atrocious special teams unit.
That sequence described at the start of this article? It had happened to the Packers more than once over the course of the season. And yet, the Packers overcame those gaffes time after time.
But on this night, their good fortune would run out. Green Bay had a field goal blocked in the first half of the game. In the second half, the opposing team blocked a Packers punt, grabbed the ball, and ran into the end zone for a tying touchdown.
The other team would ultimately win the game on a field goal with time expiring. Green Bay didn’t have enough players on the field at the time of the play, giving them no chance of blocking the kick.
Had even one of these sequences gone right, the Packers would likely have moved on to the next round. But instead, their season ended in bitter disappointment.
It’s a sobering reminder that details are not trivial. That no part of the whole is truly insignificant. That special teams mean something.
It’s a message that should not fall on deaf ears.
Let’s learn from these misfortunes. Let’s be better about sweating the small stuff. Let’s not cast away the details in favor of glamour.
We have everything to gain from this shift in focus. It’s time we commit to it.