Being mentally tough is an often forgotten part of the winning formula in the NFL.
As the calendar flips through the month of December, every team has been plagued with some sort of issue on one side of the
football or the other.
For the Ravens, 2014 seems like a neverending story of battling some sort of adversity. Sunday’s victory over the Dolphins in a much-needed win showed just how mentally tough John Harbaugh’s group is.
The loss of Haloti Ngata for the remainder of the regular season could have been the final straw, and during the first quarter in South Florida, the Ravens looked as if they’ve had enough and were just going through the motions.
“We have a resilient bunch,” Harbaugh said on Monday. “They’re mentally tough; they don’t get caught up in the noise; they don’t get easily distracted. We say, ‘Turn neither to the left nor to the right – eyes straight ahead.’
“We have a bunch of very mature men and some young guys that are heading in the right direction because of the mature guys around them that are leading them and showing them the way.”
With three games remaining, the Ravens must keep their eye on the prize if they want to stamp their pass to the postseason. The team cannot afford to overlook any of their opponents – beginning on Sunday against a lowly Jacksonville Jaguars team. Every game is a playoff game and the Ravens can’t fall into the trap of “playing down” to their opponent’s level.
A loss would be devastating to their playoff hopes.
“There are probably two kinds of people when it comes to preparing for a football team – that’s those that look at the record, and those that look at the tape,” Harbaugh remarked when asked about how to motivate his football team over the next three weeks.
“And those that look at the tape recognize the challenge that’s in store for us. So, we’re going to have to be at our very best to win any game in this league, and that is especially true in December and especially true against a very young, highly-motivated football team that plays extremely hard and has a lot of young talent.”
Gone are the days of the “Rah Rah” locker room speeches by Ray Lewis and Ed Reed. It’s a new breed of Ravens football, but still one that brings with it the understanding of what’s at stake. Whether it’s the veterans or rookies and the journeyman players, all have faced disappointment and struggles this season.
“You always communicate with your team,” Harbaugh explained. “There are always conversations going on to the team right here in this very room or in one-on-one or group settings. Throughout the course of the day, those conversations take place. But we have the right guys to deal with things like that.
“It’s not even a focus for us. It’s just all of our focus is on Jacksonville, on our next game, our next challenge and being the best football team we can be. We’ve had our share of disappointment, and those experiences hopefully have lent themselves to us learning from them and becoming better and using them to make ourselves better, as opposed to allowing them to bring us down.”
They passed their first test in Miami – it’s full steam ahead on a game-by-game basis. Never easy, never pretty is truly the Ravens way. Staying mentally tough through the distractions after everybody counted them out could be the biggest key to another postseason appearance.
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