Applying Lessons from Gridiron Genius

Michael Lombardi's book has a treasure trove of learnings from all-time football greats that can be applied to solving modern-day NFL problems

I spent some time over Thanksgiving weekend reading former NFL Executive Michael Lombardi’s book, Gridiron Genius, which dives into how to build and coach championship teams based on lessons he learned from legends such as Bill Walsh, Bill Belichick, Nick Saban, and Al Davis. I highly recommend the book to anyone who wants to expand their knowledge of the sport, and just how challenging it is to win at the highest level. I firmly believe that NFL teams can learn a lot from the way the men Lombardi worked for operated, and can apply some of the lessons he learned and shared in his book to win championships. What I thought was especially powerful about much of what Lombardi shared is that it was focused on process and culture, and could be adopted by decisionmakers and leaders in the NFL regardless of their preferred defensive front or the style of offense they run.

Lombardi opens his book talking about his first job in the NFL - working as a scout with the San Francisco 49ers where he often had to serve as a chauffer for Bill Walsh. He learned a lot from Walsh from this experience and on those car rides. One of these key learnings, which Lombardi shares with his readers, is a written list of Walsh’s 17 core leadership principles that he called his Standard of Performance. One that stood out to me was “Deal appropriately with victory and defeat, adulation and humiliation” because I feel it is not well practiced in the NFL. I recently argued that teams have too short a leash on their General Managers, which is a phenomenon that ultimately boils down to Owners overreacting to defeats and not letting their guys see out a carefully planned process. Conversely, Coaches and GMs also often overreact to wins - with an example being the New York Giants rewarding Quarterback Daniel Jones with a massive new contract after leading the team to a 9-7-1 record - his only winning season as a starting QB. Jones played poorly prior to tearing his ACL this season, and the team likely already regrets the expenditure. Rather than looking at the body of work, they overreacted to one winning season. These often rash decisions violate another one of Walsh’s principles “Show self-control, especially under pressure”, and teams in general would be better served by making calculated decisions that are based on a whole body of evidence and that consider process in addition to just outcome. The Standard of Performance as a whole is a gem, and I believe leaders across several industries can learn a lot from Walsh’s philosophy.

A theme throughout Lombardi’s book is the importance of competitiveness and pursuit of relentless improvement as a cornerstone of success in football. Lombardi talks about how Al Davis relentlessly focused on drafting players that went up against the best competition in College Football and guys who performed well at all-star games like the Senior Bowl. What Davis was getting at here is finding guys who play their best when the stakes are the highest. However, I believe that players can show that competitive edge in ways other than playing at the best schools. Such criteria could cause teams to overlook players like Buffalo Bills Quarterback Josh Allen, who has succeeded in the NFL despite playing at the University of Wyoming. Allen’s college career, however, is a testament to the competitive fire and relentless pursuit of improvement - making the jump from Community College to succeeding in FBS football. So much of success in football - particularly at Quarterback - is about responding to adversity and it is so often the players who are best able to respond to setbacks who achieve the most success in the NFL. Allen did not let his light recruitment out of High School faze him as a player, just as Tom Brady did not let having to share time with Drew Henson at Michigan define him nor did Joe Burrow let his career be derailed by having to transfer to LSU to start. Responding to adversity, after all, is one of the core differences between Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf. While Manning was able to shake off leading the NFL in interceptions his rookie year, Leaf was not able to mentally recover from performing poorly for likely the first time in his football career to that point. As teams evaluate players, coaches, and General Managers, I believe that teams should find creative ways to probe their response to adversity - just as they do in evaluating work ethic and competitiveness (Lombardi’s anecdote on the games the Browns played with Michael Irvin was a particularly interesting anecdote on how teams approach character evaluation).

A common mistake that Lombardi writes about is coaches and executives having high egos and a lack of awareness about their strengths and abilities. This is especially true with character evaluation - where so many in the NFL believe that they can mold highly talented players with character issues into model citizens and therefore key pieces on a winning team. This is one area where, unfortunately, analytics cannot help. There is a human element to the game, and certain people can get the best out of others - just as in real life. A perfect example of this is Bill Belichick and Randy Moss. Lombardi describes Moss and then-Raiders Coach Art Shell as a poor fit personality wise. Shell, Lombardi wrote, was inexperienced and had a hard time winning Moss’ respect. Belichick, however, admired Moss’ football smarts and involved him deeply in planning the downfield passing attack - bringing out the best in him in the process. Belichick succeeded because he took on risks where he had concrete reasons and empirical evidence to show that he could mitigate them - and always priced that risk appropriately. Too many teams, however, are not as calculated in taking on such risks.

Lombardi’s chapter on how Belichick and the Patriots approached planning for their Divisional Playoff bout with the Baltimore Ravens after the 2014 season was especially illuminating. While Belichick has arguably the greatest football mind in history, I was floored by the relative simplicity of his game planning. My Communicating with Data Professor at Sloan, Arathi Mehrotra, would have been proud of the way Belichick put the onus on himself to distill down information overload into just a few key points for his players to process and execute on - such as the importance of Special Teams, third-down offense, and perhaps most importantly stopping Ravens Tight End Owen Daniels. Practice time, Lombardi explains, is a major constraint in the week leading up to a game so teams need to focus on the few things they identify as key to winning a game and practice and execute on them well. I think that approach can be applied well to teambuilding - where roster spots and cap room are major constraints. Teams can apply this approach, for example, to teambuilding through avoiding getting distracted by shiny toys in Free Agency and sticking to a disciplined plan to improve on their biggest and most important weaknesses. The Salary Cap makes it such that few teams will ever be perfect, and most will often have some weaknesses. It is therefore just as important for teams to determine how important fixing said weaknesses are to success. Teams could improve in a lot of areas, but every dollar of cap space that goes to one player cannot be used on another - which makes prioritization of needs essential in teambuilding, and especially in Free Agency.

Perhaps the strongest takeaway from Gridiron Genius is the importance of culture and how it is set at the top. Belichick and Walsh were able to preach work ethic and get buy-in from their players and coaches because they themselves were not outworked. The top organizations also did not allow people to make excuses. One of my favorite stories from the book was when Walsh chided his personnel department for their defeatist attitude headed into the 1986 NFL Draft - which at the time was considered to be one of the worst draft classes ever. The 49ers, in the end, had one of the best drafts in NFL history that year. Tied closely into not making excuses is owning up to mistakes, and perhaps most importantly, being able to learn from and move on from said errors. The prime example Lombardi gives is Belichick taking the blame for drafting Defensive Tackle Ron Brace in the 2nd Round of the 2009 NFL Draft. Throughout his career, Belichick has been quick to cut bait with underperforming top picks and major Free Agent/trade acquisitions - something I believe other teams are too reluctant to do. The message that teams send when they are slow to move on from a Coach or GM’s mistake is that their ego and reputation comes ahead of what’s best for the team - which undermines a culture of accountability and pursuit of relentless improvement. Stars being treated differently is another example of moves that can undermine culture. Lastly, owners interfering too much in a team’s affairs instead of trusting their major hires is often a major impediment to team success. Lombardi points out that the core difference between Belichick’s tenure in New England as compared to Cleveland was that he was given full control and the necessary time to implement his culture, program, and processes in New England. While people can argue whether Belichick or Brady was more important to the dynasty, Brady’s buy-in to the culture that Belichick created was, at least in my mind, the key building block. That’s not to say that every Coach or GM needs to implement exactly what Belichick has done - in fact it has largely fallen flat when attempted by Belichick lieutenants elsewhere - but that making big changes takes time and tinkering. Expecting immediate results is not realistic and Coaches and GMs deserve the opportunity to truly implement their vision before being judged solely on performance.

Some other highlights from the book included details about the birth and evolution of the West Coast Offense, Lombardi’s criteria for evaluating great Quarterbacks, and lessons learned from a dinner with Belichick and Saban where the two spent hours discussing defense. Tales of Belichick and the Patriots maintaining composure and sticking to plan while behind in playoff games were captivating to read about as well. The book is certainly a bit Patriot-centric, but I’d highly recommend it to fans who want to learn more about what happens behind the scenes of their favorite football team. While Coaches and Front Office executives may disagree with some of what Lombardi’s philosophy on the sport, I believe Gridiron Genius contains a lot of wisdom on establishing a winning culture and implementing sound decision making processes that would be valuable to all teams.