I’ve been watching HBO’s Hard Knocks profile on the Atlanta Falcons, and the first two episodes have certainly shown a lot of fighting. Add this to the article written by Jeff Schultz in the Atlanta Journal Constitution Sunday 8/10/14 and you’ve got a team that looks like it’s on edge. According to defensive end Ra’Shede Hageman “Fighting shows how physical you are and hungry you are.” Make no mistake about it, this is a new Falcons team that has not forgotten last season’s humbling 4-12 record. No one’s position is safe. The August Georgia sun, fatigue, and uncertainty–that sets up a tense atmosphere where impulse control goes out the window. In a physically aggressive sport like football, violence is valued….until the whistle blows. I think arguably the most important thing in sport is discipline: discipline with practice, discipline to learn, discipline to train, discipline to remain focused, discipline to fight or to know when to back down. Anger can certainly fuel discipline, but it can also lead to wild, undisciplined physical fighting. There was no discipline or thinking behind some of the fighting seen on Hard Knocks, as evidenced by Hagemen nearly breaking his wrist after hitting his teammate’s helmet–there was no long term thought process in this act which could have ended disastrously for Hagemen and his team.
Anger is different from fighting. Anger is an emotion we all experience, serving an evolutionary adaptive purpose to socially communicate a wrong that needs to be fixed. Which method you use depends on your mental tool-kit. Aggression is a primitive tool, but can serve a purpose to communicate. Like when your quarterback gets a cheap shot. The message: “We as a team will not tolerate that.” And in football which is already physical, it’s no wonder that the communication style needs to be equally on par in order to get the attention of the person/team perceived doing the wrong thing…as long as it doesn’t get out of hand. It’s important to be mindful about what it is you are trying to communicate; is it about pushing (no pun intended) the agenda of the team, and what’s good for the team? Or is is self-serving? I can understand that the nature of training camp for many is to try to “win” a spot on the team, which is a very individualistic goal. When it comes to trying to make a roster spot, the other guy’s failure or lack of performance/enthusiasm assists your success. To relieve the tension, why not stand out and show you are “physical” or “hungry”. It is difficult to think “team” when there is a real possibility you may not be on it. But being injured in fighting and undermining team cohesion….not much of a future in sport in that either.
Evolution MC 