Corey Grant
CFL.ca
With Training Camp simply a distant memory, your mind is now focused on the results of Week 1, and those results better be soon forgotten as well…right after rundown (running after a game…who came up with that great idea), watching the game film, and picking up those cheques (1st of the season, FINALLY MONEY!) because Week 2 is here and another opponent is staring you right in the face.
This opponent will come to the dance armed with information on you (your likes, dislikes and more importantly who you are as a football player) so you better be equal to the task. In Week 1 you may have thought that you could get away without watching film because the starters didn’t play in the preseason and teams ran their base playbooks (coaches use last year’s film, but with personal and system changes nothing can be for certain) but now there’s film so there are no excuses.
Winning in Week 1 is great! You’re eager to watch the game film and correct your mistakes, but more importantly watch yourself having success on the field (light-hearted jokes from team-mates are a must…“ya that was me getting thrown to the ground”). All the work that you did in preparation for the game seems to have paid off and team moral and confidence are on a high. After competing against your teammates for weeks (they know all your moves… so they think…I still have some in reserve) you had a chance to compete against some new blood and were successful…most of the time (he gets paid too). You go over what worked and what didn’t and then file it away for the next game. The things that did work, you might use this week or the following week, but either way they’ll be used again.
The opposite can be said for losing in Week 1. You’re not that eager to watch the game film and you KNOW there will be a lot of corrections made. It’s the little things that get you like: alignment, a missed step here or there, a missed read or just not believing your eyes (“football instincts”, you’ve been doing it forever “JUST BELIEVE”)…the coaches see everything and point it out. You sit there and say, “I hope he doesn’t see that! Damn, he did! I got ya coach, outside release.” This is something you’ve been doing since the beginning of camp and you never got it wrong, now during the game you forget…was it the pressure (only you know)…but those corrections must be made for the up-and-coming week.
Winning or Losing in Week 1 has no impact on Week 2. It’s how “YOU” handle the week of practice that will determine your team’s results for the next game. The habits you instil as a player and as a team during practice will not only decide this week but also possibly the rest of the season. It took “Double D” (Darian Durant) 23 weeks last year of continuously getting on me about jogging during practice and giving me different ideas of how to run routes before I understood what he was getting at “PRACTICING GOOD HABITS!” (I like to call them “WINNING HABITS!”)
You have two choices this Week: feel GOOD/BAD about last week and let that carry into Week 2 (which can be trouble), or, prepare as if Week 2’s game is the most important game…because it is the next game.
Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while; you don’t do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing. VINCE LOMBARDI
YOU DECIDE YOUR HABITS!!!
Corey Grant is a 10 year CFL veteran who has played with the
Ti-Cats, Alouettes and, for the last 7 seasons, the Roughriders. A
Stoney Creek, Ont. native, Corey has won Grey Cups in 1999 and 2007.
He was
named the East Division Outstanding Rookie in 1999.
