Tampa Bay is on their way to the Big Game! I believe whole heartedly in the saying that sports imitates life. {Wait wait… if you are not a sports fan, I promise that what you are about to read will help to elevate the way you feel and maybe think. That is the goal of these each week. If we can provide one new thought, one new idea, then that is the point. That is what it means to have a growth mindset.
This week, I absolutely have to talk about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers playing in their first NFC Championship game in 19 years. One thing that I have spoken a lot about from year to year around this time is Tom Brady. So, here are the Bucs in the NFC Championship game and who do the Bucs have for those of you who may not be football followers? None other than Tom Brady on their roster.
However, it is not so much what he does but how his influence makes the impact. Below is a brief by Albert Beer of Sports Illustrated…
Sean Murphy-Bunting is 23 years old, and just 21 months ago he was a second-round pick out of Central Michigan. He spent his rookie year as a reserve corner on Bruce Arians’s first Buccaneers team, a group that hung around a while, but was kept out of the playoffs by consecutive losses to end the season.
In short, he really didn’t know what was coming when Tom Brady became a teammate.
Now, he knows.
“Tom’s not only a superstar, he’s a champion,” Murphy-Bunting said. “So he brings that mentality, that mindset each and every day to work. He’s a true vet and a true professional. And he just brings the excitement and energy out of his guys. He shows up to meetings early, he sits in the front every meeting, he always has his notepad, whether it’s a five-minute team meeting or a 30-minute team meeting. "
“His habits are just so good that they rub off on everybody else. It makes everyone want to buy into what he’s doing and how he’s doing it, because of how successful he’s been by doing these things.”
Murphy-Bunting is willing to admit it’s taken his game to another level, and the payoff came Sunday. It came individually, in that the second-year corner was able to pay back Brady for the impact he’s made with an absolute game-changer of an interception. And it came as a team, for sure.
The Buccaneers are going to the NFC championship game.
Imagine how absurd that sentence would’ve looked 12 months ago. So while Murphy-Bunting kept rattling off names as we continued talking—and saying how Ndamukong Suh, Jason Pierre-Paul, Lavonte David and Shaq Barrett take a similarly impactful professional approach to their day-to-day work—the truth in the Bucs’ 30–20 win over the Saints, a win that avenged a regular-season sweep, was really there in plain sight for everyone.
Brady’s changed everything in Tampa, pretty much overnight.
Today’s showdown at Lambeau will be Brady’s 14th conference championship game, and he’s played in 12 since the Bucs had last won a playoff game, nine since they’d last made the playoffs at all. The win in the Superdome was his 32nd in the playoffs, which is twice as many as any other quarterback ever (Brady’s idol, Joe Montana, is second with 16). The Bucs’ franchise had six playoff wins total coming into this year, over their 44-year history.
So, what are your habits? What is your routine? What example are you setting to yourself, your family and co-workers? It is this type of push in the end that nets the results?
It is that push that gives that extra inch and in the end… it may be that extra inch that makes all the difference… More on that next time.
Have a great week. Be Awesome and Go Bucs.
David, Fitlife Foods Founder
