Then came the practices, and once again the difference was not so much how they were conducted as the spirit behind them—they felt different. They were shorter but more physically demanding, almost to the point of torture. And they were intense, with the same simple plays endlessly repeated. Unlike other coaches, Lombardi explained what he was doing: installing a simpler system, based not on novelty and surprise but on efficient execution. The players had to concentrate intensely—the slightest mistake and they were doing extra laps or making the whole team do extra laps. And Lombardi changed
...more
