Are You Passionate?
Are you passionate?
Passion is contagious, and in my opinion, an essential trait for the QB who wishes to play at the highest level. Having conviction is another trait that goes hand in hand with passion.
A QB who plays with hesitancy is going to have a hard time finding success.
Meaning:
When the QB doesn’t believe in what he’s being asked to do and doesn’t execute like he believes he’ll have success, then he’ll play scared. And scared and success aren’t friends.
That’s why I see the task of helping the QB to anticipate what’s about to happen pre-snap as paramount to enabling passionate play. Hesitant QBs often play hesitant because they don’t know what they’re looking at. They have no conviction in what they see and in turn, do not play with passion.
Read this quote from former Bucs QB Jeff Garcia about Brett Favre:
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What most impresses me about Brett Favre is his youthfulness on the field. He brings a certain passion and energy level to the game… He has great anticipation and he is gutsy. He is not afraid to make any throw on the field. He has a strong belief in his ability and his arm strength.
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Watch the QBs of time past like Favre, Manning, and Brady — you can’t help but notice the conviction they had in their throws. Those guys played with passion.
Some people are born with a natural fire that you don’t ever need to pile on more firewood for them. They bring their own firewood to the camp every day.
Having that ability to create and feed that fire is essential to accomplishing anything great. When you have conviction about something, you find a way to get it done. The flood of doubt will quench the fire faster than anything else.
One example that stands out to me right away are the Baylor Bears under Art Briles and their passion for going fast and throwing deep. Their strategy was so simple and straightforward that it almost comes across as too simplistic. What do you mean they’re just going to try to line up as fast as possible and throw it over the defense’s head?
My working theory is that they were successful because they believed in what they were doing. In other words, they played with conviction.
More:
What about the players who don’t possess this internal bonfire?
Passion is a fundamental skill like any other. Just like working through our three step and five step drops, we need to work on playing with passion.
This brings me back to the focus over the past few emails about working through the pre-snap “process.” Knowing what to do before the snap is one of the biggest factors in a player playing with conviction. If they can imagine what will happen post-snap pre-snap then they will play with conviction.
Helping the QB find this confidence in what he sees is centered around focus. There are 11 defenders wandering about across the line and if he doesn’t know where to look then he’s going to struggle.
Emory Wilhite
P.S.