3 Lessons Lions Can Learn from "The Last Dance"
Motivational tactics have long been deployed by many successful pro athletes and various leaders in non-sports-related industries, too.
Example A is Chicago Bulls legend and Pro Basketball Hall of Famer Michael Jordan.
He used the "bullying" he received from the "Bad Boy" Pistons as motivation to toughen up and to get bigger and stronger in the weight room.
He also used any kind of perceived slight -- whether big or small -- to draw upon extra motivation.
All of the above motivational tools fueled "MJ" to be the best basketball player of his generation and to win six NBA championships.
You don't have to be a basketball player, either, to learn something from MJ.
You can also be an NFL player and use some of the lessons passed along by him via the critically acclaimed ESPN 30 for 30 documentary "The Last Dance," which chronicles the Bulls' last championship run during the 1997-98 NBA season -- also Jordan's last campaign spent in the Windy City.
The Lions -- known for their long-tenured dysfunction and losing ways -- are one of the NFL franchises that definitely need to binge watch the documentary.
The team's players, especially its rookies and second-year and third-year players, could easily glean a few lessons from Jordan's high-level competitiveness and penchant for winning at all costs, even if it meant being a "tyrant" and pissing off his teammates along the way.
With that being said, here are three specific lessons the organization can take away from "The Last Dance" doc:
1.) Use slights -- whether real or made-up -- to create motivation
The Lions finished in last place in the NFC North with a 3-12-1 mark a season ago, and many pundits don't think the team will be much better than 7-9 in 2020.
The fans think they're going to be the "Same Old Lions." The players should use that as a major slight, and it should help motivate them as they get ready for the 2020 campaign.
According to Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press, Lions defensive end Romeo Okwara has been "enthralled" with how Jordan utilized slights, "real and invented, to drive him on the court."
Via Birkett, Okwara said, "'I (bleeping) love Michael Jordan. Just crazy and I love it. And just like, if you really listen to some of the things he says, you’re like, it’s pretty crazy. I love his attitude, I love his competitiveness.'"
2.) It's a necessity to have the drive to want to be the best
The Lions' players and coaches need to have the fire in their bellies from the start of training camp to settle for nothing less than the best.
Jordan not only had the talent to be the best -- offensively and defensively -- but he also never was satisfied if he finished in second place, whether it was his Bulls finishing as runner-ups in the Eastern Conference to the Pistons in 1989 and 1990 or him finishing as runner-up for the NBA's Most Valuable Player award to the Utah Jazz's Karl Malone in the 1996-97 campaign.
It was never good enough for him because of his drive to be at the top of his profession.
It's something Detroit head coach Matt Patricia relayed to Birkett when talking about Jordan, even though he hasn't watched the documentary yet.
“'I’m a big Michael Jordan fan from a standpoint of the competitiveness that he brought every single day,'" Patricia said.
He found out some stories about Jordan from Doc Rivers when Rivers was the head man of the Boston Celtics and Patricia was the defensive coordinator for the New England Patriots.
Patricia commented, "'I was really fortunate to be around Doc Rivers for a little while when I was out in Boston and talk about the competition between those two and some of those stories and how competitive they were. I love that stuff. I love just that competitive to the bone, on the court, on the field – like hey, it’s competition to the max. I love that stuff.'"
3.) Detroit quarterback Matthew Stafford can take a page out of Jordan's win-at-all-costs playbook to become an even better leader
From all accounts, Stafford has been a more-than-capable leader inside the locker room for the last 11 years.
However, there also the detractors of Stafford that say he doesn't verbalize consistently enough the team's issues on and off the field.
If he takes just a little bit of the Jordan mentality and demands the coaching staff and his teammates to be more accountable for their decisions -- whether right or wrong -- it could make him a better signal-caller and the Lions a better team headed into the 2020 campaign.
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