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St. Cloud State University
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Losses bring negativity
Published:
Monday, September 15, 2003
Patrick McManamon
Knight Ridder Newspapers
Bill Parcells was talking the other day about his first game as coach of the Dallas Cowboys, a loss to Atlanta.
Parcells, a coach who has taken three teams to conference title games and two to the Super Bowl, said he saw no benefits in the defeat.
"I don't think you learn a lot by losing," Parcells said.
Former Browns cornerback-turned-Raven Corey Fuller said essentially the same thing this week on a conference call with the local media.
"Ain't no moral victories," Fuller snapped when asked if he was impressed that the Browns defense gave up just nine points to the Colts.
How should a team take a loss, then?
"That's an eons debate," Browns Coach Butch Davis said in his inimitable style.
We'll interpret that to mean the question is one of Aristotelian dimensions, a discussion worthy of Sophocles, a treatise for John Locke. Or John Madden.
Now, understand that Davis is an optimist by nature. He'll never dwell on negatives, so his philosophy starts there.
"I think if you're going to be very successful, if and when you do lose, and it's inevitable in this league because no one goes undefeated, you'd better find a way to find positive things that come out of losses and you'd better try to figure out and minimize the mistakes," he said. "The frustration of losing comes when you're always losing and you're having struggles and it's for the exact same reasons."
But at what point should the frustration of losing overwhelm all other feelings? The Browns spoke after their 9-6 loss in the season opening game as if they were encouraged by the defeat because the defense played better than expected.
This is kind of like being happy when you walk across the street and you're not hit by a car. Isn't that what is supposed to happen? It's certainly fair to praise the play of first-time starters (like the Browns linebackers last week), but at this point in their revival, it sure seems like the Browns should be beyond feeling good after a loss.
"Only you (in the media) are going to write about a moral victory," Fuller said.
Several players on the Browns agreed with him. There was a definite feeling in the locker room that the Browns let a big one get away.
The Browns went to the playoffs last season, and its president said in the off-season that it had reached a point in its evolution that the playoffs should be the expectation every year.
"And if we don't make the playoffs, I don't care the reasons, we'd have to view that year as a disappointment," Carmen Policy said.
Fine. Then when a winnable game is lost, it shouldn't be taken as a good sign because of this or that silver lining. Learn from the loss certainly, and accept the encouraging parts of the defeat.
But Parcells and Fuller are right: In the business of the NFL, the only thing that is truly acceptable is the number under the column headed "W."
