"Merlin really taught me how to concentrate, that you play each play as if it were the only play. And if you put all the plays together like that, then you'll come out on top"
About this Quote
Jack Youngblood distills a veteran lesson from Merlin Olsen into a philosophy of performance: narrow the lens to the immediate task, execute it completely, then repeat. Football is built on discrete moments, each snap a small crucible, and Olsen, the cerebral anchor of the Rams line, taught him to treat each play as self-contained. That mindset protects against two traps that undo competitors: being haunted by the last mistake or seduced by the last success. Concentration shrinks the game to a manageable unit, letting technique, study, and instinct work without the noise of scoreboard pressure or hypothetical outcomes.
There is a Stoic clarity to the idea. You cannot control the previous down, the officials, the bounce of the ball, or the weather. You can control the leverage of your hands, your first step, your pad level, your pursuit angle. By committing fully to that handful of controllables on every snap, you stack quality. Over time those increments aggregate into dominance. The line between average and exceptional often lies not in talent but in the consistency of attention; the team that wins more downs usually wins the day.
The mentor matters here. Olsen was famous for poise and technique as much as power, a craftsman who later became a broadcaster and actor, projecting the same calm intelligence. Youngblood embodied the lesson viscerally, nowhere more than in the 1979 playoff run when he played through a broken leg. That was not macho bravado so much as a focus practice: one play, then the next, until the clock runs out. The message travels beyond football, into any work that rewards sustained excellence. Results are the residue of present-tense concentration. Play each play as if it were the only one, and when you look back, the sum of those moments tells a winning story.
There is a Stoic clarity to the idea. You cannot control the previous down, the officials, the bounce of the ball, or the weather. You can control the leverage of your hands, your first step, your pad level, your pursuit angle. By committing fully to that handful of controllables on every snap, you stack quality. Over time those increments aggregate into dominance. The line between average and exceptional often lies not in talent but in the consistency of attention; the team that wins more downs usually wins the day.
The mentor matters here. Olsen was famous for poise and technique as much as power, a craftsman who later became a broadcaster and actor, projecting the same calm intelligence. Youngblood embodied the lesson viscerally, nowhere more than in the 1979 playoff run when he played through a broken leg. That was not macho bravado so much as a focus practice: one play, then the next, until the clock runs out. The message travels beyond football, into any work that rewards sustained excellence. Results are the residue of present-tense concentration. Play each play as if it were the only one, and when you look back, the sum of those moments tells a winning story.
Quote Details
| Topic | Coaching |
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