DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum What makes a TEAM, "A TEAM"..?

In the NFL, a lot of it is timing and attitude when it counts IMO. You have to stay healthy, get a little luck with scheduling, and then execute when it matters.

Obviously Mahomes is the best QB in the NFL (and maybe ever), but his attitude was so evident in that documentary. His teammates believed that they WOULD win every game. Talent starts it, attitude finishes it.

Success.
If losing could do it, we would have been there and remained there long ago. It's been our common denominator.

They need to share a common vision that binds them in purpose. I believe it is beyond terms like "culture" and "scheme" and such. And its proof of validated legitimacy will be evidenced and measured in individuals. That is after the fact necessarily. A "team" chooses to succeed, and to be such. "Winning" is a yardstick that is long: One season long; one game long; one series long; one play long; a yard. That makes it frail, and it makes it vulnerable. How many ways have we seen it destroyed and denied? A team is never an accident though it may come as a surprise. Nobody regrets winning a Super Bowl.

Getting in a bar fight, then singing and dancing to I will Survive.

I don't know Mac, there are probably dozens of ways for a group to become a team. I suppose the emotions of love, fear, and pride all play a part.

It feels like efforts are being made to create a team

players mention bonding and getting to know each other in most of their pressers

Being at the Greenbrier shows an attempt from all to work on creating a team

Understanding Team - What is a Team?

An individual cannot perform all tasks on his own. He needs the support as well as guidance of others to be excellent in whatever he does. Complex goals can easily be accomplished if individuals work together as a team.

What is a team?
A team is a group of individuals, all working together for a common purpose. The individuals comprising a team ideally should have common goals, common objectives and more or less think on the same lines. Individuals who are not compatible with each other can never form a team. They should have similar if not the same interests, thought processes, attitude, perception and likings.

Difference between Group and Team
A group is not necessarily a team. A group can have individuals with varied interests, attitude as well as thought processes. It is not necessary that the group members would have a common objective or a common goal to achieve personal or small successes.

What happens in a political rally? The political leader appeals to the individuals to cast the votes in his favor only. Do you think all of them would cast the votes in favor of the leader? There would always be some individuals who would support his opponent. This is an example of a group. All individuals gathered on a common platform but had dissimilar interests and likings. Some were in favor of the leader while some against. Case in point would be when the Browns defensive player last year went public saying the offense "should run the damn ball!"

A team must have individuals with a common objective to achieve. They should all work together and strive towards the achievement of a common goal rather than individual success.

What happens in a team atmosphere?
All the players have a common focus and a common objective. Everyone, the Coaches, the offense, the defense, the front office all work together to achieve a common target i.e. win the game. No one ever thinks of losing the game.

Team members
The team members must complement each other. All team members should help each other and work in unison. Personal interests must take a back seat and all of them must deliver their level best to achieve the team objective. Team members must not argue among themselves or underestimate the other member. That constitutes the huge difference between a team and a group. You don't hear a team like KCC having these type of group issues.

The Browns are and have been an organization of groups and not a team. Maybe this year will be different, but controversy will be the telling moment. The Browns have a brutal first 4-5 game schedule. If they should start 0-3, 1-2, or 1-4, the response will be telling if they have grown into a team or still floundering as a bunch of groups. I suspect we'll still see the finger pointing from within the organization as we have the last 2 decades. Until the Browns learn to perform as a team the Super Bowl is just a pipe dream. SFO started out last year 1-2 yet finished the season at 13-4. Do the Browns have the organizational team makeup to rebound from a 1-2 or 0-3 start? As of today, they have failed to prove that on any kind of consistent basis as a KCC or SFO team franchise has done.

It's just my opinion but "A Team" is something the Browns have never achieved over the last 2 plus decades. They have had and still have a group of stars that have yet to be formed into a team and that starts at the top.

There are several ways one can look at this. You can say you need a balanced team. But the Chiefs of won two SB's in the last four years with a fairly weak defense and a great offense. In terms of balance they don't apply. They depend on a high output O to compensate for weaknesses in other areas.

And the we have the claim one needs comradery. And I imagine for long term success that's true. But have you ever seen a great sense of comradery within a losing team? No, that's not how it works. Comradery comes about with success. A team gets closer as they succeed. Certainly you will have players and a few groups of players that become friends and close. But that sense of team and a closeness as a team concept is something achieved when they succeed as a group. When they reach the point they feel confident in their teammates coming through when they're needed the most. So how do you get to the winning level first?

Coaching.

First I think the team has to believe in their coaches and the systems they are trying to run both on defense and offense. If your players don't buy into it will show on the field. You will begin to hear chinks in the armor. Just as we did last year when players vocally expressed their confusion in communication and assignments on the defense. It doesn't have to be expressed in anger but any time players begin to vocalize there's something wrong it's at the point that coach can no longer be trusted by or effective with his players. We can all debate why Woods had to go but for me this was the biggest issue. The lack of confidence from his players.

The team has to believe in their HC. Not only in terms of the systems he runs but as a leader of men. They have to believe that when their backs are up against the wall, he will be the man who can make the right call, make the proper decisions to lead them where they want to go. And there's no one size fits all method to accomplishing that either. Some HC's that have success are boisterous and loud. Some are calm and calculated. Both can be quite successful and the way a HC leads his team can vary from person to person.

Balance?

While that all sounds good in theory, that's often not the way it works. I used KC to start off the thread as an example and will use them again later in my post, but in this example I will use the Vikings. In 2022 they gave up the fifth most points in the NFL. Yet they had a 13-4 record. That isn't anything close to having a balanced team to have a fantastic record. And certainly the point can be made that they didn't go anywhere in the playoffs but that doesn't change the fact that a great offense most certainly was used to carry a horrible defense.

With today's salary cap it's virtually impossible to assemble a team that's great on both sides of the ball. So while you can't ignore one side of the ball, you have to find a strategy as to which side of the ball you intend to focus on. We see teams whose defense helps cover their offense and teams whose offense covers for their defenses. More often times with the huge trend towards the passing game, it's more often times being attempted to have a great offense to cover for a weaker defense. The lack of prolific QB's however limit how many teams can use that approach.

Finding talent.

The fact is most of a teams success is achieved at the top. In terms of both coaching and the GM your team wins and loses based on these positions. Player turnover on NFL teams is huge from season to season. While the draft is a good way to help build and maintain your team, the turnover dictates that's not enough. Finding players on the FA market who fit your system, will be productive in that system and fits well in the salary cap picture for your team has grown more and more valuable over time. Once again I will use the Chiefs as my example. Many sportswriters and experts questioned what would happen to their O after they lost Tyreek Hill. After all, between him and Kelce those were Mahomes two main targets that their O was predicated on.

So how would or could KC address Hill's departure? They signed Marquez Valdes-Scantling and JuJu Smith-Schuster. Neither of them on their own replaced Hill but they both fit the system and between them filled that gap. As a result the Chiefs once again won the SB in 2022. Now I know people will say, "Yeah, but Mahomes." And while that's true that doesn't diminish the fact that the Reid brain trust managed to work around the loss of Hill.

What I've attempted to do here is show what I feel are the most important ingredients in building a team that can win and be successful. If managed properly you can keep it that way. It's a combination of coaching and FO management to build it and make it work. If you can accomplish that to begin with the other things will take care of themselves.

One word. Analytics.

I kind of disagree with your premise that the organization is different. A couple of coaches maybe and the normal team turnover but the guts of the organization is intact. When I say I suspect, I'm not saying the Browns will have a slow start but the "what if" they do start slow. Last year it was Garrett, Johnson and I believe Teller that went public. These guys were supposed to be the leaders of the team. In 2021, it was OBJ, Garrett, and Ward I think that were mouthing off. My point is that there are still some of these supposed team leaders on the Browns roster and as of today, haven't shown me that they have bought into the "A Team" concept. Whether it's Berry, Stefanski, Woods, or the players themselves, something is missing in the concept. The Browns have some great groups, but as I said:

"Personal interests must take a back seat and all of them must deliver their level best to achieve the team objective. Team members must not argue among themselves or underestimate the other member. That constitutes the huge difference between a team and a group. You don't hear a team like KCC having these type of group issues."

SFO proved last year that "A Team" can overcome a lot of controversy going 13-4 with a 3rd string QB playing most of the season. As it stands now, does anyone really believe that the Browns organization can go 13-4 with their 3rd string QB playing 9 of 17 games and going 8-1 during that stretch? I mean, need I remind you that they couldn't last year with a career backup that had his best season ever.

Talk is cheap and plasters this board each season about an improved competitive team. As an organization though, the "A Team" concept drifts away each and every year. I'm a "show me" type of guy - I'll believe it when I see it.

Idk, is it a Billionaire Owner?

Nobody has mentioned the 80's television show, with Mr T, and Hannibel, and Face, and the others.
I'm slightly disappointed that after 3 or 4 days no one else would bring up the obvious levity.

Making a team obviously isn't just adding talent, b/c the Browns added enough that they should have finished in first place.

but they didn't/don't.
Making a team involves understanding the other persons situation,
and working together toward the same purpose
+ overcoming a mutual adversity as a group

+ defining how individual efforts compliment other individual efforts toward a cooperative shared outcome
or I could have just said cooperation,
but... people born after 2000, I don't even know if they know what cooperation is, or if they even ever heard the word before.

cooperation makes a team not competition,
lifting people up, and development makes a team, a common hated opponent helps make a team

ehh, mind trailed off,
there is more,

making a team = cooperation, mutual achievement, understanding, and...
not disrespect,
there doesn't have to be respect for there to be a lack of disrespect << that

don't disrespect the others on the team just because there is no observed deserved respect to give/given for the others on the team,

and again, a common hated enemy,

that is Part of: team building, b/c there's always more to it.
... a shared commitment:

It can't be all leaders, people used to say, " if you think you are a leader, look around, who is following you"
so there can't be A leader without anyone following
so if every individual is only attempting to be a leader, then there are
no followers,
which would mean nobody would be leading, and therefore no leaders. No leadership.

You don't say!

Putting your differences and egos aside and working together to achieve a common goal.

In the Browns case, the common goal is winning the division, playoff games, and the Super Bowl, obviously.

Chemistry is a big part too. How the players get along with each other and fit in is important also.

Teams need pieces that fit together. A great RB with a line that can't open holes probably won't do much. Great deep threats with a QB that's bad at throwing deep probably won't have much success. A defense built to stop the pass, but can't stop the rushing game to save its life, is probably going to get ran over.

You need to have strengths and the means to exploit them. You need to eliminate weaknesses and mitigate the ones you can't.

It seems like we've attempted to do this. It's not rocket science, but at the same time it is easier said than done.

I agree with most of the rest of what has been said, but you can have all the intangibles and still not be good enough. If a team has an exploitable weakness, it gets figured out pretty quickly. If you don't have a way (/the talent) to exploit multiple weaknesses, that's also an issue.

It appears "we've" given the team lots of talented options, and the pieces seem to fit. Hopefully that all will manifest as success on the field.

Winning.

Win games and everyone is happy publicly, you won't find out until later about Tomlin paying people for injuries (aka "bounties"), PEDs, etc. only the losing teams have the malcontents rat them out.

The players are professional athletes putting their long term health on rent to provide for their families. Winning feels good, winning makes money, winning secures futures. Anyone saying otherwise is just trying to sound good in a news clip.

Stated over and over again, a team is only as good as its weakest link/s....the Browns organization has been TERRIBLE selecting players for decades- Johnny "Money" Manziel- of recent Netflix fame/infamy- A Browns legend=Joe Thomas, he has to put up with a 1st rnd pick who DISAPPEARS during OTAs- WOW- and that organization is considered professional- easy, no it isn't/ AND that's just ONE example- Green, Weeden, Richardson, Gordon, ETC- wait, Gilbert HAS to be mentioned.....we at least have a clue in last few years. NOW, our current leadership KNEW the DL was biggest weakness AND the Defense was to complicated for OUR players- the organization has fixed those two HUGE problems.....NOW, if DW stays healthy and plays near his potential we have a fair shot----JMHO, there will be less finger pointing this year.....we can HOPE.
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