As NFL players, it's not easy to go out on Sundays and play when you know you don't have a shot at making the playoffs. Playoffs are a goal, and when you fall short of reaching that goal, it hurts. You're not happy for yourself, your teammates or the organization because you know you didn't succeed.
But when you still have games left in the regular season, you still have to go out and play – and you need to have the right perspective.
Because if you have the right perspective, of understanding you're able to still go out and play for your teammates, yourself and your organization, it does make things easier.
Those are reasons why you play from the beginning, so it's easy to go out and have that as motivation. Of course, the playoff situation is always going to be in the back of your mind, knowing that your season is coming to an end. But as a professional athlete, you still want to go out and perform to the best of your abilities. You don't ever want to put a bad performance out there.
And the motivation for NFL players to go out and play well every week is simple: they're competitors.
As a competitor, no matter what you're playing – cards, a board game, anything – you want to win. That's just who you are, that's a mindset you've developed over time, and that's your motivation.
For that day, for that game, you want to be the best.
For me, it's that simple. You're a competitor. You don't like losing. So if I step on the field to play, I'm playing to win. I'm not playing just to be playing; I'm playing to win.
It's like what Philip Rivers said, how if you had the opportunity to go out and play in the backyard with your friends, you either went home happy or you went home sad. You're happy if you win and sad if you lose, because you're a competitor even as a child. And to me, it's no different as an adult.
We did see that kind of fight and motivation from the Colts against the Jaguars on Sunday, and while the end result was obviously not what the Colts wanted, their effort and their energy showed they were out there to win and to play hard.
No matter what, you want to see that kind of fight from your team.
With one more game left in the season, we don't know if Sunday was Philip Rivers' last game as the Colts quarterback (Shane Steichen said he will announce this week's starter on Wednesday). Looking back at the last three weeks with Philip as the quarterback, for him to come back and do what he's done says a lot about his passion for the game, his relationship with Shane and how he feels about this organization and his former – and now current – teammates.
It just shows how much he loves the game, and it was an opportunity for him to go out and express his passion. It's also a lesson for other people around the country watching to say, hey, if there's something you're passionate about and you have an opportunity to pursue it, why not take a chance and see what happens?
He said he never would have known what he could do if he didn't take the chance, so he took it.
His decision is a lesson for his high school players and many other people, that if there's something you want to do, regardless of the naysayers, if you want it you should go for it. Hopefully they can learn something from that – and not just his players, but people around the country, people in this Colts locker room and people who have been told they're not good enough, big enough, fast enough or too old to succeed.
And I thought, taking everything into consideration – him being out five years and 44 years old – I thought Philip played well as a whole. Yes, he struggled at times, and the Colts couldn't get a win while he was out there.
But I couldn't imagine doing what he did at 44 years old, and for him to do what he did says a lot about him, his conviction and his love for the game.
So I, personally, tip my hat to Philip.
