NFL Upsets Show You Should Never Give Up On Your Team

Fans across the nation sat glued to the edge of their seats on Sunday thanks to plucky underdogs upending some of the teams already being penciled in for the playoffs. And through it all, we were reminded why Al Pacino’s powerful movie was titled: Any Given Sunday.

Three teams that had not won in the first two weeks—the Carolina Panthers, the New York Giants, and the Denver Broncos—took to the road and upset heavily favored home teams. The Panthers headed to Las Vegas and beat the Raiders 36-22. The Giants traveled to Cleveland and held on to beat the Browns 21-15. The Broncos won their first game of the season when they came to Tampa on Sunday and routed the Buccaneers 26-7.

Panthers, Giants, and Broncos fans were already writing their teams off for the season, but they found new reasons for hope after Sunday. They weren’t alone. Coming off a 31-point loss last week, the L.A. Rams bounced back and, thanks to 13 points in the fourth quarter, defeated the favored San Francisco 49ers 27-24. After blowing the lead in the final seconds of the game against the Atlanta Falcons last week, the Philadelphia Eagles scored all their points in the fourth quarter to beat the New Orleans Saints 15-12.

As they say, Any Given Sunday. It’s easy to lose faith in your team, especially after a bad start, but this week’s upsets and dramatic comebacks remind us that we’re always in the game. Despite starting off on the wrong foot, the teams that won on Sunday kept believing in themselves. Dave Canales, the new coach of the Panthers, said he never lost faith in his team, even as he benched young quarterback Bryce Young in favor of veteran signal-caller Andy Dalton. Canales said the entire team deserved credit for beating the Raiders instead of just Dalton, who had an outstanding game, completing 26 out of 37 passes for 319 yards and three touchdowns.

“I felt like the whole group in general showed up ready,” Canales told CBS Sports. “This is a really serious and really focused group and something I’ve had to get used to because I’m so high energy. I want things to be a party all the time. This group is like, ‘Coaches, tell us what you need and we’ll do it.'”

Companies and organizations need to carry that same mindset to our offices and boardrooms. We all have bad days, with more than our share of challenges and frustrations. But you can never lose faith in your co-workers, your company’s purpose, and serving your customers.

Leadership expert Lisa Earle McLeod found that teams who believe in themselves prove successful in the long run. “The difference between a team that wins the market and a team that erodes their reputation starts with belief,” she wrote in Forbes. McLeod stressed that teams need to believe in something bigger than themselves at all times. “It’s not enough to believe in your products,” she noted. “To build resilience and tenacity, help your team understand how their work makes a difference to someone other than their boss, or the bottom line. Human beings are hard-wired to crave meaning. Leaders can build belief by describing how the team’s work improves life for customers and others.”

Other leaders in the business community have also thought hard about how to get teams to believe in themselves. Last month, the Forbes Business Council presented 14 ways teams can build and connect with each other to build that belief in themselves and what they want to accomplish. There are a lot of great ideas there, including mentoring, transparency, and sharing professional and personal goals. Many of the Council’s ideas will help ensure your team believes in itself despite the constant challenges and adversity.

Even some of the teams that got upset seemed to have learned a few lessons from this week’s upsets. Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield said that some of his young teammates will learn a great deal from the first loss of the season.

“There are a few things that we need to look at the tape and get fixed,” Mayfield told CBS Sports. “This is a good lesson for our team overall. You have to prepare like you’re playing in a playoff game every week or this can happen. It’s a good lesson for the young guys who haven’t seen it before of what you need to be prepared for, how detailed we need to be.”

Week 3 in the NFL offered a great deal of drama and upsets—and the first quarter of the season isn’t even over yet. This past week showed even fans of the still winless Cincinnati Bengals, Tennessee Titans, and the Jacksonville Jaguars that there’s always hope when you believe in your team.