Previously I've stated that the biggest thing Mike has to work on is developing a functional grasp of sports psychology.
The biggest part of that, is NOT PISSING AWAY YOUR MARGIN OF ERROR. This team has always been stacked with talent. But look back to 2009. Hell, look back to '07. Close Championship game, lost in OT.
'08, we were decimated with injuries. That's part of it too. Win while you can, because you never know when the bottom is gonna drop out. '09, another OT heart breakl! In '10, we completely shit ourselves to the point at which we had to win our last 5 games just to qualify.
We won it all in '10, but then now look at all these OT playoff losses and clutch heart breaks. The one in '14 stands out in particular, because the Lombardi would have, could have and SHOULD have been ours that year.
Then look at the OT loss last year. That shit is just disgusting.
This year, the pattern repeats: PISS AWAY ALL MARGIN OF ERROR, put the team in a position of having to win the last 6 games just to squeak into the damn tournament. This game is just a classic microcosm.
It's not that Mike is "too conservative." It's just that he cannot STAND to have any MARGIN OF ERROR left, whatsoever. All victory has to be a razor thin fucking margin. And as a result, we piss away most of these seasons, more often than not. Just ACCEPT being ahead, Mike. There's no reason to piss that margin away. Get some damn therapy.
When the team chronically underperforms, you get multiple playoff eliminations like that. Allow your team an extra week of rest and
HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE. Don't go out of your way to make things as difficult as fucking possible.
“Winning is not a sometime thing, it is an all the time thing. You don't do things right once in a while…you do them right all the time.”