Every NFL team is different. That may seem like an obvious claim—each team has different players, coaches, stadiums, and game plans—but there is something larger than all of that, an intangible attribute that at least partially controls all those other pieces: identity.
While talent is most important to a team’s success, it must also have an identity. It’s an idea that helps mold and unite rosters and playing styles into one cohesive unit. While this altering force can originate from a variety of sources, the strongest is often a team’s home city.
The first example that comes to mind is the Pittsburgh Steelers. One of the most storied franchises in NFL history, the Steelers have achieved their success through a blue-collar play style that mimics the toughness of the city’s residents (after whom the team is named). They dominate the line of scrimmage on both sides, run the ball, and even their star quarterbacks, Terry Bradshaw and Ben Roethlisberger, earned reputations for making plays despite relentless contact.
The Steelers aren’t the only team that has built a winning recipe around the idea of “grit.” One team that has recently captured a similar energy is the reigning NFC North Champion Detroit Lions.
Sure, the Lions have been tough in the past. Nearly everyone has seen the 2009 highlight of Matthew Stafford separating his shoulder versus the Cleveland Browns before throwing the game-winning touchdown pass on the very next play. That toughness, however, didn’t translate into success as the Lions went 2-14 that season.
Since the early 2010s, however, Detroit has reshaped its own identity from a rough city struggling from the auto industry crash to an up-and-coming location defined by a new form of toughness. Resiliency. The franchise has found the perfect person to be the face of this new team in head coach Dan Campbell, who prides himself and his team on always fighting to find a way to win, even if it isn’t pretty. Just like their city has done.
Not every city is defined by a hard-nosed, cold-weather, industrial culture, though, and that does not mean that their teams cannot be successful within their own identities. When you think of California, you most likely picture a sunny day at the beach, quite the contrast from the crashing steel of Pittsburgh. But when Joe Montana won four Super Bowls with the San Francisco 49ers, they reflected a different kind of energy—one more relaxed, but equally effective.
That is not to say those 49ers teams were soft—football in the 1980s was anything but that. Joe Montana and head coach Bill Walsh did, however, play a different style of football known as the West Coast Offense. The West Coast Offense stays away from the heavy hits at the line of scrimmage, relying more on short passes and speed to move the offense and open up the rest of the field for runs and long passes. It matches California’s warm-weather, easygoing vibe, and it wins Super Bowls just as well as Pittsburgh’s trench warfare.
Any city with any identity can win it all. This, however, is easier said than done. Some teams struggle to find the right energy from their city, a problem that teams like the Titans and Colts are currently suffering from. Others simply don’t hire the right people to match their mission—a Lions team rising from the ashes without Campbell at the top just wouldn’t work. When you are unable to create this uniformity between the city, fans, and personnel, you struggle, and your identity simply matches your record: bad.
