Former First Down editor Keith Webster writes weekly for nfluk.com, giving his thoughts on all matter of topics surrounding the NFL. This week Keith talks about the value of teamwork and how conservative play can sometimes hurt a team.

George Allen was one of the most outspoken coaches of his time and his vocal exhortations to his players were the stirring, spirited kind of stuff that can get the hairs rigid on the back of your neck.

He wasn't everybody's cup of tea but I used to like his attitude when he head coached the Los Angeles Rams and the Washington Redskins, and one of his pre-match rallying cries has long stuck in my memory.

In an effort to get his players pumped up, Allen would sometimes finish his pre-match build-up by reminding his players of the key to winning. "Just remember this," he would say. "Forty men TOGETHER, can't lose."

In a sports world full of false promises and so-called belief, where players think God can steer them to victory, where I tire of hearing about people who "refuse to lose" or "choose to lose" or about how the team "that wants it more" will win, I have always found Allen's proclamation rather refreshing, encouraging and honest.

Its brilliance is its simplicity but its simplicity is also complex. Five words - forty men TOGETHER, can't lose - which mean so much. It talks about the duty in a sports team of each person. It tells each of them that they have to be a part of the whole or nothing good will happen. It speaks of the value of teamwork and hints that without it, the opposite of can't lose is just round the corner. And it also suggests that there is something beyond sport and beyond winning. If you all do your bit and make a united front, then you have already won because you know you didn't cheat yourselves or your teammates.

Above all else for me, it sent players into sporting battle in the right frame of mind and with an attitude that was right for creating a winning culture.

I thought about that as I watched a couple of sporting events this week and wondered if American sport has a different mentality from many of our own, especially when it comes to winning.

The British and Irish Lions were on the cusp of a famous win in South Africa in the Second Test but, having led for most of the game, they fell behind by three points with seven minutes left. Then, three minutes from time in a game where they had played so heroically and where they had taken a physical beating, they were awarded a penalty which was comfortably in kicking range.

Kicking it would tie the game but perhaps with little chance of getting the ball back to set up a drop goal to win the game. As the Lions had already lost the First Test, settling for a draw in the Second meant the best they could do in the three-Test series would be to draw the series overall.

My gut instinct at the time was that they should have kicked for the corner, taken the line-out and tried to drive over for the try that probably would have won the game. No guts, no glory. The Lions instead kicked the three points and then, with the clock about to run out, gave away a penalty which Morne Steyn slotted home from inside his own half to win the Test and the series with the final kick.

"Settling for" or "playing safe" seems to be a peculiarly British attitude to sport although watching Andy Murray at Wimbledon would seem to suggest he is on his way to conquering that one but in the NFL, and especially in college football, I despise the rah-rah nonsense we often see and hear but admire the mentality that drives a player and team by telling themselves they want to attain higher achievement and they want to win. Truly want to win. Say it and mean it.

Is there anything that gets you more on the edge of your seat than on the odd occasion that a team scores a touchdown in the dying seconds and knows that the extra point will send the game to overtime but the coach decides to spurn the lottery of sudden death and instead goes for a two-point conversion to win or lose the game right there and then. I will never criticise a coach for making that call. I love the intent and the attitude it displays.

And if settling for safe options was the way to go, what would have happened to that unbelievable finish to the Super Bowl five months ago. Sure, Pittsburgh would have kicked the field goal to tie the game and go to overtime had they got to third or fourth down but on first and second down, with a chip shot field goal on offer, they chose instead to put the ball in the air with all the potential dreadful outcomes that can result in.

On second down, the one where they won the game, the Steelers not only put the ball up, they did so with a risky pass. Ben Roethlisberger's instruction was always going to be to throw the ball away, or even take the sack, if he got into trouble but once he threw that ball, there was no going back. He put it in a perfect place where only Santonio Holmes could get it but had Roethlisberger's radar been off by just a couple of degrees, the ball could have been intercepted and the Super Bowl lost.

Pittsburgh took the gamble and got their reward. Good for them.

When teams gamble like that and lose, there will always be those who will start abusing them with comments about how they should have settled for this or that and lived to fight another day but sport should be about the moment, it should be about theatre and drama and passion and skill all coming together in a heady fusion that creates a moment we will remember for years.

----------------

After years of skirting round the issue, of law suits and challenges, of threats and counter threats, the NFL is finally getting out in front of a topic which has followed the league and its teams around for longer than I care to remember - are the 32 teams one entity or do they operate as 32 separate businesses.

Sometime in the next nine months, the US Supreme Court will take arguments from the league and from an Illinois-based sportswear company called American Needle.

Essentially, American Needle claim the NFL violate US anti-trust laws which are used in America in much the same way as monopolies controls are in Britain. Anti-trust seeks to stop unfair practices being used by companies colluding to keep competition out of certain markets.
In this case, American Needle will argue that they are not given a chance to get into NFL markets such as equipment or merchandise. American Needle made helmets for the NFL until the league signed its exclusive deal with Reebok eight years ago.

The league has already won the case in the Federal Court of Appeals in Chicago but now is taking its chance to push the boundary and go all out for the big one - the chance to have the Supreme Court rule that the 32 teams are actually one business and therefore not in collusion when it comes to making decisions which apply across the board to all 32 teams.

When the two sides get around to making their arguments, I will lay even money you will find yourself with a foot in each camp. You will be able to see the validity of both arguments.

You will see the relatively small business which wants to get into the market and which could provide the customer with a choice, with some sort of alternative. And you will probably reason that that should be good for business, good for the consumer and good for the league, as well as good for that small business, of course.

But then you will hear the NFL's argument about how the teams are not members of the league but in fact ARE the league because the league is jointly and equally owned by the 32 teams. You will hear them talk about how a decision affecting one affects all. You will hear them talk about their strength as an organisation being the fact they can negotiate and operate as one entity on certain things.

You will hear the small business side counter that even if the league operates on some issues as one business, that it does not do so for everything or even anywhere near it because they all deal separately in their own geographical markets and that even if the league does have a revenue-sharing basis as its business model, it has changed over the years to allow teams to freelance a little more.

And you will hear the league come back with the fact that its enormous success in recent years shows the customers already feel they are getting what they want and that the league now needs an anti-trust exemption to allow it to put an end to seemingly-small but expensive law suits that consume time and money it can ill afford these days.

At the end of it all, the wise heads of the Supreme Court bench will have to rule but whichever way they go, their decision will positively or adversely affect the way the NFL operates off the field for years to come.

Watch this space.