On to Cincinnati
Phrasing and Ideas Series — Entry 3
The Phrasing and Ideas series is about elaborating on the thousand-plus entries I’ve collected in a document by the same name. These entries have been scavenged over several years through plenty of different situations and mediums. Every article visits one of the entries and gives it additional context, from where it was taken from, what it means to me, who I was when I found it, how it has grown with me over time, etc. For more information on the ‘Phasing and Ideas’ series, you can click here.
‘On to Cincinnati’ is one of the few phrases that entered my life long before the initial inception of the Phrasing and Ideas original document. For those you familiar with NFL football, you’ll know On to Cincinnati as the infamous phrase Bill Belichick continually uttered to reporters during the week of drama and speculation as his team prepared to face the Cincinnati Bengals, who were undefeated and coming off of a bye week.
We’ll back up further for context here. Bill Belichick is the head coach of the NFL’s New England Patriots. His New England Patriots were juggernauts of the league for over a decade at this time. A perennial Superbowl contender in a league built for parity, Bill Belichick and Tom Brady (his quarterback) led a football dynasty in the new millennia up to this point.
Just to give folks an idea… from 2000–2013, the New England Patriots amassed a 163–61 record in the NFL regular season (0.728 win percentage), with 3 Superbowl titles. The next best team was Peyton Manning’s Indianapolis Colts, with a 149–75 record (0.665 win percentage) and 1 Superbowl title. That’s 14 wins behind… New England in an NFL season that is 16 games (source). That’s a whole excellent NFL season behind. The gap between 1 & 2 is the same as the gap between 2 & 5… in a league designed for parity, New England was beyond an outlier.
Speaking of those 3 Superbowl titles… the thing is those titles were won literally a decade prior, back in 2001, 2003, and 2004. New England had done a lot of winning in the regular season for the past 10 years, but fell short every time of the ultimate goal. This is of course highlighted by two massive losses in Superbowls to the New York Giants, and this guy. One of course being the infamous (or famous) almost perfect 18–1 season… where the Patriots would win every game they played that season except the last one, the Superbowl.
As a result, heading into the 2014 season were a lot of questions for Bill Belichick, Tom Brady, and the rest of the team. I won’t get into a full story of the 2014 New England Patriots here… I think NFL films does a spectacular job capturing that drama here and here. What one needs to know for the purpose of this story is that the mystique and shine of the Patriots was fading away in the NFL landscape, and their 2–2 start to the 2014 season was accelerating that narrative more and more.
It was in particular, that second loss and how it came the week prior that was exploding these narratives. Particularly, narratives about how Tom Brady was no longer the player he once was, succumbing to old age, and how the Patriots overall were no longer to be feared and simply weren’t good anymore. That second loss was a blowout loss to Kansas City on Monday Night Football… I remember that game well, I was so excited to see the Patriots get back on track after a tumultuous first 3 games to start the year, where they didn’t look like the trailblazing team of the past despite the 2–1 record. It was my first year of university, and I had an English class late on Monday nights that kept me on campus until 8pm. Luckily, MNF out east (where I was living for the first time in my life) began at 8:25pm, and I lived about a 15 minute walk from campus. As a result of all this, I got to watch every minute of the Patriots getting slaughtered, 41–14.
That was a whole lot of backstory to get us back to On to Cincinnati. In the face of the media criticism Belichick would face in the ensuing week after the Kansas City slaughter, he would famously answer almost every question at his press conference with a stern We’re on to Cincinnati. He would iterate later that the reason he did this was to show the media and everyone outside the building that he and his team had moved on from the implosion that was the prior Sunday and turned the page to focus on the task at hand. They could not change the fortunes they endured on that night in Kansas City, but they could influence had their night against Cincinnati would go, and that was what they were choosing to do. Belichick would reiterate that the speech was specifically to show everyone outside the building that they’d moved on, because he knew everyone inside the building had already turned the page.
On to Cincinnati, to me, and I am sure several others is a rallying cry to turn the page and focus on the things you can control. You cannot change the past, but you can influence the future with your actions in the present. It’s a phrase I often come to when I either need to stop dwelling on a disappointing result I received and move on, or when I need to focus my mind on what I can control and worry only about the present. Sometimes it’s the thought I have when I need that one moment of courage to initiate something I’ve been dwelling over and get the ball rolling.
Of course, for those that follow the NFL, you know how this season ended for New England. After the slaughtering in Kansas City, the drama and punditry of the media declaring the Patriots dynasty to be finished, and the On to Cincinnati speech by Bill Belichick, New England would go on to dominate the undefeated Bengals on Sunday night, finishing the season with only 1 more real loss (they lost twice technically, but the other time was the final week of the season when they chose to rest their starters after halftime) on route to a Superbowl 49 victory… ending the 10 year Lombardi Trophy drought in Foxboro.
The story of the 2014 Patriots is a precious one for me. It was my first year of University, I had just moved across the country away from all my friends and everyone I knew, and I was experiencing something I never thought I was going to experience moving away for university — homesickness. My first year away was not easy, and I was so ill-ly prepared for one much I would miss everyone. Getting to watch those 2014 Patriots overcome adversity, improve as the year went on, and ultimately win a championship brought me a lot of joy through the escapism one can achieve through sport. My life was difficult on a day-to-day but hey, at least the Patriots are doing good. That Superbowl win gifted me a ton of joy through a very difficult time in life, and I’ll forever appreciate that team for giving me those precious fragments of joy, which back then were few and far between. I look back on those days and appreciate such a wonderful experience.
Funny enough, I’d experience something similar 6 years later as Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers would go on their Superbowl run. Again I was at a low point in my life, and again being able to escape through sport was one of the great joys I had going for me at the time. The cyclical nature of life I suppose.
Those were the days.
