From the time hominids walked erect, they relied on routines to endure. As psychologist Jim Taylor explained, feelings of unfamiliarity, unpredictability, uncertainty and lack of control naturally created discomfort.
Such situations offered dark harbingers.
“It’s an evolutionary thing,” Taylor said, “because back in the Serengeti 250,000 years ago, when we officially became homo sapiens, if you experienced one of those four feelings, you know what was likely to follow?”
Death.
Flash ahead 250 millennia and 7,500 miles to suburban Orchard Park, N.Y., where Buffalo Bills coach Sean McDermott articulated the concept in 21st-century, first-world terms Wednesday. He was asked the significance of his team potentially playing their final 11 regular-season games on nothing but Sundays.
“Routine more than anything,” McDermott said with a grinning nod at his Wednesday news conference. “I love the bye week like anyone does, but sometimes I’m, like …”
McDermott pantomimed distress, nervously darting his head and putting up his hands to fend off imaginary, sinister irregularities.
“Usually, I’m in a gray shirt and Bills sweatpants,” McDermott continued. “When I’m not wearing those, I kind of go in my closet and don’t know what to wear. I’m not myself.
“So I told some of the guys this morning, ‘It’s great to be back in my gray T-shirt and my Bills’ sweats.’”
Alas, McDermott doesn’t own a killer wardrobe. But when it comes to success, numbers show McDermott and franchise quarterback Josh Allen have not only survived, but they’ve also remained apex predators with the help of Sunday-to-Sunday routines.
The Sunday rhythm resumes at 8:20 p.m. against the San Francisco 49ers in Highmark Stadium, the Bills’ fifth night game with no more scheduled.
The Bills played four primetime games from Weeks 2 through 6, including two on Monday and one on Thursday. Since, they’ve enjoyed their Sundays, winning all five to reach their bye on a five-game run. Western New York weather disasters and the NFL’s flex schedule notwithstanding, the Bills are supposed to play their next five on Sunday too. The regular-season finale against the New England Patriots in Gillette Stadium might be an 11 in a row, although that could happen Saturday, Jan. 4.
Why are so many Sundays noteworthy? Because throughout Allen’s career he has established himself as one of the NFL’s greatest winners — even against the point spread — when playing on six days’ rest, the interval between Sunday games.
Taylor, a sports psychologist who has authored 18 books and edited five textbooks, works with professional and Olympic athletes. A growing focus of his mental coaching over the years regards adopting and maintaining effective routines.
“Routines are mental tools, and the purpose is to help athletes prepare to perform their best,” Taylor said. “A ton of research shows that when things are complicated and require a lot of thinking and a lot of processing, it burns energy — actual calories — and it’s a distraction.
“What makes the great quarterbacks great is not that they can go out and play a great game, but it’s that they can do it day in and day out, week in and week out, year in and year out. Part of that is being consistent in your preparation.”
Routines, of course, are not a guaranteed formula for success. But they do propel talented coaches, athletes and teams.
Four teams have played every game on Sunday so far this season: the Indianapolis Colts, Chicago Bears, Carolina Panthers and Las Vegas Raiders are a combined 14-31.
“Aaron Rodgers has lots of routines, I assume,” added sports psychologist Peter Economou, behavioral health and wellness director for Rutgers University athletics. “I would be cautious to suggest there’s any linear causation.
“But routines are critical in professional sports because these are grown adults with real responsibilities. We as fans only see them four hours on a Sunday. A lot of other things go on, and routines allow them to pick up a child from school or be there for their families. It allows them to live their lives.”
A couple weeks ago, when explaining how the Bills possibly could consider the two-time defending champion and undefeated Kansas City Chiefs merely as the next opponents and not treat them with graveness, McDermott said professional athletes crave “just some form of normalcy. They don’t live — quote, unquote — normal lives, and so that normalcy is sometimes welcomed day in and day out. That’s how we do it here.”
Buffalo won 30-21 to remain a game behind Kansas City for first place in the AFC and could clinch a fifth consecutive AFC East title this week with five games remaining.
Allen won again on six days’ rest, and the Bills covered the spread. Inspired by Action Network research director Evan Abrams’ tracking of QB success against the spread, The Athletic took a deeper look into Allen’s performances relative to the number of days between games. TruMedia data goes back to 2000, two seasons before the NFL’s last expansion and realignment. We removed international games because of their logistical abnormalities, which McDermott tried to mitigate by emphasizing a regular weekly routine as much as possible before losing to the Jacksonville Jaguars last year in London.
Three days: 1.000 straight up (tied first of 56); .600 against the spread (tied 19th).
Allen is 5-0 on the ol’ Sunday-to-Thursday to turnaround. Carson Wentz at 7-0 is the only unbeaten quarterback with more wins. Allen also ranks third at 2.6 passing and rushing touchdowns per game, trailing Deshaun Watson and Peyton Manning. Based on a minimum of four games because these games are less common and teams used to be limited to one Thursday game a year, Allen’s percentage against the spread is .069 points better than the NFL average.
Four days: No games.
Allen never has experienced the NFL’s least common synapse. There have been only 13 such games since 2000, with five of them occurring in 2020 because of COVID restrictions. Kirk Cousins (1-1) and Gus Frerotte (0-2) are the lone quarterbacks to have played in more than one.
Five days: .643 straight up (tied ninth of 33); .462 against the spread (17th).
This usually is the Monday-to-Sunday stretch, with an occasional Sunday-to-Saturday mixed in. The Bills also pulled a Tuesday-to-Monday stretch, losing to the Chiefs during the 2020 COVID campaign. Allen averages 2.36 passing and rushing TDs a game in this situation, second just to two-time MVP Lamar Jackson. Based on a minimum of 10 games.
Six days: .702 straight up (fourth of 156); .655 against the spread (ninth).
The most common scheduling interval, we bumped this minimum to 20 games. This turnaround also can include consecutive Saturday or Thursday games. Allen’s win percentage is behind only Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady and Andrew Luck and slightly ahead of Manning straight up. Allen’s 2.26 TDs are third to Mahomes and Joe Burrow.
Allen’s win percentage against the spread is .149 points above the NFL average for this group. Among quarterbacks with at least 50 games on six days’ rest, only Teddy Bridgewater and Luck were better against the spread. Fascinating nugget: Despite only 0.8 passing and rushing TDs a game, old friend Tarvaris Jackson went .667 straight up and .684 against the spread over 39 such games.
Seven to nine days: .455 straight up (tied 41st of 57); .273 against the spread (55th).
Here we have the Sunday-to-Monday interval and a mishmash of odd combos that provide extra time but don’t involve a bye. Despite ranking third with 2.27 combined TDs per game and sitting middle of the pack at 0.91 turnovers, Allen’s win percentage against the spread is a whopping .238 below the league average, better than only Nick Foles and Tony Romo among the 57 quarterbacks who played at least 10 such games.
Ten days or more: .900 straight up (second of 25); .667 against the spread (sixth).
Allen’s numbers also include the interval created by the canceled Cincinnati Bengals game in 2023 after Bills safety Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest. Donovan McNabb is the lone quarterback with a higher win percentage straight up. Although these stats date back to 2000, McNabb also had a victory on extended rest as a rookie in 1999, giving him a 12-1 career record. Allen against the spread is .138 better than the NFL average and behind just Joe Flacco, McNabb, Aaron Rodgers, Manning and Ryan Tannehill.
McDermott is 8-0 after byes if we include the game after Hamlin’s collapse and recovery, although the organization certainly wouldn’t consider that a relaxing break.
Players and coaches returned Monday to One Bills Drive but didn’t get on the practice field until Wednesday, the usual first day of practice in the Sunday-to-Sunday rhythm.
“I don’t really have a ‘this is exactly what we do’ formula,” McDermott said. “It’s just more of us really getting back to what we do, getting back to the basics. Today, we’re going to have a normal practice in pads and work on the fundamentals that we need to have for a good football team in San Francisco coming here.”
As valuable as routines are, they also carry risks. Fine lines exist. If awareness slips, then athletes might find themselves going through the motions or trusting too much in the ceremonial aspects of their habits.
Both sports psychologists interviewed for this story stressed the difference between routines and rituals.
Taylor: “There’s almost a religious, ceremonial, mystical sense with the word ‘ritual.’ A routine is entirely within an athlete’s control, and I want an athlete’s preparation to be entirely within their control.”
Economou: “We call it magical thinking in cognitive and behavioral therapy.”
Taylor: “They think ‘I have to fist bump that one somebody before the game. I have to wear my lucky socks. And if I do this, the almighty football gods will bestow a victory on me.’”
Economou: “It can create a false attachment to your belief system that ‘If I don’t do this, then I won’t be successful.’ That’s flawed. I could eat a chicken burrito and have the best performance of my life. It wasn’t the chicken burrito.”
Taylor: “Some of that helps because it’s a way of feeling more confident and having more hope and optimism beyond preparations, but rituals are not within your control. The football gods always seem to be with you only half the time.”
Another potential problem with rituals is how they could reinforce an isolation bubble around athletes or teams if relied upon too much.
The bubble feels safe. The bubble protects. The game, however, is not played in the bubble. Taylor insists his clients conduct OBEs: out-of-bubble experiences to improve improvisation traits.
“If you get too comfortable within your bubble, and your routine is a part of your bubble, when s— happens you won’t be able to adjust,” Taylor said. “Survival instinct, fight or flight, freak out.
“Every play a quarterback makes, the bubble is his play and the routes. When there’s a blitz or the receiver’s route gets disrupted at the line, the quarterback must be able to adapt. The great ones do; the decent ones don’t. You’re wired not to like these situations, but they happen.”
Perhaps not coincidentally, Allen is one of the greatest improvisational quarterbacks in NFL history. His fourth-and-2 decision to morph a thwarted pass play into a thrilling, 26-yard touchdown run that beat Kansas City two weeks ago was the latest highlight on a fat reel. There’s also Allen’s more holistic ability to adapt, what with all the roster changes and injuries that have jumbled his receivers this year.
McDermott, meanwhile, has continued his evolution, particularly seen in Buffalo ranking first in fourth-down conversions and converting more already than any season since he took over in 2017. Leaving his defensive-minded bubble is a big reason why Buffalo has contradicted the experts who said it couldn’t control the AFC East without receivers Stefon Diggs and Gabriel Davis, center Mitch Morse and safeties Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer — former captains all.
“As a species, the brain likes routines,” Economou said. “There are neurological components to this that create comfort. The brain likes what it knows. That’s why people struggle with change and why, from a performance perspective, we should try to embrace and lean into moments of discomfort.
“You have to make sure you’re always growing. That requires getting out of your comfort zone.”
So here are the Bills, entering Week 13 with the NFL’s most comfortable division lead and simply Sundays afternoons ahead.
Making it look routine.
(Top photo: Andy Lyons / Getty Images)
