Okay, anyone who knows me knows that I’m not much for spectator sports. Yet here I am writing about the Superbowl again.

Ahead of the big game, The Wall Street Journal turned the Superbowl spotlight on legendary defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau. LeBeau is credited with developing an innovative defensive strategy that played a key role for both the Packers and Steelers in reaching the Superbowl.

Typically, the team with the ball sets the pace and forces the team on defense to react to their game plan. LeBeau’s defensive strategy exploits certain restrictions on the offensive team and forces them to react. This fundamentally changes the momentum of the game (for business people who like sports metaphors, this would be a literal “game-changer”).

Much of the article focuses on LeBeau’s career and the technical elements of his strategy. However, near the end were details that activated my MBM spidey-senses.

Most defensive strategies can be countered. However, LeBeau’s teams have been successful using this strategy for almost 30 years. Why has LeBeau’s approach lasted so long? As the article notes, “it constantly evolves from season-to-season and game to game.”

And within that constantly evolving, continuously improving framework, LeBeau gives some players a great deal of flexibility to improvise on the field. While most football plays are rigidly scripted, LeBeau allows his players decision rights, so that even he is not sure what will happen on the field. “We give them parameters and let them create and we’ve got some pretty good creators,” the article quotes him.

The results speak for themselves: three Superbowl appearances in six years. Ironically, the Packers, using a variant of LeBeau’s own defense strategy, denied him his third ring last Sunday.

Superbowl