The Prevent Defence and its wider lessons

I love watching American Football. I’d better enjoy it while I can, because the game may well be doomed by the damage it does to the brains of its participants. On Sunday, my team, the Patriots, lost in a semi-final. Just as with all sports, I would have been thrilled for days had they won, but I was not fed up for more than a few hours after they lost. That is positive asymmetry.

One amazing thing about US football is how such a high percentage of games are decided by the last few plays. That is one reason that the sport creates such high drama so often. And it is not a fluke. The league goes to great efforts to equalise talent between the teams, which makes the Belichick/Brady dynasty in New England all the more remarkable.

But the main reason for the preponderance of close games is a set of smart rules. It is a very strategic game, and there is a spectrum of risk associated with plays. When a team is winning, it tends to choose less risky plays, while a team that is behind can roll the dice with a good chance of succeeding.

As an example, a basic rule is that the offensive team has four attempts to advance the ball ten yards. For most of the game and when winning, the fourth attempt is not used; if they fail in three turns, the fourth turn is used to kick the ball to improve field position. But as teams get desperate, they use all four attempts, and often succeed. The chance of gaining ten yards on four plays is a lot higher than with three. Even though the cost of failure is higher, its likelihood is lower. It is a brilliant design for a close game.

An extreme version is called the prevent defence, and you see it employed every week by many teams when they are ahead. When attacking, they choose plays that use more clock time even though they are less likely to succeed, especially because the opposition knows that is what you they are likely to do. In defence, they will allow modest gains for the opposition in an attempt to avoid a disastrous play.

From watching the game for many years, it is clear to me that the prevent defence is a hopelessly flawed strategy that usually fails, even against its own limited objectives. Somehow, it hands momentum back to the opponent and removes rhythm and even commitment from the team executing it. As the tide turns, so does confidence, and often outcome.

Coaches must observe this phenomenon and yet few are able to coach around it; everyone plays prevent to some extent in some positions, and doing so does damage. Partly, the conservatism of coaches is defensive against media or fan criticism – nobody was fired for buying IBM. And partly it is just human nature of players and coaches. Watching your own team play is always exciting and usually scary, but time seems to stand still when you are watching your own team trying to see out a game in a winning position: players feel the same, and become tense.

There was an extreme prevent defence type game in the quarter finals, when Carolina raced to a huge lead and then seemed to sit on it and invite Seattle back into the game, after which things became progressively closer and more tense, though in the end Carolina held on. This was notable because Carolina re by nature a positive team, and for the most part did not even plan on playing conservatively, it just happened. It is very hard to fight against what seems to be expected and what fits human nature.

Other sports have prevent defence type situations, but done as marked as US football. I have witnessed it in one-day cricket, when a team bowling first takes lots of early wickets but then starts playing conservatively. In soccer, leading teams substitute attackers for extra defenders, a move that frequently backfires as well. Arsenal used to have a Russian called Luzhny with few creative skills, who only ever appeared in the last ten minutes of games the team were winning.

There are any number of life situations where a sort of prevent defence happens, planned or not, and the NFL offers some lessons about how to approach them.

First, think business. Monopolists with long-term indefensible positions, often energy companies, often resort to a sort of prevent defence. It can happen in technology or consumer companies as well. Microsoft seemed to be almost paralysed during a long period when it was trying to prolong its Windows stronghold. Tobacco companies are always on the defence, and companies like McDonalds and Coke appear to be joining that group just now.

It is not a hopeless strategy, as tobacco companies have demonstrated for years, but it requires a certain mindset among staff and leaders that many struggle with. Often at Shell I sensed that we were playing prevent defence, consciously or not, and I became comfortable with it, somehow finding the rhythm required. Just as in sport, the challenge to retain some focus, and some ability to become aggressive again when the situation demanded it. Few companies would actively promote a defensive strategy, and maybe that is wise, given the effect such a thing has in sport.

Then there are individuals in defence mode. Maybe there are senior managers or bureaucrats just seeing out their time until retirement and avoiding risk or even unnecessary effort. It can happen in a marriage or parental relationship too, settling into a routine that just avoids – or in practice usually defers – conflict. It is easy enough to see how this might happen, but the end result is more often than not the same as in sport, a failure. It is not silly of companies to pension people off via early retirement. In human relations, the strategy has merit, but usually we sink so far into it that we can’t crawl out again when we need to.

A less obvious example comes from political campaigning. Have you noticed that many campaigns follow a similar polling path? If one side is well ahead, quite often the lead is progressively narrowed, until just before the election one or polls show that the lead has vanished completely, and then there is a panicked change of strategy that can lead anywhere. Isn’t that just like an NFL game?

If we look at recent or current campaigns, the Scottish referendum fits the profile well. The establishment desire against independence was built on a negative logic and a passive campaign, almost hoping that the issue did not ignite passions. This prevent defence style backfired and a panic set in through the last days of the campaign, when polls were suggesting a vote for independence. Like Carolina, the campaign did just enough to stave off defeat.

I feel that the Hillary Clinton campaign has similar characteristics. She’ll win the nomination as long as Sanders does not succeed in too many fourth down plays, and then may well win the general too if Trump or Cruz becomes the opponent and logic and the establishment carries her home. But this is a risky game, as she should know well already after her experience in 2008. Already, her responses to Sanders have not been well managed, and part of the reason is that the whole mindset of her campaign is a defensive one. Bush and Rubio had the same sort of approach and may already be consigned to failure as a result.

The UK referendum on leaving the EU fits the profile too. There is a sort of defensiveness and arrogance about those arguing to stay in that could easily backfire, and I really question their readiness to step up when the crisis comes and the polls are sliding against them.

The parallels and lessons from the NFL prevent defence are clear. Try to avoid the strategy in the first place, instead play positively and bravely. Know that time and the rules favour the challengers, so avoid arrogance at all costs. And if you find yourself sliding into the quicksand of caution, escape before you are engulfed.