Not long after he hooked that kick wide left, costing his team a shot at the Super Bowl, Billy Cundiff was thinking about something bigger than football. The Baltimore Ravens kicker had just missed a seemingly routine 32-yard attempt that could have sent the AFC championship game against the New England Patriots into overtime. In the locker room afterward, speaking to reporters, he mentioned his two kids at home. "There are some lessons I need to teach them," he said. "First and foremost is to stand up and face the music and move on." Cundiff wasn't alone in stumbling at a crucial moment on Sunday. 传世私服 Nearly three thousand miles west, San Francisco 49ers returner Kyle Williams fumbled a punt in overtime to hand the New York Giants a victory in the NFC championship game. With those missteps, Cundiff and Williams added their names to a short list of pro football's biggest blunderers. They now face the difficult task of leaving the disappointment behind, making sure their careers are remembered for something more than a moment's letdown. "You feel bad for those guys," said Herman Edwards, a former NFL player and coach who now works as an analyst for ESPN. "They've got to live with it." Failure on the big stage can stick with a player. No matter how many years he kicked in the NFL, Scott Norwood will always be remembered for "Wide Right," the missed field-goal attempt that cost his Buffalo Bills a victory in Super Bowl XXV. Despite the fact that Jackie Smith ranked among the finest tight ends of his era, fans might never forget that he dropped a tricky but wide-open pass that could have gone for a touchdown as the Dallas Cowboys lost in Super Bowl XIII. "How do you not get hung up on that one mistake?" asked Larry Lauer, 传奇世界私服 a sports psychologist at Michigan State University. "It's easier said than done." The road back from disappointment begins with the team's reaction. Baltimore Ravens Coach John Harbaugh was quick to stand up for Cundiff, calling him a "great kicker" and predicting that he will be fine. Williams, who fumbled another punt during regulation, heard similar encouragement from his teammates. "Obviously, he's going to be thinking about those two punt returns for quite a while, but we didn't lose there," quarterback Alex Smith said. "Offensively, we just weren't good enough … we didn't get it done." But this is the NFL, a brutal world where careers can end in a heartbeat. So the initial disappointment and consolation soon gives way to somber evaluation. When Edwards was coaching the New York Jets in 2005, his respected kicker, Doug Brien, missed two field-goal tries in the final two minutes of a playoff game his team ultimately lost in overtime. "We knew we couldn't bring him back," Edwards said. "We drafted a 魔域私服 kicker the next year." There have been other situations where, after looking at a player's history and talent, the coach decided to keep him on the roster. Thus begins the rehabilitation process. An athlete who has failed to perform under pressure should not simply dismiss what happened as an anomaly. "That's a fragile confidence," Lauer said. "A resilient confidence is: I accept that I made a mistake and I'm going to deal with it."

Bookmark: