The championship game of our Tecmo Bowl the Board Game tournament came down to a moment that still makes my stomach twist a little when I replay it in my head.
For those unfamiliar, Tecmo Bowl the Board Game is a tabletop version of the classic NES football game. Instead of controllers, you use play cards, dice, and team abilities to simulate drives, turnovers, and big plays. It feels part chess, part nostalgia, and part living-room Super Bowl. It is also shockingly intense for something made of cardboard.
In the final, I was playing as Dallas and my son was playing as Indianapolis. These are generic versions of the classic NFL teams, so there are no mascots or logos involved, just colors, stats, and a lot of competitive pride.
Dallas had the ball at the five-yard line. Four chances to punch it in. Four chances to ice the game.
They went nowhere on first down. Nothing on second. Stopped cold on third.
Then we made a call that felt heroic and foolish at the same time. We went for it on fourth down.
They lost five yards.
Turnover on downs.
My son stared at the board. I stared at the board. Somewhere in the background one of the kids asked for a snack, but the room had the emotional silence of a packed stadium after a missed field goal.
That drive should have broken the game. It should have broken Dallas. It almost broke me.
But something happened after that failure. Dallas adjusted. The run game spread the defense horizontally. Passing lanes opened. The defense bent but did not break. Two drives later they were champions.
That fourth-and-goal failure became the moment the game was actually won.
Failure Is Not a Stop Sign. It’s a Huddle.
Football has always been one of my favorite teachers.
I have written before about praying with paper football and about learning how to focus inward after failure. The lessons keep showing up whether it is an NFL Sunday, a third-grade recess game, or a cardboard Tecmo Bowl showdown with my son.
The first lesson football teaches you is this: you do not get to stay on the last play.
You have about forty seconds to line up again.
If you throw an interception and stand there replaying it in your head, the defense is already adjusting while you are still emotionally sulking at the fifty-yard line. You cannot stew. You cannot spiral. And you have to huddle, reset, and trust the next play.
In the Gospel, Jesus Christ never leaves people frozen in their failures. He meets Peter after the Resurrection on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, not to shame him for denying Him three times, but to restore him three times. “Do you love me?” is Christ’s way of calling the next play.
The same is true when you are on a winning streak. That late-season loss before the playoffs humbles a team and reminds everyone that fundamentals still matter. Lord knows how many times my Green Bay Packers have learned that lesson the hard way.
Spiritually, this is the rhythm of repentance.
We fall. We snap at our kids. Skip prayer. We promise God we will do better next time and then we trip over the same yard line again.
The devil loves when we camp out in that failure. But Jesus does not linger in our fumbles. He invites us back to Himself in Confession, where His mercy gives us a clean slate and a new set of downs.
As St. Catherine of Siena reminds us,
“Nothing great is ever achieved without much enduring.”
Trash Talk, Winning Streaks, and the Danger of Forgetting Fundamentals
Trash talk feels best when you are winning. When the offense is clicking and the defense is swaggering, you stop practicing the basics. You convince yourself you do not need the drills anymore.
Spiritually, that confidence sounds like this:
I have got this under control.
I do not really need prayer today.
And I am doing better than I used to, so I can coast.
That is when the blitz comes.
St. Elizabeth Ann Seton understood this long before playbooks existed:
“You think it very hard to lead a life of such restraint unless you keep your eye of faith always open. Perseverance is a great grace. To go on gaining and advancing every day, we must be resolute, and bear and suffer as our blessed forerunners did. Which of them gained heaven without a struggle?”
Football does not reward flash without foundation. Neither does the spiritual life.
Jesus did not build His Church on flashy tricks. He built it on daily faithfulness, on the quiet obedience of the apostles, and ultimately on the Cross. No Hail Mary play is possible if you refuse to practice the fundamentals of prayer, sacrifice, and trust.
Why This All Happened at My Kitchen Table
That fourth-and-goal stop did not happen under stadium lights. It happened at my kitchen table with dice, cardboard helmets, and my son leaning in like it was the Super Bowl.
Football is how I speak my kids’ language, especially my boys. It is also how I build rapport with my students. Not because I want to raise little athletes, but because I want them to see how a man handles pressure, failure, and humility in the light of Christ.
When Dallas lost five yards on fourth down, my son did not see frustration. He saw adjustment. He saw perseverance.
Saint Augustine once wrote,
“We must understand then, that even though God does not always give us what we want, He always gives us what we need for our salvation.”
That loss was not what we wanted, but it was exactly what we needed.
The Next Play Is Always Waiting
Failure is not fatal.
Winning streaks can be dangerous.
Perseverance often looks like nothing more than lining up again.
Whether you are fumbling through parenting, faith, work, or a cardboard Tecmo Bowl championship, remember this.
Jesus Christ is always calling the next play.
You do not get to stay on the last mistake. You get to begin again. And sometimes the play that almost loses the game is the one that teaches you how to win.
Related Links
How Playing Paper Football Led to Prayer
Finding the Creative Spirit of God in Play!
Why Sports Are More than “Just a Game”
