I don’t think trash-talk or so-called “bulletin board material” matters as much as sports media & sports fans want to pretend it does. Do losing teams ever think, “gosh, maybe we would have won if our opponents had trash-talked more during the week & given us more motivation to win?”
Trash-talk doesn’t kick field goals, and it doesn’t block field goals. People just like to use revisionist-history to come up with any kind of cop-out reason for a loss other than “our team didn’t make enough plays for four quarters.”
It’s the same mentality with people who complain that their team lost on a last-second kick or on the final shot. You’re supposed to play well enough and be so well-prepared that anything that happens in the last second is irrelevant. A last-second field goal doesn’t lose the game if you’re leading by 10 at the last second.
What I’m saying is that one thing doesn’t lose the game for you. The way you play the game from start to finish is what loses the game for you.
