That has nothing to do with whether it has any effect on what is happening on the field. ...
Once again, those mental tactics help FOCUS ON PREPARATION. I cannot believe you have ever played the game at a level above Pop Warner, if you really think that what you do on a play is impacted by how you feel about the other guy. I can just see it now. Inside Rodney Harrisons head:
"Here comes TO. He has a bad attitude toward the Patriots. I'm gonna play hard this play and intercept the pass"
"Here comes Lee Evans. Wow he really respects how good we are. I think I'll let him catch this one". ...
Ludicrous.
I can compare the general feeling regarding the Colts to that regarding the Chargers, at least from a fan perspective. I think it might translate:
Colts - you can NOT sleep on them for one second. You WILL get burned.
Chargers - you can NOT sleep on them for one second. You WILL get burned. Then they're run their fuggin mouths again. Not that they won't if they lose.
I completely agree on the thought that "bulletin board material" and all of the rest of it affects preparation and motivation pre-game, not in-game, except insofar as pre-game affects in-game.
I think the caricature of a player looking across at another player and thinking leisurely complete sentences is fine as a rhetorical device, but I don't think anyone believes this is what happens. They're talking about whether one is emotionally "flat" or "fired up."
Truth? My guess (not being an NFL player) is that you come in after having trained and trained for a week on that particular opponent, and all your energy and focus has gone into the coach's idea of what to do against that opponent, and your role in that idea. The idea becomes a set of plays you need to execute, and your assignment in each play becomes your focus against this team. And you practice it as often as time allows, attempting to ingrain your role into something like "muscle memory", like being able to play a chord or a riff on a guitar: second nature, without conscious thought. Then your conscious thought is freed up to determine any tactical adjustment after that first split second of the play.
Here's the other corrolary with music: just as music is a combination of tone and time, football is a combination of actions and time. Just as it does you no good to play a whole note a half-beat late, it does you no good to execute the actions that would result in a beautiful pancake block a split second too late, when there's nothing to block. So yeah, those leisurely full-sentence thoughts are unlikely to have a place in a game as fast as football.
But "you're STILL coming off the ball slow" ("you're going to embarass this team and lead to overall sucking, you ass, because you're not focusing") might have a little more weight if you knew what the __________s said about your team the previous week.
Now if I may connect to "CameraGate"? That is the perfect motivational story, the gift that keeps on giving. Because whether someone voices it or not, enough has been said that the Pats can go into learning their assignments EVERY WEEK with the thought, Be Perfect. Because they're all still talking about how you never "really" beat the crap out of the league before. This is your chance to show them how very, very wrong they were.
But you need to focus to do it. Every snap in practice. Every second in film. Every down, every play, that's our motto. Wait sorry, that was from the NFL Network commercial.
PFnV