It reminds me a little of when Tim Tebow was in college in 2008 and they lost at home to Mississippi. (Don't groan, though I know lots of people hate Tebow). After that loss he took the podium, said he screwed up, said it was all his his fault, and that nothing like that would ever happen again and "I promise you one thing: a lot of good will come out of this". Then in private he told the team that every day they needed to focus and they needed to improve at something every practice to make sure that it would never happen again.
Sounds corny, but there was no way they were going to lose again after that. Everytime anybody slacked off in the slightest, there was Tebow and Meyer yelling to remember what happened vs. Ole Miss. It was their "Remember the Alamo" motivating factor.
College is more rah-rah by nature, with open emotion vs. the businesslike approach in the NFL. To some extent, though, I think that the Browns letdown must have been a similar motivating factor and rallying point for the Patriots. Maybe that's a consequence of having strong leaders who know when to sieze upon an opportunity to motivate people.