The work began long before the first play.

The coaches were hired. The players were drafted.

The teams were smart. They had grit and they worked hard.

Nonetheless, most teams didn’t make it. Only two remain to face each other on the gridiron.

Every year starts with a clean slate, a chance to reset. But a long season also brings the unexpected — irrepressible opposition, injuries, losses. That’s true in football, true in business, true in life in general. And it’s true for law firms.

What separates law firms that succeed isn’t whether they planned. Everyone plans. The difference is whether they’ve built a leadership structure and system that allows them to adapt when the playbook inevitably calls for an audible. How well teams and leadership navigate unexpected difficulties means all the difference between winning and losing. Between obscurity and championship.

The Road to 2026 Success

Talk about adapting to change — look at this season’s Super Bowl matchup between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks.

The Patriots’ success this year shows that even venerable institutions need to innovate. The 65-year franchise has one of the most stable front office structures in sports. But after Bill Belichick coached the team for 23 years, the Patriots tried something new, hiring Jerod Mayo as head coach. That didn’t work.

A successful sports team isn’t afraid to cut losses quickly, pivoting away from Mayo after an abysmal 4-13 season. In 2025, the Patriots turned to former player Mike Vrabel, who led the Patriots to the Super Bowl in his first season. Ownership understood something fundamental: the game changes, and successful franchises change with it.

The Seahawks tell a similar story. Longtime head coach Pete Carroll led the 50-year franchise for 14 seasons, another institutional leader. After both parties agreed to move on, Mike McDonald was brought on as a smart disruptor who took Seattle to the Super Bowl in just his second year.

McDonald also traded the quarterback he inherited, Geno Smith, and bet on Sam Darnold, whom the Minnesota Vikings released. Success requires the willingness to always reassess people, roles, and direction.

The two Super Bowl teams aren’t here by accident. They are in the big game because these franchises built strong foundations — ownership, leadership, culture — that allow them to reset, recalibrate, and adapt every year. Strong franchises don’t fear change. They fear standing still.

Resetting the Playbook

Every team enters training camp with a plan. Then reality shows up wearing cleats. Injuries pile up. Depth charts change. Opponents expose weaknesses. Good teams don’t pretend everything is fine, and they don’t just start over every Sunday and run it back. They refine and adapt.

Nothing goes exactly as planned for sports teams or for businesses. Like a professional sports franchise, a sophisticated law firm trusts marketing leadership to build a marketing plan and playbook. But what sets great leadership apart is the understanding that real work starts after the year kicks off.

Attorneys leave. Sabbaticals happen. Laterals surprise you. Clients walk. Bad press hits. The smartest marketing teams tackle each issue as it comes:

  • Does our positioning still match our market, or has the competitive landscape shifted?
  • Are we investing in the right practices, or just the loudest ones?
  • Are we elevating the attorneys who will matter this year, not just the ones who mattered last year?
  • Is our message aligned across media, content, recruiting, and business development?
  • Are client needs evolving, and are we proving our value beyond simply retaining them?

The question isn’t if things go sideways. The question is when, and whether you’ve built a structure that lets you audible quickly and get back on track.

What is Your Identity This Year?

Every season, teams decide who they are. They decide what kind of football they’re going to play and what kind of team they will be. For law firms, every year is a chance to decide:

  • What do we want clients to associate with us right now?
  • How do we want the market to describe us when we’re not in the room?
  • What stories are we telling about growth, opportunity, and direction?

If law firms don’t define their identity or their brand, armchair quarterbacks will do it for you. Your brand isn’t static. It evolves as your roster changes, leadership transitions happen, the market shifts, and new opportunities emerge.

Define who you are, where you’re going, and how you’ll get there.

Offense, Defense, and Special Teams (Yes, All Three Matter)

No team wins by focusing on one unit alone. Marketing leaders don’t just call plays; they coordinate units, and offense, defense, and special teams all need to be on the same page for success to happen.

For law firms, offense is growth: new clients, new practices, new opportunities. Defense is protection: reputation management, crisis response, retention, and consistency. Special teams are the details that change field position: internal communications, attorney buy-in, recruiting support, and making sure everyone understands the play call.

Marketing leaders align strategic messaging across content, media, recruiting, and business development, so the firm doesn’t look like it’s running five different offenses at once, but, instead, every unit is running in sync as part of a team.

Watching Film: What’s Actually Working?

Every Monday, NFL teams watch film of the previous week’s game. Good teams study film relentlessly, and not just the highlights, but the ugly plays as well — missed blocks, costly fumbles and interceptions (to borrow from a different sport, the “Shaqtin’ a Fool” moments).

Law firm marketing teams should do the same. Watch the film. Make the adjustments. That’s how law firms put themselves in position to grow every year. You don’t need to reinvent your strategy every week. You do need to revisit it.

For example, marketing plans for the new year seem to always target publishing more content, increasing LinkedIn activity, or pursuing more media coverage, but before you decide what to do, you need to understand why you’re doing it. These are all valuable plays, but without a goalpost, they can easily lead to turnovers.

After watching film and analyzing your plan, these are the questions you should ask, instead:

  • Are you producing content that genuinely differentiates the firm or are you filling space every day for clicks?
  • Are your attorneys visible in the right places, or only the shiniest ones?
  • Is your social presence intentional, or dependent on who has time that week?
  • Is media coverage reinforcing strategy or is it merely a pretty PPT slide to show the Executive Committee?

This isn’t about doing more. It’s about tightening execution, so every play has a purpose.

Final Whistle: Build the System, Trust It, and Adapt to Change

No one can predict how a season will unfold. If we could, sports would be a lot less fun, and strategy meetings would be much shorter.

Winning franchises build leadership structures, systems, and playbooks that allow them to adjust correctly and quickly when the game script flips unexpectedly. The law firms that stay competitive aren’t the ones with the prettiest playbooks in January; they’re the ones that revisit them all season long and aren’t afraid to call an effective audible when it matters.

Planning gets you to kickoff. Resetting, adjusting, and adapting get you to meaningful games at the end of the year. That’s how franchises get to the Super Bowl. And it’s how law firms do, too.

If you need help analyzing your overall marketing and business development strategy or calling an audible (Omaha!), contact me, Tommy Santora, at tsantora@jaffepr.com.