How much fun is too much fun in an NFL locker room?

While the NFL season can seem short to us, for players, it’s a long and taxing time both physically and mentally. Finding a way to help players loosen up in the locker room has been important.

But in some cases, coaches have decided there is too much fun being had, especially when things are bad. The approach on how to handle these things has varied, with different level of success and in some cases, failure.

Though when it comes down to it, pingpong tables in the locker room aren’t going to determine whether a player is going to make the necessary tackle on a third-and-10.

Let’s take a dive into some more recent instances of teams adjusting their atmosphere, hoping for improvement on the field.

The New Orleans Saints, despite being one of the NFL’s best teams throughout the 2017 season, felt they needed to increase focus entering the postseason. It inspired them to remove a table tennis set, a small basketball hoop, and a Nintendo 64 console from the locker room going into Wild Card Weekend.

“The coaches wanted a different level of focus, all the attention on what we got ahead of us,” Saints tackle Terron Armstead said. “The playoffs is a heightened sense of urgency for everybody.”

That didn’t work out so well for the Saints. At least not in the Divisional Round.

After coming out flat against the Vikings, they stormed back in the second half. With 10 seconds left, the Vikings, equipped with no timeouts, were down 24-23 on their own 39-yard line, and it appeared the Saints would be headed to the NFC Championship.

Then the Minneapolis Miracle happened:

Out of sheer superstition, perhaps the Saints should have kept their fun things in the locker room. The name Stefon Diggs will forever haunt them and their fans.

Result: Heartbreak.

With the Jaguars in the midst of a nine-game losing streak last season, Doug Marrone couldn’t stand watching the Jaguars — then coached by Gus Bradley — playing ping-pong, dominoes, and blasting music.

When Bradley was fired and Marrone took over, he changed the atmosphere, starting with removing the distractions in the locker room.

“We definitely threw a tantrum,” defensive tackle Malik Jackson told The Washington Post. “Went in there and talked to him about it. Definitely wasn’t happy. I learned just to be quiet, you know, and go with the flow. He’s been at it longer than I have, and I’m just the football player. He says do this and I go do it. Just learn to follow him, and I’m glad I did.”

Marrone — along with executive vice president of football operations, Tom Coughlin, who has been known to be tough on players — was set on changing the team’s identity, and it has paid off. The Jaguars went from 3-13 last season to 10-6 in 2017, one game away from the Super Bowl.

“You remember guys in camp talking about this took a few years off their lives,” Jackson said. “It’s pretty funny just to see us now. I guess he does know what he’s doing.”

Result: They’re a win away from the Super Bowl.

The Bills went back and forth here. The aforementioned Marrone was coaching the Bills prior to Rex Ryan, who liked a much looser atmosphere.

Then Sean McDermott came in and went back to a structure similar to Marrone’s. Along with rearranging the stalls in the locker room like the Falcons, the games were removed from the locker room as well.

Video games, a pool table, and air hockey tables were all taken out of the locker room.

“This is a business,” McDermott said last spring. “We have to make sure we stay focused on the task at hand, and that means earn the right to win on a daily basis. I don’t believe that playing video games in the locker room is part of earning the right to win. We’re going to be a focused, disciplined and accountable football team, and I believe you do it one day at a time.”

It appears that was one of the better moves McDermott made this season — in comparison to benching Tyrod Taylor for five Nathan Peterman first-half interceptions.

Result: Bills go from 7-9 to 9-7 and make the postseason.

The Atlanta Falcons were able to bond over a pair of paddles and a white ball, creating a more loquacious locker room atmosphere. Instead of having lockers in the middle of the locker room, they would now form a perimeter, with three pingpong tables in the middle.

The Falcons wanted to build a “brotherhood,” and that’s what it helped create. “We (were) not as connected as we could be, so it was just one more avenue for our team to see how close we could get,” head coach Dan Quinn said last year.

“Not only do they want to spend time together out of the building, but in the building too,” Quinn said. “Having that competition in something as small as pingpong, just to go battle for it. We’ve got three minutes until the next meeting; we’re going to play a game for three.”

SB Nation’s Jeanna Thomas kept tabs on the competitions throughout the 2016 season. They even made sure they were able to play pingpong while in Houston for the Super Bowl.

Results: A Super Bowl appearance that was good for three quarters.

So do these actually matter? Maybe they do, and maybe they don’t. All cases are different, depending on how much is available to players, the continuity of a team, and the various head-coaching styles.

Looking at the Saints, you could understand head coach Sean Payton’s reasoning for removing the games. This was one of his younger teams to enter the postseason, and he wanted them focused.

For a team like the Jaguars, it was simply getting a bad team focused on the game. It’s bad when you’re winning only three games in a season and playing games in the locker room like everything’s fine. But that was also just a piece of the turnaround. Players had to be drafted, Blake Bortles had to have confidence instilled in him, and turnovers had to be limited, among other things.

There’s not just one right or wrong answer.

Also, it’s not like more or less locker room activities are suddenly going to make — oh I don’t know — the Browns Super Bowl contenders all of a sudden.