Kirk Cousins is clutch. Tribalism explains why.

Even the phrases that quarterbacks use to call plays on the line of scrimmage, like “Cheddar H Bronze into Turbo,” have grown increasingly complex, mixing meaningful codes and smoke screens. From the first offseason training, Cousins met with the entire offense off the field to review these cadences, explaining the terms, counts and inflections. On Netflix’s “Quarterbacks,” he stressed the need for overlearning, practicing until the plays are so ingrained that they become automatic and can be performed effortlessly: “You can’t afford to know it pretty well. It has to be locked in. You have to get to a place where it’s just instinctual.”

Behavioral science can shed some light on what instincts have to do with this. Teamwork on a football field or elsewhere draws on psychological processes that evolved in humans long ago. It helped the survival odds of our prehistoric forebears to work together when hunting, gathering or defending the cave, rather than each person acting independently. Hence, they became wired to encode shared skills from watching peers and to enact these codes in concert with others. This reflex of peer coordination greatly helped our forebears survive and thrive, propelling the human ascent from a marginal hominid species to a tribal species that came to dominate the planet. We evolved further adaptations for cooperation on top of this most basic tribal instinct.

We still coordinate this way today, but doing so requires giving up a degree of personal control. You’ve probably experienced this in some group activity. A theater troupe performs seamlessly when actors stop thinking self-consciously as individuals and go with the group dynamic. Likewise, a band sounds best when individual musicians stop focusing on themselves and let themselves become a part of the larger whole. This surrender to a shared script can be hard to attain these days. We are an increasingly individualistic society that values deliberate choice and individual improvisation. This is good in many ways, but it gets in the way of instinctive coordination.

For our Stone Age forebears, working in coordination with peers was particularly important in times of need. When a woolly mammoth charged, hunters had to close ranks to present a united defense. For this reason, our evolved programming for coordination tends to kick into operation when we are under pressure. We experience this transition sometimes in group projects: at first members aren’t “on the same page” and work at odds, but the teamwork finally clicks as the deadline approaches — as long as members trust in the team process.

Our evolutionary wiring doesn’t distinguish between a grassy plain and a football gridiron. The same unconscious psychology that catalyzed cooperation in a primordial hunting party can trigger for a quarterback with his offensive line and backs and receivers. Plays in the NFL often break down from too much talent and creativity on the field. Backs outrun their blockers. Receivers adjust their routes one too many times. Cousins recognized as a young player that overeager play was a limitation. In interviews, he speaks of learning to “turn his brain off” and trust the process.

By calmly calling familiar plays in moments of pressure, Cousins puts them in the mindset of enacting the shared plan. Veteran tackle Jake Matthews described how it feels in the huddle: “It reminds you of when you’re in practice, running the two-minute drill, everything’s clicking.” He continues, “To carry that over into the game … it’s a testament to how we prepared.” Drake London expresses a faith in the passer that makes his job as a receiver easier. “He knows what he’s doing. We trust in him. Wherever he puts the ball, we got to catch it.”

For our ancestors, individual heroics rarely solved a crisis unless tribemates could coordinate in supporting roles. Likewise, Cousins needs Matthews, Drake London and many other players to put together a game-winning drive. He orchestrates this by projecting faith in the plays they all know in common, the plans they’ve discussed, diagrammed and drilled so many times. They can all enact the plan instinctively and effortlessly.

It’s a lesson with implications far beyond the football field. Pressure can be a galvanizing force that heightens coordination. There is nothing magical or mystical about this, it comes from evolved group instincts for acting on shared codes that evolved to help our forebears survive in times of duress. But this potential often goes unrealized. It requires two teamwork strengths that work best together but are not usually found together: overlearning and trust. Players have to overprepare but then turn off their brains. Fortunately, these are both quirks of Kirk Cousins. Perhaps it takes an odd bird to get Falcons to fly together.

Michael Morris is the Chavkin-Chang Professor of Leadership at Columbia Business School, and the author of a new book “Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts that Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together.” The first chapter, “Syncing Up,” analyzes the evolved psychology reflected in Kirk Cousins’ comebacks. More generally, the book pushes back against recent punditry that a toxic force of tribalism dooms democracy, diversity and global comity, arguing that tribal instincts, properly understood, can empower organizations, revive communities and bridge societal divides.