The hilarity of the declaration by the defense of the CFL’s Winnipeg Blue Bombers, 5 games into the season, of themselves, the team and the city as ‘Swaggerville’ reminded me of the lack of perspective fans and athletes sometimes have of a situation of which they’re in the middle. Perspectives you don’t have if you haven’t been around very long or have a short memory. Winnipeg finished 4-14 last season, ranking middling to low in most defensive statistics. Chest thumping and boasting after that little success immediately struck me as way premature. If you’ve watched sports for any amount of time you’ve seen plenty of teams that have had short-term success only to fall off a cliff as soon as things went bad. The team has been waxed it’s last 2 games by their hated rivals from Saskatchewan to the tune of 72-30 and are playing this weekend on the road in Montreal where they seldom win. ‘Swaggerville’ will have to be renamed ‘Staggerville if the trend continues. Note to players: make declarations once you’ve walked the walked and not before.
Here are 4 other times where athletes or media got it terribly wrong and had to eat it:
Anthony Smith’s bogus guarantee – In 2007 the New England Patriots were on a roll no team had been on in decades. They were pounding teams mostly with a dominating offence that was putting up monster numbers, leading them to be undefeated going into a matchup with the always tough Pittsburgh Steelers. Smith, a hard-hitting safety, was asked about their prospects against the Pats offence and claimed they had a ‘good chance to win’ and then went as far as to say “We’re going to win”, Yeah, I can guarantee a win”. He added that they had already faced great receiving corps, in fact the best, against the Cincinnati Bengals. Brady and the Patriots proceeded to dominate the Steelers on the way to a 34-13 win and Smith was made to look foolish, being beaten on 2 long touchdown passes. After one of them, an emotional Brady was seen down in the end zone, in Smith’s face reminding him of his guarantee. Ouch.
In a 2003 NFC Wild Card Playoff Game, the Seattle Seahawks were taking the home team Green Bay Packers into overtime when, during the coin toss, quarterback Matt Hasselbeck made a statement that would come back quickly to bite him in the ass. After calling heads and winning the toss, Hasselbeck didn’t just say they wanted to receive, but added ‘and we’re going to score’. Whoa there, Matt. Confidence is good, but… After receiving the ball, Seattle was 3rd and 10 at their own 45 and Hasselbeck proceeded to throw an interception to Al Harris who ran it back for the game winning TD. Zip it up.
Dan Lebatard wouldn’t refer to himself as a sports prognosticator but, for some reason he insisted in 2008 to his radio co-host Stugotz, that the Detroit Lions, despite multiple years of unparalleled ineptitude, would absolutely ‘be good’. He continues to eat it to this day, reminded by his cohorts of the Lions historic 0-16 season. Dan, forget the predictions.
Earlier this summer a long delayed heavyweight unification bout finally came off and may as well not have. The mouth of England’s David Haye wrote some cheques that he didn’t have the funds to make good on. This wasn’t a surprise since Haye is known as being very loud and very confident. Haye was heard to say, “you are going to see the most brutal execution of a boxer”, “I will absolutely destroy him”, referring to multi-belt champion Wladimir Klitschko. Haye proceeded to basically run for the entire bout, losing a lopsided unanimous decision. All Haye could say about his lame performance was that he had had a broken toe. Really? What about his shrunken balls? Let your fists do the talking.
My favourite case of false bravado still makes me laugh. I was a huge fan of the Philadelphia 76ers and Julius Erving (Dr. J.) when they were going into a first round playoff matchup against the New Jersey Nets. “This was the year after they had won the championship in dominating fashion, going 12-1 in the playoffs. They were heavily favoured in the series but managed to lose both games 1 and 2 at home in the best of 5. The Sixers were able to turn it around and win games 3 and 4 in New Jersey. After seeming to be in desperate trouble leaving Philadelphia, The 76ers were now in control and knew it. The usually humble Erving was quoted as saying going into game 5, that there was no way they were heading back to Philadelphia to lose the series, that it was a lock and that you could “mail in the stats”. The Sixers played well but managed to blow a seven-point lead with seven minutes to go, losing the series to the underdog Nets. The next day countless letters started to arrive at the Sixers office addressed to Julius Erving. People had taken it upon themselves to cut out the game summary and mail it to him and the Sixers. Stay humble.
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