Dumbest Sports Narratives Still Around

There are plenty of dumb takes that exist in the world of sports. This article is going to list some.

LeBron would have won in 2017 if KD didn’t join the Warriors

This one has always been a strange take, due to the confidence with which people say it. Many say it as if it is a given, as if it is obvious that the Cavs would have won.

Why? Because they won in 2016? And pushed the Warriors to 6 in 2015 despite dealing with injuries?

This doesn’t make sense considering the Cavs were literally down 3-1 in the 2016 Finals. And in their comeback, Draymond Green was suspended for a full game, and Andrew Bogut got injured in game 5 and missed the rest of the series. (For those who think Andrew Bogut’s injury didn’t matter… the Cavs were average under 100 points per game before game 5, and LeBron and Kyrie were each averaging around 25-26 points a game. This shot up to 106 points per game after Bogut’s injury, and 30 PPG for Bron and Kyrie as well.)

So the Cavaliers needed all this… AND Curry playing on a bad MCL injury… just to barely win in the final seconds of game 7 to beat the Warriors in 2016.

Yet somehow, it’s a guarantee that they would have won them again next year if KD didn’t join?

If Bledsoe Didn’t Get Hurt, Brady Wouldn’t Have Become Anything

People love saying this because it sounds dramatic. Would the GOAT Tom Brady have become the GOAT if Bledsoe doesn’t get hurt? Would he have even remained in the league? Some think he would have amounted to nothing, since he was a 6th round pick, and we all know that QBs picked in the 6th round never get the chance to play, right?

Here is the reality: Plenty of QBs – including late round draft picks – get chances in the NFL, often times multiple. And many of them in teams with good enough players to prove their worth.

Brady’s skills – his consistent mechanics, his amazing pocket awareness, his memory and knowledge of his playbooks, his arm strength (in the pocket) to hit receivers in windows, and ability to quickly process defenses to find the open man (his biggest strength) are strengths that would allow him to be successful in any team.

They weren’t magically coached into him by the Patriots. If they were, then there’s no reason why they couldn’t coach it into Bledsoe who was notorious for being too stiff in the pocket.

If you don’t believe this, let’s look at QBs who were than Brady that still got chances.

Tony Romo – Romo was undrafted. The Cowboys signed him after seeing him throw the football at the Draft combine. Why did they keep him on the roster? The Cowboys OC at the time, Sean Payton, saw something in him. (And they went to the same college). Guess what happened? Drew Bledsoe, the starter, struggled, and this gave Romo the chance. Keep note of this…

Brock Purdy – Purdy was Mr. Irrelevant – the last pick of the draft. He was the 3rd string QB, barely got practice time with the starters. But that the end of the day, Trey Lance – the 1st round pick that the 49ers traded up for – got injured, and then former starter Jimmy Garoppolo got injured, and Purdy seized the moment.

Taylor Heinicke – undrafted QB, got to play many games across two seasons for the Commanders, and then still got playing time for the Falcons. In 2022 he had several games for the Commanders that were close, where if his arm strength were better, would have prevented him having bad throws like this that hurt their chances of winning. And again, despite that, he still got to play in 2023 for the Falcons.

Matt Flynn – 7th round pick – had one great game as a backup for the Packers and got gifted a 3 year contract with Seattle in 2012. The job was his if he was able to beat out 3rd round rookie Russell Wilson, and play with Marshawn Lynch and that Legion of Boom defense. He still got other opportunities in other teams.

Jeff Garcia – undrafted QB that was in the CFL. Wound up in the 49ers where he had several seasons tossing 20-30 TDs a year and led them to winning records, throwing to Terrell Owens. If Garcia could do this, it’s hard to imagine that Brady couldn’t exceed this.

Jay Fieldler – Jay Fieldler was an undrafted QB that bounced around from team to team. Then in his 4th year in the league, ended up on the Dolphins. They had 4 straight winning seasons with him, and made the playoffs twice. And that was with Fieldler not even being that good! He had a 1:1 TD:INT ratio for couple of those years. But the Dolphins had some hall of fame defenders like Jason Taylor and Zach Thomas, and also acquired star running back Ricky Williams and had Chris Chambers at receiver.

This isn’t even included QBs like Kurt Warner, who took over the Rams in 1999 after being undrafted in 1994.

And this brings up another point – that many teams have enough talent to work with. We often assume that QBs going to the wrong situation is a permanent career ender because we assume that there’s no guarantee that a great team that will sign them. But that’s an exaggeration. There’s plenty of teams that are “bad”, that actually have good players, and lost close games because their QB kept on making 1 or 2 really bad, untimely mistakes.

Very few teams in a given year are truly horrible. Often times, there are a bunch of 4-8-win teams that could have literally won an extra 4-5 games had they had better QB play – and not even by a big margin.

Which leads us to the next point: Teams are DESPERATE for good QB play. There’s a reason teams keep undrafted or low round QBs on their roster. They are a cheap option that the team hopes can play well if the starter gets hurt, or even save the team if the starter isn’t good enough.

The reality is that Brady would likely have remained in the league. Heck, he probably still gets the chance the play that same year if Bledsoe doesn’t get hurt. Why? Because Bledsoe had been struggling mightily at that point – after going 1-and-done in 1998, the Pats went 8-8 and missed the playoffs in 1999, and then went 5-11 in 2000 and missed the playoffs again, and were 0-2 in 2001. Bledsoe’s individual play was not that good at this time, and it is likely that he would have been benched – and we saw this happen in Dallas, as mentioned above. This would give Brady the opportunity.

Do they win the Super Bowl that year? Who knows, maybe not if Bledsoe gets benched too late into the season. Maybe the Pats don’t keep Belichick if they go two straight years with losing records. Maybe a new coach comes in and decides to get his own QB.

Either way, Brady is still in the league, and as we saw with other QBs, Brady would still have had opportunities, with teams that were sneaky good.

“The Bengals/Mike Brown are Cheap and Wasting Joe Burrow”

Look, the Bengals aren’t perfect. Their offensive line has taken a long time to become effective and has resulted in Burrow having 2 season-ending injuries.

This doesn’t mean that the organization is cheap and has failed Joe Burrow.

They built teams that were good enough to make the Super Bowl and AFC title game despite Burrow having not thrown a touchdown pass in the 4th quarter of any of his playoff games. The Bengals defense was the first defense to make Pat Mahomes crash out and singlehandedly lose his team a game in the playoffs.

Just because not all of the Bengals moves have worked out, that doesn’t mean that they are some incompetent team that is failing him.

Heck, that bad offensive line they have… in 2021, they didn’t draft star offensive tackle Penei Sewell. Why? Because they chose to get star wide receiver Jamar Chase. Who they will likely pay over $30 million a year to keep. While tagging other star receiver Tee Higgins.

The Bengals defense sucked in 2024. No doubt about it. But it wasn’t because they were cheap: they spent the 2nd most money on the league on their defensive line.

All in all the Bengals are not cheap.