History WhatCouldHaveBeen / Sports

* An injury story where the injury was ''the good part'': The San Antonio Spurs' David Robinson missed virtually the entire 1996-1997 with a back injury. Without Robinson the Spurs' record cratered to 20-62, third-worst in the league. They won the #1 pick in the subsequent draft lottery, which contained star Wake Forest center Tim Duncan. And the previous year's bad record spurred GM Gregg Popovich to fire head coach Bob Hill and take the reins of coaching himself. With Duncan and a healthy Robinson, the Spurs won the 1999 championship and 2003 championship with David before going on to win three more after Robinson's retirement due to drafting well during the years they had David Robinson around[[labelnote:*]](selecting Manu Ginóbili as the penultimate pick of the 1999 NBA Draft and then Tony Parker as the unofficial last pick of the first round in 2001)[[/labelnote]] and even a bit after that with them trading up for Kawhi Leonard in 2011. What would've happened had Robinson remained healthy and the Spurs hadn't had their massive shakeup?

* When the Vancouver Grizzlies moved to Memphis, Tennessee in 2001, Memphis-based [=FedEx=] offered $120 million to the NBA to grant them naming rights to the team itself. They planned to rename the Grizzlies, the "Memphis Express" and switch the team colors to [=FedEx's=] trademark white, purple and orange. The NBA rejected the proposal, and the team settled for a new Grizzlies logo and color scheme while giving [=FedEx=] naming rights to the new arena (now known as [=FedExForum=]).

Many wonder would have happened had the Miami Dolphins chosen to go to the newly created AFC South instead of Indianapolis Colts in the 2002 realignment. For starters, Manning vs. Brady would have been a divisional rivalry with more entries instead of just 17 times in almost 20 years.

* Many wonder would have happened had the Miami Dolphins chosen to go to the newly created AFC South instead of Indianapolis Colts in the 2002 realignment. For starters, Manning vs. Brady would have been a divisional rivalry with more entries instead of just 17 times in almost 20 years.

* During the 1966 offseason, the Cleveland Browns gave star player Jim Brown the green light to shoot a movie (''Film/TheDirtyDozen''). When shooting ran long and threatened to keep Brown off the field at least through the preseason, team owner Art Modell threatened Brown with fines and suspensions if he didn't immediately leave teh movie set and report to camp. Brown responded to this ultimatum by holding a press conference to announce his retirement from the NFL. If Modell had shown the patience a modern owner would have if a star player were shooting a movie, Brown plays the 1966 season (which he had previously stated might be his last). Who knows how the 1966 season would've gone for Cleveland if they had Brown (without him, they went 9-5, second in the NFL's Eastern division). Perhaps Brown could've been convinced to play beyond the 1966 season if Modell hadn't drawn such a hard line in the sand.

*** During the 1995 season, the New Jersey Devils may have gone to Nashville, but they won the Stanley Cup that season, preventing the move.
*** Before moving to Phoenix, the original Winnipeg Jets thought of going to Minnesota instead.
*** The St. Louis Blues almost made it to Saskatoon.

*** Speaking of Vegas getting that expansion team, the other serious contender for that team was an attempt to revive the Quebec Nordiques (the previous incarnation having relocated to become the Colorado Avalanche).

* In a non-fatal example, many people wonder what David Pearson could have done in more seasons; Pearson never raced a full season except the years he won the championships but still won 105 races.

** To expand further on this one, the sale of the Atlanta Thrashers to True North Sports and Entertainment and the subsequent relocation of the team to Winnipeg as the new Jets has shown clearly what the future is for those troubled franchises like the Coyotes. Even though Winnipeg lost its team 15 years previous due to economic conditions up north and the arena for the new Jets being the smallest permanent home arena in the league (with the Coyotes ironically having them beat in only a few upcoming seasons during the 2020's), the NHL had to swallow its pride and sell the team to the ONLY genuinely interested buyers available. With the Coyotes in such dire straits (the City of Glendale bailed them out until 2022, with the Coyotes resorting to the newly constructed 5,000 seat Mullett Arena out in Arizona State University that was initially meant for their hockey team and other viable ASU sports teams being their temporary new home until Tempe completes their arena construction for the Coyotes by 2025, at the earliest) and NO prospective owners looking to keep the team in the desert if their most recent attempt fails on them, the sale of the Thrashers has been seen as an omen for the Coyotes for well over a decade and a half.

** Alternatively, what if her coaches had recognized how dangerous the skill she was injured on was and had decided that the risk of injury was too great (if for no other reason than because they didn't want to chance her missing competitions due to injury)? While she might not have been at a hundred percent for the Olympics due to dealing with the effects of the leg injury and everything that happened after, she would have still been there and had her shot.

** In regards to the same event, there's also the question of what could have been had the officials in charge chosen to scrap the competition entirely and have a complete do-over, presumably on a later date (something which many people in the gymnastics world believe they should have done), rather than charge ahead with a competition that was already tainted. While the obvious impacts would have been those similar to not having the competition at all, the greatest impact of all might have actually had to do with a gymnast who ''wasn't'' affected by the vaulting horse error -- Romania's Andreea Raducan, who initially won the gold in the competition but was later disqualified for a drug violation as a team doctor had given her a cold medication that included a banned substance. Given that this only happened once and Raducan tested clean for other finals, it's likely that if the all-around competiton had been postponed, Raducan wouldn't have had the failed drug test and would have gotten to keep an AA medal had she won one... and Raducan's disqualification has often been cited as a likely contributing factor to the steep decline of the Romanian gymnastics program (which went from being a powerhouse in the early 2000s to not even qualifying a full team to the 2016 Olympics). As such, a more complete solution to the immediate problem at the 2000 all-around could have altered the future of the entire Romanian gymnastics program years and decades down the line.

* One that will long haunt Green Bay Packers fans: what if LT David Bakhtiari didn't blow out his knee in practice late in the 2020 season? Bakhtiari was putting together a first-team All-Pro season protecting league MVP Aaron Rodgers before going down with the injury, which not only ended his 2020 season but kept him out for nearly all of 2021 as well. The Packers won their first playoff game -- a divisional round matchup against the LA Rams -- despite missing Bakhtiari (albeit with DPOY Aaron Donald limited due to an injury of his own), but lost their next two playoff games (NFCCG vs. Buccaneers, 2021 Divisional vs. 49ers) without him, both one-score losses in games where Rodgers had pressure in his face throughout, suggesting the games would have been winnable if Rodgers had had better protection. The 2020 loss is particularly painful because if the Packers had won, they would have punched their ticket to Super Bowl 55 where they would have faced an injury-decimated Kansas City Chiefs team (they only put up 9 points against Tampa Bay), giving them every chance in the world to win a Lombardi; even in 2021, they would have had a solid chance if they could have gotten past the 49ers, as the rest of the slate was a team they beat handily in the regular season (Rams) and a team with a major flaw that the Packers were primed to exploit (Bengals and their weak offensive line vs. the Packers stout front seven). Many Packers fans continue to believe that the Packers could have at least one, and possibly two, more Super Bowls in the Aaron Rodgers era if David Bakhtiari's knee had been intact.

* In the 2017 draft, the Chicago Bears traded up one spot to draft QB Mitchell Trubisky at #2 overall, eight picks before Patrick Mahomes was selected at #10 overall by the Kansas City Chiefs, which has led many a Bears fan to wonder what could have been if their team drafted Mahomes instead.[[note]]Initially, a similar conversation was focused around Deshaun Watson, who was taken two picks after Mahomes, was nearly as good a player, and seemed to many to be a better fit for a Bears team that didn't have the infrastructure in place to develop a "project" QB; however, this has mostly died down due to Watson's off-the-field scandals, as it now seems Chicago probably dodged a bullet by not drafting him.[[/note]] On one hand, they could have been the ones to enjoy the success that Mahomes instead brought to the Chiefs; on the other hand, Mahomes was something of a raw, unpolished prospect coming out of college, and there's an argument to be made that the roles played by Andy Reid and Alex Smith were a key part of Mahomes' development, and if that's the case, then it's more likely than not that Mahomes would have failed to reach his ceiling in Chicago, rather than being the franchise-changing star some Bears fans imagine him being in that scenario.

** Ironically, a similar situation played out with two of the same teams to opposite effect in 2022 with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Chase Claypool. Both Green Bay and Chicago offered a second-round pick for Claypool, but the Steelers chose the Bears' offer on the same theory (that it was likely to be higher). Unlike the Raiders, the Steelers ended up being right; Chicago ended up finishing with the worst record in the league, making their pick #32 overall (due to the Miami Dolphins being stripped of their first-round pick for tampering), while the Packers had a late season surge and the pick they would have traded ended up being #45. Claypool ended up being such a flop (and locker room problem) in Chicago that the Bears traded him away for a late-round pick swap less than a year later. On the other side of the coin, the Steelers used the #32 pick on standout corner (and Steelers legacy player) Joey Porter Jr.; the Packers, for their part, used the #45 pick to trade down and draft WR Jayden Reed, who proved far more productive for the Packers than Claypool was for the Bears[[note]]in the 3 games he played for the Bears, Claypool had 4 catches for 51 yards, while Reed, despite being a rookie, had 9 catches for 148 yards over the same stretch[[/note]], as well as picking up two additional picks that became WR Dontayvion Wicks and DE Karl Brooks. With all this in mind, what if the Steelers had accepted the Packers' offer instead? While it's ''possible'' that Claypool would have been more successful with the Packers (team factors do affect players' performances, after all), it's also equally possible that he would have still been a flop and the Packers would have ended up in the Bears' shoes of giving up a second-round pick with little to show for it. Meanwhile, the Steelers would have ended up with a much worse pick and would almost certainly not have gotten Porter; on the flip side, the Bears would have had a very good second-round pick to pick a solid player or, if they preferred, to make a lucrative trade (Pittsburgh reportedly had multiple offers to trade out but chose not to because they badly wanted Porter).

* One that will long haunt Green Bay Packers fans: what if LT David Bakhtiari didn't blow out his knee in practice late in the 2020 season? Bakhtiari was putting together a first-team All-Pro season protecting league MVP Aaron Rodgers before going down with the injury, which not only ended his 2020 season but kept him out for nearly all of 2021 as well. The Packers won their first playoff game -- a divisional round matchup against the LA Rams -- despite missing Bakhtiari (albeit with DPOY Aaron Donald limited due to an injury of his own), but lost their next two playoff games (NFCCG vs. Buccaneers, 2021 Divisional vs. 49ers) without him, both one-score losses in games where Rodgers had pressure in his face throughout, suggesting the games would have been winnable if Rodgers had had better protection. The 2020 loss is particularly painful because if the Packers had won, they would have gone on to face an injury-decimated Kansas City Chiefs team in Super Bowl 56, giving them every chance in the world to win a Lombardi; even in 2021, they would have had a solid chance if they could have gotten past the 49ers, as the rest of the slate was a team they beat handily in the regular season (Rams) and a team with a major flaw that the Packers were primed to exploit (Bengals and their weak offensive line). Many Packers fans continue to believe that the Packers could have at least one, and possibly two, more Super Bowls in the Aaron Rodgers era if David Bakhtiari's knee had been intact.

* One that will long haunt Green Bay Packers fans: what if LT David Bakhtiari didn't blow out his knee in practice late in the 2020 season? Bakhtiari was putting together a first-team All-Pro season protecting league MVP Aaron Rodgers before going down with the injury, which not only ended his 2020 season but kept him out for nearly all of 2021 as well. The Packers won their first playoff game -- a divisional round matchup against the LA Rams -- despite missing Bakhtiari (albeit with DPOY Aaron Donald limited due to injury), but lost their next two playoff games (NFCCG vs. Buccaneers, 2021 Divisional vs. 49ers) without him, both one-score losses in games where Rodgers had pressure in his face throughout, leading many to believe the games would have been winnable if Rodgers had had better protection. The 2020 loss is particularly painful because if the Packers had won, they would have gone on to face an injury-decimated Kansas City Chiefs team in Super Bowl 56, giving them every chance in the world to win a Lombardi; even in 2021, they would have had a solid chance if they could have gotten past the 49ers, as the rest of the slate was a team they beat handily in the regular season (Rams) and a team with a major flaw that the Packers were primed to exploit (Bengals and their weak offensive line). In short, what this all amounts to is that it seems entirely possible that the Packers could have at least one, and possibly two, more Super Bowls in the Aaron Rodgers era if David Bakhtiari's knee had been intact.

** Ironically, a similar situation played out with two of the same teams to opposite effect in 2022 with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Chase Claypool. Both Green Bay and Chicago offered a second-round pick for Claypool, but the Steelers chose the Bears' offer on the same theory (that it was likely to be higher). Unlike the Raiders, the Steelers ended up being right; Chicago ended up finishing with the worst record in the league, making their pick #32 overall (due to the Miami Dolphins being stripped of their first-round pick for tampering), while the Packers had a late season surge and the pick they would have traded ended up being #45. Claypool ended up being such a flop (and locker room problem) in Chicago that the Bears traded him away for a late-round pick swap less than a year later. On the other side of the coin, the Steelers used the #32 pick on standout corner (and Steelers legacy player) Joey Porter Jr.; the Packers, for their part, used the #45 pick to trade down and draft WR Jayden Reed, who proved far more productive for the Packers than Claypool was for the Bears[[note]]in the 3 games he played for the Bears, Claypool had 4 catches for 51 yards, while Reed had 9 catches for 148 yards over the same stretch[[/note]], as well as picking up two additional picks that became WR Dontayvion Wicks and DE Karl Brooks. With all this in mind, what if the Steelers had accepted the Packers' offer instead? While it's ''possible'' that Claypool would have been more successful with the Packers (team factors do affect players' performances, after all), it's also equally possible that he would have still been a flop and the Packers would have ended up in the Bears' shoes of giving up a second-round pick with little to show for it. Meanwhile, the Steelers would have ended up with a much worse pick and would almost certainly not have gotten Porter; on the flip side, the Bears would have had a very good second-round pick to pick a solid player or, if they preferred, to make a lucrative trade (Pittsburgh reportedly had multiple offers to trade out but chose not to because they badly wanted Porter).

** Likewise, players that died in their prime (like Nick Vanos in the Northwest Airlines Flight 255 airplane crash, José Fernández and his boat crash, or Tyler Skaggs' drug overdose) are nearly always going to be a case of this. More potent still is when ''multiple'' players from the same team meet with tragedy, such as when a fatal accident occurs with a team transport (notable cases include Manchester United in 1958, the Old Christians Rugby Club in 1972, and the Chapecoense football (soccer) team in 2016), as this can and often does derail a team's entire future. (In the Chapecoense case, for example, only three members of the team survived, and of those three, only one, Alan Ruschel, was able to actually resume his career, as the other two sustained such severe injuries that they were ultimately forced into medical retirement.)

* The Jimmy Garoppolo trade is a big one for the New England Patriots, given that it was a pivotal decision where there were strong opinions on both sides. Garoppolo was drafted by the Patriots in the second round of the 2014 draft as the heir-apparent to Creator/TomBrady, but ahead of the 2017 season (the final season of Garoppolo's rookie deal), Brady was showing no signs of slowing down, while Garoppolo made it clear he would not accept a contract extension that would keep him as an indefinite backup to Brady. The Patriots were then faced with a critical choice that would shape the future of the franchise: would they let Garoppolo go and keep Brady as the starter for the foreseeable future, or would they trade Brady after 2017 in order to hand the starting job to Garoppolo? Head coach Bill Belichick, who usually gets to make the calls in personnel decisions, wanted to do the latter, believing that Garoppolo was good enough to take the reins and that the long-term stability that Garoppolo (nearly 15 years younger than Brady) offered was worth taking the risk, but team owner Robert Kraft overruled Belichick and subsequently forced him to trade Garoppolo as a further show of commitment to Brady (and because it allowed them to get something in return as opposed to losing him for nothing in free agency). Brady won one more Super Bowl with the Patriots, but ended up leaving the team just two years later to sign with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (where he would win his record 7th and final Super Bowl with), which led to a dismal 2020 season and only middling success ever since for the Patriots; meanwhile, Garoppolo took the 49ers to Super Bowl LIV and the 2021 conference championship, but also missed significant time in 2018 and 2020 with injuries, leading to something of a roller-coaster trajectory for the 49ers. In the years since, the hypothetical alternate reality where Belichick got his way in 2017 has been a topic of discussion among NFL fans. Would the Patriots still be an AFC powerhouse if they'd had the smoother transition, or would they have been the ones dealing with a perpetually-injured quarterback while watching Brady succeed elsewhere? Keeping Garoppolo also likely means no Mac Jones (although the 49ers ironically drafted Garoppolo's successor, Trey Lance, in the same draft where the Patriots took Jones, so the possibility isn't completely nonexistent). This thought experiment also leads to the secondary question of what would have happened with Brady had he parted ways with the Patriots after 2017, and what the effects of that would have been. Would it have been Brady playing with the San Fransisco 49ers (incidentally his favorite team as a kid, and allegedly the first team he approached in 2020)? Would he have simply ended up in Tampa Bay two years earlier than he did? Or would he have gone to some other team entirely (perhaps still following one of the same coaches who convinced him to come to Tampa, but who was working somewhere else in 2017)? What happens to San Fransisco if they don't get Brady now that they don't have Garoppolo either, and/or to Tampa Bay if Brady never ends up there? And wherever Brady ended up in this hypothetical, how would he have affected that team's outcomes, and what kind of ripple effect would that have had on the rest of the NFL?

* Following the death of Chicago Bears founder and owner George "Papa Bear" Halas Sr. in 1983, the team was passed down to his daughter Virginia Halas [=McCaskey=] and her sons, who have been criticized for their leadership of the team. However, this was not George's original succession plan. He intended for the team to be passed down to his son George "Mugsy" Halas Jr., who he had been grooming to take over for decades and was well liked throughout the organization for his friendliness and strong football acumen. Tragically, Mugsy suffered a sudden heart attack and died in 1979 before he could fill his role. Following this, George Sr. had no choice but to give the team to his daughter as she was his only other child. Many Bears fans, former players, and employees believe that if George Jr. had lived to inherit the team, the team would have seen more modern-day success than they have in the recent decades of mismanagement by the [=McCaskeys=].

* One of the most intriguing what-ifs in Formula One's history is the McLaren Mercedes driver selection in 2007. Ron Dennis had two options: Lewis Hamilton (2006 GP2 champion) and Gary Paffett (2005 DTM champion with F1 test driver experience). McLaren finally decided to choose Lewis Hamilton. The rest is history.

* One immediate instance of this nearing the end of the 2022-23 season revolved around what happened on Week 17 between the Buffalo Bills & Cincinnati Bengals. Two Super Bowl contending teams were hoping to potentially compete for the #1 seed for the entire AFC that year instead had what was initially looking like a fun game verging on all-time classic (at least as far as the Bengals' lead of 7-3 at the time was concerned) immediately turn for the worst with Bills safety Damar Hamlin tackling Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins. After the tackle occurred with 5:58 left in the first quarter, Hamlin unexpectedly collapsed on the field and had to be given CPR, APD, and other similar treatments by Bills trainer Denny Kellington and other medical staff for nearly 10 straight minutes before being rushed to the nearby hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio, where Hamlin would thankfully regain consciousness and not only leave the hospital alive a week later, but also received huge support for his toy drive campaign that he had initially began back in 2020 while he was out unconscious. However, the NFL initially wanted the Bills and Bengals to continue playing the game, to the point where they were willing to give both teams a five minute break before allowing the game to continue like nothing bad had happened, which was a tough sell to either team since they both worried that a player had unexpectedly died that night because of said game happening. Ultimately, the NFL eventually decided to postpone the game, later cancelling it outright without any planned rescheduling occurring for it due to it happening so late into the season (i.e., literally the last regular season game of the season if this were before 2020). This was the only time in modern-day NFL history that a game that was initially scheduled for play got cancelled without any rescheduling done.[[note]]For reference, a scary concussion movement by Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa (which was suggested to be the second concussion-related incident with him in a week's time) against the Cincinnati Bengals earlier in the season, oddly enough, still left the NFL continuing the game without any problems on their end (albeit with more criticisms toward the Dolphins for their treatment with Tua than toward the NFL in general in that case), although admittedly Tua's injury wasn't ''quite'' on the same level as Hamlin's.[[/note]] As such, this ultimately gave the Kansas City Chiefs the #1 seed due to the unfortunate circumstances at hand revolving around both teams not having a proper chance to prove they deserved the #1 seed in the end, primarily the Buffalo Bills since they would have regained the #1 seed had they won the Week 17 game against the Bengals. Admittedly, this situation did lead to a unique scenario where if the Bills met in the AFC championship game against the Chiefs, the NFL would schedule a neutral field of choice for the Bills & Chiefs to compete against each other for the right to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl that season. This was ultimately rendered irrelevant in the end as the Bills failed to advance past the divisional round (losing to, ironically enough, the Bengals) and the Chiefs won another Super Bowl, but one still has to wonder what might have been had this unfortunate incident with Damar Hamlin never happened in the first place (or at the very least happened earlier in the season than it did).

* Many do wonder would have happened had Miami Dolphins chose go to the newly created AFC South instead of Indianapolis Colts in the 2002 re-alignment. For starters, Manning vs. Brady would have been a divisional rivalry with more entries instead of just 17 times in almost 20 years.

** An equally haunting "what-if" from the pre-Open era of tennis is the career and life of Maureen Connolly (in later life known by her married name of Brinker). Having won three Slams before turning 18 in 1952, she became the first woman ever to win the calendar-year Grand Slam the next year. Two weeks after she won her ninth Slam at Wimbledon in 1954, her right leg was crushed in a horseback riding accident, ending her playing career. Incidentally, she had intended to turn pro later that year. How differently might the fledgling women's pro tours have developed had they had a Grand Slam winner in her prime? And, in an even sadder development, by the time the Open Era came in 1968, she had been battling ovarian cancer for nearly two years, which eventually ended her life a couple of months before her 35th birthday in 1969. Could a fully healthy Brinker (no shattered leg, no cancer) have given players like Margaret Court and Billie Jean King a challenge at the dawn of the Open Era?[[note]]It's not implausible that a healthy Brinker could have challenged for titles in that era—Roger Federer, Serena Williams, and Novak Djokovic have all won three singles Slams after surpassing Brinker's age at death.[[/note]]

*** During the 1994 draft, Dallas had a deal to trade disgruntled receiver Alvin Harper to the St. Louis Rams in exchange for the #5 overall pick. The deal was contingent on Dallas' target - USC linebacker Willie [=McGinest=] - was available. Otherwise the deal was off. [=McGinest=] was picked by the New England Patriots at #4, going on to two Pro Bowls and being one of the veteran leaders in the Patriots' first three championships under Bill Belichick. At their normal slot at #23, Dallas went on to draft Arizona St. DE Shante Carver, who would prove to be a bust (lasting four seasons in the league and being most notable for his drug suspensions). The Rams traded out of the first round and addressed their receiver need in the second, taking U. of Memphis' Issac Bruce, who went on to have the best career of the three, entering the Hall of Fame in 2020.
* Another NFL Draft related "WCHB" moment: In 1983; the then-Los Angeles Raiders entered discussions about a potential three-way trade with the then-Baltimore Colts and Chicago Bears in which the Colts would get underachieving quarterback Marc Wilson; the Raiders' top pick and the higher of Chicago's 2 first round picks (which the Raiders would get in exchange for trading defensive end Howie Long to the Windy City) and Los Angeles would get the #1 overall pick (with the consensus top player in the draft being Stanford quarterback John Elway). For unknown reasons[[note]][[http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1986-11-02/sports/8603220531_1_afc-west-race-colts-bears-general-manager Raiders owner Al Davis, naturally, accused NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle of killing the deal as payback for going around Rozelle when Davis moved the Raiders from Oakland]]. Outgoing Chicago Bears general manager Jim Finks, meanwhile, felt Davis got cold feet when it was determined the Raiders could not afford to lose Long.[[/note]]; the deal fell through[[note]]Baltimore - despite Elway's repeated refusal to play for the Colts - drafted Elway, ultimately sending him to Denver in exchange for the Broncos' top pick, used on guard Chris Hinton along with Bronco quarterback Mark Herrmann and a 1984 draft pick used on guard Ron Solt. Chicago, still with 2 first round picks, took offensive tackle Jimbo Covert with the pick that would have been surrendered for Howie Long (the other first round pick was used on receiver Willie Gault). The "Silver and Black" kept Wilson, who stayed around until 1987 but was largely a disappointment, and used their top pick on center Don Mosebar, a solid contributor for the next decade.[[/note]]; though some still wonder what would have happened with John Elway as quarterback for the Raiders for the next decade or defensive end Howie Long teamed alongside Hall of Fame Bear defensive linemen Richard Dent and Dan Hampton.

* Greg Cook was a star college QB drafted 5th overall by the Bengals in 1969, notable for his large size relative to the era (6'4', 220[[labelnote:*]]metric: 1.93 m, 100 kg[[/labelnote]]) and his powerful arm. He set numerous rookie passing records, including a few which still stand to this day (including records for yards per attempt and yards per completion). However, he tore his rotator cuff and further damaged it by playing through the injury. A botched surgery ended his career, forcing the Bengals to turn to Virgil Carter, a middling career backup from BYU. Carter was much smaller (6'1, ~190[[labelnote:*]]metric: 1.85 m, 86 kg[[/labelnote]]) and lacked Cook's arm strength, but was more mobile and an accurate passer. To compensate for Carter's differing skillset, the Bengals offensive coordinator devised a scheme based around a short, lateral passing attack, allowing receivers to pick up yards-after-catch and using Carter's mobility to roll out of the pocket for deeper pass attempts. That coordinator's name? ''Bill Walsh''. The scheme he devised? ''The West Coast Offense''. Walsh later expanded on this system as head coach of 49ers, led San Francisco to four Super Bowls, and created one of the most influential coaching trees in the history of football. With a healthy Cook, there would be much less need for a short passing game and NFL history would look much different.
* For Greg Cook, read Bert Jones. For three years Bert - the Ruston Rifle - posted excellent figures for the Baltimore Colts in the mid 70's. But he was always battling shoulder trouble, and surgery at that time only provided a temporary respite from pain and discomfort. Finally, he broke down completely, and had to retire young. But if surgery had been better and Jones had, for example, managed to post a Super Bowl in the early 80's, would then Robert Irsay have decamped with the U-Haul trucks to Indianapolis? More pertinently for Jones himself, would we now be toasting him as one of the best QB's of all time? [[note]] To be totally fair, Bert did have a couple of half decent seasons after the injury, but he admitted that he was never quite right. [[/note]]

* After the Alliance of American Football (AAF) went under near the end of its only regular season, there was one question asked by some - what would have happened had it stayed afloat? Would it have possibly made for good competition against the incoming revival of the XFL in 2020 (or even the USFL in 2022)? Could it have been able to survive the UsefulNotes/Covid19Pandemic that was also going to come a year later? Like the USFL and the XFL (both (major) iterations of each league), the AAF did see initial success early on (including well received innovations like multiple camera angles to quickly review plays that needed to be reviewed, contrasting the NFL's method that took many minutes to complete properly with controversies sometimes involved anyway) to the point where they almost finished up their first regular season period. However, due to mixed ideas on where the AAF wanted to go with themselves (similar to the original USFL) combined with weird ownership problems, the AAF shut down operations two weeks before their regular season concluded.

* Following the death of Chicago Bears founder and owner George "Papa Bear" Halas Sr. in 1983, the team was passed down to his daughter Virginia Halas [=McCaskey=] and her sons, who have been criticized for their leadership of the team. However, this was not George's original succession plan. He intended for the team to be passed down to his son George "Mugsy" Halas Jr., who he had been grooming to takeover for decades and was well liked throughout the organization for his friendliness and strong football acumen. Tragically, Mugsy suffered a sudden heart attack and died in 1979 before he could fill his role. Following this, George Sr. had no choice but to give the team to his daughter as she was his only other child. Many Bears fans, former players, and employees believe that if George Jr. had lived to inherit the team, the team would have seen more modern-day success than they have in the recent decades of mismanagement by the [=McCaskeys=].

** The New York Giants held the #3 overall pick and selected future Hall of Fame guard Gary Zimmerman...who, like Young, only reached his full potential after he was traded to the Minnesota Vikings. The other player they were strongly considering with the pick was another Hall of Famer who went #4 overall to the rival Philadelphia Eagles - defensive lineman Reggie White. At the time, the Giants had Hall of Fame linebacker Lawrence Taylor and the two are often considered the two greatest defensive players in NFL history. What would the next decade have looked like for the Giants, who won two Super Bowls even without White, if they had selected him to pair with Taylor instead?

** Though [[WordOfGod Magic himself has stated]] that if Chicago had gotten the first pick, he would have returned to Michigan State. In that instance, who knows what dominoes would have fallen had Johnson stayed out of the 1979 draft and entered the 1980 draft instead?

** Along the same lines, Larry Bird was (in)famously drafted by the Celtics in 1978 but decided to return to college for his senior year. It's hard to imagine what might have happened if he hadn't. Certainly the "Magic and Bird era" (which started in 1979 when they both entered the league, coming off their massively-hyped NCAA Championship game that year) would be perceived very differently, assuming it existed at all. If Bird had entered the league a year earlier it might also have thrown off the deal that landed the Celtics Robert Parrish and Kevin [=McHale=], who did nearly as much as Bird himself in solidifying the team's legacy in the 1980s.

** After the USFL's bankruptcy, Trump considered buying the New England Patriots from the Sullivan family in 1988; the Sullivans lost a lot of money promoting [[Music/TheJacksonFive The Jacksons']] Victory Tour during 1984 (see [[TroubledProduction/{{Music}} Troubled Production / Music]]). Trump declined to purchase the Patriots, saying that he didn't want to inherit the debt load. Earlier in 1981, Trump considered buying the Baltimore Colts. Trump would later try again in 2014, as he tried to buy the Buffalo Bills for $90 million, but was outbid by the Pegula family. His being outbid was a major factor in his choice to run for president in the 2016 election, which he wound up winning.

** Likewise, players that died in their prime (like Nick Vanos in the Northwest Airlines Flight 255 airplane crash, José Fernández and his boat crash, or Tyler Skaggs' drug overdose) are nearly always going to be a case of this. More potent still is when ''multiple'' players from the same team meet with tragedy, such as when a fatal accident occurs with a team transport (notable cases include Manchester United in 1958, the Old Christians Rugby Club in 1972, and the Chapecoense football (soccer) team in 2016), as this can and often does derail a team's entire future. (In the Chapecoense case, for example, only three members of the team survived, and of those three, only one, Alan Ruschel, was able to actually resume his career, with the other two being forced to take medical retirement due to the extent of their injuries from the crash.)

** Likewise, players that died in their prime (like Nick Vanos in the Northwest Airlines Flight 255 airplane crash, José Fernández and his boat crash, or Tyler Skaggs' drug overdose) are nearly always going to be a case of this. More potent still is when ''multiple'' players from the same team meet with tragedy, such as when a fatal accident occurs with a team transport (notable cases include Manchester United in 1958, the Old Christians Rugby Club in 1972, and the Chapecoense football (soccer) team in 2016), as this can and often does derail a team's entire future.

* On Draft Day 1986, the 76ers traded away center Moses Malone and the #1 draft pick (which everyone agreed would be North Carolina center Brad Daugherty) in separate transactions. The players they got in exchange never amounted to much, particularly Jeff Ruland, who had been a powerful force for the Washington Bullets but had played in just 67 games in the previous two years due to injuries. He would play only five games for the 76ers before injuries essentially ended his career. Charles Barkley particularly lamented those trades, both because he lost Malone, his friend and mentor, and because a front-court of him, 3-time MVP Malone, and (eventual) 5-time All-Star Daugherty would have been a title contender for years to come in Philadelphia.