History WhatCouldHaveBeen / Sports

* The Jimmy Garoppolo trade to the San Francisco 49ers is a big one for the New England Patriots, was almost the Tom Brady trade 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 (as later revealed in interviews, Belichick was willing to send Brady to his hometown 49ers to honor his lifelong dream of playing for them), 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 to the 49ers 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), 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, 2020, and 2022 with injuries, leading to something of a roller-coaster trajectory for the 49ers, and this ultimately led to him being released ahead of the 2023 season, landing with the Las Vegas Raiders (also for one season, despite him signing a three-year deal) before the Raiders would cut him loose. 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 with the 49ers? Keeping Garoppolo also likely means no Mac Jones (although the 49ers ironically drafted Garoppolo's intended successor, Trey Lance, in the same draft where the Patriots took Jones, so the possibility isn't completely nonexistent), but given his sharp decline after a solid rookie year, Patriots fans would probably be okay with that tradeoff. 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?

** Speaking of the 2004-05 NHL lockout wiping out the season, it also drastically changed certain outlooks of several teams forever, the most notable ones being the Pittsburgh Penguins (whom without the 04-05 season, were allowed to draft superstar Sidney Crosby, a move that outright saved Pittsburgh from losing their team as they were in serious financial trouble prior to the draft), the Anaheim Ducks (eventual Cup winners in 2007) with stars Paul Kariya (who would retire the year before Anaheim's championship season) and Temmu Selanne rehabbing their devastating injuries they had sustained during the 2003-04 season and the defending Stanley Cup champions Tampa Bay Lightning (who were fresh off from winning the 2004 Stanley Cup Finals over the Calgary Flames) having superstar players such as Vincent Lecavalier, Martin St. Louis, Nikolai Khabibulin and Brad Richards in their primes and were likely another Dynasty in the making. But because of the lockout wiping out the entire season, meant that the Bolts would have to wait a whole ''year'' to properly defend their title, and because of the long layoff meant that Tampa Bay would be rusty and ill-equipped once the new season began. They would make the playoffs as the 7th seed and eventually lose in the first round of the 2006 playoffs to the Ottawa Senators, along with a few losing seasons and a disinterested ownership after that would eventually lead to the ownership to break the core team up by trading Brad Richards to the Stars (Khabibulin was already gone via free agency to Chicago), while the Pittsburgh Penguins would launch their own Dynasty behind Crosby. [[note]]Though the Lightning would eventually draft future stars Steven Stamkos (#1 in 08), Victor Hedman (#2 in 09), Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point and Andrei Vasilvesky that would form the core of their Dynasty in TheNewTwenties.[[/note]] But what if the NHL owners had come to an agreement and the 2004-05 season had never been cancelled and had been allowed to play as scheduled? Pittsburgh doesn't land Crosby and are forced to relocate elsewhere (Crosby who would have likely been drafted by one of the worse teams such as Vancouver or any of the new York teams), the Ducks don't win the 2007 championship because of Kariya and Selanne not having the time to fully heal (though this begs the question if the Ottawa Senators (the Ducks opponents in the Stanley Cup Finals that year) would have made the Finals in a lockout-less Era that year and if so, would have likely ended Canada's Cup drought) and Tampa Bay's core doesn't get broken up and would have likely gotten a better shot to defend their title if not ascend to Dynasty status (though Khabibulin still would have left for Chicago after the 03-04 season as his contract expired following the Cup win), meaning that they don't draft the players that forms their 2020 Dynasty.

** While the 2020 Draft itself was held virtually without significant issue after the original plan of hosting it in Las Vegas (in part to celebrate the Raiders moving from Oakland to Las Vegas at the time) was no longer seen as viable for the NFL (though they ultimately got their make-up date two years later), teams were unable to evaluate players during individual workouts, during on-premises interviews, and, perhaps most significantly, by their own team medical staffs. Players coming off of significant injuries, in general, fell further in the draft compared to historical draft classes. Would, for example, Alabama QB Tua Tagovailoa (who was coming off a serious hip injury at the time) have been available to the Dolphins at the #5 pick if teams had been able to clear him medically before the draft? Meanwhile, Clemson WR Tee Higgins and Utah CB Jaylon Johnson were both projected 1st round picks before undergoing offseason surgeries, later falling into the 2nd round (to the Bengals and Bears, respectively). Finally, many later round prospects were denied their usual chance to improve their draft stock with workouts and on-premises interviews. How would this draft class have differed under normal circumstances?

** Speaking of the 2004-05 NHL lockout wiping out the season, it also drastically changed certain outlooks of several teams forever, the most notable ones being the Pittsburgh Penguins (whom without the 04-05 season, were allowed to draft superstar Sidney Crosby, a move that outright saved Pittsburgh from losing their team as they were in serious financial trouble prior to the draft), the Anaheim Ducks (eventual Cup winners in 2007) with stars Paul Kariya (who would retire the year before Anaheim's championship season) and Temmu Selanne rehabbing their devastating injuries they had sustained during the 2003-04 season and the defending Stanley Cup champions Tampa Bay Lightning (who were fresh off from winning the 2004 Stanley Cup Finals over the Calgary Flames) having superstar players such as Vincent Lecavalier, Martin St. Louis, Nikolai Khababulin and Brad Richards in their primes and were likely another Dynasty in the making. But because of the lockout wiping out the entire season, meant that the Bolts would have to wait a whole ''year'' to properly defend their title, and because of the long layoff meant that Tampa Bay would be rusty and ill-equipped once the new season began. They would make the playoffs as the 7th seed and eventually lose in the first round of the 2006 playoffs, along with a few losing seasons and a disinterested ownership after that would eventually lead to the ownership to break the core team up by trading Brad Richards to the Stars, while the Pittsburgh Penguins would launch their own Dynasty behind Crosby. [[note]]Though the Lightning would eventually draft future stars Steven Stamkos (#1 in 08), Victor Hedman (#2 in 09), Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point and Andrei Vasilvesky that would form the core of their Dynasty in TheNewTwenties.[[/note]] But if the 2004-05 season had never been cancelled and had been allowed to play as scheduled, Pittsburgh doesn't land Crosby and are forced to relocate elsewhere (Crosby who would have likely been drafted by one of the worse teams), the Ducks don't win the 2007 championship because of Kariya and Selanne not having the time to fully heal (though this begs the question if Ottawa (the Ducks opponents in the Stanley Cup Finals that year) would have made the Finals in a lockout-less Era that year and if so, would have ended Canada's Cup drought) and Tampa Bay's core doesn't get broken up and would have likely gotten a better shot to defend their title if not ascend to Dynasty status, meaning that they don't draft the players that forms their 2020 Dynasty.

* Darko Miličić, like all famous draft busts, is another major WCHB story. He was selected as the 2nd overall pick in by the Detroit Pistons in 2003. The 1st pick having been UsefulNotes/LeBronJames, obviously a tough act to follow. But it's not as if Detroit was lacking for other sure-fire stars they could've taken in 2003. The next 3 players picked in 2003 were Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade. Miličić warmed the bench during his 2 and a half seasons for the Pistons, and remained a mediocre backup player for his entire 11-year NBA career. The Pistons were still a very strong team even with that #2 draft pick being wasted on a benchwarmer (they'd gotten the #2 pick in 2003 not by having a bad season but as part of a trade 6 years earlier with the then-Vancouver Grizzlies), winning the NBA Championship in 2004, falling short of winning it again in 2005 (the San Antonio Spurs beat them 4 games to 3) and making the Eastern Conference Finals the next 3 years. After 2008, the team collapsed into irrelevance. But if they'd added Anthony (10-time All-Star), Bosh (11-time All-Star) or Wade (13-time All-Star and widely considered the 2nd best player of the 2003 draft after [=LeBron=]), they wouldn't have been just a strong team, but a new dynasty in the making, especially if they had drafted Wade as it would have set in motion for them to land Shaq in the famous trade from the Lakers. Not only would they likely have won the 2005 NBA Finals over San Antonio with both Wade and Shaq on the roster (in addition to stars Ben Wallace, Chauncey Billups and Rasheed Wallace, and others), they would have repeated that success in 2006 over the Mavericks and beyond (possibly ''5-peating'' during that time), it might well have been Detroit rather than Miami that ended up as [=LeBron=] James' destination when he left Cleveland in pursuit of a championship in 2010, alongside Bosh.

** Speaking of the 2004-05 NHL lockout wiping out the season, it also drastically changed certain outlooks of several teams, the most notable ones being the Pittsburgh Penguins (whom with the 04-05 season, were allowed to draft superstar Sidney Crosby, a move that outright saved Pittsburgh from losing their team as they were in serious financial trouble), the Anaheim Ducks (eventual Cup winners in 2007) with stars Paul Kariya (who would retire the year before Anaheim's championship season) and Temmu Selanne rehabbing their devastating injuries and the defending Stanley Cup champions Tampa Bay Lightning (who were fresh off from winning the 2004 Stanley Cup Finals over the Calgary Flames) having superstar players such as Vincent Lecavalier, Martin St. Louis, Nikolai Kahbabulin and Brad Richards in their primes and were likely another Dynasty in the making. But because of the lockout wiping out the entire season, meant that the Bolts would have to wait a whole ''year'' to properly defend their title, and because of the long layoff meant that Tampa Bay would be rusty and ill-equipped once the new season began. They would make the playoffs as the 7th seed and eventually lose in the first round of the 2006 playoffs, along with a few losing seasons and a disinterested ownership after that would eventually lead to the ownership to break the core team up by trading Brad Richards to the Stars, while the Pittsburgh Penguins would launch their own Dynasty behind Crosby. [[note]]Though the Lightning would eventually draft future stars Steven Stamkos (#1 in 08), Victor Hedman (#2 in 09), Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point and Andrei Vasilvesky that would form the core of their Dynasty in TheNewTwenties.[[/note]] But if the 2004-05 season had never been cancelled and had been allowed to play as scheduled, Pittsburgh doesn't land Crosby and are forced to relocate elsewhere (Crosby who would have likely been drafted by one of the worse teams), the Ducks don't win the 2007 championship because of Kariya and Selanne not having the time to fully heal (though this begs the question if Ottawa (the Ducks opponents in the Stanley Cup Finals that year) would have made the Finals in a lockout-less Era that year and if so, would have ended Canada's Cup drought) and Tampa Bay's core doesn't get broken up and would have likely gotten a better shot to defend their title if not ascend to Dynasty status, meaning that they don't draft the players that forms their 2020 Dynasty.

** Speaking of the 2004-05 NHL lockout wiping out the season, it also drastically changed certain outlooks of several teams, the most notable being the Pittsburgh Penguins (whom without the 04-05 season, were allowed to draft superstar Sidney Crosby) and defending Stanley Cup champions Tampa Bay Lightning (who were fresh off from winning the 2004 Stanley Cup Finals over the Calgary Flames) having superstar players such as Vincent Lecavalier, Martin St. Louis, Nikolai Kahbabulin and Brad Richards in their primes and were likely another Dynasty in the making. But because of the lockout wiping out the entire season, meant that the Bolts would have to wait a whole ''year'' to properly defend their title, and because of the long layoff meant that Tampa Bay would be rusty and ill-equipped once the new season began. They would make the playoffs as the 7th seed and eventually lose in the first round of the 06 playoffs, along with a few losing seasons and a disinterested ownership after that would eventually lead to the ownership to break the core team up by trading Brad Richards to the Stars, while the Pittsburgh Penguins would launch their own Dynasty behind Crosby. [[note]]Though the Lightning would eventually draft future stars Steven Stamkos (#1 in 08), Victor Hedman (#2 in 09), Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point and Andrei Vasilvesky that would form the core of their Dynasty in TheNewTwenties.[[/note]] But if the 2004-05 season had never been cancelled and had been allowed to play as scheduled, Pittsburgh doesn't land Crosby (who would have likely been drafted by one of the worse teams) and Tampa Bay's core doesn't get broken up and would have likely gotten a better shot to defend their title if not ascend to Dynasty status, meaning that they don't draft the players that forms their 2020 Dynasty.

*** With the 2006 NBA Finals, the NBA looked to have much better results than the 2005 series between the San Antonio Spurs and Detroit Pistons due to both Dallas and Miami being bigger markets with much bigger draws by comparison for the league. However, the last two games of the series saw controversies due to a botched final call for Game 5 combined with weird free-throw results with Dwyane Wade either matching or coming close to the entire Dallas Mavericks in Games 5 & 6 that led to Mavericks owner Mark Cuban claiming that the NBA itself was rigged, favoring the Heat due to Shaq & Dwyane Wade being bigger draws than Dirk Nowitzki. David Stern denied Mark Cuban's notion, but considering Tim Donaghy's involvement with fixing games himself a year later, Cuban might have had a case there. Unfortunately for him, he dropped his FBI investigation threat for fear of being banned for life as a team owner. However, Dallas did at least get revenge by 2011.

** Speaking of the 2004-05 NHL lockout wiping out the season, it also drastically changed certain outlooks of several teams, the most notable being the Pittsburgh Penguins (whom without the 04-05 season, were allowed to draft superstar Sidney Crosby) and defending Stanley Cup champions Tampa Bay Lightning (who were fresh off from winning the 2004 Stanley Cup Finals) having superstar players such as Vincent Lecavalier, Martin St. Louis and Brad Richards in their primes and were likely another Dynasty in the making. But because of the lockout wiping out the entire season, meant that the Bolts would have to wait a whole ''year'' to properly defend their title, and because of the long layoff meant that Tampa Bay would be rusty and ill-equipped once the new season began. They would make the playoffs as the 7th seed and eventually lose in the first round of the 06 playoffs, along with a few losing seasons after that would eventually lead to the ownership to break the core team up by trading Brad Richards to the Stars, while the Pittsburgh Penguins would launch their own Dynasty behind Crosby. [[note]]Though the Lightning would eventually draft future stars Steven Stamkos (#1 in 08), Victor Hedman (#2 in 09), Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point and Andrei Vasilvesky that would form the core of their Dynasty in TheNewTwenties.[[/note]]

** Speaking of the 2004-05 NHL lockout wiping out the season, it also drastically changed certain outlooks of several teams, the most notable being the defending Stanley Cup champions Tampa Bay Lightning (who were fresh off from winning the 2004 Stanley Cup Finals) having superstar players such as Vincent Lecavalier, Martin St. Louis and Brad Richards and were likely another Dynasty in the making. But because of the lockout wiping out the entire season, meant that the Bolts would have to wait a whole ''year'' to properly defend their title, and because of the long layoff meant that Tampa Bay would be rusty and ill-equipped once the new season began. They would make the playoffs as the 7th seed and eventually lose in the first round of the 06 playoffs that would eventually lead to the ownership to break the core team by trading Brad Richards to the Stars.

* In 1991, junior phenom Eric Lindros was drafted first overall, as everybody expected. Unfortunately, Lindros refused to report to the Quebec Nordiques, the team who drafted him, due to his nasty feud with Nordiques owner Marcel Aubut. The Nordiques eventualy traded Lindros to the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for a large collection of players and draft picks. Several of those players and picks, most notably Peter Forsberg, became important pieces of a team that would eventually capture the Stanley Cup in 1996 and 2001. Unfortunately, the Nordiques moved to Colorado in 1995 and became the Avalanche. Had the Nordiques remained in Quebec City, they might have been the last Canadian team to win the Cup, rather than the Montreal Canadiens, who most recently won it in 1993.

** Speaking of the 2004-05 NHL lockout wiping out the season, it also drastically changed certain outlooks of several teams, the most notable being the defending Stanley Cup champions Tampa Bay Lightning (who were fresh off from winning the 2004 Stanley Cup Finals) having superstar players such as Vincent Lecavalier, Martin St. Louis and Brad Richards and were likely another Dynasty in the making. But because of the lockout wiping out the entire season, meant that the Bolts would have to wait a whole ''year'' to properly defend their title, and because of the long layoff meant that Tampa Bay would be rusty and ill-equipped once the new season began. They would eventually lose in the first round of the 06 playoffs and would eventually break the core team by trading Brad Richards.

** Shorty after his final retirement became official, the 49ers and head coach Kyle Shanahan weren't fully on board handing the QB keys over to the untested Brock Purdy just yet (who was the final pick of the 2022 Draft and was coming off a surprise run to the NFC Championship game with Purdy after succeeding Brady's planned successor in Garoppolo), made a last ditch attempt to convince Brady to come out of retirement and play for his hometown team, while giving the promising Purdy a mentor at QB. Brady turned them down, primarily to take a part-time ownership role with the 49ers' former Bay Area rivals Raiders (now residing in Las Vegas). But what if Brady had decided that he still had it in him and to take one last shot at it with a stacked 49ers squad? The 49ers likely would have prevented the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes from winning Super Bowl LVIII and becoming a Dynasty with Brady as the QB.

* For Super Bowl XLIX, the game was considered one of the best Super Bowls ever, but it also contained one of the biggest WCHB moments one could possibly ask for. Near the end of the game, Jermaine Kearse of the Seattle Seahawks had one of the most improbable catches one could ever ask for with Patriots rookie cornerback Malcolm Butler deflecting the ball with one hand, only for Kearse to tip it to himself and then catch it while he was lying on his back. That play had them near their touchdown area with 1:05 left, with most people thinking the Seahawks were going to win it in the end. However, when the ball moved to their one-yard line with 26 left in the game, the Seahawks sought to win with a pass in the touchdown area to win... only for it to be intercepted by Malcolm Butler himself. Instead of Jermaine Kearse's play being considered one of the greatest plays of all time, it was Butler's interception that became that, with the Seahawks' pass being considered one of the worst Super Bowl plays of all time. While Seahawks fans did win their Super Bowl a year earlier by a blowout against Denver, many other fans still wonder how differently things would have been had Seattle just continued running the ball instead of decided to pass the ball like they did near the end of the game. If they won the game by running the ball, would Creator/TomBrady and Bill Belichick still have managed to get the records that they got in the end for all-time Super Bowl achievements? Would the Seahawks and their Legion of Boom become the new dynasty of the NFL instead? On the other hand, if they ran the ball unsuccessfully and ''didn't'' get the touchdown (something which was more likely than many fans realize at the time), does ''that'' then have an impact on the future of the NFL? While the impact on the Patriots would probably be small (apart from the individual career of Malcolm Butler), what happens to Seattle? Does a more "heroic" defeat give the team a different outlook going into the subsequent season? Does the decision to take the ball out of Russell Wilson's hands cause the relationship between him and the team to break down that much sooner? Or does it all end up having little impact because the fact of the loss is more significant than the details in question? Any and all of these are possibilities.

* The Jimmy Garoppolo trade is a big one for the New England Patriots, was almost the Tom Brady trade 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 (as later revealed in interviews, Belichick was willing to send Brady to his hometown 49ers to honor his lifelong dream), 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), 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, 2020, and 2022 with injuries, leading to something of a roller-coaster trajectory for the 49ers, and this ultimately led to him being released ahead of the 2023 season, landing with the Las Vegas Raiders. 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 intended successor, Trey Lance, in the same draft where the Patriots took Jones, so the possibility isn't completely nonexistent), but given his sharp decline after a solid rookie year, Patriots fans would probably be okay with that tradeoff. 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?
** Speaking of the 49ers, this wasn't the first nor the last time that they missed out on Brady. They had multiple chances to draft the hometown QB in either the first, second or third rounds of the 2000 NFL Draft, but made the mistake of passing up on him on all picks (since they still had an aging Steve Young at the time in which he was entering his final season before the infamous concussion that ended his career), before he would end up with the Patriots at pick 199. But what if the 49ers had drafted Brady earlier and had him learn from Steve Young (who had learned from Brady's idol Montana)? It would definitely mean no Patriots Dynasty, but a likely second 49ers Dynasty with Brady which would have had ripple effects across the NFL.

* During the 2011 NBA lockout period, UsefulNotes/LeBronJames was given offers to play in the NFL by both the Dallas Cowboys and Seattle Seahawks for the 2011 NFL season. While that sounds unusual on the surface level, [=LeBron=] did play junior varsity football in high school as a wide receiver, being recruited by Division I programs like Notre Dame for football (not necessarily basketball) at the time and being named an All-State member by his sophomore year in high school. For reference, this is also while he was named Mr. Basketball for the state of Ohio in that same year. However, a wrist injury he had in a high school basketball game in his senior year prevented him from continuing with football there, which likely influenced his decision to go to the NBA directly out of high school in 2003 instead of go to college for basketball and/or football. Considering his old coaches gave him comparisons to Randy Moss for what he felt like in high school football games, it's not unreasonable to wonder if he might have made a difference for either team there, especially if the 2011 NBA lockout lasted as long as the 1998-99 NBA lockout.

** At the very end of his playing career, Marino received an offer from the Minnesota Vikings to be their starting quarterback. The Vikings were coming off of a playoff season and were not yet ready to give the starting job to the untested second-year Daunte Culpepper after losing former starter Jeff George in free agency. The Vikings at the time had future Hall of Fame receivers Cris Carter and Randy Moss, along with Pro Bowl running back Robert Smith which would give Marino some excellent weapons to work with. Marino seriously considered the offer, but turned it down citing injuries to his legs and decided to retire. Had he decided to take the offer, Marino would have had perhaps the best opportunity of his career to shed the infamous "best QB to never win a Super Bowl" title.

* A key component of the Dallas Cowboys' 1970s dynasty was their success in the NFL Draft. Hall of Fame General Manager Tex Schramm, Hall of Fame Head Coach Tom Landry, and Hall of Fame Chief Scout Gil Brandt pioneered an evaluation system that would soon after be adopted/adapted by most of the NFL (and even included a very early instance of using computer analytics to grade players). In this system, the players were ranked according to who the best players were, regardless of position. At the time, other teams would often remove players or move them down the board if they had no need for a player at that position. When the Cowboys pick came up, they were to take the player at the top of the board no matter what. During the 3rd round of the 1979 NFL Draft, this system was put to the test. The Cowboys, holding pick #76, had a quarterback at the top of their draft board. However, the team had no need for a QB at that time. They had future Hall of Famer Roger Staubach at the top of the depth chart, experienced backup Danny White behind him, and 1977 2nd round pick Glenn Carano who was considered a potential long-term replacement for Staubach. Landry made the call to pass on what would be a 4th-string quarterback and instead select TE Doug Cosbie. That QB would be selected six picks later at #82 overall by the San Francisco 49ers. His name? ''Joe Montana''. What could have been if the Cowboys had stuck to their draft board? It would most certainly mean no '80s Dynasty for the 49ers.

* 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), 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, 2020, and 2022 with injuries, leading to something of a roller-coaster trajectory for the 49ers, and this ultimately led to him being released ahead of the 2023 season, landing with the Las Vegas Raiders. 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 intended successor, Trey Lance, in the same draft where the Patriots took Jones, so the possibility isn't completely nonexistent), but given his sharp decline after a solid rookie year, Patriots fans would probably be okay with that tradeoff. 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?

** This would also mean that the rivalry between the Patriots and the Dolphins never develops -- a rivalry that proved surprisingly interesting as the Dolphins often seemed to have the Patriots' number even when, by all statistical measures, New England was the far better team, and it was this rivalry that ultimately spelled the end of the Patriots' dynasty when, in 2019, the four-win Dolphins handed the playoff-bound Patriots a shocking defeat in the final game of the regular season that ultimately cost New England a first-round bye. The Patriots would be elimiated in the first round in what would end up being Tom Brady's final game with the team. If Miami wasn't in their division, could the Patriots have had one more Super Bowl in the Brady era -- or, even more significantly, is it possible Brady chooses to stay in New England if their season doesn't end in such miserable fashion?

** In 1996, then Seattle Seahawks owner Ken Behring, after complaining about the team's home of the Kingdome attempted to start the process for moving the team to Los Angeles, moving his office to the Rams' former practice space in Anaheim and attempting to negotiate a deal to play in the Rose Bowl while a new stadium would be built. Behring's actions were not only completely unsanctioned by the NFL, but came hot off the heels of the extremely controversial relocations of the Browns and the Oilers, and the league wasn't willing to let Behring go through with the move. The league told him that unless he moved back to Seattle immediately, the league would force him to pay a $500,000 fine (nearly a million in today's money) for every day he was staying in California, and Behring chose to move back rather than pay. He would eventually sell the team to Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

** Two: Elliott, like Gordon, might have been a Ford driver... had any Ford teams had shown interest in him. In 2010, Bill Elliott had been sending out feelers to various Ford teams concerning Chase, hoping to extend his association with the blue oval down to his son, but ultimately, no Ford team of any stature showed significant interest. Indeed, the only owner of note in any camp who was interested in Elliott was Rick Hendrick, which led to Chase signing a development contract with the team in early 2011.
** It wasn't until 2018 that Elliott was able to get his dad's iconic #9, due to a shakeup caused by Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s retirement and Kasey Kahne's departure from Hendrick Motorsports, with the #24 team being renumbered as the #9 for ownership purposes, and the #5 becoming the #24 with William Byron.

** A few months after Kulwicki died, 1992 Daytona 500 winner Davey Allison, and son of Cup champion Bobby Allison, died after crashing his helicopter in the infield at Talladega. Allison had won 19 Cup races in his career and was only 32, and many believe that had he lived, he would've cut into the win and championship totals of both Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon.
* Ernie Irvan suffered a basilar skull fracture[[labelnote:*]]the same fracture that would kill Dale Earnhardt in 2001[[/labelnote]] at Michigan in 1994, and as a result, sat out the rest of the 1994 season and missed most of the 1995 season. If Irvan hadn't suffered the injury, he could've won the title in 1994, as he was locked in a fierce battle with Earnhardt up to that point. After Irvan was injured, Robert Yates tapped Dale Jarrett to fill the ride, and he went on to great success with Yates, bringing Yates his only title in 1999.
** On a related note, had Irvan not got hurt, then Dale Jarrett might not have ended up at Robert Yates, and might have stayed at Joe Gibbs in the 18. If he had, would Bobby Labonte have found any success in the Cup Series?

* Kevin Harvick's career could've been a lot different if Dale Earnhardt wasn't killed on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. Harvick debuted in the Busch Series in October 1999, then went on to drive the full Busch season in 2000 for Richard Childress Racing, winning Rookie of the Year honors there. For 2001, Richard Childress planned to run Harvick in the Busch Series full-time again, while developing him into the Winston Cup Series with up to seven races in the #30 AOL Chevrolet, then promote Harvick to a full-time Cup schedule in the #30 for 2002. Earnhardt's death in the Daytona 500 left an opening for Childress to fill, and so he tapped Harvick to take over the former #3 (now renumbered the #29), alongside Harvick's Busch schedule. Harvick proved an instant success, winning two races (a memorable photo-finish at Atlanta over Jeff Gordon by inches; and the inaugural Chicagoland race), six Top 5 finishes, and 16 Top 10 finishes, the Rookie of the Year Award, and a ninth-place finish in the final points standings. He still won the Busch Series championship, becoming the first driver to win the Busch Series championship while also driving full-time in the Cup Series with a top 10 finish. He would stay in the #29 through 2013, after which he moved to Stewart-Haas Racing, where he won his first Cup Series championship in 2014.
* If Dale Earnhardt hadn't had his fatal accident at the 2001 Daytona 500, it's been noted by Dale Jr. and Richard Childress on Dale Jr.'s podcast that he would've retired once his contract with RCR was up at the end of 2003, as he wanted to race sports cars more often and focus on running DEI in a more hands-on role than he already had. When he and Jr. won the GT class at the Rolex 24 at Daytona in early February 2001, he and Kelly Collins, lead driver for team Corvette at the time, had started discussing plans for Le Mans and other races. Many believe he was planning to run a couple full IMSA seasons with Team Corvette, and he wanted Jeff Burton to replace him in the #3.[[note]]Burton did eventually join RCR midway through the 2004 season, initially driving the #30 for the remainder of the season, and then the #31 from 2005 to 2013[[/note]] That relationship with Corvette was how Dale Jr. got his ride with them at Sonoma in 2004, where he got burned in a grisly accident when the fuel tank exploded, leading to him having to be relieved by Martin Truex Jr. for a couple of Cup races.
** Closely related to the above: Would Dale Earnhardt Inc. have grown to become a dominant team in NASCAR under the ownership of the Intimidator? During the early-mid 2000s, DEI was fast becoming exactly that, with a roster comprised of Dale Earnhardt, Jr. in the #8, Michael Waltrip in the #15 and [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg Steve Park]] in the #1. Unfortunately, by 2007 a combination of financial pressures and feuding between Dale Jr. and his stepmother (and Dale Sr.'s widow) Teresa Earnhardt led to Dale Jr. jumping ship after 2007 to [[TheRival Hendrick Motorsports]] while Michael Waltrip decided to [[StartMyOwn start his own team]] and took the NAPA sponsorship with him. By 2009, DEI was no more, having been folded into Chip Ganassi Racing, with Teresa in particular being vilified by NASCAR fans.

* Jamie [=McMurray=] was originally scheduled to drive a limited schedule for Chip Ganassi Racing in the #42 Dodge for 2002, in preparation for a full-time 2003 Rookie of the Year campaign in the #42 with new sponsors Texaco and Havoline. And ultimately, that did happen. But he had to start his Cup career early as Sterling Marlin fractured a vertebra in a crash at Kansas Speedway, causing Ganassi to immediately promote [=McMurray=] to the #40 Coors Light Dodge to replace Marlin, beginning at Talladega. One week later, at Charlotte, in just his second career Cup and first non-restrictor plate start, [=McMurray=] outraced the Joe Gibbs Racing Pontiac duo of Bobby Labonte and Tony Stewart, in one of the biggest upsets in NASCAR history. He set a modern era record for fewest starts before a win (which has been tied by Trevor Bayne in the 2011 Daytona 500, although a difference is that Bayne's win was on a restrictor plate track where upsets are frequent due to the plates equalizing the cars, while Charlotte, where [=McMurray=] won, is a track that requires more driver skill), and it was also the first time a driver won in their first start at a 1.5-mile track, the most common type of track used in the sport. [=McMurray=] drove for six of the remaining seven races, except for Martinsville, where Mike Bliss was already scheduled to drive the #40, which ostensibly helped [=McMurray=] win Rookie of the Year honors for 2003 for a full-time Cup schedule.

** After the expansion franchise failed, there were many attempts at creating a new stadium to get an NFL team since the Memorial Coliseum (a protected landmark that was too big for the NFL's draconian TV rules at the time) and the Rose Bowl (another protected landmark that was way out of the way and already had a lot of problems with parking). Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt expressed interest in building a football stadium near the baseball team's park, and for years it was rumored that the stadium's parking lot was the league's ideal place for an NFL stadium. Roski returned in 2008 with a proposed new "Los Angeles Stadium" in the City of Industry, a suburb in the San Gabriel Valley just 22 miles east of Downtown, and after his proposal gained approval from all regulatory authorities, he set his sights on finding a team, either the Minnesota Vikings (who had been undergoing problems with the aging Metrodome), Jacksonville Jaguars (who play in the league's smallest media market and were mostly a forgotten joke), or the Buffalo Bills (whose owner Ralph Wilson was the oldest owner and the league, and whose stadium is often considered the worst in the league). But the Vikings got a deal for a new stadium, the Bills were forced into an ironclad lease that stopped them from relocating, and Roski's attempt to buy the Jaguars outright was rejected by then-owner Wayne Weaver. Roski put the proposal on-hold in 2011 and cancelled it outright after the Rams moved back.

** The woeful Tampa Bay Buccaneers selected future Hall of Fame QB Steve Young #1 overall...who was a miserable 3-16 as starter with the Bucs and only played his best football once he was traded to the San Francisco 49ers. What if the Bucs had taken a different player? And if they did, what would have happened to Young if he had gone to one of the other teams holding high picks?

* There are websites that have analyzed the scoring point systems and calculated who would have been the NASCAR champion of the playoff (formerly Chase for the Cup) seasons (2004-present) had the playoff formula not been used. For instance, Jeff Gordon would have won the championships in 2004 and 2007 under the old points system (as he scored the most points overall, but struggles he had in the Chase, after the points reseeding, were what allowed Kurt Busch and Jimmie Johnson to take those trophies), while Carl Edwards would have won the titles in 2008 and 2011 (Chase reseeding and at least one DNF at Talladega caused him to lose to Jimmie Johnson in 2008, while the title in 2011 would not have been lost to Tony Stewart due to a points tie). Jimmie Johnson would have won regardless in 2006, 2009 and 2013, Tony Stewart would have won regardless in 2005, and Brad Keselowski would have won regardless in 2012. However, it should be noted that these sites are unable to take into account that [[ForWantOfANail without the playoff system, drivers' approach to these races would be much different due to the different stakes.]]

* When the Charlotte Bobcats were first created in the early 2000s (following the Charlotte Hornets relocating to New Orleans), the runners-up for the team name were the "Charlotte Flight" and the "Charlotte Dragons". The "Charlotte Flight" was actually the most popular name in a poll given to Charlotte residents (due in part to the resonance of Orville & Wilbur Wright inventing the airplane in North Carolina), but its results were disregarded by the original majority owner, Bob Johnson, who may have liked the idea of naming the team after himself.
** Though now, with the New Orleans franchise vacating "Hornets" for "Pelicans", the team was granted permission to change its name back to the Charlotte Hornets for the 2014-15 season after the Hornets name was left orphaned a season prior. And, as part of the deal, also [[{{Retcon}} got back the pre-relocation history]] of the original Charlotte Hornets, with the New Orleans Pelicans' history now starting with the move to New Orleans as the Hornets in the first place. Though like the Bobcats in Charlotte, the Pelicans for people outside of New Orleans aren't considered a great team name for them either.

* What if Creator/DanicaPatrick stayed in open-wheel racing (Where she finished third at the Indy 500, the highest such finish for a woman), instead of jumping to stock car racing (where, due to her notoriety, she was pushed through to NASCAR after only a few races on the ARCA and Nationwide Series. Where she was considered an up-and-comer and future star for [=IndyCar=] or even possibly Formula One, she never finished higher than 10th in any stock car race, never finished in the top 20 in the Sprint Cup Championship and became far more known for her race-ending crashes than any successes. Even her harshest critics thought she would've done better in stock car racing had she brought up through the lower levels, rather than pushed to the top tier (Where she seemed to be in over her head).

* What if Elena Mukhina, the Russian gymnast who was the 1978 World AA Champion, hadn't endured the severe leg fracture that kept her out of the 1979 World Championships, or if it had healed properly right off the bat (the fracture initially healed badly, requiring intervention and an extended recovery time), or even if her coaches had just kept the focus once she came back on getting her skills and routines ready for the Olympics rather than obsessing about getting her down to her pre-injury weight? It's entirely possible that without the trauma of multiple surgeries, a brutal, rushed recovery, and having to do additional weight loss workouts on top of her normal training, she might not have sustained the catastrophic injury that ended her career just before the 1980 Olympic Games -- and who knows what she might have accomplished in Moscow?

** This would also mean that the rivalry between the Patriots and the Dolphins never develops -- a rivalry that proved surprisingly interesting as the Dolphins often seemed to have the Patriots' number even when, by all statistical measures, New England was the and it was this rivalry that ultimately spelled the end of the Patriots' dynasty when, in 2019, the four-win Dolphins handed the playoff-bound Patriots a shocking defeat that ultimately cost New England a first-round bye. The Patriots would be elimiated in the first round in what would end up being Tom Brady's final game with the team. If Miami wasn't in their division, could the Patriots have had one more Super Bowl in the Brady era -- or, even more significantly, is it possible Brady chooses to stay in New England if their season doesn't end in such miserable fashion?

* In 2013, Southern California fired head coach Lane Kiffin after starting the season a disappointing 3-2. In fact, Kiffin was essentially fired at the airport after the team returned from a humiliating 62-41 loss at Arizona State. After the firing, USC named defensive coordinator Ed Orgeron as the interim head coach. Orgeron had already been a head coach at Ole Miss (where he coached Michael Oher of ''Literature/TheBlindSide'' fame, and played himself in the film), and was very popular with the team. The Trojans went 6-2 the rest of the season under Orgeron. But the two losses were to USC's archrivals Notre Dame and UCLA. Still, there was plenty of support for making Orgeron the permanent head coach. But USC athletic director Pat Haden passed him over in favor of Washington head coach Steve Sarkisian. It was later revealed that one of Haden's concerns was Louisiana-native Orgeron's GutturalGrowler, heavily [[RaginCajun Cajun]]-accented voice, part of an overall concern that he somehow didn't fit the image of a USC head coach. Here's what happened to the main players in the saga: Sarkisian--fired in the middle of his second season for drinking on the job. Haden--retired a few months later after a major outcry from the school's boosters. Orgeron--hired as an assistant coach at LSU, became the head coach in 2016, then guided the Tigers to the national championship in 2019. USC fans are still livid over the school letting a national championship-caliber coach slip away. Many of the reactions of USC fans online after LSU's win were profane missives directed to Pat Haden.

** 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 couldn't get right and finished 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 fell to the middle of the round, making their second-round pick #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. While Steelers and Packers fans are thanking their lucky stars that this worked out the way it did [[note]]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[[/note]], Bears fans are left to wonder what might have been had they held onto their second-round pick, giving them a chance to pick Porter or any of several other solid players who went early in the second, or, if they preferred, to make another lucrative trade to go with the one they made for the first overall pick and pick up even more picks (Pittsburgh reportedly had multiple offers to trade out of #32, but chose not to because they badly wanted Porter and feared he'd be gone if they waited).

** Though [[WordOfGod Magic himself has stated]] that if Chicago had gotten the first pick, he would have returned to Michigan State (he'd gotten a special "hardship" exemption to leave college early, which was necessary in that era, but he still had the option pull out of the draft and go back to college). In that instance, who knows what dominoes would have fallen had Johnson stayed out of the 1979 draft and entered the 1980 draft instead?