Arena Most painful sports losses.

What are your personal most painful sports losses?

My #1 is the Philadelphia Eagles' loss to the Arizona Cardinals in the 2008 NFC Championship Game. Even at the time it was awful, but in retrospect it's even worse because it turned out to be the last chance for the McNabb-Westbrook-Dawkins core to win a Super Bowl. It's pretty pathetic that a team that got to 5 Conference Championship Games in 10 years couldn't even win one Super Bowl)

#2 is the San Antonio Spurs loss to the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2008 Western Conference Finals. They had a 25-point lead in the 3rd quarter in Los Angeles in game 1, but they blew it, mostly because Kobe Bryant did Kobe Bryant things. It was impossible for them to recover from the psychological blow of that blown lead and they promptly lost the series in 5. The Spurs famously never managed to repeat even once during their mini-dynasty, and this was definitely their best shot.
Plus, the Spurs-Celtics Finals would have been awesome. Duncan vs. Garnett and Parker vs. Rondo.

Honorable Mention:
2018 Los Angeles Rams loss to New England Patriots in Super Bowl LIII
2001 Philadelphia Eagles loss to St. Louis Rams in NFC Championship Game
2002 Philadelphia Eagles loss to Tampa Bay in NFC Championship Game
2003 Philadelphia Eagles loss to Carolina Panthers in NFC Championship Game
2004 Philadelphia Eagles loss to New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXIX (see what I mean about that 2008 being the last chance?)
2004 San Antonio Spurs Western Conference Semi-Finals loss vs. Lakers
2006 San Antonio Spurs Western Conference Semi-Finals loss vs. Mavericks

 

Nope.

 

1998 Big 12 Championship Game: Kansas State had a 15 point lead in the 4th quarter, and would have not only won its first Big 12 title, but played against Tennessee for the BCS national championship.

Instead, they blow it and lose in double overtime, sinking all the way to the Alamo Bowl.

 

2009 NFC championship game Vikings vs Saints. Our worst enemy had turned his cloak to finally win us a super bowl. From the Favre to Lewis hail mary on it really felt like it was the year of destiny, we blew Dallas out, then despite Adrain Petersons fumbleitis had outplayed the Saints all game and the Silver Fox was marching us down the field to send us to Florida.

Then everything goes to hell, 12 men in the huddle, ball across the body, mnjedi scarred for life.

 

Top two in some order are game seven of the World Series in extra innings, but I'm going to summarize it with

 

No doubt the worst is blowing a 3-0 series lead on the Red Sox in 2004.

go to hell @robert martins

 

2017 Dodgers World Series Game 7

One of the greatest days in LA sports history leading up to game time. Game 7 at Dodger Stadium. And yet the game was over by the 2nd inning. Sign stealing scandal aside, that feeling was just ugly at the time. Everybody knows your team isn't guaranteed to win, but when there wasn't even a game played and it was over that early on, it was just not even worth mentioning the next day.

 

After all these years, I think the worst one for me remains the 1997 Rose Bowl. If they hadn't come back to win Games 6 and 7, the losses in New York for the Diamondbacks would have come close to that one. Of course, they did come back to win, so.

1993 NBA Finals-- Game 6
1995 Western Conference Semifinals-- Game 7
2006 WCF-- Game 6
2007 WCS-- Game 6 (after playing without two starters in Game 5)
2010 WCF-- Game 6

1999 NLDS-- Game 5 (Steve Finley just missed catching Todd Pratt's home run, and that was a great Diamondbacks team)
2011 NLDS-- Game 5 (The Diamondbacks were a better team than the Brewers, and Ryan Braun was on steroids)

Super Bowl 43-- the Cardinals almost won it all.

 

Joe Gibbs last game as Washington's football coach the second go around. It was just an ugly loss to the Seahawks, with a team still mourning Sean Taylor's death weeks earlier, just the sense that this was it for Gibbs, just made it feel like a crushing blow, and of course the post game dealing with peak!Richard Sherman's trash talking didn't help matters either (I legit hated Sherman for years following that game)

 

I was at that game 5!









The offensive ineptitude of the Dodgers (at least 3-innings of 2-runners on with 1 or 0 outs), the sign-stealing revelations that would come later, adds to the searing disappointment (I also get incredibly forlorned when I think of all the conversations I had at work/calls & texts to family & friends during the day, in the lead up to the game... slept about 90-minutes or so after my shift).









Game eventually goes to OT, in which the Suns win, and I just knew the Lakers would be toast for game 7 in Phoenix. Up 3-1 in the series after that Bryant buzzer-beater in game 4; a season in which he should have won the MVP & would have been the first ever Clippers-Lakers playoff series had things gone the Lakers way in that game 6, but alas, no.

 

Champions League Final 1999: Bayern München losing 2:1 to ManU in the last minute.
Champions League Final 2012 in Munich: Bayern losing to Chelsea after penalties. I was in the stadium. Even today Chelsea don't know how they won this match, they were so outclassed.

A thread about most remarkable wins would be nicer!

 

Game 5 of the 1995 ALDS @tom
Games 4-7 of the 2004 ALCS @Chromide and @robert martins
Game 7 of the 2001 WS (don't remember who's the resident Arizona fan).

 

The Chiefs Kicker Who Shall Not Be Named (seriously, Chiefs fans don't utter his name anymore) misses three chip shot field goals in the AFC playoffs in the 90s. Just one made kick would have put us through to I believe the AFC Championship game. ARGGGGG.

Didn't realize you were a K-State fan! Cool. I root for them in the Big 12 now that Mizzou is SEC.

Speaking of, one of the worst for me is Mizzou blowing the Big 12 Championship game when they were ranked #1 in the country. Would have gone to the National Championship, but noooo. Had to suck it up. That was what, 2008? Ugh. And I had been at their awesome victory over KU at Arrowhead a few weeks before.

 

It always throws me for a loop when you highlight this painful moment for you, because my Cleveland Complex simply cannot allow me to fathom being on the other end of sports heartbreak. Despite not following college football, I'm still a little bitter over the final vote that season and the lack of a national championship for Ohio State. Though, it's nothing compared to you

 

Yep. I'm also a Gators fan, but I grew up in Manhattan.

I did enjoy the beat down K-State put on OU in the 2003 Big 12 Championship Game.

 

Just so we're clear, that whole last weekend was pandemonium. Three undefeated teams -- UCLA with a shorter season, KState with a view of being "less than," and a Tennessee team that was a clear favorite -- along with very strong one-loss teams (tOSU/FSU/Arizona) and an undefeated Tulane team... so it really had a view of anything can happen.

And all three of those top teams almost lost. KState and UCLA did lose, and TN was down in the 4th quarter and came back. That was one of the most exciting days of college football I can recall, without any skin in the game...

 

2001 was similar in chaos, although that chaos took place over the last couple of weeks.

Nebraska got whipped by Colorado.
Florida lost to Tennessee (that game had been delayed because of 9/11).
Then Tennessee lost to LSU in the SECCG.
Texas lost to Colorado.
That allowed Nebraska to get back into the National Championship game...to be dominated by Miami.

 

Maybe this incident is why I have such respect for kickers and always have. A good one is not something to be taken for granted.

 

Didn't that monster Miami team go back to the title game next year too?