Jocks. Who doesn’t love them? Ok don’t really answer that; but who doesn’t love the down-to-earth mistakes that show their occasional hubris and overall boneheadedness? Last night, Eagles WR DeSean Jackson treated us to one of the stupidest moments in NFL history for celebrating his touchdown reception about 18 inches too early. A word of advice to Jackson: you are not Usain Bolt–save the celebrating for after you cross the line.
Of course, Jackson’s play was not of huge consequence (although some of the staunchest Cowboys haters were hoping for a goal line stand, just for karma). There have been plenty of bonehead plays before his. We at IGN reviewed some of the best in recent sports history:
7 - Leon Lett’s Fumble Recovery
It is widely accepted that with his bonehead play, DeSean Jackson has officially entered the Leon Lett Club. For some reason the king of bonehead plays is not on youtube as of this writing, but in Superbowl XXVII (Jan 1993), Lett was fortunate enough to recover a fumble against the Buffalo Bills and take it to the house…except he put his hands out to celebrate in the last 10 yards before approaching the end zone and one of the Bills players caught up to him and knocked the ball out of his hand. Although it was in the Superbowl, the play was of no consequence as the Cowboys won handily.
6 - Leon Lett. Again. The very next season.
This time was not in the Superbowl, but it did cost his team the game. On Thanksgiving Day 1993 during a snowstorm in Dallas, the Cowboys were leading the Dolphins 14-13 and simply needed to run out the clock if the Dolphins miss their field goal. Well, the FG was blocked and the Cowboys started celebrating–except Lett tried to pick up the ball and proceeded to fumble it, which allowed the Dolphins to regain possession and kick another FG as the clock ran out.
5 - Jose Canseco uses his head
During his 1993 stint with the Texas Rangers, Canseco allowed what would’ve been an easy out against the Cleveland Indians to be an easy score. He lost a fly ball in the lights as he approached the warning track, and the ball missed his glove and bounced off his head. In a sport that is so heavily based on statistics, it’s safe to say that Canseco led the league that year in assists.
4 - Fred Brown, Georgetown
Not to be confused with Downtown Fred Brown about 10 years earlier, this Fred Brown played alongside Patrick Ewing in the early 80s and came to a 1 point game in the 1982 national championship game against a UNC squad that included Michael Jordan and James Worthy. UNC went up 63-62 with 15 seconds left. Brown took it up the floor for the final posession and for no explicable reason gave the ball to James Worthy. Dean Smith gets his first NCAA title.
Start watching at about 2:50
3 - Chris Webber, Michigan
Yes, not one but 2 of UNC’s championships have come at the expense of some other idiot’s bonehead plays. At the pinnacle of Fab 5 fame, Chris Webber sealed his fate of never winning a NCAA title by calling timeout in the last seconds of the 1993 championship against UNC. Only problem: they didn’t have any timeouts left, which gave UNC the winning free throws. Instead of even trying to live this down Webber took the bull by the horns and named his charity foundation Timeout, which probably sounds better than Tyra’s Assets
2 - Delfi Geli, Alaves
If you don’t follow euro soccer allow me to explain the stakes. Liverpool FC was playing Deportivo Alaves for the 2001 UEFA Cup, which is kind of like saying Florida State was playing Oklahoma in the Bowl game for all the Americas. Anyway, after playing a relatively high-scoring 4-4 game, Alaves’ star Delfi Geli managed to score an own-golden-goal (golden meaning it was sudden death OT) defending a free kick. Top put this in American terms, it would be as if Leon Lett had fumbled in his own end zone to give the Bills the game-winning touchdown in Superbowl overtime.
Start watching @ 3:40
1 - DeSean Jackson in high school
Yes, the only thing truly dumber than DeSean Jackson now, is DeSean Jackson in high school. In this all-star game he did a flip at the 1 yard line to celebrate his td, not only proving that he has nothing in common with Usain Bolt, but he is no Shawn Johnson either.
No comments:
Post a Comment