Franchises that Wasted their Talent

Mid-80's Bears. Those teams were ridiculously stacked, yet managed to only win one Super Bowl.

The Red Sox one is so very true...

As for the Utah Jazz, I assume you refer to their 90's teams. It was hard for any team in the 90's to knock off Jordan and the Bulls. Had the Jazz made a run like the Bulls did, we'd be mentioning the Bulls as a team with wasted talent.

The Atlanta Braves -- there's really no excuse for their post-season exits. They just choked.

You are totally right about the Oakland A's of the late 80's, but that Reds team in 1990 was awesome. It's a damn shame that the Reds didn't begin a 90's dynasty.

The deal with the Giants is that the ownership seems to only want enough talent to contend, but won't go that extra step to make them dominant. Plus, they sign too many players that have had their best days in the past. Sometimes it works when it's guys like Visquel but all too often they'll sign guys like Alou who are fine when healthy, but they can't put together a complete season.

That's been the problem for about the last 20 years. Why they couldn't get a championship back in the 60's when they had Mays, McCovey, and Marichal I haven't a clue.

As much as I hate to say it, they just choked away '02. In game 6 they had a 5-0 lead with one out in the 7th and Baker yanked Ortiz. Their bullpen had been gangbusters all year but Rodriguez, Worrell, and Nenn were running on fumes by that time and they got shelled.

I had hopes they'd bounce back in game 7 but deep down I knew they were screwed. Worst sports evening of my life.

While no one here would care, I have to say the Ottawa Senators have pretty much wasted there talent over the years. Not even one SCF apperence despit having the best teams in there sport for almost 10 years now

I'm surprised no one Detroit Lions during Barry Sanders tendure. They had the best RB ever and a talented receiving core, but always stagnated in the playoffs (and typically had trouble making it that far).

The two that come to mind for me are the late 80's Oakland A's them only winning once was ridiculous. Also the Bills 4 shots at it and no titles. Now here is the one that I think will stir up some arguing the Braves 14 years in a row in the playoffs and only one ring I would argue they are the biggest losers and chokers in MLB history. I know its a bold statement with the likes of the Red Sox, Cubs and Indians going all those years without winning. However they never had 14 chances in a row and only come up big once.

the barry sanders lions had a shit offensive line and a bad defense. in fact he had little around him in terms of skill positions, as well. what were you expecting them to win, exactly? thats like saying the kobe-era lakers have been underachieving.

and if youre gonna give shit to the teams that were bested by michael jordans bulls, the list is a hell of a lot longer than the utah jazz. hell, they are the least deserving of that kind of label among the teams playing in the 90s -- they actually achieved some successes.

That's a much bigger list. The NBA is filled with guys like that. So are many Red Sox and Cub players. Marino would be the top football guy.

As far as the Jazz, I live in Utah and that is our only pro team. Too many mormons to get an NFL team because the games are on Sunday. But the Jazz continually have teams with potential, but never seem to care to go the last extra 10%

I do miss Malone and Stockton and Hornacek.

Once Bobby Bonds arrived Mays was mainly an above average player at best. The early 60's should have yielded the Giants a title. They had Mays, McCovey, and Orlando Cepeda all in their lineup. They got to a series in '62 but it was yet another game 7 bust to the Yankees.

Marino got to a Super Bowl at least. Look at Warren Moon. That guy was money but couldn't even get to an AFC championship game, and had that game where Buffalo came back from 35-3 in the 3rd quarter to beat them in the playoffs. That was a case of the defense choking, but still.

Does anybody else go back and fourth on those Billy Beane run Oakland Atheletic teams?

What they accomplished, especially with what they had to work with payroll wise, was rather extraordinary... and yet, with Miguel Tejada, Eric Chavez, Jason Giambi, Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, Barry Zito and Jason Ishringhausen rounding out the pen... getting out of the first round hardly seems like too much to ask for.

The Rangers with A-Rod.

The Mavericks with the Triple J: Jackson, Kidd, Mashburn.

How about the Rangers of the mid to late 90's? Did they ever win a game against the Yankees?

The Pittsburgh Penguins after winning the '92 Stanley Cup. They open the '92-'93 season on a torrid pace. Lemieux's on pace to break Gretzky's 215-point season mark. They're mowing down the league. Then Mario's Hodgkin's comes around Christmas. Then the team's swagger turns prima donna and they pull away from Scotty Bowman. Craig Patrick sides with the players (a recurring problem) and Bowman is eventually barred from practice.

The team is just loaded with talent-- Lemieux, Kevin Stevens, Rick Tocchet, Jaromir Jagr, Ulf Samuelsson and Larry Murphy, with Martin Straka joining the team as a rookie and Markus Naslund on the way in a year or two. Meanwhile, the franchise is bleeding money because of salary costs.

Mario returns, they win the President's Trophy running away and are prohibitive favorites to win their third straight Cup. By the time April rolls around, though, they're uncoachable, Straka is traded for the sort of role players they forgot to replace after Errey and Trottier left and after taking the Devils in five games, they're beaten by a younger, hungrier Islanders team in seven games, in overtime on home ice.

Stevens has his skull fractured in period one and is literally never the same player again. The team cuts ties with Bowman and installs player pal Eddie Johnston. Tocchet is dealt. Eventually Samuelsson and Murphy and Stevens are dealt. Naslund is later traded for Alek Stojanev, i.e., nothing.

Goodbye, third cup. They could have won four or five with that team.

I look at that more along the lines of Franchise that Wasted their Money.

The Mets of the mid-80s. They should have won more than just that one title in '86.

And as great as he was, Shula did a huge disservice to Marino by never getting a quality running game going on those Dolphins teams in the 80s and 90s.

The 1999-2000 Portland Trailblazers: Damon Stoudamire, Steve Smith, Scottie Pippen, Rasheed Wallace, Arvydas Sabonis, Brian Grant and Jermaine O'Neal (riding the bench, but still). A ton of talent in one lineup. Too bad they ran into Shaq and Kobe and couldn't keep the team together after that.

And if Barry Sanders was only good for a year, you would be right. I'm asking why couldn't they put a O-line and a defense together sometime within the years that Sanders played.

There are a great numbers of team that have a good OL/defense, but can't get the RB/QB/WR core. It always seemed like Detroit never tried to get a good Offensive Line or defense, thats why I say its a waste.

Late 80's Eagles teams with one of the best all-time defenses and Cunningham as QB with...well that was the problem, he had Keith Jackson at TE and Mike Quick at WR but that was it, and Buddy Ryan (as much as I love the guy) should have only coached defense. They would've beat one of those stacked Bears teams if it wasn't for Fog Bowl.

That's a good point, although they were the best team(s) the franchise has ever had, so you can't really knock them. But yeah, they've never been good against the Yankees. I think they were swept in most of the series they had with them this year.

Also a good point, but A-Rod was the "MVP" of one year, in stats only, and they were great stats, but were wasted with a team that went nowhere, which is why I think it's perfect for this topic.

I was bored one afternoon and I started drawing up NBA starting lineups if certain temas never traded away their younger players. There's been so much movement in the NBA since the early nineties that we really missed out on some ridiculously awesome prospective teams. Two franchises that stick out are the Hornets and Warriors- the Hornets in particular, who drafted Kobe Bryant and then dealt him for Vlade Divac.

And I was really surprised that the team-up of Hakeem, Clyde Drexler and Charles Barkley never worked, and I was equally surprised, when Drexler retired, they picked up Pippen, and just got worse.

I will say one thing for that Rocket team, Pippen and Barkley put up one of the most ridiculous two man shows that I've ever witnessed in the postseason.

Coming home after going down 2-0 against the Lakers, the Houston Rockets needed a big game from their front court, and with Hakeem being rather ineffective thus far, it was up to Barkley and Pippen to raise their game. During that second half, with their postseason dreams on the line, the duo basically went two on five for the entire second half.

When the game had ended, the two combined to form a line of 67 points (on only 50 combined shot attempts) and 36 rebounds between them.

It was like watching someone play NBA Live 95 and purposely trying to do everything they could with a hideously overpowered Dennis Scott.

first of all, barry sanders being surrounded by a bunch of shitty players and idiotic managment isnt a franchise 'wasting its talent'. its an amazing player wasting his own time, but hes one man. for the same reason, the rangers werent a franchise wasting talent, it was arod dominating in terms of stats with a bad surrounding cast and a bad manager.

secondly, the rockets with barkley, olajuwon, drexler/pippen... those dudes were 50 years old. what potential did they waste? olajuwon and clyde won 2 titles, they brought in a couple guys to try and keep it going and just couldnt hold on. barkley's last healthy season was 1993, when the suns went to the finals. drexler was a corpse, pippen was a shell of his former self except for a few great showings... they were always injured. i mean, you might as well say the lakers with the 4 hall of famers were 'wasted talent'. malone was on crutches, payton lost a step of five, shaq and kobe were at each other's throats...

Olajawon won two titles Drexler only one.

Xmen...oops, misunderstood....get back to it gents....

Well, what counts as wasting its talent. Having one great player being surrounded by a bunch of shitty players and idiotic management, is what I would of considered the definition of "wasting its talent". Can I have a better definition there cynic?

The only thing I don't consider wasting it talent is the Buffalo Bills, yes they lost four superbowls, but they got there. Its sort of sad they lost 2 winnable superbowls (Giants, and Dallas 2), but I can't consider that a waste, the talent got far.

I totally disagree with this. Jordan wasn't as explosive as the earlier threepeat but he was just as clutch and the team as a whole was better. Their team D was incredible, Pippen was a better player in the 2nd run, they had Rodman, Randy Brown's D coming off the bench, more depth at center and arguably the greatest three point shooter ever. They would have been destroyed? No way, they would've beat 'em.

Agreed on both accounts.

The thread is about franchises that wasted their talent, not players that wasted their talent because they were on crappy teams.

Winning AFC titles isn't what you play for. Getting so far only to lose is the ultimate failure. Hence, the Buffalo Bills of the early 90's wasting their talent by always choking in the big game.

But that isn't the franchise fault, that is the players fault that they couldn't finish. If Barry Sanders doesn't count because he wasted his talent, then the Bills don't count because its the players who wasted their talent by playing poorly in the big game. Two of those Superbowls were winnable for the bills.

And the players are the biggest part of the franchise! They play the games. They're representing the team. You clearly are very confused by what this thread is about. I guess in your definition there's no way in proving the New England Patriots have been a successful franchise in the 21st Century. "The players won 3 Super Bowl's in 4 years! How can you say that's the franchise's doing?".

The Orioles in the last 10 years. Hard to believe they were once up there with the Yankees and past the Red Sox. Don't think you can use the Nats for an excuse.

Angelos may have something to do with it, though.

I'm going to toss out the Milwaukee Braves. Three Hall of Famers, and nothing borderline about the three, in Aaron, Matthews, and Spahn, some more good players, led the league in attendance a few years, and yet could manage only two pennants and one World Series win. Granted, the post-integration pre-expansion NL was really tough, but still.

In the same measure, the late 90s Mariners. Randy Johnson, ARod, Ken Griffey Jr., and Edgar Martinez really should have dominated more. Certainly management is to blame for things like a bad bullpen and some disasterous trades (Varitek and Lowe for Heathcliff Slocumb is an all time classic bad trade).

Considering I never said what makes a successful franchise, nice try at putting words in my mouth. I consider bad managment a waste (managers make up a franchise too), if its not a waste for the purposes of this conversation fine. New England is defently a successful franchise.

Changing my answer to reflect the "non-bad management" I say the 90's Pittsburgh Steelers. They would dominate teams in the regular season, go to the playoffs and then typically on lose the game (often to teams they owned in the regular season). In paticular the years they lost a divisional game due to a blocked punt and the famous SD game. They should of been more to one superbowl in the 90's (about three).

I should add one of the reason why I don't see the Bills as wasting their talent is that they real should of only gone to two Superbowls (I may give you three, but that 4th year they had a real weak team which no-huddle offence wasn't working like it used too). If the Bills had been an NFC team, they would of been lucky to go to two Superbowls.

I'm using your logic, just spinning it the other way. Sorry it was such a brain twister.

That's not remotely true. The Bulls were actually BETTER in their last 3 titles. They went an entire season losing only 10 games. The Bulls also had a better bench for the last 3 titles and were joined by another future Hall of Famer for the last two. Not to mention, Brian Williams/Bison Dele was probably the best all-around center Jordan ever played with.

Also, you and Rick Riley should re-watch that last shot by MJ. He got away with pushing away defenders all the time, but not that time. He just faked Russell out of his shoes and left him on his ass. Check out a video on youtube and you'll see that during the play, MJ actually had is left arm out straight, not bent inward, thus not allowing him to give the ol' elbow shove.

You don't have to bend your arm and elbow someone to be called for an offensive foul.

You have to do so to push someone. Watch the video.

People have accepted that he pushed off because that's what everyone in the media says. It's pretty sad, actually.

Elbowing and pushing are two separate things. Jordan's left arm was out to his left (not straight forward), while his hand was on Russell's ass and Jordan flicked it, pulled the ball back and well you know the rest.

The Warriors of the early nineties with RUN TMC. Hardaway, Richmond, Mullin, plus they had C Webb as a youngster. If they kept this team together they would have been SCARY GOOD.

Great topic. I would say

1. 1985 thru 88 Houston Rockets with Ralph Sampson and Akeem. They got to the NBA Finals in 1986,and lost to Boston in 6.

2. Portland Trailblazers -1989 thru 1992 - Consistent 55 to 60 win team. They just wouldnt get over that hump in close games,against the Pistons and Bulls.

3. Pittsburgh Steelers - They choked in the 1994 AFC Championship against the Chargers. They had Home Field advantage,were favored,and lost. In 1997,they had Home Field advantage over Denver,in the AFC Championship,and lost. In 2001 ,they had Home field over New England in the AFC Championship,and Lost. 2004,they hosted the Patriots again and lost at home in the AFC Title game.

The Expos. Or, I should say, the major league farm team for the New York Yankees and the rest of baseball.

In a few years time, I think we''l be adding the Peyton Manning era Colts to this list. Actually, with Edgerrin James out the door, we might end up doing it really soon.