One the most powerful words in sports, in life really, is regret. The sporting past is a road map of wins and, more importantly, the ones you should have won. Just ask a fisherman. It’s always the one that got away. For the Green Bay Packers, one got away on Sunday. With less than four minutes in the fourth quarter of last weekend’s NFC Championship Game and holding a commanding 19-7 lead that felt much greater, and with the ball, it seemed the only thing that could keep the Packers from a trip to the Super Bowl was divine intervention or willful intent. In fact, in that very penultimate moment, the Packers had a 97% chance of winning, according to the wonky sports statisticians that calculate this stuff.
But, as they say, that’s why they play the last three minutes of the game. And then, in this case, overtime. Through that lengthy process, Green Bay managed to give Seattle every opportunity to stay alive, including fumbling an onside kick and allowing Seattle to score a two-point conversion on a play that looked deader than a Guns n Roses reunion tour. This all comes on top of several wasted touchdown opportunities in the first half, where Green Bay settled for consolation field goals. Grasping defeat from the steely jaws of victory, the Packers did lose the game to the Seahawks 28-22 in overtime, where, by the way, the Packers never did touch the ball. In the turn of a walk to the refrigerator to make a sandwich, Green Bay went from Super Bowl bound to goats-of-the-year. And its fans went from euphoric to sick.
The shock was fairly apparent on faces of Green Bay players and coaches. It wasn’t just that they thought they deserved to win the game, which is true of a lot of teams. It’s that they were sure they had won the game. Like seven different times. It’s like winning the lottery only to realize that six was actually an eight. At least in some regard, the team already had plans to spend the money, which might explain why Packer Morgan Burnett slid to the ground after intercepting a Seattle pass with five minutes left instead of running in back for better production. In his mind, the game was already over.
In life, there are a lot of things you can take back. Like pants. But there’s a lot you can’t. Like a sundae you just ate. Or a comment to your wife about her weight. Or a baby. This loss, sadly enough, is the Green Bay Packers newest offspring, a game that while might end their current season, ironically will live on in perpetuity. And certainly, it can never be taken back.
Which raises the question, how quickly, if ever, can one forget the painful regret of “what if” in sports? Warren Moon, the quarterback of the long ago Houston Oilers when they lost a playoff game in 1993 to the Buffalo Bills 41-38 after leading 35-3 in the second half, was asked Sunday if he still thinks about that game, a game known universally as “the comeback.” He said he still thinks about it a lot. A lot. That was over 20 years ago. I don’t think about anything I did last year a lot.
In sports, it’s quite possible the one that never happened has a far more emotional tie than the one that did. In fact, I’d say by around 1990 the Red Sox still hurt a lot more than the Mets felt good. Same would have been true for the Spurs and the Heat from a couple of years back if the Spurs hadn’t evened the score a year later. And I’m guessing Tony Parker and Tim Duncan still lament that 2013 lost trophy more than they kiss their 2014 ring. In sports, winning is an expectation, a relief even. Blowing the big one? An unending uneasiness, a moment of failure towards a lifetime of regret.
Perhaps that’s not just about sports. Perhaps it’s just life. Who doesn’t still think about their high school sweetheart, unless they married them, of course. And that job you almost got, in that city that would have been just perfect. It’s like an unfinished novel, a story without an ending. It’s the story of regret.
For the Packers, that trip to the Super Bowl would have been perfect, just like that job. Even better in fiction, I’d guess. Which is why for Green Bay, Sunday’s game will always be the one that got away.
Keith Strudler is the director of the Marist College Center for Sports Communication and an associate professor of communication. You can follow him on twitter at @KeithStrudler
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