Sports Phrases That Make Fans Panic

Every sports fan knows that success is a fragile state of affairs—assuming that any individual win is capable of inoculating your favorite team from the myriad misfortunes that await is quite simply playing with psychological fire. And while success is painfully fleeting, failure—on the other hand—never seems to have much trouble taking root once it does make an appearance.

This is why fans are so comfortable; living in a perpetual state of cynicism and/or pessimism feels so natural, while optimism seems so threatening. Though fans may expect the worst, however, we rarely lose a grip on the lifeline to hope—just in case our team starts to really look like a championship contender.

So, we may respond to a bad loss or a slumping franchise player by flooding social media networks and comment threads with our unfiltered thoughts, but we rarely lose sight of the bigger picture.

Some headlines—things that can be said about a team—can send the fanbase into a status of DEFCON 1. These phrases are not up for interpretation but are rather an unequivocal signal that it’s time to panic; that it’s time to cut the lifeline to hope.

These are sports phrases that cause fanbases to panic.

Salary-Cap Issues

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Though the salary cap is non-existent in MLB and more of an incentivized suggestion in the NBA, the hard cap in the NHL and NFL is painfully rigid, having fundamentally transformed both leagues. Mastering the salary cap is the key to success, which means building through the draft, as opposed to signing costly free agents. 

A team that is constantly up against the spending limit and forced to jettison players annually and fill holes with free agents often struggles as much (if not more) than teams that are spending well below the limit. Considering how long the caps have been in place, it’s truly an accomplishment that so many franchises are able to maintain abject cluelessness. 

Raising Prices

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No one wants to hear their favorite team is raising prices. Between tickets, parking, snacks and beverages, the cost of taking in a game by yourself, let alone with a family of four, is already prohibitively expensive for a lot of fans. 

Of course, the one thing that can dull the sting of being price-gouged by ownership is turning around a team and demonstrating some level of consistent success. Unlike, for example, the Los Angeles Dodgers, who reached the postseason for the first time in four years in 2013 and then jacked up prices 140 percent.

Under Investigation

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Though it’s more prevalent, and often with much harsher consequences, in college, a team or player being under investigation for anything at any point is never a good thing.

No one is ever investigated for being awesome at following the rules, although it would be nice to even out all the sanctions and suspensions with some "great job!" awards. 

Change in Ownership

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An impending change in ownership isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Consider the Bills, for instance, a team that existed under a cloud of uncertainty in the years leading up to the death of (then owner) Ralph Wilson in 2014. New owner Terry Pegula has proved exceptionally popular in Buffalo, and the franchise finally has some much-needed stability. 

However, if Pegula is the best-case scenario, then Daniel Snyder is the other side of that coin. Among the premier franchises in the NFL throughout the '70s and '80s, the Redskins struggled though much of the following decade before being bought by Snyder in 1999. Despite intermittent glimmers of hope, the situation in Washington remains as bleak (warning: link contains NSFW language) as ever. 

Demanding a New Stadium

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A professional sports franchise’s desire for a new stadium shouldn’t be the complicated ordeal it has become. Successful teams in major cities that can afford to build their own stadiums should build their own stadiums. Struggling teams in smaller markets should manage their expectations and, when absolutely necessary, work out reasonable funding measures with the local government. 

Unfortunately, that’s just not how things work anymore. Mediocre teams have the power to hold a city hostage, threatening to relocate until their demands are met. Never mind if the stadium doesn’t result in a more competitive team (as is often implied, if not outright promised), or if it jeopardizes the financial solvency of an entire county for decades to come. 

Rebuilding

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Officially committing to rebuilding is such a daunting undertaking that very few franchises tend to dive in head first, which might actually be a good thing. If a team has enough salvageable pieces to build on, why make things even more difficult by starting from scratch? 

Then again, no matter the approach—whether the team is decimated and rebuilt from the ground up or changes are made incrementally—rebuilding of any sort is painful for any fanbase. Of course, some have it better than others. 

Contract Holdout

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Contract holdouts suck for everyone involved. The player, who is just trying to secure what he thinks is fair compensation. The team, which is being forced to negotiate while essentially being held hostage. 

And the fans, who just want the millionaire to resolve his issue with the billionaire and get back on the field already. It may be just a business to the players and owners, but the emotional investment of a fanbase is very real. 

Lost the Locker Room

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Losing the locker room may sound like a coach-specific problem, but usually it’s an indicator that the entire team has become a festering volcano of bitterness and malcontent that could explode at any moment.

No one ever loses the locker room when they’re winning—winning can mask almost anything. Losing, on the other hand, exacerbates everything. And while players will often start by lashing out at one another, eventually they will find a common enemy who is occupying the big office down the hall. 

Going on Injured Reserve

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When a player goes down with what looks to be a potentially serious injury, there’s always that hopeful short period between when he leaves the field and undergoes the MRI. Maybe it wasn’t quite as bad as it looked! Maybe it was just a sprain or a bone bruise! Maybe we’re all overreacting! 

Unfortunately, as most fans know, that’s almost never the case. If an injury looks serious during the game, it’s probably because the injury is serious. And if the injury is serious, it comes with a one-way ticket to the injured reserve list—where seasons and playoff hopes go to die. 

Mortgaging the Future

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Most fanbases would gladly mortgage the future if it meant success in the present was guaranteed—especially those who haven’t seen a championship in a few decades, if ever. Of course we all know that nothing in sports, particularly success, is ever guaranteed. 

An early first-round draft pick who  turns out to be a bust tends to be devastating all on its own, but the devastation is multiplied exponentially for every draft pick given up in order to acquire said bust. 

Relocation

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Perhaps the only thing in all of sports that a fanbase will simply never recover from is relocation. As traumatizing as the rest of this list can be in the short term, or even the long term, none of them is anywhere near as painful or permanent as this. 

When a team is uprooted and a fanbase is abandoned, generally the best-case scenario is that the club is eventually replaced via expansion, as the Browns were in 1999. Though fans in Cleveland surely appreciate having a team again, the fact that it’s a disturbing Pet Sematary version of the franchise they once knew is not lost on them.