10 Athletes with Memorable On-Field Fails

For an athlete, the area between hero and goat is hardly spacious; not to mention crowded. But this is what an athlete signs up for—if you want to be on ESPN SportCenter's Top 10, then you can't just stand on the sidelines. For sports fans, it's a win-win situation, because a total fail can be just as entertaining as an amazing individual play (if not more so). 

And when an athlete fumbles, gives up a soft goal or commits any one of the other countless misdemeanors of the sports universe, we tend to have reliably short memories, especially if there are enough good memories to fill the void. YouTube may never forget, but a run-of-the-mill blunder probably won't top a million views or end up on any compilation of sports bloopers. 

However, sometimes an athlete does something so monumentally terrible that it is almost guaranteed to live on forever—as an irreducible part of that athlete's legacy and as part of sports pop culture. Even if they're ready to move on, they simply cannot, because the moment is already bigger than the person. Their regrettable, but hilarious, mistake becomes our moment of gleeful schadenfreude; it becomes a meme, or the athlete's de facto nickname. In the 21st century, regret is a multimedia enterprise that is custom tailored for our amusement.

Here are 10 athletes with hilarious on-field regrets.

Stephen Tulloch

In September 2014, Lions linebacker Stephen Tulloch was having a pretty good day, playing well early in what would be a rare win over the division foe Green Bay Packers. Midway through the first quarter, Tulloch’s season peaked when he chased Aaron Rodgers out of the pocket before tackling him at Green Bay’s 29-yard line. 

He immediately followed up that peak with his season low. Tulloch made it personal with Rodgers, performing a dramatic re-enactment of the State Farm Discount Double Check, which Rodgers made famous in a never-ending series of commercials. And it would’ve been a pretty good burn too, if Tulloch didn’t shred the ACL in his left knee in the process. 

Lamarr Houston

As undignified an ending as it was for Stephen Tulloch in 2014, looking back on it, at least he had a few mitigating factors to soften the blow. Like the fact that the Lions actually won the game, and that the Discount Double Check made sense as a celebration because Aaron Rodgers was involved. 

The same cannot be said of Chicago Bears defensive end Lamarr Houston, who suffered the exact same injury doing the exact same celebration a month later. The difference being that it happened during garbage time of a 51-23 loss against the New England Patriots. So the Discount Double Check made no sense whatsoever.

Oh, and the quarterback he sacked was Jimmy Garoppolo, not Tom Brady, who had been pulled because the Bears were embarrassing themselves.

Glen "Big Baby" Davis

Glen “Big Baby” Davis has had his fair share of embarrassing moments on the basketball court. In fact, he’s had a lot of people’s fair share of embarrassing moments on the basketball court. Although there were already enough by 2010 for Complex to create a standalone list of them, a few more recent events stand out. 

There was, of course, his epic flop during a scuffle with the Portland Trail Blazers in April 2015. Just a month prior, Davis had shamed himself and his entire family with a badly failed attempt to retrieve a T-shirt stuck on a backboard. Most notably, however, was the stunningly terrible missed dunk he whiffed on during a game against the Miami Heat in February 2011. 

Adam Lane Jr.

YouTube

The January 2015 matchup between East Carolina and Florida was, like the vast majority of college bowl games, a mediocre and otherwise forgettable affair. The 7-5 Gators defeated the 8-5 Pirates 28-20, with the latter sealing its fate with a pass being intercepted in the end zone by the former. 

Perhaps the only memorable event was an incident involving former (he has since transferred) Florida running back Adam Lane Jr., who found the end zone from two yards out early in the second quarter, giving the Gators a 14-7 lead. Following the score, Lane was seen scurrying to the locker room with a towel wrapped around his waist. 

At some point during the drive Lane had visibly...messed himself...and would quickly return with a fresh pair of white pants. Despite having pooped his pants on national television, two months later Lane said he wasn’t embarrassed, insisting the incident “was the best thing that could have happened." 

If that's your ceiling, you've got bigger problems than your bowels. 

Matt Hasselbeck

With a Super Bowl win in 2014 and coming up just one play short of another Super Bowl win in 2015, the the Seattle Seahawks of the relative present are a completely different team than the Seattle Seahawks of 2003. That season they went 10-6, winning the NFC West and securing home-field advantage against the wild-card Packers at 10-6. There were five lead changes in the game—Green Bay took the lead with under three minutes to go, Seattle responded by tying it up with under a minute remaining.

The score was 27-27 at the end of regulation, although the Packers would go on to win in overtime. Overall, it was an entirely respectable performance by the Seahawks, but an ill-advised comment by quarterback Matt Hasselbeck during the OT coin toss transformed the defeat into what ESPN’s Kevin Jackson ranked as the No. 1 worst Seahawks loss of the new millennium. Quoth the Hasselbeck, “We want the ball, and we’re going to score!”

It's a statement that will surely be echoing in Hasselbeck’s head while on his death bed as he relives his first pass of the overtime period, which was intercepted and returned 52 yards for a touchdown. Honestly, the interception is probably Hasselbeck’s primary regret, but if he could go back and do one thing differently without impacting the outcome of the game, you know he’d take that one back. 

Johnny Cueto

There’s no questioning that Kansas City Royals pitcher Johnny Cueto had a performance for the ages in Game 2 of the World Series against the New York Mets in October, giving up just two hits in a 7-1 blowout. Kansas City would go on to win their first championship in three decades, besting New York 4-1. 

Then again, that’s not the only memorable thing Cueto did during the series. At one point during Game 1, Fox displayed a split screen with Mets pitcher Jacob deGrom and Cueto in their respective dugouts, the latter of watch was seen aggressively gnawing on gum before using his finger to address a situation inside his nose. 

While the media was, understandably, nearly universal in its silence on Cueto’s impromptu digging expedition, plenty of fans watching at home took to Twitter to comment on the ickiness of the scene. 

Bill Gramatica

Even worse than the Discount Double Check dummies featured earlier in this list is the self-inflicted injury suffered by then-Arizona Cardinals kicker Bill Gramatica during the 2001 season. At least Stephen Tulloch and Lamarr Houston will have their entire careers to try to redeem themselves; this unfortunate incident was career-defining.

Gramatica set kicker cred back decades when tore his ACL celebrating a field goal that put the Cards up by three over the New York Giants. The spectacle would have been unbecoming under any circumstances, but was made exponentially worse because it took place during the first quarter...of a regular-season game...which Arizona would ultimately lose. 

Alex Rodriguez

JULIE JACOBSON/Associated Press

Perhaps the only thing more surprising than New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez successfully pulling off one of the most unlikely comebacks in sports history last season was how quickly the entire world of baseball was willing to forgive and forget.

Forgive and forget what, exactly? How about a painfully awkward history that included enough embarrassing A-Rod moments for Sports Illustrated to create a list 18-deep. One of which, of course, occurred during Game 6 of the 2004 ALCS against the Boston Red Sox. Advancing Derek Jeter from first base on an RBI single, Rodriguez famously slapped the ball out Bronson Arroyo's glove as he attempted to tag him out.

And he was actually ruled safe! For a moment it was unclear whether or not the ruling would stand because the applicable rule is intentionally vague, leaving it to the officials to determine intent. It was ultimately determined that A-Rod was, in fact, out—and that he slaps like a girl. 

Alex Rodriguez

WINSLOW TOWNSON/Associated Press

Oh right, speaking of Alex Rodriguez and the Red Sox! That one-sided slap fight with Bronson Arroyo wasn’t the first dustup he had with the Yankees’ nemesis from Boston during the 2004 season. During a game in late July, he and Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek got into a legendary skirmish at the plate which resulted in a bench-clearing brawl.

The incident also involved a hostile exchange with Arroyo, who would be on the receiving end of an awkward A-Rod slap three months later. As the situation escalated, Rodriguez unleashed a barrage of profanities, at which point Varitek pushed him and shoved his glove in A-Rod’s face, making him look like an absolute punk.

Thankfully, Rodriguez’s Yankees teammates rushed the field after that, because it helped draw some attention away from Varitek’s facial. 

Mark Sanchez

In November 2012, former first-round pick Mark Sanchez was behind center for the New York Jets on a play against the Patriots that would, unfortunately for him, come to define his career. The infamous Butt Fumble, which has its own Wikipedia page that’s almost as that of Sanchez himself, topped ESPN’s Not Top 10 list for a record 40 straight weeks before being retired.

Of course, it wasn’t retired from all of ESPN. The following September, Sports Science revisited the artist formerly known as Sanchize’s infamous play, hilariously breaking it down for no particular reason other than to have a chuckle at the Jets’ expense.