Famous Sports Figures Who Fell Off Quickly
Sports superstars rise to greatness faster than mere mortals who attempt to enjoy successful careers in the business.
New York Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. is one example. As Jordan Raanan of NJ.com explained this past January, Beckham broke a record once held by Randy Moss during his first two seasons in the NFL. Beckham has been featured on the cover of an edition of Madden and in national television commercials. Some may now say Beckham rose too quickly considering he has repeatedly made headlines for antics that have nothing to do with the three-year pro scoring touchdowns.
As we've often witnessed over the years, falls of famous sports figures often occur more quickly than their rises.
Quarterbacks Johnny Manziel and Tim Tebow are two of the most famous college football players in history. Both received opportunities to make it in the NFL, but neither man is in the league in the fall of 2016. Their falls from grace were very different, and Tebow is now attempting to launch a baseball career.
Holly Holm went from being one of the biggest stars in the Ultimate Fighting Championship to just a fighter on the roster in less than a year. Peyton Manning became a shell of his former self during one season. Sam Allardyce lost his latest job after only 67 days.
Just about every sports figure mentioned here could, theoretically, return to the figurative mountaintop of his or her sport. For all we know, though, all nine of these individuals already reached the peaks of their careers.
David Wright
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Beloved New York Mets third baseman and team captain David Wright turns only 34 years old this coming December. That's relatively young for a perennial Major League Baseball All-Star. Wright seemed to age dramatically before our very eyes over the past few years, though, and we don't know for sure if he'll ever play again for the Mets.
Wright showed signs he was no longer the player of old back in 2014. He did, however, manage to play in 134 regular-season games that campaign according to Baseball-Reference.com. Since then, though, Wright has appeared in only 75 regular-season contests. Wright played for the Mets in the 2015 postseason, but he was largely a non-factor minus a handful of at-bats.
Spinal stenosis made Wright a spectator for the majority of the 2016 campaign. That's a serious injury, one that could end the career of a player who is as popular, among fans of the Mets, as any who came before him.
Athletes age differently. Some, such as Carlos Beltran and David Ortiz, can perform well into their 40s. Others, however, suffer unfortunate falls right as their primes end.
Peyton Manning
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Quarterback Peyton Manning threw 39 touchdowns while starting for the Denver Broncos in 2014. That's more than any QB tossed last season, per Pro-Football-Reference.com. Remember that if you ever hear or read that Manning's physical tools slowly evaporated over time.
Manning faded at an apparently exponential rate during the 2015 campaign. He threw at least one interception in each of his first nine starts. By the time the regular season ended, Manning matched 17 picks with only nine touchdowns. The biggest reason Manning earned an opportunity to start for Denver in the playoffs earlier this year was because Brock Osweiler failed to win the gig while playing in place of the injured Manning.
Manning didn't just have a rough season last year. The zip on his passes disappeared. Manning didn't flash the swagger and confidence in the pocket we saw throughout his legendary career. It was almost as if even Manning himself was surprised his body betrayed him so quickly.
Outside of the 2011 season Manning missed because of injury, he was a mainstay on Pro Bowl rosters from 2002 through 2014. By 2015, however, Manning no longer deserved to start for an NFL team.
Brock Lesnar
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Brock Lesnar's entire fighting career is comprised of one meteoric rise followed by a quick and, likely, unavoidable fall.
Lesnar found fame and fortune as a member of World Wrestling Entertainment beginning in the early 2000s. After spending only a few years on the main roster for the promotion, Lesnar walked away from pro wrestling to pursue a career in the NFL. The Minnesota Vikings signed Lesnar, but the former wrestling champion never played in a regular-season game.
Lesnar debuted in the UFC in 2008, winning two of his first three bouts before being awarded an opportunity to fight for the heavyweight championship. Lesnar then defeated Randy Couture for the title in November 2008, and he followed that victory with a win over Frank Mir in July 2009.
That, as best we can tell, was the end of Lesnar's best days as a fighter. As Loretta Hunt of Sherdog wrote, Lesnar battled through difficulties caused by diverticulitis for roughly one year. While Lesnar managed to defeat Shane Carwin in July 2010, he lost his title to Cain Velasquez in October of that year.
Lesnar's loss to Alistair Overeem in December 2011 would be his last bout in the UFC until he returned and defeated Mark Hunt this past July.
In the span of only three years, Lesnar went from being a UFC rookie to the biggest draw in the promotion to a man out of the organization and out of the sport, in general.
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Rafael Nadal
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Casual sports fans who only follow the major tennis events of each season probably weren't surprised to see Rafael Nadal win the 2014 edition of the French Open. Nadal, after all, is arguably one of the greatest players on clay surfaces in history. At that point of his career, Nadal reached the final of at least one grand slam literally every year.
Nadal's stellar form then disappeared, as if it had been taken from him by the Monstars from Space Jam. The Spanish icon of the sport never suffered a debilitating injury that shortened his career. He simply stopped winning major tournaments.
As Charlie Eccleshare of the Telegraph wrote in early September, Nadal has not only failed to win a major since the 2014 French Open, but he has also failed to reach the quarterfinal round of any slam this year. Stars such as Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray replaced Nadal at the top of the ATP rankings, and both men seem well ahead of Nadal heading into the winter months.
Nadal turned 30 years old earlier this year. There is still time for him to experience a resurgence in front of worldwide audiences. Nadal rarely looked like the once dominant player he was when in his prime in 2015, though, and one has to wonder if a crisis of confidence will affect him moving forward.
Tim Tebow
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Tim Tebow won a playoff game as the starting quarterback of the Denver Broncos back in January 2012. Tebow was not merely a spectator carried to victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers by an elite defense on that day. His one and only pass attempt during an overtime period of an NFL postseason contest resulted in a game-winning 80-yard score.
Tebow was the toast of Denver football fans following that throw. Yes, the New England Patriots defeated the Broncos by 35 points the following weekend. But that one defeat did not erase Tebow's memorable comeback wins and his single postseason victory from memories.
With that said, Tebow's fall as an NFL QB began roughly two months after Denver's win over the Steelers. The Broncos signed veteran Peyton Manning that March, and the club then traded Tebow to the New York Jets. Tebow lasted a single season with Gang Green before he and New York parted ways.
Tebow didn't play a down of regular-season football in 2013 through 2015, and he hasn't been part of any NFL roster since early September 2015.
Don't close the book on Tebow's sports career just yet, though. Following a workout in front of MLB scouts this past August, as Josh Peter of USA Today explained, Tebow earned a minor league contract with the New York Mets. He is now scheduled to report to the Arizona Fall League.
Perhaps Tebow has one more ascent to a pro roster left in the tank.
Sam Allardyce
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Just 67 days.
That's how long Sam Allardyce lasted as the manager of the England men's national soccer team before he was unceremoniously fired after an investigation launched by The Telegraph concluded Allardyce "used his position to negotiate a £400,000 deal and offered advice to businessmen on how to 'get around' FA rules on player transfers."
Compare the length of Allardyce's tenure as England boss to coaching staffs in other sports. Imagine, for example, an NFL team hired a new head coach on January 1 of this year and then dismissed that same coach 67 days later. That coach wouldn't have had an opportunity to truly begin to build his roster before he was shown the door.
In short, Allardyce was fired before he could prove his worth as a national team coach.
Allardyce achieved success as a Premier League manager. Most recently, he helped Sunderland avoid relegation last spring. Per Sky Sports, the Football Association may still bring charges against Allardyce.
It's difficult to believe any club would hire Allardyce anytime soon.
Holly Holm
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Casual sports fans weren't familiar with Holly Holm 12 months ago. Maybe they recognized her name because they saw it on a fight poster or a television commercial advertising the UFC 193 card. Ronda Rousey, Holm's opponent on November 15, 2015, was supposed to be the real star of that show in the eyes of viewers and customers. Holm, meanwhile, was merely Rousey's next victim in the cage.
Life changed for Holm, Rousey and the whole of the UFC that day when Holm defeated Rousey via knockout to win the bantamweight championship. Holm dominated Rousey throughout the first round and then put her away with a high kick followed by hammer fists before the fight was mercifully stopped.
Holm immediately became a superstar, but her reign at the top of women's mixed martial arts lasted less than four months.
Instead of attempting to land a rematch with Rousey that likely would have been worth millions of dollars in pay-per-view revenue for both fighters and for the UFC, Holm instead elected to defend her title against Miesha Tate at UFC 196 in March 2016. That decision backfired, as Tate defeated Holm via submission in the final round of the encounter to win the bantamweight title.
Holm then lost to Valentina Shevchenko in July. The former champion who turns 35 later this month suffered a hand injury during that defeat, but ESPN's Brett Okamoto reported in September that Holm is training and interested in fighting once more before the end of the year.
Holm is currently fourth in the official UFC rankings, and it seems likely her next fight would be featured on either cable television or Fox rather than on pay-per-view. One more loss could, theoretically, forever remove Holm from the title picture.
Holm was the sport's newest superstar 11 months ago. That's almost hard to believe considering all that happened following her win over Rousey.
Alex Rodriguez
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Former New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez became a legitimate MLB Most Valuable Player candidate following his return from suspension in 2015. Per Baseball-Reference.com, Rodriguez hit 33 home runs, drove home 86 RBI and finished the regular season with an OPS of .842 en route to earning MVP votes. A-Rod helped the Yankees earn a spot in a wild-card game, and he was back to being the player of old as far as fans could tell.
Rodriguez found himself out of a job and out of the league less than 12 months after that playoff game the Yankees hosted in October 2015.
Rodriguez, who turned 41 years old this past July, seemed to age before our very eyes in 2016. Injuries and poor play sidelined Rodriguez for periods of time in the spring and summer months, and his offensive statistics plummeted across the majority of noteworthy categories.
As David Waldstein of the New York Times reported, Rodriguez and the Yankees announced on August 7 the veteran would retire and remain with the Yankees as an adviser. Rodriguez played his last game with the club on August 12.
Rodriguez went from being a player worthy of Comeback Player of the Year and MVP considerations to surplus to requirements in about nine months.
Johnny Manziel
9 of 9Unless you choose to completely ignore the NFL, you are probably at least somewhat familiar with the story of former Cleveland Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel.
Manziel became a superstar while at Texas A&M, winning the Heisman Trophy as a freshman back in 2012. The Cleveland Browns selected the young man known as "Johnny Football" in the first round of the 2014 NFL draft, but Manziel never cemented himself as a reliable starter for the club. Manziel's stint with the Browns included the QB spending roughly three months in a rehabilitation clinic and also numerous off-the-field incidents and allegations of partying.
The Browns cut Manziel this past March.
Some may see Manziel's fall from grace as a process that began even before he left A&M. That's not necessarily the case. Manziel showed improvement during his second NFL training camp, and he helped guide the Browns to a home victory over the Tennessee Titans on September 20, 2015. Cleveland fans at FirstEnergy Stadium even chanted Manziel's name as he headed into the locker room.
Less than four months after that afternoon, it would be clear to observers and fans the Browns were through with Manziel for multiple reasons.
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