I like that one. I don’t watch a lot of auto racing but I do like the Indy 500. I was watching that race and absolutely couldn’t believe it. There are 800 friggin’ turns in that race and he loses it on turn #800 while leading. It’s not like he hadn’t had any practice. The upside for him was that he had enough momentum to slide across the finish line and finish second. He could have finished a lot lower if the car had come to a stop.
If you wrote that into a novel or movie no producer or publisher would touch it.
Tommy Hutton’s bobbled snap. Cowboys vs. Eagles, Monday Night Football, 1997.
This was one for the ages.
The game was all but decided, the Cowboys had lost. The score was 20-21, Eagles were in scoring position with just seconds left on the clock. Bonoil is lined up for the winning kick, when Hutton fumbles the snap, drops the ball, tries to scoop it up and scramble with it, deer-in-headlights, and he’s taken down almost instantly, by the gleeful Cowboys.
Several Cowboys players were already pouting in the locker room and had to be dragged back out to celebrate their victory. Coach Barry Schwitzer was rolling around on the grass with the players, laughing his ass off.
Cricket World Cup 1999.
Australia v South Africa at Headingley, Leeds
After poor start to the tournament Australia were in the situation of needing to win all their remaining games to take the title. In the final pool game they were chasing a solid total of 272 and were in a seriously deep hole. Then South Africa had a rolled gold opportunity to put in the last nail in the coffin. Steve Waugh hit a straight-forward catch to Herschelle Gibbs, who’d scored a century in the first innings and was one of the better fieldman in world cricket. You’d have expected any competent 14yo to have taken it. Gibbs got his hands to the ball easily enough and then began to celebrate momentarily before he’d completed the catch and the ball spilled.
In the semi-final four days later the same teams played a tie and Australia progressed because they had won this pool game and then comfortably won the final against Pakistan.
To be balanced by Tony Romo fumbling the hold on Dallas’s game-winning field goal against Seattle in the 2006-07 Wildcard Round. Cowboys were down 21-20 at the Seahawk 2 yd line, with 1:19 left on the clock. Martin Gramatica came out to kick the go-ahead 19 yd field goal, which likely would have won the game for the 'Boys, but could only watch as Romo fumbled the hold. Cowboys lose 21-20.
The South Africans had a huge chance to win the semi final game as well - they had 3 balls to score the winning run, but a huge mix up between Klusener and Allan Donald meant Donald was run out, costing them the place in the final.
Kansas led Penn State 14-7 with 1:20 left and was forced to punt. Penn State sent 10 men to block and managed to get a hand on the football, recovering it on the 50. Then Chuck Burkhart, their QB – who was not renowned for his arm – threw a desperation pass that was caught on the three yard line.
Penn State ran three plays; the third play – where Burkhart decided as the play began not to hand off, but run it himself – the touchdown was scored with 15 seconds left. Joe Paterno went for the two points and the win. The play was stopped.
But a referee threw a flag. Kansas had 12 men on the field. The penalty was marked off and Penn State scored the conversion.
It was later discovered that Kansas had 12 men on the field for the previous three plays, too. So they were boneheaded, as was the referee, who didn’t notice it sooner.
In golf, there was the case of Roberto de Vicenzo in the 1968 Masters. He had shot a 65 on the final day to tie for the lead. But his partner wrote down a 4 on the 17th hole; de Vicenzo had actually shot a 3, and the scorecard gave his score as 66. He signed the scorecard, which made it official and thus ended one stroke behind the winner.
A few years ago during the Donovan McNabb experiment in Washington, down 17-10 vs the Bucs, McNabb and the Skins worked their way down the field and scored a TD in the last minute. But the snap on the extra point was high, got past the holder, and they lost, 17-16.
Colorado’s shared Division I-A national championship in 1990 was the result of a bizarre “Fifth Down.” To be fair, it was the refs as well as both sides, apparently.
No real interest in either team but wasn’t that the weird one where the officials called it after seeing a replay on the video screen? With no replay generally that seemed “wrong”. That is from someone who thinks that missed calls with human officials are “part of the game” and generally even out.
I think this one gets an asterisk - Hildebrand explained his situation: he was running out of gas, and there was a slower car in front of him, so if he slowed down, he probably would have run out and not been able to coast across the finish line before being passed; instead, he tried to go around.
I can think of a couple:
Texas A&M vs Cal, 1982 - this one actually had two blunders. First, with the game tied, Cal makes a chip-shot field goal with about 2 minutes left in the game, but A&M got called for roughing the kicker, and Cal coach Joe Kapp (in his first game as coach) decides to take the penalty (and put the ball first and goal at about the 2-yard line) instead of the points - and the Cal QB fumbles the ball away - only for A&M to try a handoff in the endzone two plays later, and Ron Rivera would tackle the ball carrier for a safety; Cal ends up winning by 2.
I’m not 100% sure about this one, but the version I remember was, it was an NFL game sometime in the 1980s; I think it was the 49ers and Dolphins. The Dolphins had something like a 4-point lead late in the game, with the ball, and the 49ers were out of timeouts, so the Dolphins just kept taking a knee. One small problem: with about 10 seconds left, they took a knee on fourth down, and that stops the clock until the next snap; Joe Montana threw a touchdown pass and the 49ers won.
How the hell did he do that? It looks like he’s a little behind the goal opening when he tries to clear it. Did it go in off the goalie’s stick or something?
The West Indies were narrowly losing when the light began to fade. It was so dark that the West Indies were were asked if they wanted to end the match due the encroaching darkness. The coach voluntarily ended the match while they were losing. :smack:
I don’t know any details about this race, but I remembered seeing this video a while back. The lead cyclist, assured a victory, raises his hands in triumph… and falls. He is passed before he can get his bike across the finish line.
You remind me of another one that didn’t exactly cost a team a game, but cost them a championship. It was in New Zealand’s domestic competition (I think it was called the Shell Trophy back then), back in 1988; Auckland and Otago were neck and neck going into the final match. I am not 100% sure of the details, but I think what happened was something like, Auckland determined that they would win the championship on a total season runs per wicket tiebreaker if they scored a certain number of runs while losing only a certain number of wickets, and when they reached their target, they claimed that it was too dark to continue, and the umpires agreed. One small problem: Auckland’s calculation was based in part on a newspaper report of an Otago match where the number of wickets lost by Otago was actually one less than reported, and Auckland actually stopped a few runs short of the number they really needed.
Ouch. I noticed the guy who passed him also raised his hands before he crossed the line.
It might not be entirely showing off. Sitting up and raising your arms allows your sponsor’s logo to be clearly seen in the photographs. I wouldn’t be completely shocked if there was language in the sponsorship contract that required them to do it.