Losses Are Not Created Equal; Some Have Silver Lining
September 11, 2019 at 3:09 a.m.
Losses Are Not Created Equal; Some Have Silver Lining
By Roger Grossman-
I realized that there was a pattern to the games—all of the teams I cheer for lost close games.
The Chicago Bears lost by a touchdown, the Indianapolis Colts lost in overtime and Warsaw lost by 5. That adds up to three losses by a grand total of 18 points.
But in sports, losing by one point is no different than losing by 31 points. Right?
Not always.
Losing is like “beauty”—it’s in the eye of the beholder.
Sure, coaches in every sport will tell you that there are no such things as moral victories. I totally get that. You can’t let on to your team that losing a game is anything but unacceptable. You can’t pat them on the shoulder and say “don’t worry, it’s ok”. Losing is not ok. Right?
Well, let’s examine that for a little bit.
The Bears defense looked fantastic Thursday night in a 10-3 loss to the Green Bay Packers. It was the offense who looked like it hadn’t participated in real, live game action since January.
Of course, they hadn’t played in real, live game action since January. Heck, almost no one’s No. 1 offensive or defensive players played a single down in the preseason.
But the feeling in Bear Nation is dire. Talk of the Super Bowl quickly turned to discussion of simply making the playoffs.
For the Colts, they had to fly home Sunday night from the west coast with an overtime loss in Los Angeles (or is it San Diego? In California somewhere) against the Chargers.
For Indy, the events of the last two weeks were supposed to be season-crushing. Andrew Luck retired during the third week of the preseason, and that meant Jacoby Brissett was the quarterback of the Colts for the first game and every game after that.
The Chargers are a sexy pick to not only win the AFC West, but maybe represent the AFC in the Super Bowl.
Well the Colts game the Chargers all they wanted. Brissett looked every bit the part of a starting quarterback in the National Football League’s regular season. The Colts ran the football…a lot…on purpose…and ran it well!
Yes, the defense gave up the game-winning touchdown in ovetime. But they held the Chargers to 24 points in regulation and gave the team a chance to win the game.
And for Warsaw, they lost a close game to Plymouth. Over the last 20 years that’s happened a lot. The Rockies have ruined potential 3-0 starts for the Tigers six times since 2002. Losing to Plymouth stings more, and for a lot of different reasons. But the defense that had been so good through the first two weeks was guilty of poor tackling, the offense would have traded either of their field goals for a touchdown that would have put them ahead, and penalties on both sides of the ball greatly hampered the overall effort.
But, some perspective is required. It’s the first conference game and only one-third of the season is in the rear view mirror. Difficult to take? Yep. End of the world? Not at all.
For all that went wrong, a lot went right for Warsaw Friday. As the game went along, you could feel the momentum swinging Warsaw’s way. The defense was swarming, the offense was balanced—they ran out of time because the hole they were in was too deep to get out of.
Right, there are no moral victories. The fewer games in the season, the higher the value of each game in that season. Baseball teams can have a stinker game or even a bad couple of weeks and it’s not the end of the world. Pro football teams play 16 games, college teams 12 and high school nine plus a playoff game. That’s it.
Every play matters.
And the margin between winning and losing, and perceived success and failure, can be a funny bounce, a slip of a cleat or a gust of wind.
But sometimes, for us on the outside and in the corner of a coach’s heart that they don’t like to expose to the light of day very often, there has to be perspective.
One thing we can all agree on: losing stinks.
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I realized that there was a pattern to the games—all of the teams I cheer for lost close games.
The Chicago Bears lost by a touchdown, the Indianapolis Colts lost in overtime and Warsaw lost by 5. That adds up to three losses by a grand total of 18 points.
But in sports, losing by one point is no different than losing by 31 points. Right?
Not always.
Losing is like “beauty”—it’s in the eye of the beholder.
Sure, coaches in every sport will tell you that there are no such things as moral victories. I totally get that. You can’t let on to your team that losing a game is anything but unacceptable. You can’t pat them on the shoulder and say “don’t worry, it’s ok”. Losing is not ok. Right?
Well, let’s examine that for a little bit.
The Bears defense looked fantastic Thursday night in a 10-3 loss to the Green Bay Packers. It was the offense who looked like it hadn’t participated in real, live game action since January.
Of course, they hadn’t played in real, live game action since January. Heck, almost no one’s No. 1 offensive or defensive players played a single down in the preseason.
But the feeling in Bear Nation is dire. Talk of the Super Bowl quickly turned to discussion of simply making the playoffs.
For the Colts, they had to fly home Sunday night from the west coast with an overtime loss in Los Angeles (or is it San Diego? In California somewhere) against the Chargers.
For Indy, the events of the last two weeks were supposed to be season-crushing. Andrew Luck retired during the third week of the preseason, and that meant Jacoby Brissett was the quarterback of the Colts for the first game and every game after that.
The Chargers are a sexy pick to not only win the AFC West, but maybe represent the AFC in the Super Bowl.
Well the Colts game the Chargers all they wanted. Brissett looked every bit the part of a starting quarterback in the National Football League’s regular season. The Colts ran the football…a lot…on purpose…and ran it well!
Yes, the defense gave up the game-winning touchdown in ovetime. But they held the Chargers to 24 points in regulation and gave the team a chance to win the game.
And for Warsaw, they lost a close game to Plymouth. Over the last 20 years that’s happened a lot. The Rockies have ruined potential 3-0 starts for the Tigers six times since 2002. Losing to Plymouth stings more, and for a lot of different reasons. But the defense that had been so good through the first two weeks was guilty of poor tackling, the offense would have traded either of their field goals for a touchdown that would have put them ahead, and penalties on both sides of the ball greatly hampered the overall effort.
But, some perspective is required. It’s the first conference game and only one-third of the season is in the rear view mirror. Difficult to take? Yep. End of the world? Not at all.
For all that went wrong, a lot went right for Warsaw Friday. As the game went along, you could feel the momentum swinging Warsaw’s way. The defense was swarming, the offense was balanced—they ran out of time because the hole they were in was too deep to get out of.
Right, there are no moral victories. The fewer games in the season, the higher the value of each game in that season. Baseball teams can have a stinker game or even a bad couple of weeks and it’s not the end of the world. Pro football teams play 16 games, college teams 12 and high school nine plus a playoff game. That’s it.
Every play matters.
And the margin between winning and losing, and perceived success and failure, can be a funny bounce, a slip of a cleat or a gust of wind.
But sometimes, for us on the outside and in the corner of a coach’s heart that they don’t like to expose to the light of day very often, there has to be perspective.
One thing we can all agree on: losing stinks.
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