When it comes to sports, there are goats and then there is the G.O.A.T.
One is a good thing. That would be G.O.A.T., which stands for the Greatest of All Time, and is applied, often with great reverence, to a truly amazing athlete. As in Tom Brady.
Although I was happy enough when the Patriots, thanks in no small part, to the magic that was Number 12, were thrilling the locals with all those Super Bowl wins, I don't especially like Tom Brady. Yet when it comes to quarterbacks, it's hard to argue that Brady isn't the Greatest of All Time. In his prime, the man just amazed me with his sangfroid, his stunning mental toughness, the absolute brilliance with which he performed extraordinary feats of quarterbackery.
So, there are G.O.A.T.s. Or at least there is one indisputable one.
And then there are goats, the athletes who screw something up, in a big and public way, at a crucial moment. And the something they screw up becomes the proximate cause of a big, public loss.
Oh, there have been plenty goats over the years, the most famous local goat-o being Bill Buckner. Buckner (in)famously let the ball go through his legs, resulting in the Red Sox losing a World Series to the Mets that they should have won. As it turned out, losing in 1986 made winning in 2004 all the sweeter. And Buckner was welcomed back to Boston. But he will always be remembered for the one, brief, unshining moment when he became the Boston Red Sox' goat.
On Sunday, the Bengals played the Kansas City Chiefs for the conference championship and the opportunity to play in the Super Bowl.
The game, in its last few seconds, looked like it was going to go into overtime when Oassi hit Kansas City QB Patrick Mahomes when Mahomes was out of bounds. A late hit's a big no-no, and it resulted in a 15 yard penalty that put the Chiefs in field goal range. Which they took advantage of, and won the game.
Oassi is just 22, and - since he spent most of last season on the injured reserve list - this is his first full season in the NFL.
He's had a good year, and played a good game. Up until the moment when, carried along by momentum and maybe not even realizing that he'd already chased Mahomes out of bounds, he brought Mahomes down.
And brought the rath of Cincinnati Bengals fans down on his head, big time.
There was Oassi, in what may have been the worst moment of his young life, crying on the sidelines. There was Oassi in the locker room, sitting there with a towel covering his face. There was Oassi, getting called every name in the book on Twitter.
Sure, he makes a ton of money, but I feel bad for Joseph Oassi.
Who among us hasn't screwed something up at work?
I know I did. Making a bad hire against my boss' advice. Okaying a brochure - back in the day when brochures were printed - that had a big old homonym spell-o on the first page.
I'm sure I could come up with plenty more.
But my professional errors were mostly just known to me and a few colleagues. And I'm betting no one remembers them other than me. Goat-ness was fleeting. Unlike the goat-ness that attaches to a professional athlete. Sure, the mistake will eventually be forgiven by most, but not forgotten.
Just ask Bill Buckner. Or you could, if he were still alive. Tragically, he died a few years back, just short of his 70th birthday of Lewy Body Dementia. (Ugh!) Predictably, the news articles on his death all mentioned the ball-through-the-legs episode.
JosephOassi seems like a nice young man, and he didn't try to duck responsibility for his momentary lapse.
And, of course, it's not his fault that the Bengals missed other opportunities throughout the game that put them in a position where they could lose at the last moment. The Bengals young quarterback was sacked repeatedly, so maybe they lost because of the failures of the O line.
Alas, Joseph Oassi will likely be forever associated with this loss.
I hope he takes heart from knowing that, sooner or later - maybe even at the upcoming Super Bowl - there'll be a new goat on the block.
No comments:
Post a Comment