American Football / What Could Have Been - TV Tropes (2024)

• This is one of the things college football experts debate on when it comes to the 1984 Orange Bowl: How would the college football landscape have changed had Nebraska coach Tom Osborne decided to kick the extra point and settle for a tie (overtime would be another two decades away, and the tie would've probably given Nebraska the national championship). The Miami Hurricanes won the game when they stopped the two-point try. Not only did this cement Miami's place among the college football elite, but sounded the death knell for using run-oriented option offenses like the wishbone and Nebraska's power-I on the elite level (Miami exposed it as having a severe vulnerability to defensive speed). Would the status quo have remained if Nebraska tied (or made the conversion)? Would Miami still have risen to the elite with a loss/tie?
• The documentary The Best That Never Was is all about this trope, regarding Marcus Dupree - who in 1981 was the most heavily recruited high school football player ever. He lived up to the hype as a freshman running back at the University of Oklahoma, setting school records and making highlights with every game. But a combination of bad attitude (his reliance on physical gifts over practice and work infuriated his college coaches, leading to an ultimate split), bad luck (injuries marred his sophom*ore year and derailed his pro career), bad decisions (leaving Oklahoma, then quitting college altogether), and bad advice (leaving all his USFL money in the hands of his de facto agent, never getting a second opinion when his first doctors advised him to give up football) led to his being a washed-up burn-out by age 24. A brief comeback with the Los Angeles Rams from 1991 to 1992 showed some of what could have been had he toughed things out or had better advisers: Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer called his handling of Dupree - riding him hard out of both frustration for Dupree's lack of drive outside of game day and not quite knowing how to handle someone that young with that much talent - his most regrettable move as a head coach).
  • A side note the documentary never addresses: Had Dupree transferred to a lower-division (I-AA or lower) he would've been eligible after his aborted sophom*ore season. And had he gone to nearby (to Mississippi native Dupree) I-AA Mississippi Valley State, he would've been paired with the record-setting duo of receiver Jerry Rice and quarterback Willie Totten. The mind boggles at the kind of numbers that trio could've put up.
• In 2009, ESPN's College Football Live asked "What If" to many of the most notable moments in college football history, wondering what would happen if they went the other way. Among the moments they checked out were (along with some of what they suspect would've happened):
  • What if Tom Osborne had settled for the extra point instead of going for 2 in the 1984 Orange Bowl against Miami (making Nebraska the national champs instead of Miami)?
    • If Miami didn't win the national championship that year, Howard Schnellenberger would've stayed with Miami (instead of leaving for the USFL) and cemented the late 80s/early 90s Hurricanes dynasty even sooner. The '83 Cornhuskers would go down as possibly the greatest college football team of all time, on the flip side, with Osborne going down as possibly the greatest college football coach of all time.
  • What if Florida State's first Wide Right had gone the other way?
    • The Miami Hurricanes' dynasty (they were mentioned a lot in this series) would've been cut short as FSU would've won the '91 national championship. The momentum from that would've overturned the numerous Wide Rights that followed, possibly cementing FSU as the undisputed team of the 90s and early 00s. (The Cornhuskers also have a claim to that title having won one more national championship than the Seminoles.)
  • What if Boise State's series of trick plays leading to their Fiesta Bowl win over Oklahoma had failed?
    • A Boise State loss would've caused a huge dent in the various mid-major conferences' efforts to gain the respect of college football fans, possibly redeeming the BCS in the eyes of the fans a little bit.
    • In another Boise State example, what if Auburn hadn't been able to come back from their 24-point deficit against Alabama, and Boise State's Kyle Brotzman hadn't missed the field goal against Nevada that sent the game into overtime?
  • Several years earlier, the SEC proposed a four-team playoff for the national championship; it was shot down.
    • But it didn't stay dead—in 2014, the College Football Playoff began, featuring four teams picked by a Final Four-style committee. And in 2024, the playoff will expand to 12 teams.
  • What if Teddy Roosevelt had not called for college football to institute rule changes to make the game safer in 1906 (which among other things, led to the forward pass)? Would the perceived violence of the sport have led more colleges to eliminate it? And what might have replaced it? A few West Coast colleges switched to Rugby Union around that time, but gave it up after about a decade when no other schools bothered to join them.
  • Several proposed conferences came very close to becoming a reality, which would have led to huge changes in the college football landscape before the big realignments of the last two decades. Most notable are the "airplane conference" that several prominent schools ^notediscussed forming around 1959; Joe Paterno's long-standing idea for an Eastern-based conference ^note; and the 1990 proposal by the Metro Conference ^note to add 8 more schools ^note and start playing football. The Metro proposal stalled because many of the presidents of the smaller schools were put off by the scale of the proposed changes and the uncertainty over what it would mean to both their schools and the college sports landscape. The Metro broke apart in 1991, with burgeoning football powers Florida State and South Carolina bolting for football-playing conferences and Memphis State (now the University of Memphis) and Cincinnati leaving to form the basketball-centric Great Midwest Conference. The Metro folded in 1995, when it and the Great Midwest merged to form Conference USA (which did include football). Ironically, the sea change the smaller Metro and independent schools were afraid of happened anyway a couple of years later, kickstarted by the dissolution of the Southwest Conference.
• The March 8, 2004 issue of Sporting News explored several "what if" scenarios, complete with projected alternate histories.
• What if Nebraska faced Florida State for the 1997 national championship, instead of the somewhat baffling choice of having them play Tennessee? (FSU and UT both had one loss, and it was to the same team, Florida. The difference was that the Volunteers were shut out at home. On the other hand the Seminoles lost by 3 points on the road in what is still called the best game ever played in The Swamp.^note)
• What if legendary Penn State football coach Joe Paterno had accepted that job with the New England Patriots in 1972? The Nittany Lions might have never rose the to level of dominance they achieved in the 1980's, winning two national titles.
  • Three years earlier, JoePa was the first choice of the Rooney family to coach the Pittsburgh Steelers. When he said no, they went to Plan B: Baltimore Colts defensive coordinator Chuck Noll. Noll helped turn the Steelers from the NFL's Butt-Monkey to the dominant team of the 1970s. Would JoePa have had similar success? We'll never know.
  • Another Paterno-related situation, with maybe some broader implications: what if Jerry Sandusky had been hired as the head coach at Toledo in 1977? (He was one of the two finalists, but UT went with Michigan assistant Chuck Stobart instead.)
• This story from Sports Illustrated asks whether the massive NCAA Division I conference realignment of the 2010s, not to mention prior waves of conference expansion and realignment, would ever have happened if not for a seemingly minor change in a then-obscure piece of NCAA legislation passed in 1987. The rule allowed any NCAA football conference with at least 12 members to split into divisions and play a conference championship game between the division winners, with said game not counting against the limit of regular-season games for any team. The legislation was originally drafted by a Division II athletic director to benefit his conference, at the time the only conference in any NCAA division with 14 football members (no conference playing Division I-A, now FBS, football then had more than 10 members). Before the legislation was formally put up for a vote, a second Division II conference that had 12 football members offered to co-sponsor the legislation if the membership requirement were reduced to 12, and the drafter agreed to do so.
  • Postscript: Division I deregulated conference football championship games in two phases. Starting with the 2016 season, conferences no longer had to have 12 members, as long as the conference championship game involves (1) two division winners or (2) the top two teams in the conference standings after a full round-robin schedule. Shortly before the 2022 season, even those restrictions were lifted.
• In 2013, Southern California fired head coach Lane Kiffin after starting the season a disappointing 3-2. In fact, Kiffin was essentially fired at the airport after the team returned from a humiliating 62-41 loss at Arizona State. After the firing, USC named defensive coordinator Ed Orgeron as the interim head coach. Orgeron had already been a head coach at Ole Miss (where he coached Michael Oher of The Blind Side fame, and played himself in the film), and was very popular with the team. The Trojans went 6-2 the rest of the season under Orgeron. But the two losses were to USC's archrivals Notre Dame and UCLA. Still, there was plenty of support for making Orgeron the permanent head coach. But USC athletic director Pat Haden passed him over in favor of Washington head coach Steve Sarkisian. It was later revealed that one of Haden's concerns was Louisiana-native Orgeron's guttural, heavily Cajun-accented voice, part of an overall concern that he somehow didn't fit the image of a USC head coach. Here's what happened to the main players in the saga: Sarkisian—fired in the middle of his second season for drinking on the job. Haden—retired a few months later after a major outcry from the school's boosters. Orgeron—hired as an assistant coach at LSU, became the head coach in 2016, then guided the Tigers to the national championship in 2019. USC fans are still livid over the school letting a national championship-caliber coach slip away. Many of the reactions of USC fans online after LSU's win were profane missives directed to Pat Haden.
• Related to the above entry about Cooper Manning's Career-Ending Injury, his brother Peyton had originally planned on joining him at Ole Miss so they could play college football together and repeat the strong quarterback-receiver dynamic they had in high school. After Cooper's diagnosis and retirement, Peyton decided to explore other programs and wound up choosing the University of Tennessee.
• A lot of people wonder what the college football, if not the professional football landscape, would have looked like had Joe Roth of California not got stricken with melanoma. He was projected to win the Heisman and be the number one pick in the draft in 1977. He played through the pain and seen his numbers drop, but still managed a 9th-place finish in the Heisman voting for that season before succumbing to the disease at the age of 21.
• An episode that arguably changed the course of two college sports: In 1946, Bear Bryant was hired as head coach by Kentucky, at the time a middling program at best. In eight seasons, he went 60–23–5, leading the Wildcats to four bowl appearances, capped off by an SEC title and (retrospective) split national championship in 1950. After the 1953 season, he signed a 12-year contract extension at Kentucky, hoping to make football UK's main sport. Only one problem... UK was traditionally a basketball school, and during Bryant's tenure, Adolph Rupp had coached the Cats to three national titles. A window had opened, however, in 1951 when multiple former UK players were linked to a point shaving scandal. The investigation led to the NCAA's first official enforcement action, which forced UK to cancel its 1952–53 basketball season. During the negotiations for Bryant's contract extension, the university president had told Bryant that Rupp would be fired. But then Bryant got word that Rupp would receive his own contract extension. Feeling that he had been deceived, and that basketball would always have priority at UK, Bryant left for Texas A&M, eventually becoming a coaching legend at his alma mater of Alabama. But what if Rupp had been fired? Could we now be talking about Kentucky as a traditional football powerhouse with a once-storied basketball program?
• The Famous Idaho Potato Bowl began in 1997 (as the Humanitarian Bowl) to give the Big West Conference (back when it still sponsored football) a tie-in for its conference champion after UNLV moved to the Western Athletic Conference and took the Las Vegas Bowl with it. Before settling on a bowl in the unlikely location of Boise, Idaho, there had been talk of placing the new bowl in Reno, Nevada, which also has nasty December weather, but at least has gambling and nearby Lake Tahoe as attractions.

The American Football League's (AFL) ten-year history was full of What Might Have Beens, starting literally before there was an AFL:

• Related to the AFL: The last team ever to cease operations entirely (neither being relocated or "reactivated" later on) were the Dallas Texans in 1952. Would Dallas-based oil heir Lamar Hunt have felt the need (or ability) to buy and move a team to Dallas if there had already been a team there? Would he have been able to buy his way into the Dallas team? Would the "foolish club" have formed without Lamar Hunt and his deep pockets?
• What would the NFL look like today if the owners had actually let Lamar Hunt and Bud Adams buy franchises? Would it have stayed the same "Three yards and a cloud of dust" conservative brand of football without the AFL to show that the fans would flock to a more wide-open style (both on and off the field)?
• More pressingly: Would the NFL have continued to drag its feet on expansion and franchise movement, had the AFL not existed to provide a competitive reason?^note
• For that matter, what would've become of the AFL if Hunt and Adams had accepted the NFL's offer of expansion teams if they backed out the new league?
  • Or if Joe Namath - the league's first true superstar - had signed with the NFL's St. Louis Cardinals instead of the AFL's New York Jets.
    • Rumor is that the Cardinals were merely a beard for the New York Giants. Joe had made it clear that he wanted to play in New York.
  • For that matter, what would the Super Bowl era have evolved into if Namath and the Jets had lost Super Bowl III? The NFL was already looking into altering the AFL vs NFL format, as they (the NFL) thought the AFL teams simply weren't up to par yet.
    • A sub-WCHB occurred in Super Bowl III itself: Just before halftime, the Baltimore Colts ran a "flea flicker". Flanker Jimmy Orr streaked down the sideline wide open, but quarterback Earl Morrall didn't see him (despite Orr frantically waiving his hands trying to get Morrall's attention). Instead Morrall threw over the middle to fullback Jerry Hill, only for the pass to be intercepted by Jets safety Jim Hudson. The play maintained the Jets' 7-0 lead at the half and they ended up winning 16-7. Who knows how the game might have changed had the Colts been tied at the half, rather than down a score. Morrall considered the miss his Never Live It Down moment.
• Without a $400K loan from Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson, the Oakland Raiders would've moved to Seattle or New Orleans after the 1963 season. He gave a similar, smaller loan to the Boston Patriots to keep them afloat.
• Al Davis' merger plan was more along the lines of a Major League Baseball type setup: With the AFL continuing as a separate entity with its own rules, but with a combined NFL/AFL championship game and All-Star game. It's widely believed that much of Davis' iconoclastic behavior was partly fueled by a grudge against NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, Dallas Cowboys general manager Tex Schramm and Lamar Hunt for going "behind his back" to hash out the eventual merger.
• If the merger deal hadn't put a stop to the talent raids between AFL and NFL teams^note, the Houston Oilers would've made San Francisco QB John Brodie pro sports' first $1 million man, and had him throwing passes to future Hall of Fame tight end Mike Ditka.
• Had things gone according to plan, the original AFL cities would've been New York City, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Denver, Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Miami. The ownership group in Minneapolis accepted the NFL offer Adams and Hunt turned down, leading the AFL to switch to Plan B: Oakland. Ralph Wilson wanted to locate his franchise in Miami, but a lukewarm reception to the unproven league caused him to look elsewhere, eventually deciding on Buffalo, New York.
• Had the AFL agreed to the NFL's original merger proposal, the New York Jets and Oakland Raiders would have relocated to other cities (Memphis and Portland, Oregon respectively) so the New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers could keep their market exclusivity. Ironically, it was New York Giants owner Wellington Mara who convinced the league to drop this condition, as he knew how popular the crosstown Jets and Joe Namath were and feared the team having to move because of him and the Giants would result in a public relations nightmare.

• The NFL started out in a lot of small towns in the industrial Northeast and Midwest regions of the US. The Other Wiki has a list of NFL teams that no longer exist properly, many of which involved teams that were from the 1920's & 1930's. For reference, only the Racine (Chicago) Cardinals (now Arizona Cardinals) and Decatur Staleys (now Chicago Bears) were the only two teams out of the initial 15 American Professional Football Association (APFA, the precursor of the NFL) teams to survive into the modern-day era. Furthermore, Green Bay, Wisconsin just so happens to be the only one of those small towns from that era that could hold on to its team, even with five of the former NFL teams being previous champions themselves. What if Green Bay too had lost its team? What if more towns had kept their teams beyond those early years? What if The Great Depression had not killed most small-town teams that were still around?
• In 1936, the NFL held their first ever player's draft. For the first ever NFL pick, the Philadelphia Eagles chose University of Chicago halfback Jay Berwanger due to how he was perceived as a "one-man football team" due to how he performed as a player for the Chicago Maroons college football team. To get an idea of how dominant he was as a player for the University of Chicago, he once gave future U.S. President Gerald Ford a distinctive scar on his left eye from a tackle he made in 1934. Not only that, but in his final collegiate year in 1935, he won the first ever Heisman Trophy with more votes for him than the rest of the competition for the award combined^*, as well as earned the Big Ten's MVP award and was named a unanimous All-American football player that year. However, while the Eagles did want Berwanger for what he could have done for them, they traded him to the Chicago Bears for tackle Art Buss instead for fears of not meeting his reported salary demands of $1,000 per game (worth around $21,618 in today's money). Berwanger, however, did not want to sign up with them immediately due to him wanting to preserve his amateur status to have a chance to earn a spot for the US decathlon team for the 1936 Olympics in (Nazi) Germany. However, after he failed to make that team in that year's Olympics, he went back to discussions on what his contract with the Bears should be. Berwanger wanted to have a contract worth $15,000 (worth around $324,972 today), while Bears owner George Halas had a final deal worth $13,500 (worth around $292,475 today) in mind instead. Ultimately, Berwanger scoffed at the idea of joining the NFL altogether and instead went to work at a local rubber company, as well as became a part-time coach for his alma mater. However, Berwanger did later express regret on not taking on Halas' offer and later leaving his mark on NFL history in a better light than it was. As such, the scenario here is what if Berwanger had chosen to play for either Philadelphia or the Bears instead of try his hand at the Olympics first and then bet on himself afterward?
• On December 19, 1976, unbeknownst to everyone at the time the Pittsburgh Steelers played a road game against the Baltimore Colts at Memorial Stadium, a private Piper Cherokee airplane owned by Donald Kroner ended up crashing into the stadium minutes after the playoff game ended that day. Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt or was around the crash at the time, with the perpetrator also recovering from the incident himself and later being sent to prison for this incident, but one could genuinely wonder if things would have been so much worse had the Colts either won that game or the game itself was a close match either way instead. Secret Base made a video greater covering the unbelievable situation here in this video, with it also mentioning a potential parallel to a film released in 1977 called Black Sunday that revolved around a pilot crashing into an NFL stadium that was planned to be for the Super Bowl of that year.
• After the USFL's (more on them in "Other Pro Leagues") bankruptcy, Donald Trump considered buying the New England Patriots from the Sullivan family in 1988; the Sullivans lost a lot of money promoting The Jacksons' Victory Tour during 1984 (see Troubled Production / Music). Trump declined to purchase the Patriots, saying that he didn't want to inherit the debt load. Earlier in 1981, Trump considered buying the Baltimore Colts. Trump would later try again in 2014, as he tried to buy the Buffalo Bills for $90 million, but was outbid by the Pegula family (who already owned the Buffalo Sabres of the NHL). His being outbid was a major factor in his choice to run for president in the 2016 election, which he wound up winning.
  • Also interested in purchasing the Bills was Jon Bon Jovi, who tried putting a group together to buy the team and move it to Toronto, despite the fact that the Bills games that were already being played in Toronto weren't selling out.^note Cue jokes about Buffalo being behind the times as usual and hating Bon Jovi 20 years after it was cool.
• The USFL's very existence had a massive disruptive effect on the 1984 NFL Draft. Lacking the NFL's rules on signing underclassmen, several players who would've been options for the #1 overall pick (like BYU's Steve Young, Tennessee's Reggie White and Georgia's Herschel Walker) were already signed by and playing in the USFL. The Cincinnati Bengals traded out of the first pick, swapping with the New England Patriots. The Patriots, fearful of having their pick poached by the USFL, signed U. of Nebraska receiver Irving Fryar as the #1 pick three weeks before the draft was held. Those who were Bengals front office officials at the time have said that they would have taken Young with the #1 pick that year, and only traded out because all they would've considered at the spot were already in the USFL.
• In 1989, the Green Bay Packers drafted Tony Mandarich, who ended up a definite bust and being the only top 5 draftee of the 1989 draft who didn't make the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the rest of the top 5 being Troy Aikman, Barry Sanders, Derrick Thomas and Deion Sanders. Had they drafted either Barry or Deion Sanders or Thomas (Aikman was already gone at the #1 overall pick), the Packers likely would have ended up winning a few more games with them, so the Packers probably wouldn't get rid of HC Lindy Infante or GM Tom Braatz when they did. That in turn means that Ron Wolf, Mike Holmgren and Brett Favre don't get brought into the Packers, thus not leading to their third golden age. On the other hand, if they had taken one of those players but the rest of the events had still played out similarly to what they historically did, Packers and some other fans would have gotten to see either Brett Favre handing off to Barry Sanders, or Deion Sanders or Derrick Thomas playing alongside the great mid '90's Packers defenses with (among others) greats like Reggie White, Santana Dotson and LeRoy Butler — either of which would have not only been amazing to see, but also would likely have meant more than just one Super Bowl ring for the Packers in the Favre/Holmgren era.
• Want to infuriate a long-time New York Jets fan? Ask him "What Might Have Been" if the Jets had drafted Hall of Famer Warren Sapp in 1995 - as everyone expected (and whom they desperately needed as their defense at the time was horrid) instead of TE Kyle Brady? (To be fair, Brady had a good NFL career - most of it with the Jacksonville Jaguars.)
  • A collection of Jets draft blunders.
  • Pretty much every team in every major sports league in America (if not Earth) has at least one "Why did we pass on/cut that guy?" The more famous ones like Sapp could take up their own page.
  • This is why the "first round bust" exists.
  • Special mention must be made of the Pittsburgh Steelers of the late 50s, who drafted Johnny Unitas - considered the best quarterback of the pre-merger era and on the short list for best of all time - in 1955, and cut after stashing him on the practice squad for the entire season. Then they had both Len Dawson (another future Hall of Famer) and Jack Kemp (who won two championships and an MVP in the AFL) on their roster in 1957. To be fair, Dawson and Kemp were behind Earl Morrall (a future NFL MVP)... whom they traded in 1958 after trading for future Hall of Famer Bobby Layne. Layne retired after the 1962 season. With the exception of Kemp (who retired after the 1969 season to pursue a successful run for Congress), all of those previously mentioned played into the 1970s.
• Considering the Cleveland Browns already had the greatest NFL running back of all time on their roster, what would the Browns have been like had they had a backfield of Jim Brown and Ernie Davis (the latter of whom died from leukemia without playing a down in the NFL)?
  • Would Art Modell have had the need to move the team to Baltimore if either The Drive or The Fumble never happened?
  • The Browns came within a hair of that ultimate sacrilege—adding a logo to their helmet—in 1965. Pressured by the league to adopt a logo for TV and marketing purposes, Modell commissioned a helmet logo design, a stylized, intertwined "CB". A number of merchandise items from the period sport the logo, but for unclear reasons the Browns never used it on the field; evidence points to a backlash from the players after seeing the logo for the first time. Rumors have the Browns actually using the logo for a preseason game, but all surviving preseason game photos have the familiar blank helmets.
• The 1970 NFL draft. The Pittsburgh Steelers and Chicago Bears had to flip a coin to determine who got the #1 overall pick that year. The Steelers won the flip and chose Terry Bradshaw. The Bears ended up trading their #2 pick to the Packers and didn't choose a player until round 2. Bradshaw led the Steelers to four Super Bowl victories in the next ten years and the franchise went from joke to juggernaut. The Bears had to wait another sixteen years to get their first and only Super Bowl victory.
• In 1969, his one and only season as head coach of the Washington Redskins (now Commanders), the legendary Vince Lombardi snapped a streak of 14 consecutive losing seasons for the 'Skins, whipped notorious slacker Sonny Jurgensen into shape, instilled a winning attitude into the 'Skins (and the entire Washington DC sports world, really) that had been absent (not to mention switching the 'Skins logo to the stylish "Circle R" design they wore throughout The '70s). Despite the success his successor George Allen had, longtime 'Skins fans wonder how far Lombardi could've taken them had he not died of colon cancer.
• Super Bowl XXVII was originally set to take place in Tempe, Arizona, but the NFL decided to relocate the game to Los Angeles after Arizona's government refused to recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a state holiday. They were eventually given their chance to host Super Bowl XXX.
  • Similarly, Super Bowl XXXIII was initially awarded to Candlestick Park in 1994 contingent on planned improvements to the stadium. However, when those improvements failed to materialize in 1996 the stadium was awarded to the runner-up city of Miami. The Bay Area would not be awarded another Super Bowl^note until Super Bowl 50, held at the successor to Candlestick Park as the home stadium for the San Francisco 49ers, Levi's Stadium.
  • Also, in 2005 Kansas City was awarded Super Bowl XLIX (played in 2015; most Super Bowls are awarded to a stadium around 3-4 years in advance versus nearly 10 years in this case). As in the case of Super Bowl XXXIII initially being awarded to Candlestick Park; the NFL awarded this Super Bowl to Kansas City's Arrowhead Stadium provided two sales taxes were approved by the city's residents to renovate the stadium (including a proposed retractable roof Arrowhead and neighboring Kauffman Stadium^note). The first tax was approved, but a second that would have funded the rolling roof was narrowly defeated; forcing the Kansas City Super Bowl hosting committee to withdraw their bid. Super Bowl XLIX would eventually be awarded to the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, Arizona.
• An interesting NFL game example would be from the 1993 playoffs. The Houston Oilers were only 10–6 but well known for their explosive run-and-shoot offense. They were playing a team, the Buffalo Bills, that they had literally beaten the week before 27–3. The Oilers got out to a 35–3 lead in the third quarter and ended up losing the game 41–38 in overtime, mostly due to their poor defensive play and poor special teams play. Until the 2022 season, it was the largest comeback ever in NFL history, and it still is the largest comeback in playoff history to this day. Buffalo would eventually go on to lose their third of four straight Super Bowl appearances. Houston would hire defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan, a vocal critic of the run-and-shoot offense, in 1993 where they would again lose in the playoffs. Midway through the 1994 season, Houston would fire head coach Jack Pardee and abandon the run-and-shoot offense (and eventually move to Tennessee to later become the Titans by the end of the decade), while Buffalo would mostly struggle to capture the glory they had in the early part of the decade.
  • If Houston had won, they would have likely gone on to play a Pittsburgh Steelers team that they had lost two games to by a combined 6 points during the season. Houston very well could have had a chance at going as far as the AFC Championship Game and maybe Buddy Ryan never would have been hired as their new defensive coordinator. This also may have resulted in Jeff Fisher never becoming the head coach of the Houston Oilers (and maybe even gone so far as to keep the team from moving to Tennessee to later become the Tennessee Titans).
  • If either of those scenarios had come to pass; there would have been no need for Oilers owner Bud Adams to threaten to break the team up (which after the 1993 season ended with a playoff loss to Kansas City and comeback specialist Joe Montana, Adams made good on).
• The 1958 NFL championship ("The Greatest Game Ever Played") put the NFL on the national map, with Baltimore QB Johnny Unitas running the 2-minute drill to perfection (before the term had even been coined, let alone codified as a strategy). But would the NFL have gained that boost if the New York Giants had stopped the Colts in regulation time? Or if the game hadn't had the extra drama of being the NFL's first ever sudden death overtime game? Or if that drama had not happened in the NFL's first nationwide (as in "Every station in NBC's network was getting this broadcast") telecast?
• One Yard Short. If it didn't happen, then Super Bowl XXXIV could have been the first Super Bowl to go to overtime (this would later happen with Super Bowl LI). And if the Tennessee Titans had pulled off the win after forcing overtime, how would that have changed the future of the franchise (which has still never won a Super Bowl as of 2020, either as the Titans or previously as the Houston Oilers) and coach Jeff Fisher (who also never won a Super Bowl as a coach^note), the latter of whom ended up with a reputation as a losing coach by the time of his retirement.^note
• The Buffalo Bills are known as the team that lost 4 Super Bowls in a row. The first of the loss was a very narrow loss by 1 point where Bills kicker Scott Norwood missed a last minute field goal that would've won the game for the Bills. However, what if the kick was good and the Bills won their first Super Bowl? Would the Bills make it back again and again for the next 3 seasons? If they did, would having a Super Bowl victory under their belt (and coming in as the reigning Super Bowl champions the first year) have changed their mindset to the point where they would have been able to put up a better fight in those subsequent games?
  • Similarly, would Super Bowl XXVII have been so lopsided if Bills star quarterback Jim Kelly hadn't gotten hurt in the second quarter? Could Kelly's presence have changed the course of the game enough to give the Bills a fighting chance?^note
  • The pick used by the Kansas City Chiefs in the 2017 NFL Draft to select Patrick Mahomes originally belonged to the Bills, who traded it for KC's first round pick in that draft and the following draft^note. This more or less worked out for the Bills in the end as they drafted QB Josh Allen 7th overall the following year^note, but still, what if they had taken Mahomes? Does he become a bust? (Mahomes was regarded as a "project quarterback" before the draft.) Do the Bills end up winning the Super Bowls the Chiefs won? What happens to Allen if the Bills don't draft him?
• How would the 2013 Super Bowl have turned out if the power hadn't gone out in the Superdome for 34 minutes after halftime? The Baltimore Ravens were on their way to a rout of the San Francisco 49ers, leading 21–6 at the half. The 49ers managed to rally to within a field goal of the Ravens by the end of the game (though they still lost). Would the 49ers have been able to rally even without the break in Baltimore's momentum?
• During the 2011 NBA lockout period, LeBron James was given offers to play in the NFL by both the Dallas Cowboys (which is Lebron's favorite team) and Seattle Seahawks for the 2011 NFL season. While that sounds unusual on the surface level, LeBron did play junior varsity football in high school as a wide receiver, being recruited by Division I programs like Notre Dame for football (not necessarily basketball) at the time and being named an All-State member by his sophom*ore year in high school. For reference, this is also while he was named Mr. Basketball for the state of Ohio in that same year. However, a wrist injury he had in a high school basketball game in his senior year prevented him from continuing with football there, which likely influenced his decision to go to the NBA directly out of high school in 2003 instead of go to college for basketball and/or football. Considering his old coaches gave him comparisons to Randy Moss for what he felt like in high school football games, it's not unreasonable to wonder if he might have made a difference for either team there, especially if the 2011 NBA lockout lasted as long as the 1998-99 NBA lockout.
• The 1942 Chicago Bears: 11–0 in the regular season, winning with an average score of 34–8, 10 All-Stars, led by future Hall of Fame QB Sid Luckman. Then coach George Halas left to serve in the Navy, and the Bears lost the championship game to Washington. Most NFL historians take it as fact that had Halas stayed to coach the championship game, the Bears complete the perfect season.
• Coming off a near-perfect 1985 season capped off by a blowout win in Super Bowl XX, the Chicago Bears were en route to making another run for the ages in 1986, but quarterback Jim McMahon suffered a season-ending shoulder injury after taking a (blatantly illegal) hit in Week 12. The Bears still finished 14-2 and made the playoffs, but without McMahon, they were unable to defeat the Washington Redskins in the divisional round of the playoffs, ending their hopes of becoming back-to-back Super Bowl champions. The Bears proved unable to rebound from this setback; since the heartbreak that was the 1986 season, the Bears have (as of 2020) appeared in only one Super Bowl (a loss) and three conference championships (two losses), compiled just six total playoff wins, had more losing seasons (17) than winning seasons (12), and become generally infamous for their inability to put together a championship-caliber team and for blowing the chances they do get to challenge for a title. Many Bears fans still believe that if the Bears had had McMahon for the playoffs, they could have gone on to win their second Super Bowl in as many years and potentially built on that to ascend to dynasty status; instead, they watched the team stall and then descend into mediocrity, all because of one dirty hit.
• The 2007 New England Patriots: Won all 16 of their regular-season games and went on to defeat the Jaguars and the Chargers in the playoffs. Only the New York Giants stood in their quest for a perfect season. With the Patriots ahead 14–10, the Giants faced 2nd and 5 on their 44-yard line with just over a minute left in the game. Eli Manning threw a pass that Patriots cornerback Asante Samuel nearly grabbed for an interception. On the next play, Manning completed the "Helmet Catch" to David Tyree and the Giants would eventually score a touchdown, winning Super Bowl XLII with a final score of 17–14. Fans are left wondering what would have happened if Samuel completed the interception and the Patriots achieved a perfect season (which has only been done once in NFL history, and has never happened since the regular season was expanded to 16 and then 17 games)...
  • The loss to the Giants also brings up more speculation: what would have happened if the Patriots won that game? Would Brady and/or Belichick feel that there was nothing left to conquer and retire early, or become complacent? The loss to the Giants haunted the team for a long time afterwards, and to some extent Brady built the entire second act of his career trying to make up for it. The win in Super Bowl XLIX had a special sense of urgency because the Dynasty seemed to be running out of time at that point in time.
  • If they had won that game, they would not have faced the Kansas City Chiefs in the 2008 season opener, thus Brady would not have been in the path of Bernard Pollard. That game derailed what was otherwise an encore with the 16-0 squad on a much easier schedule. Could they have done the unthinkable and done it again? They failed to make the playoffs at 11-5, the only time that has ever happened under the then current playoff format (the 1985 Denver Broncos also failed to make it at 11-5, back when their were only 3 divisions)^note, but with Brady at least some of those losses would have been wins. The league's reigning MVP being injured and taken out of the season prompted a rule change to prohibit quarterbacks from being targeted at the knees by downed defenders. What impact would the absence of these rules changes have on the league?
  • Matt Cassel's 2008 performance improved his trade value ahead of the 2009 Draft. He would, ironically, be traded to and become the starter for the Chiefs. The Patriots in turn acquired a second round pick which they used to acquire safety Patrick Chung. Of their league-leading 12 picks, the Patriots acquired only three players of value in a draft described as one of the worst in the NFL's history: Chung, Sebastian Vollmer, and Julian Edelman. All three have won multiple championships with the Pats and are members of their 2010s All-Decade Team. But Edelman was taken as a flyer in the 7th round, and without the high 2nd acquired in exchange for Cassel, the pick used to acquire him may have been used as capital to move up in the draft. Chung's selection in itself was a key pick-up that rebuilt the Patriots' battered and aging late 2000s defense.
• The infamous Herschel Walker trade, which helped the Dallas Cowboys snap out of an Audience-Alienating Era and win three championships in five years, was almost the "Michael Irvin trade". In 1989, Jimmy Johnson, newly-hired coach of the Cowboys, thought that the only way the Cowboys were going turn things around with any sort of speed would be to acquire all the draft picks they could, then either flip those for other players or higher picks or simply stockpile players and turn over the not-very-good roster that way. Dallas only had two bankable assets to use as trade bait: Second-year receiver Irvin or two-time All-Pro halfback Walker. Johnson offered Irvin to the Los Angeles Raiders and asked what they'd be willing to hand over for him. Raiders Owner/General Manager Al Davis talked Johnson out of the deal, pointing out that if he traded Irvin, newly-drafted quarterback Troy Aikman would have no reliable target to throw to (a must for a young QB). Johnson took Davis' advice and offered Walker to the Minnesota Vikings. The rest is history. Though one wonders what could have been if Davis hadn't been feeling honorable that day, as Irvin could've been paired with fellow future Hall of Fame receiver Tim Brown and speedster Willie Gault. That trio could've terrorized the AFC for years. Davis' magnanimity was probably helped by the fact that the Raiders still had Marcus Allen and a healthy Bo Jackson at running back, so they really didn't need the extra firepower.
  • On the flip side of this scenario: What if Johnson and Jones had gone with conventional wisdom and tried to rebuild the Cowboys around Aikman and Walker? Without the bounty of draft picks, it probably would've been a longer path. And Walker's continued presence probably keeps Dallas from their 1-15 cratering in 1989, meaning lower draft position. It would almost certainly mean no Emmitt Smith.
  • The Cowboys went on to have two more WCHB draft moments, both torpedoed at the last moment by their player of choice getting sniped.
    • During the 1990 draft, the Cowboys had a deal in principle with the Kansas City Chiefs to trade up to the 13th pick, contingent on Baylor LB James Francis being available. Cincinnati nabbed him with the 12th pick - with Dallas GM Tex Schramm on the phone with Francis. Dallas then enacted a trade with Pittsburgh to move up to 17 and draft Plan B: Florida RB Emmitt Smith. Francis was a good-not-great player for the Bengals for nine seasons. Smith became the league's career leader in rushing yards, four-time All-Pro and league rushing leader, league MVP in 1993 and one of the most important players on three Super Bowl champion teams, culminating in Hall of Fame election in 2010. And even then, had Coach and de facto GM Jimmy Johnson not spent that draft's first rounder in the previous Supplemental Draft^note, the Cowboys still pass on Smith, likely drafting Johnson's most coveted player: USC linebacker (and fellow future Hall of Famer) Junior Seau.
    • During the 1994 draft, Dallas had a deal to trade disgruntled receiver Alvin Harper to the St. Louis Rams in exchange for the #5 overall pick. The deal was contingent on Dallas' target — USC linebacker Willie McGinest — being available. Otherwise the deal was off. McGinest was picked by the New England Patriots at #4, going on to two Pro Bowls and being one of the veteran leaders in the Patriots' first three championships under Bill Belichick. At their normal slot at #23, Dallas went on to draft Arizona State DE Shante Carver, who would prove to be a bust (lasting four seasons in the league and being most notable for his drug suspensions). The Rams traded out of the first round and addressed their receiver need in the second, taking Memphis' Issac Bruce, who went on to have the best career of the three, entering the Hall of Fame in 2020.
• Another NFL Draft related "WCHB" moment: In 1983; the then-Los Angeles Raiders entered discussions about a potential three-way trade with the then-Baltimore Colts and Chicago Bears in which the Colts would get underachieving quarterback Marc Wilson; the Raiders' top pick and the higher of Chicago's 2 first round picks (which the Raiders would get in exchange for trading defensive end Howie Long to the Windy City) and Los Angeles would get the #1 overall pick (with the consensus top player in the draft being Stanford quarterback John Elway). For unknown reasons^note; the deal fell through^note; though some still wonder what would have happened with John Elway as quarterback for the Raiders for the next decade or defensive end Howie Long teamed alongside Hall of Fame Bear defensive linemen Richard Dent and Dan Hampton.
• Colin Kaepernick, seemingly overnight, went from "Quarterback people weren't sure could play or not" to "political lightning rod", when he would turn his back during the playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner" (later modified to kneeling as a less-disrespectful compromise) morphed into a protest movement throughout the NFL and beyond. But would things have worked out that way in a different environment? During the 2016 offseason, Kaepernick vetoed a trade from San Francisco to Denver by refusing to take a pay cut. Kaepernick would've likely been the Broncos' starter that season, possibly beyond depending on his performance, with a much stronger offense than what he'd have in San Francisco. We'll never know how everything would've shaken out had he accepted the trade.
  • At Super Bowl XLVII, the San Francisco 49ers were trailing the Baltimore Ravens 21–6 at halftime when Kaepernick rallied the team to come back before narrowly losing 34–31 (though the second half was interrupted by a blackout for over 30 minutes). And the following year, Kaepernick once again led the team to the NFC Championship Game, where a last-minute interception against the Seattle Seahawks ended the Niners' hopes of another trip to the Super Bowl. What if he had successfully made the comeback and won Super Bowl XLVII (which would have happened had one controversial officiating call^note gone the other way)? What if he'd reached Super Bowl XLVIII and won that? How would that have affected how the events of 2016 and beyond played out? Would people have been able to brush off Kaepernick so easily if he'd been a Super Bowl-winning quarterback? Would some team have been willing to put the politics aside and sign him despite the controversy if he had been the quarterback who led a Super Bowl comeback for the ages (at the time, it would have been the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history) instead of being the quarterback who fell short of a title?
• Another trade WCHB: The 1999 trade that saw Mike Ditka and the New Orleans Saints trade their entire 1999 draft, plus the 2000 first rounder and picks in 2001, to Washington, for the chance to move up to the fifth pick and grab Texas running back Ricky Williams. However, Ditka first offered the deal to the Cincinnati Bengals for the #3 pick. The Bengals turned them down, coveting Oregon QB Akili Smith too strongly. Smith turned out to be the biggest bust of the entire class. Who knows if the Bengals would have broken out of their "Bungles" era struggles earlier if they had drafted someone other than Smith and would have had a bunch of other picks to utilize.
• Hall of Fame QB Dan Marino, widely considered the "best QB to never win a Super Bowl", was involved with two WCHB scenarios at both the very start and very end of his career which could have changed NFL history. To note:
  • At the start of his career, Marino, a Pittsburgh native and then-quarterback for the University of Pittsburgh, almost had his hometown Steelers draft him to replace the aging Terry Bradshaw. However, he was passed over for DT Gabriel Rivera, who the Steelers selected #21 overall. Rivera was one of the most athletic defensive linemen available in the draft, drawing a comparison from Steelers coach Chuck Noll to former Steeler "Mean Joe" Greene. Despite this, Steelers fans were torn on the pick, as they preferred the hometown hero Marino. Rivera played well, notching two sacks in his first six games, however, while driving drunk, he was involved in a car accident which left him paralyzed, ending his career. Marino, selected 27th by Miami, went on to a Hall of Fame career while the Steelers went into their longest period of decline since the merger, making the playoffs just three times over the next nine seasons until Noll's retirement. Years later, Hall of Fame coach Tony Dungy, who was an assistant on the Steelers at the time, stated that the team really did want Marino, but Noll wanted to avoid an awkward QB transition with Bradshaw still on the team and made the call to pass on him. The Steelers' regret from passing on Marino influenced their choice of selecting UPitt's Kenny Pickett as their new QB following Ben Roethlisberger's retirement in 2022.
    • And as a corollary to this...what if Rivera had done the responsible thing and called a cab that night? Would "Señor Sack" have become the next "Mean Joe" Greene like Noll was hoping, creating the nucleus of another dominant Steelers defense? Or would the Steelers have declined even with his services?
  • At the very end of his playing career, Marino received an offer from the Minnesota Vikings to be their starting quarterback. The Vikings were coming off of a playoff season and were not yet ready to give the starting job to the untested second-year Daunte Culpepper after losing former starter Jeff George in free agency. The Vikings at the time had future Hall of Fame receivers Cris Carter and Randy Moss, along with Pro Bowl running back Robert Smith which would give Marino some excellent weapons to work with. Marino seriously considered the offer, but turned it down citing injuries to his legs, along with his longtime loyalty to the Miami Dolphins and decided to retire as a Dolphin. Had he decided to take the offer, Marino would have had perhaps the best opportunity of his career to shed the infamous "best QB to never win a Super Bowl" title along with the Vikings their best shot of winning a Super Bowl.
• Tony Romo, holder of many of the Dallas Cowboys career passing records, including passing yards and passing touchdowns, originally signed with Dallas as an undrafted free agent out of the obscure Eastern Illinois University. He was recruited to Dallas where a fellow Eastern Illinois alum, Sean Payton, served as offensive coordinator. A few years later, Payton, upon becoming the head coach of the New Orleans Saints, attempted to trade for Romo. The Cowboys demanded greater compensation (a 2nd round pick) than what the Saints were offering (a 3rd round pick), so the Saints backed out. Had they traded for Romo, it's possible that they never would have signed Drew Brees, which would have not only changed the fortunes of both franchises, but quite possibly the entire league for the decade which followed. (Romo and the Cowboys would have some great seasons, but would always Fizzle Out in the postseason, while Brees would go on to become one of the NFL's all-time passing leaders in addition to winning Super Bowl XLIV.)
• Greg Cook was a star college QB drafted 5th overall by the Bengals in 1969, notable for his large size relative to the era (6'4", 220^*) and his powerful arm. He set numerous rookie passing records, including a few which still stand to this day (including records for yards per attempt and yards per completion). However, he tore his rotator cuff and further damaged it by playing through the injury. A botched surgery ended his career, forcing the Bengals to turn to Virgil Carter, a middling career backup from BYU. Carter was much smaller (6'1", ~190^*) and lacked Cook's arm strength, but was more mobile and an accurate passer. To compensate for Carter's differing skillset, the Bengals offensive coordinator devised a scheme based around a short, lateral passing attack, allowing receivers to pick up yards-after-catch and using Carter's mobility to roll out of the pocket for deeper pass attempts. That coordinator's name? Bill Walsh. The scheme he devised? The West Coast Offense. Walsh later expanded on this system as head coach of 49ers, led San Francisco to four Super Bowls, and created one of the most influential coaching trees in the history of football. With a healthy Cook, there would be much less need for a short passing game and NFL history would look much different.
• For Greg Cook, read Bert Jones. For three years Bert - the Ruston Rifle - posted excellent figures for the Baltimore Colts in the mid '70s. But he was always battling shoulder trouble, and surgery at that time only provided a temporary respite from pain and discomfort. Finally, he broke down completely, and had to retire young. But if surgery had been better and Jones had, for example, managed to post a Super Bowl in the early 80's, would then Robert Irsay have decamped with the U-Haul trucks to Indianapolis? More pertinently for Jones himself, would we now be toasting him as one of the best QB's of all time? ^note
• The 1985 Draft made the Supplemental Draft (held since 1977 for players ineligible for various reasons for the regular draft) more important than it had been before or since. With the Buffalo Bills locked in on Virginia Tech defensive end Bruce Smith with the #1 pick, all eyes turned to the Houston Oilers at #2. It was assumed that the pick would be U. of Miami quarterback Bernie Kosar - whether Houston made the pick or traded it. But two weeks before draft there were two incompatible trades announced: Houston traded the #2 pick to the Minnesota Vikings. But the Cleveland Browns announced they had traded with Buffalo for the #1 pick in the supplemental draft, having convinced Kosar (a native of Youngstown, OH) to hold off on declaring for the draft enough to make him ineligible for the regular draft, but eligible for the Supplemental (held a month after the regular draft).^note When the Oilers and Vikings protested, NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle left the choice to Kosar, who chose to go with the Supplemental draft. Without the eligibility loophole, the Oilers/Vikings trade likely goes through and Kosar ends up in Minnesota, likely spending that first season backing up veteran Tommy Kramer. The next year, the NFL changed the Supplemental Draft rules to the current half-blind auction/half-waiver claim system^note, making the Browns/Bills deal impossible going forward.
• A key component of the Dallas Cowboys' 1970s dynasty was their success in the NFL Draft. Hall of Fame General Manager Tex Schramm, Hall of Fame Head Coach Tom Landry, and Hall of Fame Chief Scout Gil Brandt pioneered an evaluation system that would soon after be adopted/adapted by most of the NFL (and even included a very early instance of using computer analytics to grade players). In this system, the players were ranked according to who the best players were, regardless of position. At the time, other teams would often remove players or move them down the board if they had no need for a player at that position. When the Cowboys pick came up, they were to take the player at the top of the board no matter what. During the 3rd round of the 1979 NFL Draft, this system was put to the test. The Cowboys, holding pick #76, had a quarterback at the top of their draft board. However, the team had no need for a QB at that time. They had future Hall of Famer Roger Staubach at the top of the depth chart, experienced backup Danny White behind him, and 1977 2nd round pick Glenn Carano who was considered a potential long-term replacement for Staubach. Landry made the call to pass on what would be a 4th-string quarterback and instead select TE Doug Cosbie. That QB would be selected six picks later at #82 overall by the San Francisco 49ers. His name? Joe Montana. What could have been if the Cowboys had stuck to their draft board and drafted Montana? It would most certainly mean no '80s Dynasty for the 49ers and a likely '80s Dynasty for the Cowboys (which would likely cause a massive domino effect where they don't trade Herschel Walker that jumpstarts their Dynasty in the '90s, nor likely draft Troy Aikman who would have likely replaced Montana at QB).
• Future Hall of Fame QB Drew Brees never played for the Miami Dolphins, but a pair of WCHB moments almost put him there. To note:
  • The Dolphins missed out on Brees the first time when they had the opportunity to draft him in 2001. Their own quarterback play was suspect at best after the retirement of the legendary Dan Marino (see above). Jay Fiedler, a journeyman backup was the starter and, though Miami had made the playoffs, this had more to do with their stout defense and running game. It was already apparent that Fiedler wasn't a long-term solution, but instead of taking Brees (to whom they had been heavily linked in the lead-up to the draft) at the end of the first round, they took Wisconsin cornerback Jamar Fletcher despite having two All-Pro corners on the roster already (Sam Madison and Patrick Surtain). Fletcher played in nickel and dime packages and on special teams, then was traded for a meager fifth round pick two years later as a draft bust. He would play for another five years, never becoming a starter or contributing to any team he played for in any meaningful way. Meanwhile Brees embarked on a Hall of Fame career.
  • In 2006, the Miami Dolphins under Nick Saban were coming off of a 9-7 season in which they just missed the playoffs by one game. Hoping to take the next step as a team, they decided to upgrade their QB situation where they had two main options: Sign former Chargers QB Drew Brees or trade for Vikings QB Daunte Culpepper. Both were former Pro Bowlers, but both were coming off of devastating injuries (a torn rotator cuff for Brees and multiple torn knee ligaments for Culpepper). The Dolphins medical staff evaluated both players and would not sign off on Brees, believing his injury to be career threatening. The Dolphins traded a 2nd round pick for Culpepper who was immediately inserted as the starter. However, Culpepper struggled and was benched after four games, then placed on IR due to complications from the knee injury. The Dolphins traded for Lions draft bust Joey Harrington, who wasn't much better, then ended the season with former 3rd stringer Cleo Lemon starting in mop-up duty. The Dolphins finished 6-10 and Saban quickly bailed to become the head coach at the University of Alabama, where he has to date won six national titles. Meanwhile, Drew Brees would sign with the Saints, showing that his shoulder was just fine by winning a Super Bowl and setting the NFL's all-time career passing yards record. It's quite fair to wonder WCHB if the Dolphins signed Brees instead. Would Brees have been just as effective in Miami as in New Orleans? If so, would Saban have stuck around? And how would that have changed the college football landscape in the decade-plus to follow?
• For Super Bowl XLIX, the game was considered one of the best Super Bowls ever, but it also contained one of the biggest WCHB moments one could possibly ask for. Near the end of the game, Jermaine Kearse of the Seattle Seahawks had one of the most improbable catches one could ever ask for with Patriots rookie cornerback Malcolm Butler deflecting the ball with one hand, only for Kearse to tip it to himself and then catch it while he was lying on his back. That play had them near their touchdown area with 1:05 left, with most people thinking the Seahawks were going to win it in the end. However, when the ball moved to their one-yard line with 26 left in the game, the Seahawks sought to win with a pass in the touchdown area to win... only for it to be intercepted by Malcolm Butler himself. Instead of Jermaine Kearse's play being considered one of the greatest plays of all time, it was Butler's interception that became that, with the Seahawks' pass being considered one of the worst Super Bowl plays of all time. While Seahawks fans did win their Super Bowl a year earlier by a massive blowout against Denver, many other fans still wonder how differently things would have been had Seattle just continued running the ball instead of decided to pass the ball like they did near the end of the game. If they won the game by running the ball, would Tom Brady and Bill Belichick still have managed to get the records that they got in the end for all-time Super Bowl achievements? Would the Seahawks and their Legion of Boom become the new dynasty of the NFL instead? On the other hand, if they ran the ball unsuccessfully and didn't get the touchdown (something which was more likely than many fans realize at the time), does that then have an impact on the future of the NFL? While the impact on the Patriots would probably be small (apart from the individual career of Malcolm Butler), what happens to Seattle? Does a more "heroic" defeat give the team a different outlook going into the subsequent season? Does the decision to take the ball out of Russell Wilson's hands cause the relationship between him and the team to break down that much sooner? Or does it all end up having little impact because the fact of the loss is more significant than the details in question? Any and all of these are possibilities.
• 28-3. That score has become the bane of Atlanta Falcons fans ever since Super Bowl LI came and went due to the infamy caused by it, with many other fans lamenting it for what it represents with Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, and the New England Patriots winning yet another Super Bowl in their names. However, one does wonder how much things would have changed if Atlanta either continued the aggressive way they played in the first half into the second half or at least managed to stop the Patriots from coming back sooner than they did and eventually winning the Super Bowl in overtime. Alternatively, similar to the 2022 AFC playoff game between the Buffalo Bills and the Kansas City Chiefs, how differently would the game have been if both teams had been given a chance to possess the ball in overtime (a rule change that was put in place for the postseason after the aforementioned 2022 game), rather than the existing system that gave one team (the Patriots, in this case) a massive advantage pretty much by random chance?
• During the 2018 offseason, Raiders pass rushing linebacker and former Defensive Player of the Year Khalil Mack was entering what would be the final year of his rookie contract and staged a holdout, seeking a new contract which would make him the highest paid defensive player in football. The Raiders were unwilling to offer him such a contract (and according to some sources, could not, as the team was cash-strapped after giving $100 million + deals to QB Derek Carr and head coach Jon Gruden). Reluctantly, the team listened to trade offers for Mack. Many teams were interested, but the two best offers reportedly came from the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers, two hated rivals in the NFC North division. The Bears offered two first round picks (2019 and 2020), a third round pick (2020), and a sixth round pick (2019). The Packers reportedly offered even more, but the Raiders decided to accept the Bears offer believing that the Bears first round picks would be higher (as the Bears had been a bottom 5-10 team in the league for several years prior while the Packers were a playoff contender). In large part thanks to Mack (who had a great year and placed 2nd in Defensive Player of the Year voting), the Bears went 12–4 and made the playoffs. The Packers meanwhile struggled, with QB Aaron Rodgers injuring his knee in the first game of the season (against the Bears) and having a down year while playing through the injury. The Packers also uncharacteristically fired their head coach in-season as well, finishing 6–9–1 (and a first round draft pick over 10 picks higher than the Bears). If the Raiders had accepted the Packers offer instead, how would the fortunes of all three teams have changed?
  • Ironically, a similar situation played out with two of the same teams to opposite effect in 2022 with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Chase Claypool. Both Green Bay and Chicago offered a second-round pick for Claypool, but the Steelers chose the Bears' offer on the same theory (that it was likely to be higher). Unlike the Raiders, the Steelers ended up being right; Chicago couldn't get right and finished with the worst record in the league, making their pick #32 overall (due to the Miami Dolphins being stripped of their first-round pick for tampering), while the Packers had a late season surge and fell to the middle of the round, making their second-round pick #45. Claypool ended up being such a flop (and locker room problem) in Chicago that the Bears traded him away for a late-round pick swap less than a year later. On the other side of the coin, the Steelers used the #32 pick on standout corner (and Steelers legacy player) Joey Porter Jr.; the Packers, for their part, used the #45 pick to trade down and draft WR Jayden Reed, as well as picking up two additional picks that became WR Dontayvion Wicks and DE Karl Brooks, all three of whom ended up being near-instant impact players. While Steelers and Packers fans are thanking their lucky stars that this timeline will only ever be a hypothetical^note, Bears fans are left to wonder what might have been had they not made the trade and held onto their second-round pick, giving them a chance to pick Porter or any of several other solid players who went early in the second, or, if they preferred, to make another lucrative trade to go with the one they made for the first overall pick and pick up even more picks (Pittsburgh reportedly had multiple offers to trade out of #32, but chose not to because they badly wanted Porter and feared he'd be gone if they waited).
• The 2020 and 2021 NFL Drafts were both impacted by the COVID-19 Pandemic and likely would have been much different under normal circ*mstances. To note:
  • While the 2020 Draft itself was held virtually without significant issue after the original plan of hosting it in Las Vegas (in part to celebrate the Raiders moving from Oakland to Las Vegas at the time) was no longer seen as viable for the NFL (though they ultimately got their make-up date two years later), teams were unable to evaluate players during individual workouts, during on-premises interviews, and, perhaps most significantly, by their own team medical staffs. Players coming off of significant injuries, in general, fell further in the draft compared to historical draft classes. Would, for example, Alabama QB Tua Tagovailoa (who was coming off a serious hip injury at the time) have been available to the Dolphins at the #5 pick if teams had been able to clear him medically before the draft? Meanwhile, Clemson WR Tee Higgins and Utah CB Jaylon Johnson (a future All-Pro) were both projected 1st round picks before undergoing offseason surgeries, later falling into the 2nd round (to the Bengals and Bears, respectively). Finally, many later round prospects were denied their usual chance to improve their draft stock with workouts and on-premises interviews. How would this draft class have differed under normal circ*mstances?
  • The 2021 Draft took place in Cleveland, but it was after a truncated FBS college football season in which many prospects "opted out" of playing. Even worse, the lower divisions, including the Ivy League and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), either canceled their 2020 seasons or postponed them into the spring of 2021. As such, outside of a few notable exceptions, far fewer small school players were selected than in a normal year. No Ivy League or HBCU players were selected at all, leading to some significant blowback from coaches, alums, and fans of the latter especially.
• During the 1991 NFL Draft, Jets assistant GM Ron Wolf was impressed with a little known quarterback from Southern Miss named Brett Favre. He convinced the team to draft select him with their second round pick, but they were beaten to the punch by the Atlanta Falcons who held the pick just before them. After Favre spent his first season with Atlanta clashing with the coaching staff (who did not see his potential), Wolf, now the GM for the Green Bay Packers, acquired him in a trade and Favre went on to have a Hall of Fame career. Would he have been able to do the same for the Jets had Atlanta not ruined their plan or Atlanta if they had given him a fair shot?
• Following the death of Chicago Bears founder and owner George "Papa Bear" Halas Sr. in 1983, the team was passed down to his daughter Virginia Halas McCaskey and her sons, who have been criticized for their leadership of the team. However, this was not George's original succession plan. He intended for the team to be passed down to his son George "Mugsy" Halas Jr., who he had been grooming to take over for decades and was well liked throughout the organization for his friendliness and strong football acumen. Tragically, Mugsy suffered a sudden heart attack and died in 1979, four years before his father's passing. As such, George Sr. had no choice but to give the team to his daughter as she was his only other child. Many Bears fans, former players, and employees believe that if George Jr. had lived to inherit the team, the team would have seen more modern-day success than they have in the recent decades of mismanagement by the McCaskeys.
• In the 2017 draft, the Chicago Bears traded up one spot to draft QB Mitchell Trubisky at #2 overall, eight picks before Patrick Mahomes was selected at #10 overall by the Kansas City Chiefs, which has led many a Bears fan to wonder what could have been if their team drafted Mahomes instead.^note On one hand, they could have been the ones to enjoy the success that Mahomes instead brought to the Chiefs; on the other hand, Mahomes was something of a raw, unpolished prospect coming out of college, and there's an argument to be made that the roles played by Andy Reid and Alex Smith were a key part of Mahomes' development, and if that's the case, then it's more likely than not that Mahomes would have failed to reach his ceiling in Chicago, rather than being the franchise-changing star some Bears fans imagine him being in that scenario.
  • Another potential scenario is that the Bears hold off on drafting a QB altogether in 2017 and instead wait to take a shot at one of the quarterbacks in the loaded 2018 draft — but while this could have landed them Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson, it could also just as easily have resulted in them ending up with Sam Darnold or Josh Rosen, both of whom were even bigger busts than Trubisky.
• The Jimmy Garoppolo trade to the San Francisco 49ers is a big one for the New England Patriots, was almost the Tom Brady trade given that it was a pivotal decision where there were strong opinions on both sides. Garoppolo was drafted by the Patriots in the second round of the 2014 draft as the heir-apparent to Tom Brady, but ahead of the 2017 season (the final season of Garoppolo's rookie deal), Brady was showing no signs of slowing down, while Garoppolo made it clear he would not accept a contract extension that would keep him as an indefinite backup to Brady. The Patriots were then faced with a critical choice that would shape the future of the franchise: would they let Garoppolo go and keep Brady as the starter for the foreseeable future, or would they trade Brady after 2017 in order to hand the starting job to Garoppolo? Head coach Bill Belichick, who usually gets to make the calls in personnel decisions, wanted to do the latter (as later revealed in interviews, Belichick was willing to send Brady to his hometown 49ers to honor his lifelong dream of playing for them), believing that Garoppolo was good enough to take the reins and that the long-term stability that Garoppolo (nearly 15 years younger than Brady) offered was worth taking the risk, but team owner Robert Kraft overruled Belichick and subsequently forced him to trade Garoppolo instead (mostly because the alternative was to lose him for nothing in free agency, but some have also suggested that Brady himself pushed for it because he wanted Garoppolo gone). Brady won one more Super Bowl with the Patriots, but ended up leaving the team just two years later to sign with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (where he would win his record 7th and final Super Bowl), which led to a dismal 2020 season and only middling success ever since for the Patriots; meanwhile, Garoppolo took the 49ers to Super Bowl LIV and the 2021 conference championship, but also missed significant time in 2018, 2020, and 2022 with injuries, leading to something of a roller-coaster trajectory for the 49ers, and this ultimately led to him being released ahead of the 2023 season, landing with the Las Vegas Raiders (also for one season, despite him signing a three-year deal) before the Raiders would cut him loose. In the years since, the hypothetical alternate reality where Belichick got his way in 2017 has been a topic of discussion among NFL fans. Would the Patriots still be an AFC powerhouse if they'd had the smoother transition, or would they have been the ones dealing with a perpetually-injured quarterback^note while watching Brady succeed with the 49ers? Meanwhile, assuming Brady did in fact end up with the 49ers, what happens with the 49ers if their quarterback is Brady rather than Garoppolo, and how does that impact other teams?
  • Of particular note as far as the impacts on other teams is the Kansas City Chiefs, as they have three straight years (2018-2020) where the outcome of their season was intertwined with some aspect of this hypothetical: they lost to Brady and the Patriots in the 2018 AFC Championship, beat the 49ers with Garoppolo in Super Bowl LIV, and then lost to Brady and the Buccaneers in Super Bowl LV. On one hand, they might not win their first Super Bowl in the modern era if Brady was under center for the 49ers in Super Bowl LIV, but they also potentially make it to the Super Bowl a year sooner if the 2018 Patriots didn't have Brady in the AFC Championship (which the Chiefs only barely lost even with Brady on the other side). As for the 2020 season, Tampa Bay probably isn't in the Super Bowl in the first place if they don't have Brady, so the Chiefs would face some other team, with the Saints and Packers (both of whom were eliminated by the Buccaneers in the postseason) the most likely candidates — but then, if Brady is with the 49ers (and stays healthy like Garoppolo couldn't), the Brady-led 49ers are right in that mix as well.
  • The Miami Dolphins are another team that would likely feel the impact of this alternate history, as a 49ers team with Brady probably doesn't make the massive trade-up for Trey Lance in the 2021 draft, meaning the Dolphins don't get the haul of picks they've used to shape their roster in the years since.
  • Speaking of the 49ers, this wasn't the first nor the last time that they missed out on getting Brady. They had multiple chances to draft the hometown QB in either the first, second or third rounds of the 2000 NFL Draft, but made the mistake of passing up on him on all picks they had (since they still had an aging Steve Young at the time in which he was entering his final season before the infamous concussion that ended his career), before he would end up with the Patriots at pick 199. But what if the 49ers had drafted Brady earlier and had him learn from Steve Young (who had learned from Brady's idol Montana)? It would definitely mean no Patriots Dynasty, but a likely second 49ers Dynasty with Brady which would have had ripple effects across the NFL.
  • Shortly after his final retirement became official, the 49ers and head coach Kyle Shanahan weren't fully on board handing the QB keys over to the untested Brock Purdy just yet (who was the final pick of the 2022 Draft and was just coming off a surprise run to the NFC Championship game with Purdy after succeeding Brady's planned successor in Garoppolo), made a last ditch attempt to convince Brady to come out of retirement and play for his hometown team, while giving the promising young Purdy a mentor at QB. Brady turned them down, primarily to take a part-time ownership role with the 49ers' former Bay Area rivals Raiders (now residing in Las Vegas), while revealing that his football playing days were behind him. But what if Brady had decided that he still had it in him and to take one last shot at a record 8th Super Bowl with a stacked 49ers squad? The 49ers likely would have prevented the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes from winning their second consecutive Super Bowl and becoming a Dynasty, with Brady as the QB.
• During the 2003 offseason, the Pittsburgh Steelers reached a verbal agreement with free agent safety Dexter Jackson, who had just won MVP of Super Bowl XXXVII with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. However, Jackson reneged on the agreement and instead signed a deal with the Arizona Cardinals. Still seeking help at safety, the Steelers used their first round pick in the 2003 draft on future Hall of Famer Troy Polamalu. Jackson, meanwhile, was a free agent bust with the Cardinals and was released after a single season before returning to Tampa. What could have been if Jackson had signed with Pittsburgh instead?
• In one the craziest, most unlikely WCHB scenarios at hand, one notion stands firm with Chargers fans on January 9, 2022: what if the Chargers did not call a timeout with 38 seconds left in the game and just finished Week 18 with a tie? Unusual question, yes, but not without merit; both the Indianapolis Colts and Baltimore Ravens lost their Week 18 games (the former to the worst team of the league that season in the Jacksonville Jaguars) and the Pittsburgh Steelers won their Week 18 game (in overtime), meaning both teams would have been okay with playing for a tie in the end due to them holding tiebreakers over the Steelers (who tied a game earlier that season against Detroit) that season. While it looked like Las Vegas was going to run away with the final spot, the Chargers had a raging comeback in the fourth quarter to send the game into overtime, to the point where both teams would have been okay with accepting a tie in that very scenario. Unfortunately for Los Angeles Chargers fans, head coach Brandon Staley called a timeout near the end of the game due to a fear that the Raiders were going to run the ball instead of knell down and accept a tie for both teams like what Las Vegas initially planned on doing at that time. Once the timeout changed fate, Las Vegas went into prime position for a game-winning field goal that got them and the Steelers in the playoffs instead of them and the Chargers. While the blow got dampened a bit due to both the Raiders and the Steelers losing to the Bengals and the Chiefs respectively (with both teams eventually competing against each other in the AFC Championship), Chargers fans still wonder if they would have fared a lot better had they just accepted the tie like Las Vegas initially planned late in the game and not called that late timeout in overtime.
• The 1984 "NFL Draft of USFL and CFL Players" was a one-of-a-kind event where NFL teams could select players who would have been eligible for the 1984 NFL Draft but who had already signed contracts with the rivaling USFL and CFL (using the same order as the '84 draft). The goal was to prevent true free agency of the players and a bidding war among NFL teams should the USFL fold (which it did two years later in 1986). The top four picks in particular are a fascinating study for NFL fans when it comes to "WCHB" scenarios, as three had Hall of Fame NFL careers. To note:
  • The woeful Tampa Bay Buccaneers selected future Hall of Fame QB Steve Young #1 overall...who was a miserable 3-16 as starter with the Bucs and only played his best football once he was traded to the San Francisco 49ers. What if the Bucs had taken a different player? And if they did, what would have happened to Young if he had gone to one of the other teams holding high picks? Or what if the Bucs had stuck with Young even after his rookie struggles, instead of trading him? Would he have still developed into a star, or would the lack of talent around him in Tampa Bay have doomed him to mediocrity at best? And if he wasn't traded to the 49ers, who would've been Joe Montana's successor instead?
  • The Houston Oilers took former Heisman Trophy-winning running back Mike Rozier with the #2 overall pick, but he only made a single Pro Bowl in a rather lackluster career. What if they had taken someone else? Would Rozier have had greater NFL success with a different team as well?
  • The New York Giants held the #3 overall pick and selected future Hall of Fame guard Gary Zimmerman... who, like Young, only reached his full potential after he was traded to the Minnesota Vikings. The other player they were strongly considering with the pick was another Hall of Famer who went #4 overall to the rival Philadelphia Eagles - defensive lineman Reggie White. At the time, the Giants had Hall of Fame linebacker Lawrence Taylor and the two are often considered the two greatest defensive players in NFL history. What would the next decade have looked like for the Giants, who won two Super Bowls even without White, if they had selected him to pair with Taylor instead?
  • White himself would launch a great career with the Eagles, but their lack of team success caused him to seek greener pastures elsewhere and became the biggest name to change teams when the league introduced free agency in 1993. White signed with the Green Bay Packers as part of the NFL's inaugural free agency class, helping them to a Super Bowl win three years later. Would the Packers, who were in their "NFL Siberia" period with only four winning seasons in the two decades prior, have still reached those levels of success without him?
    • For that matter, White himself was a major catalyst behind the introduction of free agency due to his desire to leave the struggling Eagles, as he actually sued the NFL to get control over his future. If he'd been on a successful Giants team with no desire to leave, he probably never takes up the cause, and then what happens to the future of NFL free agency in general? More likely than not, someone would have done what White did eventually, but who knows how much longer it would have been before that happened, and the impact that that would have on various teams?
• The 2003 NFL Draft is notable for having one of the biggest draft blunders in the history of the event. The Vikings, holding the #7 overall pick, were in discussion with the Ravens who were looking to trade up for Marshall QB Byron Leftwich. However, the discussion ran long and their time expired, allowing the teams picking after the Vikings to skip them. The Jaguars, holding the #8 pick, rushed up and selected Leftwich, killing the trade. The Panthers then picked future Pro Bowl OT Jordan Gross, with the Vikings finally selecting future Pro Bowl DT Kevin Williams with the now #9 pick. Leftwich had a promising start to his career in Jacksonville, achieving a winning record as starter, but injuries ultimately derailed his career. The Ravens, at pick #10, instead chose future Defensive Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, multi-time Pro Bowler and All-Pro, and winner of two Super Bowls DE Terrell Suggs. (The Ravens would use a later first round pick on notable draft bust QB Kyle Boller.) What would have happened to all of the franchises and players involved had the trade gone though? Would Leftwich have avoided the injuries in Baltimore? Would Suggs have still had a great career elsewhere?
• One immediate instance of this nearing the end of the 2022-23 season revolved around what happened on Week 17 between the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals. Two Super Bowl contending teams were hoping to potentially compete for the #1 seed for the entire AFC that year instead had what was initially looking like a fun game verging on all-time classic (at least as far as the Bengals' lead of 7-3 at the time was concerned) immediately turn for the worst with Bills safety Damar Hamlin tackling Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins. After the tackle occurred with 5:58 left in the first quarter, Hamlin unexpectedly collapsed on the field and had to be given CPR, APD, and other similar treatments by Bills trainer Denny Kellington and other medical staff for nearly 10 straight minutes before being rushed to the nearby hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio, where Hamlin would thankfully regain consciousness and not only leave the hospital alive a week later, but also received huge support for his toy drive campaign that he had initially began back in 2020 while he was out unconscious. However, the NFL initially wanted the Bills and Bengals to continue playing the game, to the point where they were willing to give both teams a five minute break before allowing the game to continue like nothing bad had happened, which was a tough sell to either team since they both worried that a player had unexpectedly died that night because of said game happening. Ultimately, the NFL eventually decided to postpone the game, later cancelling it outright without any planned rescheduling occurring for it due to it happening so late into the season (i.e., literally the last regular season game of the season if this were before 2020). This was the only time in modern-day NFL history that a game that was initially scheduled for play got cancelled without any rescheduling done.^note As such, this ultimately gave the Kansas City Chiefs the #1 seed due to the unfortunate circ*mstances at hand revolving around both teams not having a proper chance to prove they deserved the #1 seed in the end, primarily the Buffalo Bills since they would have regained the #1 seed had they won the Week 17 game against the Bengals. Admittedly, this situation did lead to a unique scenario where if the Bills met in the AFC championship game against the Chiefs, the NFL would schedule a neutral field of choice for the Bills & Chiefs to compete against each other for the right to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl that season. This was ultimately rendered irrelevant in the end as the Bills failed to advance past the divisional round (losing to, ironically enough, the Bengals) and the Chiefs won another Super Bowl, but one still has to wonder what might have been had this unfortunate incident with Damar Hamlin never happened in the first place (or at the very least happened earlier in the season than it did).
  • One also has to wonder if the trauma of the event affected the Bills, given the way in which the team unexpectedly unraveled in the divisional round and that some of the players later admitted they were emotionally drained and "out of gas" by the time the game came around due to not having a chance to really recover from the trauma of Hamlin's injury. If the Bills hadn't been battling the additional emotional weight on top of all the regular burdens of an NFL season, could they have beaten the Bengals in the divisional round and then the Chiefs in the AFC championship, thereby making it to their first Super Bowl in the 21st century? Could they have beaten the Eagles to finally win one for Buffalo?
  • Going along with the previous point, if Buffalo had won just one more game over the course of the season, it's likely that they would have been awarded the #1 seed and the first-round bye (Buffalo owned the head-to-head tiebreaker over Kansas City), which might have actually given them a chance to recover somewhat and regroup to attack the playoffs, rather than having to play on Wild Card Weekend. This in turn makes several moments earlier in the season WCHB moments in retrospect: in particular, the team's Week 4 game against the Miami Dolphins^note and their Week 10 game against the Minnesota Vikings^note, as the Bills had solid chances to win both games but ultimately couldn't capitalize.
• During the 1966 offseason, the Cleveland Browns gave star player Jim Brown the green light to shoot a movie (The Dirty Dozen). When shooting ran long and threatened to keep Brown off the field at least through the preseason, team owner Art Modell threatened Brown with fines and suspensions if he didn't immediately leave the movie set and report to camp. Brown responded to this ultimatum by holding a press conference to announce his retirement from the NFL. If Modell had shown the patience a modern owner would have if a star player were shooting a movie, Brown plays the 1966 season (which he had previously stated might be his last). Who knows how the 1966 season would've gone for Cleveland if they had Brown (without him, they went 9-5, second in the NFL's Eastern division). Perhaps Brown could've been convinced to play beyond the 1966 season if Modell hadn't drawn such a hard line in the sand.
• Many wonder would have happened had the Miami Dolphins chosen to go to the newly created AFC South instead of Indianapolis Colts in the 2002 realignment. For starters, Manning vs. Brady would have been a divisional rivalry with more entries instead of just 17 times in almost 20 years.
  • This would also mean that the rivalry between the Patriots and the Dolphins never develops — a rivalry that proved surprisingly interesting as the Dolphins often seemed to have the Patriots' number even when, by all statistical measures, New England was the far better team, and it was this rivalry that ultimately spelled the end of the Patriots' dynasty when, in 2019, the four-win Dolphins handed the playoff-bound Patriots a shocking defeat in the final game of the regular season that ultimately cost New England a first-round bye. The Patriots would be eliminated in the first round in what would end up being Tom Brady's final game with the team. If Miami wasn't in their division, could the Patriots have had one more Super Bowl in the Brady era — or, even more significantly, is it possible Brady chooses to stay in New England if their season doesn't end in such miserable fashion?
• One that will long haunt Green Bay Packers fans: what if LT David Bakhtiari didn't blow out his knee in practice late in the 2020 season? Bakhtiari was putting together a first-team All-Pro season protecting league MVP Aaron Rodgers before going down with the injury, which not only ended his 2020 season but kept him out for nearly all of 2021 as well. The Packers won their first playoff game — a divisional round matchup against the LA Rams — despite missing Bakhtiari (albeit with DPOY Aaron Donald limited due to an injury of his own), but lost their next two playoff games (NFCCG vs. Buccaneers, 2021 Divisional vs. 49ers) without him, both one-score losses in games where Rodgers had pressure in his face throughout, suggesting the games would have been winnable if Rodgers had had better protection.^note The 2020 loss is particularly painful because if the Packers had won, they would have punched their ticket to Super Bowl 55 where they would have faced an injury-decimated Kansas City Chiefs team (they only put up 9 points against Tampa Bay), giving them every chance in the world to win a Lombardi; even in 2021, they would have had a solid chance if they could have gotten past the 49ers, as the rest of the slate was a team they beat handily in the regular season (Rams) and a team with a major flaw that the Packers were primed to exploit (Bengals and their weak offensive line vs. the Packers stout front seven). Many Packers fans continue to believe that the Packers could have at least one, and possibly two, more Super Bowls in the Aaron Rodgers era if David Bakhtiari's knee had been intact.
  • This one is also a WCHB for Bakhtiari as a player. Before the injury, he was seemingly on his way to earning a place in the Hall of Fame and had just signed a contract to become the highest paid offensive lineman in the NFL; since the injury, he's played just 13 games in three seasons, leading to him being released by the Packers, and his future is uncertain, as while he's still as good as he ever was when he's on the field, any team that adds him to their roster will have to weigh this against the question of how often he'll actually be on the field.
  • Speaking of the Packers' 2021 playoff defeat, what if the team had hired a better special teams coach before the season, rather than give the position to Maurice Drayton who proved to be woefully unqualified? While the sloppy offensive output didn't help matters, special teams mistakes (specifically in relation to blocking) were responsible for a 10-point swing in a 3-point game. Had they had a special teams unit that was even moderately competent, they probably win the game even with all the challenges on offense.
• From 1995 (when the Rams moved to St. Louis and the Raiders returned to Oakland) to 2016 (when the Rams moved back and the Chargers moved up from San Diego), the city of Los Angeles did not have an NFL team, and there were enough proposals and false starts for the NFL to come back for Wikipedia to have an entire article dedicated to it. Part of it is still up, but here's a brief summary:
  • To start, the entire 21-year dry spell could've been averted: after the Rams left, all the other NFL team owners voted to fund a new stadium for the Raiders in Inglewood next to The Forum so that the Raiders could move out of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (which had been damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake and was too big for games to be at capacity). But the league added a stipulation to the funding contract that the Raiders had to share a stadium with another team (either relocated from another city or an expansion team), and Raiders owner Al Davis wanted to keep the team's new stadium all to himself, so when the city of Oakland gave them a lucrative offer to move back, Davis left the city behind. Had Davis been more willing to accomadate another team in that stadium, we wouldn't even have this section. ^note
  • In 1996, then Seattle Seahawks owner Ken Behring, after complaining about the team's home of the Kingdome attempted to start the process for moving the team to Los Angeles, moving his office to the Rams' former practice space in Anaheim and attempting to negotiate a deal to play in the Rose Bowl while a new stadium would be built. Behring's actions were not only completely unsanctioned by the NFL, but came hot off the heels of the extremely controversial relocations of the Browns and the Oilers, and the league wasn't willing to let Behring go through with the move. The league told him that unless he moved back to Seattle immediately, the league would force him to pay a $500,000 fine (nearly a million in today's money) for every day he was staying in California, and Behring chose to move back rather than pay. He would eventually sell the team to Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen who kept the team in Seattle.
  • In 1998, the league announced that they would start voting on a new expansion franchise, and two seperate LA businessmen attempted to strike up new stadium deals. One team led by Creative Artists Agency founder Michael Ovitz made plans for a new stadium in the suburb of Carson (which has large acres of undeveloped land and was close to downtown), while another led by real estate mogul and Lakers co-owner Edward Roski (who had previously broke the deal to build the Staples Center) made plans to renovate the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. While the new expansion franchise was awarded to Los Angeles, neither team could come to an agreement, and the city's refusal to invest taxpayer money into the new stadium set back progress. Not only that, but Memorial Coliseum was already a protected landmark by both the state and federal governments, so any attempt at "fixing" it could've been stifled by bureaucracy. After years of bickering between Ovitz and Roski, the league announced that the new expansion franchise would no longer go to Los Angeles and would instead be awarded to Houston, creating the Houston Texans
  • After the expansion franchise failed, there were many attempts at creating a new stadium to get an NFL team since the Memorial Coliseum (a protected landmark that was too big for the NFL's draconian TV rules at the time) and the Rose Bowl (another protected landmark that was way out of the way and already had a lot of problems with parking). Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt expressed interest in building a football stadium near the baseball team's park, and for years it was rumored that the stadium's parking lot was the league's ideal place for an NFL stadium. Roski returned in 2008 with a proposed new "Los Angeles Stadium" in the City of Industry, a suburb in the San Gabriel Valley just 22 miles east of Downtown, and after his proposal gained approval from all regulatory authorities, he set his sights on finding a team, either the Minnesota Vikings (who had been undergoing problems with the aging Metrodome), Jacksonville Jaguars (who play in the league's smallest media market and were mostly a forgotten joke), or the Buffalo Bills (whose owner Ralph Wilson was the oldest owner and the league, and whose stadium is often considered the worst in the league). But the Vikings got a deal for a new stadium, the Bills were forced into an ironclad lease that stopped them from relocating, and Roski's attempt to buy the Jaguars outright was rejected by then-owner Wayne Weaver. Roski put the proposal on-hold in 2011 and cancelled it outright after the Rams moved back.
  • AEG, the company that operates the Staples Center, announced a new plan to build a stadium in Downtown LA on the former site of the West Hall of the Los Angeles Convention Center. Of all the failed proposals, this one got far enough to get the approval of Los Angeles City Council, a naming rights deal from Farmers Insurance and an endorsem*nt from Magic Johnson. But again, no team was willing to make a deal, and an executive shakeup at AEG led to the departure of company president and project leader Tim Leiweke.
  • The final proposal, which was announced the same year that Rams owner Stan Kroenke purchased the land that would become SoFi Stadium, was a joint bid in Carson from the Raiders and their long time rivals the Chargers in partnership with Disney CEO Bob Iger. The league almost went with this plan over Kroenke's proposal before being convinced by Cowboys owner Jerry Jones (who was actually born in Los Angeles) to let the Rams move back, leading to the Carson proposal being abandoned. The Chargers moved back to LA anyways to play at SoFi Stadium. The Raiders kept the design for the Carson stadium, with all the Chargers elements removed and the retractable roof replaced with a dome, and used it for Allegiant Stadium when they moved to Las Vegas.

• The United States Football League started off to rave reviews and a decent fan base. Instead of following the AFL model of building on that fan base and establishing franchise stability, the USFL (on Donald Trump's urging) instead went for immediate expansion (from 12 to 18 teams by year two) and later (again at Trump's urging) moving its season from the spring to the fall for a head-to-head battle with the larger, more established NFL. Who knows how long the league would've lasted had they stuck with being an alternative to the NFL for the spring instead of a direct competitor for the fall, considering the amount of talent they had already been able to buy away from the NFL in such a short time.
  • Trump quite simply had no comprehension of fan loyalty being something akin to family loyalty, in terms of head-to-head competition. Football fans that already rooted for a given NFL team had little reason to care about the USFL, while the NFL was playing. The same is just as true today, after the fall of two recent would-be "rivals", the original XFL (2001) and the Alliance of American Football (2019), and the COVID-induced hiatus of the revived XFL (didn't finish its first season in 2020 and didn't return until 2023). The USFL name would be revived in 2022 for a completely unrelated league (though they still hold the old USFL's trademarks); similar to the original XFL, they actually did manage to complete their first season, though the new USFL had to play their entire first season in Birmingham, Alabama for reasons that may or may not relate to COVID-19 concerns. Because Birmingham was hosting that year's World Games^note and using both of the USFL's stadiums for that event, the USFL moved its playoffs to the Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton, Ohio. However, with ratings not being their best for their first season, we'll see if their success is more in line to the original USFL or the original XFL going forward.
  • Actually, in an interview he gave to Rick Reilly in his book Who's Your Caddy?, Trump stated that his plan was to use the USFL as a way to sue the NFL on antitrust laws, and he hoped to use the leverage of the court battle to force the NFL into acquiescing to give him a franchise, which the NFL had no interest in doing (and still doesn't, derailing his attempt to buy the Buffalo Bills in 2014).
  • Ultimately, the USFL won the case — but the jury ruled that the league's mismanagement, more than anti-trust violations, caused the USFL's problems, so the USFL were only awarded a figurehead sum of $3.^note With much of its talent having moved to the NFL during the time spent in litigation, and the deep pockets of its franchise owners exhausted, the league folded soon after.
  • The USFL's most successful team, the Philadelphia Stars, were supposed to be the Stallions, after the Italian Stallion himself. However, the Birmingham franchise got the Stallions name first, so Philadelphia settled on the Stars moniker instead.
• Speaking of the XFL, Vince McMahon's original plan was to buy out the Canadian Football League and move the clubs south!
  • Which, in true McMahon style, ignored the fact that the CFL itself tried an American expansion starting in 1995. It failed epically in three of the five cities of the CFL's "Southern Division" (Shreveport, Memphis and Birmingham, plus earlier failures in Sacramento and Las Vegas). Baltimore (who actually won the Grey Cup in '95) fled to Canada to become the current version of the Montreal Alouettes virtually the moment the NFL's Ravens arrived. The remaining American CFL franchise (San Antonio) disbanded immediately thereafter.
    • And there's another "what if" right there: Baltimore was the only place where the CFL in the U.S.A. really worked. The team, however, was moved out mostly because of the creation of the Ravens. What if the Browns had never been moved or if they had been moved to some entirely different place? Would we now talk about the CFL dynasty from Baltimore instead?
  • While the first incarnation of the league was an infamous flop, the second attempt in 2020 was actually going fairly well, learning from past mistakes and putting on a solid half-season of football before COVID-19 put the league on ice. This version did well enough for Dwayne Johnson to buy the intellectual rights and try again in a couple years, so maybe we'll get a functional long-term league after all.^note
• After the Alliance of American Football (AAF) went under near the end of its only regular season, there was one question asked by some - what would have happened had it stayed afloat? Would it have possibly made for good competition against the incoming revival of the XFL in 2020 (or even the USFL in 2022)? Could it have been able to survive the COVID-19 Pandemic that was also going to come a year later? Like the USFL and the XFL (both (major) iterations of each league), the AAF did see initial success early on (including well received innovations like multiple camera angles to quickly review plays that needed to be reviewed, contrasting the NFL's method that took many minutes to complete properly with controversies sometimes involved anyway) to the point where they almost finished up their first regular season period. However, due to mixed ideas on where the AAF wanted to go with themselves (similar to the original USFL) combined with weird ownership problems, the AAF shut down operations two weeks before their regular season concluded.
• Winter 2020 saw the revival of the XFL, which saw some modest early success in attendance and ratings (especially with the St. Louis Battlehawks (who were considered the replacement of the Rams from the NFL for the people in St. Louis at the time) and Houston Roughnecks (who went undefeated in 2020) franchises) and some well received innovations such as its new and improved kickoff format. As the COVID-19 Pandemic grew worse in the winter and early spring of 2020, the league had its season cut short (cutting the season five weeks into the season by the pandemic as opposed to the AAF cutting things eight weeks in), ultimately suspending operations in April of that year. Much like the Alliance of American Football the year prior (who also saw promising success early on, especially with certain teams like the Orlando Apollos, San Antonio Commanders, Arizona Hotshots, and San Diego Fleet), this immediately sparked questions of what would have happened if the league had survived against it.^note Reports of its demise proved premature, as shortly before the XFL was to have been auctioned off in bankruptcy, it was bought by a group led by none other than Dwayne Johnson himself, who revived the league in 2023 with the same number of teams (although three markets from the 2020 season were dropped, two of which were top markets in New York and Los Angeles; those three markets were replaced with markets with a team in Las Vegas and two places that held fan favorite success in the AAF that didn't also have NFL teams around in Orlando (replacing the location from nearby Tampa Bay) and San Antonio).
• Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the German Football League, one of the top leagues of American football in Europe, delayed and ultimately canceled its 2020 season. Other leagues in Europe, including the Polish league, played a 2020 season. Part of the reason the GFL had to cancel the 2020 season was that German law only allowed professional leagues to play (without people in the stands) and American football failed to attain that designation for a long while. What if it had? And then after the 2020 not-season, which (due to the financial strain imposed on many teams) led to the withdrawal of several teams from the GFL1 Patrick Esume (of Ran NFL fame) and company announced a new competition for summer 2021, the "European League of Football". That league disrupted the landscape of football in Germany by poaching nigh-complete rosters in Frankfurt or Stuttgart (leading to disastrous 2021 GFL seasons for the respective teams), convincing serial Polish champion Wroclaw Panthers to jump ship to the new league and through the mere act of negotiating with the teams in Ingolstadt and Hildesheim forcing them to withdraw their teams from the 2021 GFL even though negotiations with the ELF fell thru. What if COVID-19 hadn't disrupted the 2020 GFL season? What if Ingolstadt and Hildesheim had become ELF members instead of their last second replacements? What if the initial Berlin-based ownership group around Roman Motzkus (another Ran NFL alum and former player for the Berlin Adler of the GFL) had managed to get an agreement with Esume and Co.? What if Esume's attempt had failed to get the favorable TV deal with his employer, Pro7/Sat1 Group? What if the attempt to buy the naming rights to the old NFL Europe teams (defunct since 2007) in Frankfurt, Cologne, Berlin and Barcelona had not worked out?
  • On the GFL side, serial champion New Yorker Lions (a sponsorship name for the Braunschweig based team) had to contend with Lower Saxony's at the time pretty drastic COVID-19 restrictions and got the least amount of preseason practice being unable to assemble much of a team and get them to work coherently as a unit. As the season for the Lions started badly (they snapped an undefeated streak dating to 2018 early on and failed to win games that would have been considered sure things in other seasons) they also brought in a bunch of additional players halfway through the season which improved roster depth and quality at the expense of team cohesion. The Lions finished fourth in the regular season (the last time they hadn't won their division had been in 2012) and had to go on the road to Schwäbisch Hall (undefeated throughout the regular season) for the quarter final where they promptly lost due to an inconsistent offensive performance producing no less than five turnovers (the first a Pick Six for the opening points of the game in their first possession which had already begun with a sack). What if Braunschweig had had more opportunities to train together? What if team cohesion could have been established in some other way? What if despite the obstacles they had gotten a better day against Schwäbisch Hall and the QB hadn't thrown that many picks?