Five Disappointing Sports Stories of 2015

There were some great sports moments in 2015. We saw a horse win the Triple Crown. Serena Williams dominated tennis. College football's regular season was a never ending barrage of upsets and crazy finishes. All in all, it was a good year. That's not to say there were some bad parts. Here are five bad stories from 2015. 

The Washington Nationals

The Washington Nationals deserve the biggest underachiever award for any team in American professional sports. The Nationals won the National League East in 2014 by a 17 game margin and tied for the second best record in the MLB. In the offseason they signed ace Max Scherzer to a seven year, $210 million deal. They entered the 2015 opening day with a $164 million payroll, the sixth largest in the league. 

The NL East looked like a one-horse race. The Philadelphia Phillies and Atlanta Braves were entering rebuilding years, and the New York Mets and Miami Marlins looked like a year or two away. The addition of Scherzer on top of a rotation that already featured Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann, Gio Gonzalez, and Doug Fister made the Nationals an easy pick to repeat a playoff appearance and a popular pick to win the World Series. 

You probably remember what happened in the end. The New York Mets rode a red hot Yoenis Cespedes and a young, talented rotation to the NL East crown and eventual National League Pennant. The Nationals would finish second in the division at 83-79 and miss out on both Wild Card spots. 

What makes the Nationals the most disappointing team isn't just the huge payroll. It's the squandering of Bryce Harper's MVP season, which was historically great. Harper finished in the Top 5 in the National League in batting average, home runs, RBIs, runs scored, walks, slugging percentage, and WAR. His season drew comparisons to the MVP seasons of Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols. All at age 22. 

Honorable Mention: Los Angeles Dodgers

The Los Angeles Dodgers had the highest payroll in the league at around $272 million. The New York Yankees were not even close to touching them at $219 million. Unlike the Nationals, the Dodgers actually made the playoffs, but could not advance to the World Series for the third straight year. Just like Bryce Harper's 2015 season, the Dodgers had something we might never see again.

Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke were both equally dominant in 2015 and produced the best 1-2 starting pitching combination since Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling teamed up in 2001 and 2002. The difference between them? The Diamondbacks actually won a World Series.   

The NFL Still Thinks We're Dumb

Among all the Christmas Day movie releases, I would highly recommend any reader of this blog or football lover to go and see Concussion. It's a well-acted movie, and despite any hiccups it might have as a film, its story is way too compelling for it to totally disappoint. It makes me feel dirty for watching football. I appreciate that feeling. The game we love needs to get safer.  

The release of Concussion serves as a great, rancid cherry on top of another cluster of screw-ups by the NFL. We started 2015 off with Deflategate in the AFC Championship game. This became the sports story that would not die. A September ruling in favor of Tom Brady should have ended the whole issue, but there is a current appeal processing in the courts by the NFL.

Roger Goodell and the NFL, in what now seems to be their typical fashion, did whatever they could in order to get their way in Deflategate. I'm not saying the Patriots and Brady were innocent in the whole fiasco, but Goodell and Co. were convinced they were guilty and did whatever it took to convince everyone of that guilt. Which included getting Ted Wells to conduct an investigation under the guise of an "autonomous third-party."

The NFL was supposed to have changed its culture after the 2014 season, when all the domestic violence issues came to light. Yet in 2015 we still had to endure morons like Greg Hardy. To the NFL's credit, Hardy missed 15 games last year due to his case and was suspended by the league for the first 10 games of this year before an appeal reduced it to four games. But I read some of the comments he made in 2015 (or watched his rap video), and I can't help but think that the NFL failed us in letting Hardy back into the league. Shame on him, the NFLPA, Jerry Jones, and the whole, "I'll cheer for the Cowboys but not Greg Hardy" argument. 

Farewell Tours Gone Wrong

We've seen some pretty great farewell tours in recent years. Derek Jeter got so much free stuff in his final year he doesn't have to shop for gift baskets for his girlfriends anymore. 

Peyton Manning's last year will not be so fondly remembered. Though he hasn't announced his retirement, I can't imagine he's going to sign up to return for another season. His 2015 started with an embarrassing loss to his former team in the AFC Divisional round.

And that set the tone for Denver's 2015 season. He performed up and down to start the season off and the team continued to win. I felt bad watching him throw some of the lame-duck passes he made, but every once in a while he seemed to dig deep, call four audibles at the line of scrimmage, and deliver some vintage Manning-balls. Denver was 7-2 despite Manning, and the Broncos looked like legitimate Super Bowl contenders. Despite the down numbers, a Super Bowl run would be a storybook way to end Manning's career. But that was during the good half of his season.

On Nov 15, 2015 he set the NFL record for career passing yards, but he finished that game with 35 yards, on 5-of-20 passing, with four interceptions. He got benched in favor of Brock Osweiler. Manning has been nursing injuries and did not play again until the second half of Week 17. Manning enters what might be his final playoffs as a number one seed, yet we are unsure whether he will even start for the Broncos. 

And to cap it all off he spent the last week of 2015 denying allegations that he took HGH to help with his recovery from neck surgery in 2011. Those accusations are now retracted, but those rumors will always circulate Manning's legacy. Such a shame. 

Manning is one of the best quarterbacks ever. Where he ranks on that list of quarterbacks is debatable, but what is not debatable is that his style of play revolutionized the position for the current generation of signal callers. This is not how one of my favorite players in any sport should end his career.

Honorable Mention: Kobe Bryant

Kobe has announced his retirement following this NBA season. I will miss vintage Kobe, who, in terms of style of play and attitude, was the closest player to resemble Michael Jordan. Unfortunately for Bryant (and all NBA fans) the Los Angeles Lakers have never been worse with him on the team. At 8-28, only the historically bad Philadelphia 76ers have a worse record. Again, not how I wanted to see one of the generational talents go out. 

USMNT Fails 

Riding post-2014 World Cup momentum into 2015 and playing just a week after the US Women's Team dominated the Women's World Cup, the Men's Team was poised to have a great summer. They entered the Gold Cup tournament with three consecutive friendly wins against Mexico, Netherlands, and current World Cup Champions Germany. 

The USMNT went on to lose a semifinal match against Jamaica and lost the consolation match to Panama in penalties. The slide continued into the fall with an embarrassing 4-1 lost to Brazil in a friendly, then losing the CONCACAF Cup to Mexico in October (thus losing an invitation to the 2015 FIFA Confederations Cup), and following that with a 1-0 loss to Costa Rica in another friendly.

As the United States gets prepared to host the Copa America in 2016 and 2018 World Cup Qualifying slowly ramps up, the USMNT looks to be suffering a regression. Their starting eleven is old, and Jurgen Klinsman, who has been given tons of free passes, seems to be running out of rope. This year was a great opportunity to get some publicity in a non-World Cup year, but I think the USMNT wishes we weren't paying attention.

LeBron James Falls Short

I'm sure this disappointed a lot of NBA fans out there, but it absolutely broke my heart. I was in the stands during Game 6 of the NBA Finals and watched the Golden State Warriors celebrate on my home team's court. I can't stop myself from thinking about all the what-if's from the Cavaliers' NBA Finals run. 

LeBron's' Herculean effort to will the Cavs into a 2-1 lead against the Golden State Warriors was amazing. And it will unfortunately slowly fade from our minds as we forget the loser and only remember the champion. And that, for me, is the greatest disappointment of 2015.