MORE: Revisiting one night in Richmond
In the movie "The Replacements," quarterback Shane Falco discusses his biggest fear: quicksand. Basically, a snowball effect, where one thing goes wrong, then another and another until it's completely out of control.
Well, that is what has happened with Michael Waltrip Racing over the past two years. The latest event: A P4 penalty that saw Clint Bowyer lose 25 driver championship points, Rob Kauffman lose 25 owner championship points and Bowyer's crew chief, Billy Scott, suspended for three races. This comes on top of last month's news that MWR would no longer field a full-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series team and that the organization was allowing Clint Bowyer to pursue other opportunities for 2016.
However, everything with the fall of MWR can be traced back to one fateful night in Richmond. NASCAR ruled that Michael Waltrip Racing manipulated the outcome of the final regular-season race at Richmond in 2013. Drivers were docked points, a penalty which took Martin Truex Jr. out of the Chase and put Ryan Newman in.
The aftermath saw the sponsor of Truex's car, NAPA, leave MWR. NAPA would eventually end up sponsoring the JR Motorsports' NASCAR XFINITY Series ride for Chase Elliott in 2014 and 2015. Elliott instantly became a star in the series and won the XFINITY championship in '14. NAPA has committed to go with him as a primary sponsor as he moves to Cup ranks in 2016 with Hendrick Motorsports and will be wheeling Jeff Gordon's No. 24 Chevrolet.
With NAPA out, MWR elected to downsize to two full-time teams, leaving Truex as the odd man out. He landed at single-car Furniture Row Racing, which was fresh off making the Chase with Kurt Busch behind the wheel. Truex struggled in his first season with the team, but he has been solid in 2015, winning at Pocono and making the postseason.
In 2012, Bowyer's best season, he had 10 top fives to go with his three wins. Since the Richmond incident in 2013, he has just nine top fives in 74 races. He also has a winless drought that is now at 105 races after New Hampshire.
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This is not the first time that one decision has caused a ripple effect throughout a sport's landscape.
One of the most famous examples of this is "The Curse of the Bambino." Legendary baseball player and Hall of Famer Babe Ruth had led the Boston Red Sox to three World Series titles. Ruth was sold to the New York Yankees in 1920, which would go on to become a heated rival for Boston.
As legend has it, the owner of the Red Sox Harry Frazee used the money from the sale to finance a play, "No, No, Nanette." The deal reversed the fortunes of both teams. The Yankees became a powerhouse, winning the first four of their 27 World Series championships in club history. The Red Sox would go through a title drought of 86 years with misfortunate finding them in different ways, most notably the Bill Buckner misplay in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.
Boston did eventually win a World Series title in 2004 and won three titles in 10 years.
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In the 1984 NBA Draft, the Portland Trail Blazers selected big man Sam Bowie with the No. 2 pick, while passing up the chance to draft shooting guard Michael Jordan. The Chicago Bulls grabbed Jordan with the No. 3 pick and the rest is NBA history.
Jordan went on to become of the best players, if not the best player, in NBA history and led the Bulls to six championships, which consisted of two three-peats. Bowie battled a number of injuries to his knees that didn't allow him to live up to the promise and potential Portland thought it had drafted.
While Portland remained a consistent playoff presence up until 2004, the organization is still searching for its first title since 1977. Jordan even led the Bulls past Portland in the 1992 NBA Finals.
Similar luck struck Portland when it selected big man Greg Oden with the No. 1 pick in the 2007 NBA Draft over Kevin Durant. Oden's professional career has been marred by knee issues, while Durant is one of the league's top talents. ...
A neck injury to NFL superstar quarterback Peyton Manning sent a big ripple thoughout the league. The then-Indianapolis Colts quarterback wound up missing the entire 2011 season and the Colts suffered through a miserable year, ultimately landing the No. 1 pick in the 2012 NFL Draft. Quarterback Andrew Luck was considered to be the top player available in that year's draft, but the Colts still had a rehabbing Manning, although he was owed a whopping $28 million roster bonus.
Indianapolis made the decision to cut Manning and drafted Luck to be its new franchise quarterback. Luck has led the Colts to the playoffs in the first three seasons of his career.
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Manning would go on to land in Denver, where he would make the Broncos instant Super Bowl contenders and power the Broncos to the playoffs the past three seasons.
Manning's arrival in Denver paved the way for the team to trade Tim Tebow. The 2007 Heisman Trophy winner guided the Broncos guiding to a Wild Card Round win but he was dealt to the New York Jets months later. The Jets struggled to find ways to use him and he was released in April of 2013.
With some of these cases, the fallout still continues and is subject to much debate. How would the Colts have been if they had held on to Manning? Would Tebow's career have turned out differently if Denver hadn't brought in Manning? How different would the past few years at MWR had been without the Richmond incident? Would a sponsor have backed Elliott so quickly and as a result, would his meteoric rise have happened?
Those debates are part of the reason we talk about sports, to dream up the fantasy and hypothetical scenarios. But in the end it's those events that have a lasting effect on the sports we love.