Trash talking is one of the great things that are associated with sports.\u00a0 It brings up friendly (and sometimes unfriendly) competition between friends, both real and virtual, co-workers and family members.\u00a0 However, there are some lines that should never be crossed when talking trash, especially with rivalry games.\u00a0 There are a few things that are said constantly when it comes to trash talk, but only make your credibility as a sports fan worse; also making your team look worse in the process.\u00a0 In my opinion, these are the five worst things (in no particular order) that you can say when talking trash after a loss:<\/p>\n
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1.)\u00a0 “Oh well, we just didn’t play well”- Is there such a thing as an off game? Yes.\u00a0 But can just saying that your team didn’t play well just dismiss the loss? No.\u00a0 More often than not, the reason your team “didn\u2019t play well” is because of how well the other team played.\u00a0 If your favorite football team gave up 10 sacks in one game, that is not because you didn\u2019t play well.\u00a0 It is because the other team\u2019s defensive line dominated your teams offensive line for an entire game.\u00a0 Does it ever occur to people who use the “we didn’t play well” excuse that maybe this had something to do with the way the other team played?<\/p>\n
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2.) “We still have a better record”- Saying that your team has a better record than the team that just beat you is such an irrelevant argument, the bottom line is your team lost and the other team won.\u00a0 In college basketball, if Northwestern beat Indiana this year, it would be completely unjust for Indiana fans to say that they have a better record than Northwestern.\u00a0 The bottom line is (if this scenario were true) is that Northwestern won the game that is all that matters.<\/p>\n
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3.) “It was the referees fault we lost the game”- Did the ref’s cause the basketball not to go in the hoop?\u00a0 Or was it the refs who caused your team to miss tackles?\u00a0 It is possible for referees to blow calls, but 99% of the time the reason a team lost is not completely on the ref’s.\u00a0 If you lost by 1, you should have made another basket, scored another goal, or kicked one more field goal.\u00a0 None of these things have anything to do the referees.<\/p>\n
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4.) “We still lead the all-time series”- This one could be the worst of them all.\u00a0 Bringing the 1920’s into a debate about a game that just happened is ridiculous.\u00a0 This happened a few weeks ago when Michigan State put a beat down on U of M.\u00a0 Wolverine fans kept bringing up the fact that yes, U of M does lead the all-time series in basketball.\u00a0 But how does the fact that Michigan won in the early 1920’s, have anything to do with the game that just transpired.\u00a0 Harvard and Yale were dominant football programs in the early 1900’s.\u00a0 Does that in any way make them dominant programs today or does anyone put any stock into the fact that at one time they were a good team? No!<\/p>\n
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5.) “The postseason is the only thing that matters”- Is this statement technically true? Yes, you could make the argument.\u00a0 But, in this case, and in this situation, it is completely invalid.\u00a0 If your team had been the team to win, would the postseason still be the only thing that mattered? No! It would be the biggest deal in the world that your team just won.\u00a0 This is just one of many invalid excuses, trying to validate the fact that your team lost.<\/p>\n
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Accepting a loss, not trying to make ridiculous excuses is the way to go when your team has lost.\u00a0 You will find, if you accept the loss, and move on from it, you personally will receive less criticism then those who stay up all night on Twitter reasoning with the winning team\u2019s fans on why the loss doesn’t matter.\u00a0 If I\u2019m a fan of the winning team, I am much more likely to hate on the person who won’t stop making excuses for their losing team, then one who accepts the loss and doesn’t try to validate a loss that simply, cannot be validated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Trash talking is one of the great things that are associated with sports.\u00a0 It brings up friendly (and sometimes unfriendly) competition between friends, both real and virtual, co-workers and family members.\u00a0 However, there are some lines that should never be crossed when talking trash, especially with rivalry games.\u00a0 There are a few things that are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6],"tags":[100,125,207,208,78,206,12,67,380,379,381,161],"class_list":["post-4575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","category-3-sports","tag-baseball","tag-basketball","tag-connor","tag-connor-doyle","tag-dow","tag-doyle","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-talk","tag-trash","tag-trash-talk","tag-twitter"],"yoast_head":"\n