Sports-related Curses
A sports-related curse is a superstitious belief in the effective action of some power or evil, that is used to explain the failures or misfortunes of specific sports teams, players, or even cities. Teams, players, and cities often cite a "curse" for many negative things, such as their inability to win a sports championship, or unexpected injuries. American football Detroit Lions In 1958, the Detroit Lions traded Bobby Layne to the Pittsburgh Steelers, with Layne responding to the trade by supposedly saying that the Lions would "not win for 50 years". The veracity of this story has been disputed, particularly because the quote was never published at the time. Despite this, in the 50 years after the trade, the Lions accumulated the worst winning percentage of the 12 teams in the National Football League (NFL) at the time, and are still one of only two franchises that were in the NFL prior to 1966 that have not yet played in the Super Bowl. The Lions' lone playoff win came again ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Superstition
A superstition is any belief or practice considered by non-practitioners to be irrational or supernatural, attributed to fate or magic, perceived supernatural influence, or fear of that which is unknown. It is commonly applied to beliefs and practices surrounding luck, amulets, astrology, fortune telling, spirits, and certain paranormal entities, particularly the belief that future events can be foretold by specific (apparently) unrelated prior events. Also, the word ''superstition'' is often used to refer to a religion not practiced by the majority of a given society regardless of whether the prevailing religion contains alleged superstitions or to all religions by the antireligious. Contemporary use Definitions of the term vary, but commonly describe superstitions as irrational beliefs at odds with scientific knowledge of the world. Stuart Vyse proposes that a superstition's "presumed mechanism of action is inconsistent with our understanding of the physical world", wit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Cowboys compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. The team is headquartered in Frisco, Texas, and has been playing its home games at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, since its opening in 2009. The stadium took its current name prior to the 2013 season. In January 2020 it was announced that Mike McCarthy had been hired as head coach of the Cowboys. He is the ninth in the team’s history. McCarthy follows Jason Garrett, who coached the team from 2010–2019. The Cowboys joined the NFL as an expansion team in . The team's national following might best be represented by its NFL record of consecutive sell-outs. The Cowboys' streak of 190 consecutive sold-out regular and post-season games (home and away) began in 2002. The franchise has made it to the Super Bowl eight times, tied with ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
New England Patriots
The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in the Greater Boston area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The Patriots play home games at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, which is southwest of downtown Boston. The franchise is owned by Robert Kraft, who purchased the team in 1994. As of 2022, the Patriots are the ninth Forbes list of the most valuable sports teams, most valuable sports team in the world and have sold out every home game since 1994. Founded in 1959 as the Boston Patriots, the team was a charter member of the American Football League (AFL) before joining the NFL in 1970 through the AFL–NFL merger. The Patriots played their home games at various stadiums throughout Boston until the franchise relocation of professional sports teams, moved to Foxborough in 1971. As part of the move, the team changed its name to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Las Vegas Raiders
The Las Vegas Raiders are a professional American football team based in the Las Vegas metropolitan area. The Raiders compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The club plays its home games at Allegiant Stadium in Paradise, Nevada, and is headquartered in Henderson, Nevada. Founded on January 30, 1960, and originally based in Oakland, California, the Raiders played their first regular season game on September 11, 1960, as a charter member of the American Football League (AFL). They moved to the NFL with the AFL-NFL merger in 1970. The team departed Oakland to play in Los Angeles from the 1982 season through the 1994 season before returning to Oakland at the start of the 1995 season. On March 27, 2017, NFL team owners voted nearly unanimously to approve the Raiders' application to relocate to Las Vegas. Nearly three years later, on January 22, 2020, the Raiders moved to Las Vegas. T ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Vince Lombardi Trophy
The Vince Lombardi Trophy is the trophy awarded each year to the winning team of the National Football League's championship game, the Super Bowl. The trophy is named in honor of NFL coach Vince Lombardi, who led the Green Bay Packers to victories in the first two Super Bowl games. History During lunch with NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle in 1966, Tiffany & Co. vice president Oscar Riedner made a sketch on a cocktail napkin of what would become the Vince Lombardi Trophy. The original trophy was produced by Tiffany & Co. in Newark, New Jersey. Others have since been handcrafted by the company in Parsippany, New Jersey. As of 2017, the trophy is produced at the Tiffany & Co. Forest Hill manufacturing facility in Cumberland, Rhode Island. The first trophy, inscribed with the words "World Professional Football Championship," was awarded to the Green Bay Packers on January 15, 1967, after they defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl I. Following the death of Vince Lomba ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
1960 NFL Championship Game
The 1960 NFL Championship Game was the 28th NFL title game. The game was played on Monday, December 26, at Franklin Field in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, .... In addition to the landmark 1958 NFL Championship Game, 1958 championship game, in which the 1958 Baltimore Colts season, Baltimore Colts defeated the 1958 New York Giants season, New York Giants in sudden death overtime, the 1960 game has also been called a key event in football history. The game marked the lone playoff defeat for Packers coach Vince Lombardi before his Packers team established a dynasty that won five NFL championships, as well as the Super Bowl I, first Super Bowl II, two Super Bowls, in a span of seven seasons. The victory was the third NFL title for the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Green Bay Packers
The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. It is the third-oldest franchise in the NFL, dating back to 1919, and is the only Nonprofit organization, non-profit, Community ownership, community-owned Major professional sports teams of the United States and Canada, major league professional sports team based in the United States. Home games have been played at Lambeau Field since 1957. They have the most wins of any NFL franchise. The Packers are the last of the "small town teams" which were common in the NFL during the league's early days of the 1920s and 1930s. Founded in 1919 by Curly Lambeau, Earl "Curly" Lambeau and George Whitney Calhoun, the franchise traces its lineage to other semi-professional teams in Green Bay dating back to 1896. Between 1919 and 1920, the Packers competed a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Vince Lombardi
Vincent Thomas Lombardi (June 11, 1913 – September 3, 1970) was an American football coach and executive in the National Football League (NFL). Lombardi is considered by many to be the greatest coach in football history, and he is recognized as one of the greatest coaches and leaders in the history of all American sports. He is best known as the head coach of the Green Bay Packers during the 1960s, where he led the team to three straight and five total NFL Championships in seven years, in addition to winning the first two Super Bowls at the conclusion of the 1966 and 1967 NFL seasons. Lombardi began his coaching career as an assistant and later as a head coach at St. Cecilia High School in Englewood, New Jersey. He was an assistant coach at Fordham, the United States Military Academy and the New York Giants before becoming head coach of the Green Bay Packers from 1959 to 1967 and the Washington Redskins in 1969. He never had a losing season as head coach in the NFL, compi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Super Bowl LII
Super Bowl LII was an American football game played to determine the champion of the National Football League (NFL) for the 2017 season. The National Football Conference (NFC) champion Philadelphia Eagles defeated the American Football Conference (AFC) and defending Super Bowl LI champion New England Patriots, 41–33, to win their first Super Bowl and their first NFL title since 1960. The game was played on February 4, 2018, at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This was the second time that a Super Bowl was played in Minneapolis, the northernmost city to ever host the event, after Super Bowl XXVI at the Metrodome during the 1991 season. It was also the sixth Super Bowl held in a cold-weather city. New England finished the regular season with an AFC-best 13–3 record, then extended their record Super Bowl appearances to ten, their third in four years, and their eighth under the leadership of head coach Bill Belichick and MVP quarterback Tom Brady. Philadelphia also ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Philadelphia Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia. The Eagles compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. The team plays its home games at Lincoln Financial Field in the South Philadelphia Sports Complex. The franchise was established in 1933 as a replacement for the bankrupt Frankford Yellow Jackets, when a group led by Bert Bell secured the rights to an NFL franchise in Philadelphia. Since their formation, the Eagles have appeared in the playoffs 28 times, won 15 division titles (11 in the NFC East), appeared in four pre- merger NFL Championship Games, winning three of them ( 1948, 1949, and 1960), and appeared in three Super Bowls, winning Super Bowl LII at the end of the 2017 season. Thirteen individuals affiliated with the Eagles have been inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, including Bell, Chuck Bednarik, Bob Brown, Brian Dawkins, Reggie ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Winless Season
A winless season is a regular season in which a sports team fails to win any of its games. The antithesis of a perfect season, this ignominy has been suffered twelve times in professional American football, six times in arena football, three times in professional Canadian football, once each in American professional lacrosse and box lacrosse, more than twenty-five times in major Australian football leagues, over twenty times in top-level rugby league, at least twice in top-level rugby union, and twice in English county cricket. Gridiron football Because of the relatively small number of games played in college and professional football seasons, there is a possibility that a particularly inept team will not manage to win any games. Before overtime games in the regular season was instituted, teams might tie a game without winning a game; these are still counted in lists of winless seasons. This is because, during eras before overtime was introduced to American football, leagues genera ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
2008 Detroit Lions Season
The 2008 Detroit Lions season was the franchise's 79th season in the National Football League (NFL), and their 75th as the Detroit Lions. The Lions made history by becoming the first team since the schedule was expanded to 16 games to finish winless.The second and only other team to finish 0–16 would be the 2017 Cleveland Browns. In 2021 the NFL increased the regular season to seventeen games by adding a fifth interconference game. 2008 was the third season under head coach Rod Marinelli, and the season began going undefeated in the pre-season and hoping to improve upon their 7–9 record the year before, their best since the 2000 season. However, the Lions instead suffered one of the worst seasons in NFL history, finishing 0–16 and joining the expansion 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers as only the second team since the AFL–NFL merger to finish a full-length season winless, and the first since the schedule was expanded to sixteen games in 1978. The Lions gave up a franchise-reco ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |