Why your fave Colorado sports team is an underperforming mess
“Sports and specifically Colorado sports teams are rife with underperforming squads which baffles and frustrates fans and ownership alike. But what causes a group of talented athletes to perform under its expectations?”
It always looks so sweet on paper: a talented roster, a favorable schedule and yet your team underperforms like a silver fox before he’s main-lined his Cialis. Sports and specifically Colorado sports teams are rife with underperforming squads which baffles and frustrates fans and ownership alike. But what causes a group of talented athletes to perform under its expectations?
There are several factors that can create an underperforming team. Talent is a major component in determining whether a team is playing up to its expectations. If there’s no talent on the team, you can’t reasonably expect it to perform well. The second is mental and physical preparation of the team’s players. If the player isn’t ready for the challenges that await them in the upcoming game, fans can expect an underperformance. This is where “choking” comes in and is different from talent, but can be tied to coaching. Coaching falls into the third category which also includes upper management. How does coaching and front office meddling affect a team’s performance? It’s more than you think. Let’s break it down by your fave local teams.
The Colorado Avalanche
Talent is certainly the main reason the Colorado Avalanche has struggled for the last couple of seasons, but that excuse could be reaching its end here soon. The young players are maturing, and the new acquisitions are priming the team to make a major leap from its bottom dwelling status to perhaps a perennial playoff nuisance. Joe Sacco was a dead-coach-walking for the last few years and it’s clear his placeholder status did not have a good effect on the preparation of the team. Toss in the fact that upper management was a confusing, often times vindictive mess, and it’s no wonder the team underperformed at every turn. But with the additions of Patrick Roy and Joe Sakic to the management ranks, you can expect the Avs to perform right about where we think they will this season – flirting with a playoff berth and probably attaining it.
The Denver Nuggets
You could label the Denver Nuggets most recent first round playoff disappointment to simply choking, but there was more to it. Yes, the team choked because up to that point, it seemed like the Nuggets were clicking and could make a deep playoff run. But reality set in and fans were faced yet again with an early exit and an offseason of upheaval. Talent is a factor here, but this also came down to coaching and a widening schism between George Karl and upper management. One could say the Nuggets exceeded expectations due to coaching and some savvy management moves, but also underperformed for the very same reasons. This season, the Nuggets should perform up to their expectations, but what those are at this point remain to be seen.
The Denver Broncos
The Broncos overachieved at first and ultimately underachieved last year. We didn’t expect great things from the team at first, but as they roared through the rest of its schedule, we realized they had played well beyond expectations. But you can’t say the loss to Baltimore was due to lack of talent, so it came down to coaching and lack of mental focus. Some choice injuries during the game didn’t help either, but let’s call it what it was: a big fucking choke job. But the Broncos were in reality not a disappointment because we didn’t know what we’d get when the season started and they surprised us all. This year will be a different story though, should they stumble at an inopportune time – let’s say sometime in January.
The Colorado Rockies
And then there’s YOUR Colorado Rockies. The poster children for underachieving sports teams. The Rockies have been a study in disappointment over the years, but looking at this current season, the reason why they underperform is a real kick in the hole. Offensively they were supposed to put up huge numbers to compensate for the lousy pitching, but the opposite happened. The team also consistently played up and down to the its competition and couldn’t figure out if it was an underachieving good team or a bad team with flashes of brilliance. But with all that supposed talent, the Rockies woes really come down to management. The Rockies hired a high school manager on the cheap, wouldn’t spend money to keep themselves in the playoff hunt and are just a general sinkhole of bad decisions, arrogance and ignorance. So with all of the evidence we’ve seen over the last few seasons, it’s clear the Rockies problems are a product of its upper management – constantly adding the wrong ingredients to the potent witches brew down at Coors Field. Creating a great environment for it’s players to underachieve and feel good about it.. And that’s a trend that unfortunately doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon.
