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Sports trends we hope to leave behind in 2016
Overspending on quarterbacks like Brock Osweiler is a trend we'd like to see left behind in 2016. Bob Levey/Getty Images

Sports trends we hope to leave behind in 2016

Every year we're surprised by the trends that come and go. The mannequin challenge stays. Icing leaves. High-waisted jeans comes back. Foxtails on shoes leaves and then returns just a couple years later. Water bottle flipping. We don't even understand how water bottle flipping even happened in the first place. 

Hello and welcome back to the Yardbarker roundtable where we ask our contributors to discuss the serious (and not so serious) sides of sports. We been talking about favorites; bandwagonsmomentssports films and hype music. Today we asked a few of our contributors what they would leave behind, because not everything that came out of 2016 is worth keeping around. 

What is the worst sports trend from 2016 you hope to never see again in 2017?

Hashim Hathaway: Signing mediocre quarterbacks to insane contracts on speculation alone. A number of NFL teams will be looking for new starters in 2017, largely because the gambles they made with unproven talent went so far sideways. For every Brock Osweiller you overspend on, you have a Dak Prescott or Tom Savage waiting to be discovered on your existing roster.

Matt Whitener: I need for NBA jerseys with sleeves to die. And not a slow, "we thought we could pull back on it some and it would be okay" type of death, but an immediate cease and desist of all actions immediately. There are NBA games that look more like the French Open than actual basketball. 

And what makes it worse is that now they are joined by what could be an even worse fashion trend that is on the rise: the return of the 1980's length shorts. The two combined makes me very uncomfortable and its a grotesque mash-up that is a Dr. Frankenstein-level abomination. Please stop, now.

Shiloh Carder: How about let's stop having a written of visual account of who did anything for the National Anthem? I don't need a Twitter feed or a running crawl at the bottom of my screen telling me who sat or kneeled or raised their fist during the National Anthem. While I am behind anyone willing to make a statement for social change, I don't think I need an intentional look to see who is making those statements as if it story bigger than most fans who sit on their couches or bar seats during the same anthem.

Laura Sabo: This isn't a 2016 trend as much as it is a "why does this still exist in 2016?" trend but I really don't understand why, in 2016, we can't just stop using racist team names and logos and come up with new ones. If we can move the Rams from St. Louis to L.A. just like that, we can re-brand any sports team just as quickly. So that's what I hope to never see again in 2017.

David Matthews: I'm going to go in the opposite direction here and point to my favorite trend: shoehorning in references to the Warriors blowing a 3-1 lead to the Cavs in the NBA Finals on Twitter. It makes me smile every time and it should continue. 

The worst trend might have only recently popped up when a series of baseball writers decided that Curt Schilling RTing a picture of a t-shirt that advocating the lynching of journalists was the reason they couldn't vote him into the Hall of Fame. Schilling was a great pitcher and belongs in the Hall of Fame if Ty Cobb's already there. The Just-About-Everyone-phobe thinking journalists should be lynched was the least shocking thing he did during the year, I guess it takes someone literally coming for you to get some baseball writers to notice hate speech.

For more Yardbarker end of the year roundtables from our contributors:
The bandwagons we jumped on in 2016
Our favorite sports docs and movies of 2016
The most intense sports moments of 2016
Athletes who deserve a mulligan for a bad 2016 What was the best 'get hyped' music of 2016?

More must-reads:

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