Brandon Bostick knows he screwed up a shot at the Super Bowl. In an emotional first-person account published Thursday on The MMQB, the former Green Bay Packer said that moment still festers.
"I messed up in the NFC Championship Game, and trust me, it hurts," he wrote. "I'll probably think about my role in the botched onside kick every day for the rest of my life. It haunts me like a recurring nightmare."
In the tight end's account of the play, his mind "went blank" when he saw the ball floating towards him and he forgot merely to perform his assignment.
"I knew it was a big deal. I knew it was a key mistake that cost us a trip to the Super Bowl," he penned. "But, with all due respect, I think the media kind of took it and ran with it. I became the singular scapegoat."
With all due respect back at Bostick, he never was a "singular" scapegoat. His might have been the moment that encapsulates one of the greatest collapses in NFL history. However, we believed at the time -- and continue to believe -- that Mike McCarthy's coaching was the most influential factor in the Packers' loss.
However, that didn't stop the hoard of tasteless, tactless trolls from piling on.
"Social media didn't help, either," he wrote. "I don't know how many death threats I received, but there have been a lot. I still haven't read most of the messages that people sent me, but I want to so I can deal with the consequences and use it as motivation. But it is physically impossible for me to read every troll's comment; the volume is simply too much. So their comments sit there, untouched, maybe forever."
Bostick was cut less than a month later. He was immediately claimed on waivers by the Minnesota Vikings. The 25-year-old said he was told the onside kick played a role in him being released by the Packers.
"I feel as if there's a little more to it than that," he wrote. "With how close we were to reaching the Super Bowl, I think a lot of people in the organization couldn't live with me being there. I think seeing me would remind them of losing the NFC championship. I think the Packers wanted a new start, so I got one, too."
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