A viewer asks: “Detroit Lions’ fans enjoyed the amazing talents of two of the best players ever to play football. Running back Barry Sanders, and wide receiver Calvin Johnson. Both set numerous NFL records expected to stand for decades. Yet, both claimed they would be willing to trade their personal achievements for an opportunity to play and win a Super Bowl, which neither got, being on the Lions team. Both retired early very deflated and even bitter that in spite of their amazing personal achievements, the team itself failed them repeatedly. Given the two stories are so similar, what is the karma of being a prodigy for a losing team, and experiencing LOSS at a deep level in spite of over the top talent and contributions? In spite of their personal achievements, did either or both players actually CONTRIBUTE to the losing atmosphere of the team?”

This is a delicate matter as we do not wish to tarnish individuals by name unduly. One’s karma is always the sum total of many factors and also many outside forces. People cannot be expected to overcome huge obstacles created by many other beings around them, so it is not a failing to have too much to contend with in a given lifetime and not perform at a superhuman level because the odds are simply stacked against the individual. This is very much the case with something so dynamic and multifaceted as a sports career where there is an interplay of so many differing energies and forces and circumstances on the part of the individuals and their collective energies and that of the opposing teams which is a further great complication that also has a direct say in all that happens. So we hesitate to make personal characterizations to pin blame on individuals when the situations are always much more complex. So we would simply say that it is possible for someone of tremendous talent to also have within them the karmic destiny of failing even though they were the presumed favorite to win and winning was expected all along the way by everyone seeing them, knowing them, working with them, or following them and their career, but yet something inexplicably happened to dash everyone’s hopes and prove everyone wrong. So this can fit the pattern you cite where no one can find fault with the individual performance, but somehow fate works against them and one seems to need to look elsewhere for explanations, that the team let them down or there were other sources of misfortune, or perhaps flagging fan energy which can be a factor as well in the swirl of karmic forces. You are focusing on the players here but the energy of the team as a whole is equally important and the energy of the management and supervising coaching staff as well as the fanbase and then the opponent team members, their backers, and fans will also be playing a big role energetically in each sporting event that takes place to determine the overall success or failure of each team and their component members and participants on whatever level. So the interplay is complex and one sees then a composite sum total in the consequences of what happens. There are other sources that influence outcomes as well. There can be manipulation of circumstances and often at a key juncture when someone needs to make a critical catch of the ball or a forward pass with great precision to prevent an interception when time is running out, and so on. Such feats can be undermined by spirit attachments onboard the player who will seize on an opportunity to distract them in such a way as to undermine performance. So this can be a wildcard in things even with the best of karma supporting them and carrying them along successfully. If players have picked up negative spirit attachments, this will work against them relentlessly because the goal of such spirits, being parasites, is to ramp up negativity, fear, doubt, and engineer circumstances to cause accidents of all kinds and errors of perception and interpretation both. This can be done by distraction so they fail to see an onrushing defender or their mind becomes fogged at a key juncture and they take too long to make a decision and then the window of opportunity has closed and this leads to an error of some kind—being tackled quickly, fumbling the ball, or losing the opportunity to launch a pass to a receiver because they have all been covered too effectively by defensive players, as being examples of what takes place. Given that most players have spirit attachments onboard, there are numerous opportunities on both teams for a degradation of performance. So this can be an equal source of interference with success on both sides in an athletic contest, but it can be the deciding factor nonetheless. If such occurrences happen at key points in a game where a team is about to win and another mistake or miscue prevents a last-minute scoring to turn the tide, it may only take a few such events to actually control the outcome in an athletic contest, so this source of influence cannot be underestimated.