The NFL has had a few one-team dynasties (Browns in the 50s, Steelers in the 70s, 49ers in the 80s), but the striking thing is how conferences can become dominated by just a few teams for significant periods, for instance:
- NFC Champions 1969-1978 (9 of 10): Cowboys 5, Vikings 4
- NFC Champions 1981-1991 (10 of 11): 49ers 4, Redskins 4, Giants 2
- AFC Champions 1971-1979 (7 of 9): Steelers 4, Dolphins 3
- AFC Champions 1986-1993 (7 of 8): Bills 4, Broncos 3
- AFC Champions 2001-2011 (10 of 11 and counting): Patriots 5, Steelers 3, Colts 2
So, what are your football-watching plans for the weekend?
I’ve a wedding to go to tomorrow so I’ll be skipping the Idaho Potato Bowl and the Tobacco Spitoon Bowl or whatever that first college game is.
Sunday, six of the eight best teams in the NFL play each other. The game of the week — the game of the year, really, for me — will be Green Bay at Chicago, flashovers to with Indianapolis at Houston during commercial breaks. The a break for lunch. Then San Francisco at New England for the night game. By then, the path to the playoffs will be revealed.
My football week is already over. Heck, my season is over. But there are a bunch of huge games and Red Zone will tell me where to look and when.
You could also say
*AFC Champions 1971-1984 (11 of 14): Steelers 4, Dolphins 5, Raiders 2
To what extent does this overlap with “awesome QB/awesome coach/awesome D”?
Or does it require an overlap of 4 things? 5 things?
Or am I looking at it wrong?
That’s a much harder question to answer in football than it would be in baseball, because it’s much harder to decouple individual performance from team success. You can say with some assurance that the chief reasons that San Francisco Giants did well between 1993 and 2004 were Barry Bonds, Barry Bonds, and Barry Bonds. Almost all the teams in the list have famous and well-regarded coaches (Landry, Walsh, Gibbs, Shula, Levy, etc.) but that pretty much goes with success.
It is possible to draw some inferences. The Redskins’ four listed Super Bowl appearances were with three different quarterbacks, none of whom were close to being hall-of-famers. The Dolphins had success over a long enough period that the only constants were the coach and the organization. Last year, the 49ers went from a joke to one of the best teams in football, while keeping almost the same roster. That’s the coaching.
I’ll put it this way…
You can win without those three things… for instance, the Pats and Giants last year featured two of the worst defenses in the league and they met in the Super Bowl. They did possess the other two items on the list.
The Baltimore Ravens won a Super Bowl with a bad QB. The Rams won a Super Bowl with a bad defense. The Saints defense made big plays but was otherwise suspect (a bit of an anomoly and part of the reason they haven’t reached the pinnacle since then; you can’t sustain a turnover rate and defensive touchdown rate like they did over a long haul).
BUT, I can’t think of a team that did possess those three things all together that WASN’T at least very good.
So, you can be good without those three things. But it is unlikely you will be bad if you have them.
The other thing I’d consider adding to the mix would be O-line play. But, to a degree, that is rolled into the “awesome QB” dynamic. Michael Vick wasn’t necessarily any worse a QB this year than he was last year in terms of his physical and mental skills. But he played behind a much worse offensive line which made his play seem so much more anger-inducing.
Speaking of football watching, if I am not mistaken, every single underdog won their quarterfinals game this weekend in the Fantasy Football League we’ve got going.
That 49er-Patriot game was the biggest roller coaster ride I’ve ever been on.