When Nerdiness And Football Collide
Hey, I'm just looking at the numbers, here.
So,
I like football. There is no football now,
and that I one of the many things I like about it. Short season.
Another reason to enjoy a sport is that the conversations about it are
endless and ridiculous and fun. I have
worked up another reason to argue after an hour of collecting data and having a
little fun with an Excel spreadsheet. I realize
I am stretching the boundaries of what can be described as “fun”.
My
premise was simple: What is the best NFL
team of the Super Bowl era? It has been
48 years and that is a pretty decent sample size. Most fans don’t give a shit about the old
leather helmet days, anyway. Sorry. I think it is pretty cool, but the game is so
different now that sticking to a modern era seems like a wise choice. It was not the era that made me try this out,
it was the criteria. You see, sports
people usually say they only care about championships. I believe this to be a lie. If that was the truth, the Lions, Browns, and
the Cubs in baseball would have no fans. I also think it is particularly untrue
in football. The season is so small, I think fans that watch or attend home
games need to justify the experience and they want to find the moral victories
where they can.
Also,
keep in mind I am interested in fandom itself.
A
Super Bowl championship means something.
Your team won the season.
Cool. My team (one of my two,
really) just won. I was happy the Seahawks
won. But if the Niners beat them and
that team went to the Super Bowl, would I have retroactively hated all the wins
and great games and accomplishments of the season? No. I
don’t think fans do that. “Winning isn’t
everything, it’s the only thing”, is a quote from Vince Lombardi. If you play football, you should pay
attention to him. If you watch football sitting
on your ass like me, there are more factors.
Also, teams like the Bills and
Vikings have no championships, but they should not be delegated with the likes
of the worst franchises ever. They have
won divisions and made it to 4 Super Bowls each. That should count when estimating the sum
total of a team’s accomplishments. The
Broncos have two championships which is nice, but they also made it to the big
game 7 times. I still believe that
making it to a Super Bowl is tougher than winning that one game, even if it is
the biggest of the year.
I
devised a point system to account for the whole of the accomplishments:
5
points for a Super Bowl win
5
points for a Super Bowl appearance
3
points for an AFC/NFC championship appearance
2
points for winning the division.
I
let Excel crunch the numbers and the results have a few surprises. First, the greatest team in the Super Bowl
era is the Pittsburgh Steelers. Not only
do they have the most points overall, they are first place or tied for first in
all the above categories except division wins.
(Dallas leads that by one win.)
Here is the list of all 32 teams:
1.
Pittsburgh Steelers 153
2.
Dallas Cowboys 147
3.
San Francisco 49ers 138
4.
New England Patriots 112
5.
Oakland Raiders 103
6.
Denver Broncos 98
7.
Green Bay Packers 94
8.
Miami Dolphins 84
9.
Minnesota Vikings 80
10. Indianapolis
Colts 78
11.
New York Giants 76
12. Washington
Redskins 74
13. St.
Louis Rams 73
14. Chicago
Bears 66
15.
Buffalo Bills 55
16. San
Diego Chargers 47
17.
Philadelphia Eagles 46
18. Seattle
Seahawks 40
19. Baltimore
Ravens 40
20. Cincinnati
Bengals 34
21. Kansas
City Chiefs 34
22. Tampa
Bay Buccaneers 31
23. New
York Jets 30
24. Cleveland
Browns 29
25. New
Orleans Saints 26
26. Atlanta
Falcons 24
27. Carolina
Panthers 24
28. Tennessee
Titans / Oilers 23
29. Arizona
Cardinals 16
30. Detroit
Lions 11
31. Jacksonville
Jaguars 10
32. Houston
Texans 4
Observations:
The
average score is 59.4, which splits the list between the Bears and Bills. That seems about right historically.
The
top three teams are at least 26 points ahead of the Patriots, in fourth
place. The Steelers, Cowboys and 49ers are
undeniably the top teams of the last 48 years.
Maybe there is room to argue about the placing, if you feel like
it. But these teams have been in nearly
half (22) of all the Super Bowls, and won one-third of them (16).
Most
people, including myself, would not have guessed the Raiders would be in the
top five. They are with the Vikings and
Dolphins in the top ten of teams that have not shown up for much in the last
fifteen years.
The
Ravens and Seahawks are tied with 40.
That says a little more about the Ravens’ success in their short
existence than is does about the Seahawks.
The Seahawks, Chargers, Bills, Bengals, Chiefs are the
middle-of-the-pack teams with little Super Bowl experience and only two total wins. They are considered second-tier because of better consistency and attempts in
the playoffs.
I
would say the shameful section begins at the Jets at number 23 to the end of
the list. The Jets have basically done next to nothing since 1970 or so. The
Panthers get a bit of a pass because they are still relatively young. They have more consistency then the Jaguars
who also started in 1995. The Texans
don’t have much to be proud of, and that brings me to another point: Division
placement. The Texans came into the
league in 2002, right when Peyton Manning and the Colts were dominating the AFC
South. That is no excuse, but it is one
reason the Texans took so long to get into the playoffs. This also applies the AFC East, where Brady
and the Pats have stomped over the lowly Bills, Jets, and Dolphins for 14
years. Does a bad division help a golden
team each year? Does sharing a division
with a Hall-of-Famer have an effect on team success? There are your arguments. Have at it.
But
no sympathy is given to the true bottom of the barrel franchises of the Browns,
Cardinals and Lions. Three of the oldest
franchises in the league have appeared in exactly one Super Bowl in 48
years. The Lions and Cardinals have
appeared in one Championship game each.
Shame on you!
However,
things have changed dramatically in the last 15 years. The reason can be boiled down to the careers
of Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. The
same list of criteria, now from the 1999-2000 season to last season, shows a
much different list:
Since
’99-’00:
1.
New England Patriots 83
2.
Pittsburgh Steelers 42
3.
Indianapolis Colts 40
4.
New York Giants 33
5.
Baltimore Ravens 32
6.
Seattle Seahawks 27
7.
Green Bay Packers 24
8.
Denver Broncos 19
9.
St. Louis Rams 19
10. Chicago
Bears 19
11.
Philadelphia Eagles 19
12. Tampa
Bay Buccaneers 19
13. New
Orleans Saints 18
14. Oakland
Raiders 17
15.
Tennessee Titans / Oilers 17
16. Carolina
Panthers 14
17.
San Diego Chargers 13
18. San
Francisco 49ers 11
19. Atlanta
Falcons 9
20. Arizona
Cardinals 9
21. New
York Jets 8
22. Minnesota
Vikings 6
23. Cincinnati
Bengals 6
24. Dallas
Cowboys 4
25. Miami
Dolphins 4
26. Kansas
City Chiefs 4
27. Houston
Texans 4
28. Jacksonville
Jaguars 3
29. Washington
Redskins 2
30. Buffalo
Bills 0
31. Cleveland
Browns 0
32. Detroit
Lions 0
This
time, the average cuts off right around the Titans and Panthers.
The
Patriots are ridiculously dominant; having more than twice the points of the
number 2 team…well what do you know, Pittsburgh. The Steelers are not only the most successful;
they have to be the most historically consistent team in the league.
How
different would the top ten be if Archie Manning never had kids? Could the Giants have won two Super Bowls
without Eli? The Broncos would not be in
the Top Ten without Peyton’s last two years, and the Colts have half of their
total points overall (78) during Peyton’s reign.
The
Seahawks are number 6!
The
Bears are a more consistent team than I realized. The Cowboys get the most media coverage for a
team that has been among the worst in the last 15 years. It is interesting to note they have the same
point total as their fellow state team, the Houston Texans.
The Redskins fell the furthest; from among the top numbers to the
next to worst. And the Bills, well, more shame. I don’t
want to address the Lions and the New Browns. Zeroes.
Now, I need a superhero movie
to balance this out...