NFL V - Turkey Day Edition.

[davos]

The 1989 49ers were the best team of that dynasty, to be sure. But the 80's 49ers in general are the most overrated franchise in sports.

I would agree with that for the dynasty as a whole. The 60's Packers, 70's Steelers, and 00's Pats are probably greater. The 89 team though was extraordinary and would have been great whatever division they had to play in, IMHO.

[Kalbear]

Dunno about the Pats in that conversation either. The 2001 Pats was a good but flawed team that got a couple of good breaks in the playoffs and the superbowl - it was similar to the Giants, honestly. The biggest break they got was Martz saying "ya know, that Faulk guy...we don't need him to win".

2003 & 4 was dominance, but that team didn't feel like that 2001 team. It's hard for me to call that a dynasty. Whereas with the 49ers you had a very specific core group that didn't seem to change much. The Pats didn't really get that group for another couple years.

That's one of the other remarkable things to me - teams like the Steelers and Pats do have continued success year in and out, but there's a lot of change in who they are. The Steelers who won SB 40 are very different than the ones who won 43, despite there being only a few years difference. The Pats of 2007 are a very different team from the 2003 Pats. But the Colts...they don't seem to change. They've got basically one guy that they can't replace, but the rest of the team is fairly fungible at least in terms of concepts, if not actual ability. They're always going to be a high-powered offense with a containment defense that deals with the pass. That's who they are, and it's who they have been since 2002.

That kind of consistency, I thought, disappeared with the Steelers in the 70s.

[Rockroi]

Dunno about the Pats in that conversation either.

In terms of overall records, I think the Pats are and its pretty obvious. If I am not mistaken, the Colts and Pats are 1 and 2 in total wins this decade. The Colts have been to more playoffs and I think its there that their inconsistency shows - IIRC, the Colts have not won a playoff game since the Superbowl. The only difference is that the Pats down years have been slightly lower than the Colts; their up years slightly better. This seems most true in the fact that the Pats missed the playoffs in 2002, 2008 while the COlts made it in both seasons. And the Pats have had generally more success in the plaoyoffs with 4 Superbowl appearances to the Colts' 1. The variance is not as great during the regular season. Hence, while its an interesting discussion, its not much of a debate - both teams are remarkably consistent in the regular season.

Where the COlts seem to have more "consistency" is at the actual roster level. Change in the roster is true among many teams. I mean is the difference between the 2001 and 2007 Pats THAT much greater than, say, the difference between the 2001 and 2007 Rams? In fact, when looked at it from that view, the Pats have shown pretty solid consistency, despite an inconsistent league. And in that vain, I agree- the Colts are amazingly consistent with their roster. Their team has little variance year-to-year. Wayne, Harrison (until this year when he probably killed a guy), Clark, Freeny, and of course, the Manning, have all been around since 2001-2003. It a remarkably pattern of consistency.

As far as the Colts being the greatest team ever should they run the table and win the SB, I feel the same way about that as I do the 2008 Lions who went 0-16 and whether or not that made them the worst team ever: the record in and of itself guarantees that the team will be, at the very least, in the discussion.

[Kalbear]

Guess that the consistency thing was kind of my point, Rock - the Pats are more consistent than many teams this decade, but they're still a very different team than they were in 2005, much less 2001. That's the nature of free agency and the salary cap and the draft, and it's one of the things that makes the league good.

But then you look at the Colts and the Colts are...the Colts. Their 'down' year since 2001 has been 10 wins. As a Pats fan that sounds like not such a special thing, but that's incredible for most other teams. Not only have they won, they've won with the same style of play year in and year out.

Now, playoff consistency is something else; I hate that the Pats have a better record in the playoffs when they didn't make the playoffs two of those years. That's stupid; the Pats should be penalized for this. They've had more success, but as we've seen a lot of playoff success is based on luck and matchup.

[davos]

That kind of consistency, I thought, disappeared with the Steelers in the 70s.

I would argue that its a wholey different kind of consistency and in some ways a more extradorinary one than the 70's Steelers. Those teams were built around what amounted to several years of phenominal drafing. 11 players from those teams are in the hall of fame, most of who started out in the League at Pittsburgh. Thats half of the freaking starting lineup as all-time greats at their positions. I don't think any other team has ever had that kind of roster even for a single year, much less having that kind of group together for a number of consecutive seasons (maybe the 60's Packers).

The problem with that model for building a team is that it inveriably leads to a downturn when those players reach the end of their top productive years. The steelers fell into the doldrums in the 80's. Similiarly the 60 Packers took a number of years to rebuild after the core players from the Lombardi years moved on. The Colts have had success with rosters that are dramatically different outside of one key player. They aren't built around a core of great players who are going to get old and move on. Outside of Manning the faces have changed. The results have stayed the same. What they have done during that run is remarkable because it is largely unique.

I still think they need to pick up another superbowl to really mark their current run as something truely great. Afterall if consistency alone was the mark of greatness the best team of all time would be the Buffalo Bills of the early ninties with their 4 consecutive SB appearances. If they had won even one that feat would be enshrined as something extaordinary. As it is though, it is an interesting footnote.

[Bronn Stone]

I would agree with that for the dynasty as a whole. The 60's Packers, 70's Steelers, and 00's Pats are probably greater. The 89 team though was extraordinary and would have been great whatever division they had to play in, IMHO.

Agreed. That was a great team.

[Guy Kilmore]

Well, there is that run that the Bills had where they went, and lost, to 4 consecutive superbowls. That should say something about them...

ETA: Davos already mentioned them, but yes, if we are looking at consistency, this should put them in the running.

[Jaxom 1974]

A lot of things haven't been done before, but that doesn't mean they define greatest ever. The assumption might be there - but that's the same assumption that says that Bradshaw was this amazing QB because he has 4 rings, or that a QB's winning record means the same thing as a pitcher's winning record.

Don't know if a 19-0 Colts team from 2009 will be regarded as the best team of all time, but Peyton will move to the front of the line for the best QB of all time if he drags this team to that record, and wins a second Super Bowl ring.

The 85 Bears and 73 Dolphins are the usual suspects if you look at a single year, but if you look at an era, the Colts of this Decade certainly have had as good a team as the Niners of the Montana Era, or arguably the Patriots of this decade.

Never wanted to claim a 19-0 Colts or Saints team should actually be considered the best ever. Simply stating that, to the layman just looking at it on paper would say that they're the only team to ever go undefeated, they must be the best ever. Just like those same laymen think that Bradshaw's four rings puts him in the same class, or better than, Brady or Manning or any number of others. Perception can be 9/10 of the battle. Doesn't make it right.

[Andrik the Unsmiling]

Just finishing up a crazy finals period, so I'm gonna keep it brief, but the 49ers ABSOLUTELY belong among the top dynasties in the NFL's history, and to argue otherwise is pretty asinine. FIVE Super Bowls over a continuous stretch of dominance that lasted virtually 20 years (when you stop and think about it, they were in the running for a title basically from 1981-1998 (if Garrison Hearst hadn't broken his ankle against the Falcons, I still think the Niners could've gone on to give the Broncos a run for their money in the Super Bowl that year). No other dynasty in the history of the sport has been that good for that long-- PERIOD. And they played against and beat some other pretty tremendous teams in their day-- the Cowboys of the early '90s, the Redskins, Bears, and Giants of the 80's. Those were all some great teams, yet the 49ers loom above them all in that era. Not to be a dick, because I know there are lots of Pats fans on this board, but seriously, I don't think the Pats of this decade are anywhere close to what the 49ers accomplished yet, unless you want to just arbitrarily cut short the dynasty at the end of the 80's, when really the franchise was still damn competitive for most of another decade.

ETA: Bronn, I thought that stat about road playoff games sounded fishy so I looked it up. Sure enough, the 1988 Super Bowl Champion 49ers defeated the Bears at Soldier Field in the NFC Championship game (I stopped looking after that, so don't know if this was the only road playoff game a SB Champion Niner team won or not)-- but anyway, that game was so epic my dad still talks about it today (I was three at the time so I don't really remember it)-- it was the game where the Monsters of the Midway were going to crush Bill Walsh's "finesse" West Coast passing system. Joe Montana's arm was going to be too weak to do anything against the Bears defense with the infamous winds of Chicago, "The Hawk" gusting in. Montana shredded them-- he threw for three touchdowns and the Niners won 28-3. Every now and then when my dad thinks of those old Walsh/Montana teams and how they continuously proved the doubters wrong, he just starts laughing as he mutters "the hawk! the hawk!" incredulously to himself.

[Trebla]

Finally. FINALLY, FINALLY! The Big Boys in Dallas played BIG! D-Ware and Tony Romo were insane. DeMarcus Ware, taken off on a cart last week, gets 2 strip/sacks. Tony Romo, 300 yards, a TD, and huge plays with his feet.

The obvious negative is Nick Folk. TEN misses this tear including a chipshot tonight that would've made it a 2 possession game. The obvious choce is to cut him and have rookie kickoff specialist David Bueller. He can't do any worse.

I'm thinking other teams will follow the Cowboys plan and run it straight at New Orleans. Not a lot of teams have the horses to do it, but I think tonight's game bodes well for Minnestota. They obviously have the boys to run over New Orleans. And the pass rushers to attack the Saints' Left tackle like Dallas did. I think Dallas got 3 to 4 sacks off of the Saints LT.

Speaking of the 49ers....Go San Fran! If they beat the Eagles that drops Philly into a tie with Dallas who right now owns the tiebreaker.

[Spring Bass]

Looks like the Saints' lucky streak finally came to an end. They managed to skive off some earlier losses through sheer chance (like the missed close-up field goal in the Redskins game, which also occurred in this one), but considering how soft they were looking in earlier games, it doesn't surprise me that a tough team finally stuck it to them. Dallas played pretty solidly throughout most of that game, and particularly at key moments (had they not driven into field goal range on their last drive, the Saints probably would have at least tied it up with additional time on the clock).

I'm thinking other teams will follow the Cowboys plan and run it straight at New Orleans. Not a lot of teams have the horses to do it, but I think tonight's game bodes well for Minnestota. They obviously have the boys to run over New Orleans.

The Saints' run-defense definitely looked soft.

[Slyfinger]

The obvious negative is Nick Folk. TEN misses this tear including a chipshot tonight that would've made it a 2 possession game. The obvious choce is to cut him and have rookie kickoff specialist David Bueller. He can't do any worse.

His missing of that chipshot after showing that EPIC montage of chipshot practice fail... priceless.

I sooooo hope Dallas makes the playoffs. Since it looks like the Stillers won't be playing in the postseason, I'll need a few more teams to root against. The Bengals, the Farves, the Mannings(Only if they lose. if they threaten 72 I'm on the bandwagon), the Eagles fans, the Patriot fans... hell, maybe I already have enough postseason scorn to share.