NFL's Most Influential Teams

[Shipley]

At a time when SI is a shadow of its former self, this article was some nice work. Here's a link: https://www.si.com/nfl/2024/01/29/count ... washington

[PA Wingman]

'46 Rams. Don't really know enough about this team to say much.

The first team on the West Coast

The 46 Rams also integrated the NFL with the signings of Kenny Washington and Woody Stroud

[Brian wolf]

I also believe the Jets were influential because Namath became a household name, taking the mantle from an injured John Unitas, who was also injured at the end of 1965.

With the Jets producing an upset, the media finally realized that a superstar QB could give a weaker team a punchers chance in any big game, though I felt the Jets team that year was just as strong as the Colts. Namath had always been considered bigger than his teammates and to win it all justified the need for a talented QB out of the draft which resulted in Bradshaw and Plunkett, Manning in the future, though the dead-ball era was coming.

[JuggernautJ]

Wouldn't it would very much depend on how one defined "influential?"

The article specifies "the 50 most impactful teams in NFL history...
That makes a lot more sense.

[Brian wolf]

Chris Willis or TanksAndSpartans might know the answer to this?
Wouldnt the 1929 NY Giants be highly influential with Benny Friedman throwing for 20 TDs, or was it done before, without any official records being printed?

[Bob Gill]

Wouldnt the 1929 NY Giants be highly influential with Benny Friedman throwing for 20 TDs, or was it done before, without any official records being printed?

No stats in those days. I don't think anybody knew how many touchdown passes Friedman threw until the late 1970s when David Neft compiled what he could for The Sports Encyclopedia: Pro Football.

[Brian wolf]

So Friedman's prowess with the forward pass, wasnt attracting attention, or was then --but not documented properly, or remembered? He he even wrote a book ...

[Bob Gill]

So Friedman's prowess with the forward pass, wasnt attracting attention, or was then --but not documented properly, or remembered? He he even wrote a book ...

Yeah, it's too bad for his legacy that they didn't keep stats in those days. If they had, he would've been chosen for the Hall of Fame in the first year or two after it opened. Without any numbers to go on, though, they ignored him for decades.

[TanksAndSpartans]

Chris Willis or TanksAndSpartans might know the answer to this?
Wouldnt the 1929 NY Giants be highly influential with Benny Friedman throwing for 20 TDs, or was it done before, without any official records being printed?

Great question - I've been taking a pretty close look at pre-NFL starting in the late 1880s, and this is a case where I can say it probably wasn't done before. We didn't have passing allowable by rule until 1906. I'm going through season by season until I hit 1920, but I'm only up to '08. Was there a passer better than Friedman between '08 and '20? Probably not, but I'll report back if I find anyone. Gus Dorais (Massillon mostly) and Al Mahrt (Dayton), who were known to be early successful passers, I'd consider to be All-Pre-NFL QB candidates, but I suspect even their best games were a lot less completions and yards than what we saw with Friedman. And in terms of season achievements, it was an era where the top teams played a lot of easy games, so piling up passing TDs in an 80-6 win may have to be weighted to adjust for the competition.

Once 1920 hits, we have David Neft's statistics and we see Lambeau and probably Red Dunn (thanks to Ralph we know Johnny Blood preferred Dunn to Friedman as a QB) with 1,000 yards passing in 1924, the Ernst to Berry connection in Pottsville was successful, as well as some others in the mid-'20s, but when Friedman showed up in '27, I think he was the best to date as Bob mentioned in his article on 1920s statistics. One thing I may quibble with Bob on is Friedman and the HOF....

Friedman was an All-American at Michigan, known as a great passing QB and played in New York as a pro. I believe All-American status, what college you went to, etc. mattered as most pros had short careers in the early years. You can find contemporary sources (magazines, testimonials, etc.) in the years between Friedman's retirement and the HOF getting started putting him in the same category as other greats of the game. Point being, his was a different situation, than say a Tony Latone, with no college pedigree playing in an obscure mining town for a team that didn't survive the '20s. I believe Friedman was excluded from the HOF for reasons other than what he accomplished on the field wasn't well documented and/or performed in front of too small of an audience, but I don't know exactly what those reasons were. Even his biographer, Murray Greenberg, doesn't posit a single reason. Anyway, once we get into the '70s and '80s, it's probably safe to say he was forgotten until historians came along to support his case with research into the '20s, partial statistics, etc. One that belongs in the "Win column" for researchers (Some may still be PFRA members). Also a case where the senior HOF committee did a good job.

[Brian wolf]

Thanks T&S ...

I read somewhere that Friedman tried to lobby to be included in the initial HOF classes in the early 60s but rubbed voters the wrong way. You cant blame him if he was one of the first true advocates of forward passing.