Were '92 Seahawks 'best' 2-14 team ever?

[74_75_78_79_]

Though their offense may be amongst the all-times lows, their D actually was ranked 3RD in the league! Their pass-D seemed to attribute more to this. Was it simply a case of teams feeling they could run against them therefore making the pass-D look better than it was (thus, perhaps, statistically carrying the whole D to that 3-spot), or was the whole entire D that good on paper or not?

[Gary Najman]

Their offense was awful, they scored 10 or less points in ten of their sixteen games, and never scored more than 17 points in a game. Cortez Kennedy had IMO one of the most dominating season by a defensive player in NFL history.

[Evan]

I'd go with the 1979 49ers. I've seen it noted that they are the only team in NFL history to lose 12 games in which they had a lead at some point. So they at least showed up every week. The win over Tampa led the fans to tear down the goalposts. And are they the only 2-14 team to win the Super Bowl two years later?

[Gary Najman]

Other team I recall it was mentioned was the 1981 New England Patriots. Although they lost their first and last games of the season to the Baltimore Colts (who also finished 2-14, I wonder if that's the only time in NFL history where two teams from the same division finished last). Their offense was ranked 9 in yards and were 15 in points scored. 8 of their lossses were by 7 points or less (including 2 in overtime). The highlight for me was RB Andy Johnson: He threw 4 of the 17 touchdown passes by the Patriots that year.

[Reaser]

No, I watched every game (and was in the dome for a few) and they were terrible. Though Tez was great, of course.

Interestingly, and I've posted this here before, as bad as the season was one of my favorite Seahawks games/moments came from '92. The Broncos MNF game.

I was a huge Stan Gelbaugh fan. Instantly my favorite World League player in '91 with him with the Monarchs, continued to be my favorite in his much less successful '92 WLAF season. I was excited when he joined the Seahawks and I kept wanting him to play instead of McGwire and Stouffer.

He threw an end of regulation TD pass to Blades that sent the game to OT, where Seattle won. Though Al Michaels said "Stouffer" instead of "Gelbaugh" on the play, and that's always stuck with me (not giving my guy his credit) ... The game also sums up QB W/L records, Stouffer who was terrible has the win attached to his record, when it was Gelbaugh (listed as 0-8 as starter that season) who got it done.

I lived through some bad Seahawks seasons, but '92 was by far the worst.

[74_75_78_79_]

The fact that Seattle was actually able to immediately improve to mediocrity upon Dennis Erickson taking over, does it make you think what could have been had Flores been patiently allowed onboard a couple more years instead (like Cowboys were with Landry early-'60s)? Would those 8-8, 7-9 outputs in '95, '96 respectively been playoff berths under the two-time SB-champ hence prolonging his stay in the Pacific Northwest? Or does Erickson in this particular case get credit for the for-what-it-was-worth improvement?

[Reaser]

Would those 8-8, 7-9 outputs in '95, '96 respectively been playoff berths under the two-time SB-champ hence prolonging his stay in the Pacific Northwest?

I wouldn't say that. Would be disrespectful to the very good football coach that Dennis Erickson is. Plus he's a fellow member of the WA HS QB club, and I went to his OSU football camp 3 straight years. Couldn't have enjoyed more his time working with us QB's and getting to listen to him talk football.

Either way, I always prefer to go on what did happen, as opposed to 'what ifs'.

The Seahawks problems during that era start and end with Ken Behring.

[Veeshik_ya]

Would be disrespectful to the very good football coach that Dennis Erickson is.

Erickson didn't have much success in the NFL. Since he followed Johnson at Miami then also to the NFL, and you are one of the few in this forum who seem to give Johnson his due, I'm curios to hear your thoughts on why Erickson wasn't very successful in the NFL.

Or is it just because of the front office issues you mentioned (which, admittedly, can sink a coach before he starts)?

[MatthewToy]

What about the 2011 Colts? Won the division the year before. Earned a Wild Card spot the year after. Only thing that team was missing was some dude named Peyton Manning.

[Reaser]

Or is it just because of the front office issues you mentioned (which, admittedly, can sink a coach before he starts)?

That's what I would go with. Someone could probably say he was a better college coach than pro, but there was a lot of circumstances with his NFL career.

Seattle: Follows the Flores era which was terrible. Behring. Behring trying to move the team, moving offices to Anaheim and closing the facilities in WA, so the coaching staff was at one point splitting time working out of a hotel in WA and a pretend office in Anaheim. Everything he started to put together was stunted by 1996. Then the ownership change (which Paul Allen didn't know what he was doing when he first bought the team, like many NFL owners, took time to figure it out.) So he went through all that in just four years.

Randy Mueller did manage to make a few moves for him but he pretty much coached the team to what it was. 1998 - his final year in Seattle - maybe could have been better, there was close losses including the joke Jets game. Though Seattle was - and continued to be through the beginning of the Holmgren era - an average team with an average roster than could be slightly better than average, at times.

SF: A 49ers fan could probably speak on it better but I view it as the Donahue disaster. Erickson gets his blame for being the HC but he was more just kind of there, no one was coaching that stripped down team to any sort of success.