Are the 1990 Giants underrated?

[CSKreager]

I still stick by what I said- the 1990 Giants are overrated, not underrated.

An easy schedule allowed this one dimensional over the hill gang to have one of the least impressive 10-0 starts in history

That 49er game was basically all sizzle, no steak- a glorified punt bowl

They played not to lose as Parcells was the Woody Hayes of pro football- 3 yards and a cloud of dust

His so called amazing gameplan in SB 25 was to be even more conservative than usual

[SeahawkFever]

I still stick by what I said- the 1990 Giants are overrated, not underrated.

An easy schedule allowed this one dimensional over the hill gang to have one of the least impressive 10-0 starts in history

That 49er game was basically all sizzle, no steak- a glorified punt bowl

They played not to lose as Parcells was the Woody Hayes of pro football- 3 yards and a cloud of dust

His so called amazing gameplan in SB 25 was to be even more conservative than usual

Was Woody Hayes a good coach? (I presume in college given what you said)

[SeahawkFever]

I will say I was glad the Giants beat the 49ers because I felt San Fran was overrated

In 1990, they were. They weren't that far away from being 10-6. Their running game was falling apart that year, and never really recovered until 1992.

We’ve talked about the 49ers in other threads the past couple years. More so about 1995-1998 than 1990.

I gotta be honest, I think you have a better argument for the 1990 49ers being significantly overrated than the teams in the mid to late 90’s were.

Not that the later teams don’t have their shortcomings, but I typically see the 1990 49ers fairly high on lists of the best teams that didn’t win the Super Bowl in NFL history, and while they played a good season statistically, as pointed out here, they won a lot of close games that may have inflated their record by a few games

This is a solid team for sure, but definitely not one of the best non-Super Bowl winning teams; at least not good enough to consistently make lists of the best non-Super Bowl champions. There is probably at least one 49er team from that generation that is better and didn’t win it all. (Of those, 1987 probably gets my vote for the best)

Also on a side note, I’ve seen Joe Montana’s MVP for this season on a few lists of MVP robberies.

In his old NFL Vault series, Elliott Harrison said he would have split the award between Randall Cunningham and Derrick Thomas.

[7DnBrnc53]

In his old NFL Vault series, Elliott Harrison said he would have split the award between Randall Cunningham and Derrick Thomas.

Yes, I agree with you. 1989 is another year that I wouldn't give it to Montana. I would have given it to Sterling Sharpe and Don Majkowski.

Another contoversial year is 1987. Rice and Montana had better numbers, but Elway was the whole team, and he deserved the MVP. Denver doesn't sniff the big game without him.

[SeahawkFever]

In his old NFL Vault series, Elliott Harrison said he would have split the award between Randall Cunningham and Derrick Thomas.

Yes, I agree with you. 1989 is another year that I wouldn't give it to Montana. I would have given it to Sterling Sharpe and Don Majkowski.

Another contoversial year is 1987. Rice and Montana had better numbers, but Elway was the whole team, and he deserved the MVP. Denver doesn't sniff the big game without him.

I’m not sure I wouldn’t have picked Montana in 1989.

If you are a quarterback with a great supporting cast around you then I want to see historically good stats for the time we are talking about, and 1989 Joe Cool did live up to that.

The Packers are most definitely a worse supporting cast than the Niners in 1989, and if you want to say Majik Man was more important to Green Bay individually then I could see that line of logic too; Green Bay also handed San Francisco one of its few losses in 1989.

Even if you would take Majkowski over Montana, I wouldn’t argue that that year is nearly the same degree of robbery as 1990 could be.

In 1987, Rice and Montana both played excellent, but I could see why they would have been viewed as canceling each other out for a lot of voters because one throws the passes and the other catches them; part of why basically no receiver has a shot of getting an MVP if the quarterback is healthy the entire season.

John Elway isn’t a bad pick given he didn’t have much of note to accompany him on offense at least.

Also, I’ve heard some people say that Rice’s touchdowns and Reggie White’s sack numbers in 1987 illustrate that the league was in a weird spot and were a product of teams being out of sync after the strike.

That’s also part of why to me at least, Jerry Rice has a better MVP case in 1995 than he did in 1987.

I should clarify that I would vote for Brett Favre at the end of the day, but hear me out:

That year he set a new single season receiving yardage record in a year that there was no strike, was the focal point of a number one offense that was lacking in the run game, and while 11-5, the 49ers were potentially a few plays away from getting a top seed. (if Young completes one more pass in that Falcons game then they might be in field goal range)

Most critically for an MVP candidacy by a receiver, Rice did this with Elvis Grbac starting five games instead of Steve Young. Grbac may have played decently for a backup quarterback, but he was still Young’s backup, and as I’ve argued before, if Young is healthy the whole year they probably do get the top seed, but Rice wouldn’t have nearly as strong an MVP case.

[CSKreager]

In his old NFL Vault series, Elliott Harrison said he would have split the award between Randall Cunningham and Derrick Thomas.

1989 is another year that I wouldn't give it to Montana. I would have given it to Sterling Sharpe and Don Majkowski.

How can you be MVP and not even make the playoffs?

Only two MVP’s in the Super Bowl era have been on a non playoff team: one ran for over 2000 yards in 14 games, the other went 11-1-2

[Sonny9]

I still stick by what I said- the 1990 Giants are overrated, not underrated.

An easy schedule allowed this one dimensional over the hill gang to have one of the least impressive 10-0 starts in history

That 49er game was basically all sizzle, no steak- a glorified punt bowl

They played not to lose as Parcells was the Woody Hayes of pro football- 3 yards and a cloud of dust

His so called amazing gameplan in SB 25 was to be even more conservative than usual

Defense wins games. 2nd highest point differential that season. 14 turnovers was the lowest number of turnovers that year by 5. Lowest from '85-'94, and that's as far as I checked

NFC East was a tough division. In the NFC, besides the Giants, SF was the only team better than Philly and Washington

[CSKreager]

I still stick by what I said- the 1990 Giants are overrated, not underrated.

An easy schedule allowed this one dimensional over the hill gang to have one of the least impressive 10-0 starts in history

That 49er game was basically all sizzle, no steak- a glorified punt bowl

They played not to lose as Parcells was the Woody Hayes of pro football- 3 yards and a cloud of dust

His so called amazing gameplan in SB 25 was to be even more conservative than usual

Defense wins games. 2nd highest point differential that season. 14 turnovers was the lowest number of turnovers that year by 5. Lowest from '85-'94, and that's as far as I checked

NFC East was a tough division. In the NFC, besides the Giants, SF was the only team better than Philly and Washington

Was it?

Washington was an offensive line and not much else, the Eagles were frauds, the Giants had no passing game, the Cardinals were the Cardinals.

Dallas didn’t start winning until everybody else in the division aged in dog years.

[7DnBrnc53]

How can you be MVP and not even make the playoffs?

Only two MVP’s in the Super Bowl era have been on a non playoff team: one ran for over 2000 yards in 14 games, the other went 11-1-2

The 1989 Packers don't come close to the playoffs without those two.

In 1990, they were 6-5 when Majik went down for the season. They finished 6-10.