The 1996 NFL Season: 30 Years Later

[Brian wolf]

Yep ... its in the books, The Packers won the SB over NE. Brooks started the year hot but got injured. Freeman had a great year and got help from Chmura and Jackson, Rison helped in postseason. Bennett didnt carry for alot of yards but was an affective receiver.
The defense was tough under Shurmur ...

The Cowboys were very disappointing. Signing Sanders meant alot of talented depth had to end up leaving. Favre didnt have to worry about them with Levins having a great game against the Panthers.

[7DnBrnc53]

Sorry, but this is idiotic.

Packers LBs rate a C-plus? By what standard? And “isn’t enough for a championship team”? THEY WON THE CHAMPIONSHIP! What kind of nonsense thinking is this?

Same for the alleged lack of running game. How does that matter when, in the final balance, they convincingly ran the table in 1996? Who cares whether they had a dominant running game when their passing game was so productive? It’s not how you got there, but that you got there.

Also, the Packers running game improved as the season went along anyway. By the end, Dorsey Levens was very solid.

The person that said this about the Packer linebackers probably got that opinion by watching film. A lot of fans don't do that.

Also, while the Packer running game was decent in the 1996 playoffs, they weren't nearly good enough to keep opposing defensive coaches up at night.

49ers: Edgar Bennett led the team with 80 yards rushing and 2 TD's, but his longest run was 13 yards. Also, Levens' longest in that game was 10.
Panthers: Their best effort of the playoffs. GB had 201 yards rushing in that game.
Patriots: Not a great effort. As a team, they only had 115 yards rushing on 36 carries (3.19 YPC). Their longest run was 12 yards.

[Oszuscik]

Yeah, really don’t understand this nonsense of trashing the ‘96 Packers. As was previously stated:

1) The ‘96 Packers scored the most points in the league.
2) The ‘96 Packers gave up the fewest points in the league.
3) The ‘96 Packers defense gave up the fewest yards in the league.
4) The ‘96 Packers had the best player in the league.
5) The ‘96 Packers won the Super Bowl.

They can’t even be classified as an average team that got hot at the end of the season and made a run. The first three games of 1996 the Packers won by a combined score of 115-26. This was a team who was a 4th quarter away from the Super Bowl in 1995, who came into 1996 ready to take the final step.

[Jay Z]

The top 10 rushing offenses in the NFL in 1996 won a total of 2 playoffs games, which was one less than the #11 team, the Packers.

It just doesn't seem that regular season success amounted to a whole lot in rushing in 1996. The Packers were still a bit better than average at it.

They were better than average at defending the run. Outstanding at defending the pass. 39 TD passes and 13 INT was a superlative accomplishment for an offense in 1996. Special teams were outstanding. Did they run the football for long distances, no. Didn't need to, because they came up with more than enough big plays everywhere else.

[Citizen]

Maybe this mysterious football guru should join us here and share what I'm sure is a deep reservoir of wisdom.

[74_75_78_79_]

A 1996 regular season Power Rankings thread from 2017...
https://mail.profootballresearchers.org ... 8a2af00101

A Jan '22 thread ranking all ten SB-winners of the '90s...
https://profootballresearchers.com/foru ... php?t=6411

I used to see Denver as being better than Green Bay in '96. Then some here inspired me to at least TIE the two. And then after further twisting of my arm, I finally saw Green Bay as the true champs of that very season. Not by much at all, but still...better.

It is a shame we didn't see both teams at full strength for that Wk#15 match. Schedule the game just a few weeks earlier, Shanny not resting anyone, and I feel we would have had ourselves one of the better regular season games in history. Both play in the Super Bowl that very year and we have ourselves an even better game than the actual IRL SB between the two a year later!

The '96 Packers are, basically, in the same boat as the '91 Redskins - seen by enough as a team that won it all whilst other Greats weren't at their best. Still true-blue Lombardi winners just the same!

Here's another old thread...
https://www.profootballresearchers.com/ ... php?t=3302

And I guess that the '96 Broncos could be seen in the same light as the '93 Oilers, both SB-lookin' yet go one-and-done. I really do treat the '96 Broncos as a Lombardi winner! I place them above the '93 Oilers. They would have had a better chance to beat GB than Houston would have Dallas IMO. Again, I do now place the '96 Packers above the '96 Broncos. But, again, it is not at all by much and if God tells me that Denver wins-it-all had Shanny not rest-rusted his starters the last few weeks, thus defeat the Pack, I wouldn't be surprised (as I would, of course, also not be surprised if He says that Green Bay takes it).



How about the Steelers in 1996...when they picked up Bettis, I was excited. I knew they'd utilize him properly, bringing him right back to his rookie season form. Many a casual fan, even a casual Steeler fan, may think that #36 actually played on the '95 Super Bowl team!

Rod Woodson...Kevin Greene...certainly wasn't happy with THEY now being gone!

And the Steelers started strong after that opener when they, again, lost to the new Jags in Jacksonville (a rivalry already, now, in-motion; a shame that realignment had to break-up that great big division thus separate them in 2002)! I felt optimism over JIm MIller and was surprised of his benching not to ever get back in. Some behind-the-scenes rift between he and Cowher, I believe, was the reason.

Mike Tomczak wasn't bad! That nice 5-1 start highlighted by Bettis's Pittsburgh "coming-out" party at Arrowhead on MNF! Slowly-but-surely they faltered down the stretch to that 10-6 finish in which they lost their last two though still winning the Central. But not before impressing me when they stopped Dan from getting into the end-zone at the end of their MNF-win in MIami.

Blind-optimism, I guess, but I thought going into the playoffs that they could still return to the SB. And when the Jags knocked Denver out, being that I very wrongly assumed we beat NE the following day, I thought we were going! "Pittsburgh and the Pack", I said, assuming we knock out Jags at home for the AFCC next week. Though the Pats had Tuna - and Belichick - and the game was at Foxboro, I still thought we'd win. I remember Hank Stram right before kickoff thinking that the Steelers would win as well. But Parcells WAS the reason as to why I should not have assumed such a thing! Didn't he script the first 20 plays of the game? And then his work was done! The Steeler-D came together in the second half, but it was too late as their lack-of-QB-power finally caught up to them.

[ShinobiMusashi]

Was this the season that the Cowboys had a lot of offseason criminal drama? Irvin getting arrested or something?

I was watching King Of The Hill on my lunch breaks a month or so ago. In one of the 1997 episodes there was a funny moment. Hank is having trouble with shooting guns because of past trauma with his dad. He ends up meeting a sports psychologist that offers to help him, telling him he worked with the Cowboys one year. Hank asks him what year and the guy says last season(96), Hank responds saying "goodbye".

[74_75_78_79_]

Was this the season that the Cowboys had a lot of offseason criminal drama? Irvin getting arrested or something?

I was watching King Of The Hill on my lunch breaks a month or so ago. In one of the 1997 episodes there was a funny moment. Hank is having trouble with shooting guns because of past trauma with his dad. He ends up meeting a sports psychologist that offers to help him, telling him he worked with the Cowboys one year. Hank asks him what year and the guy says last season(96), Hank responds saying "goodbye".

Yes, Irvin on the cover of SI for that reason other than Michael Johnson being on the cover.

Dallas sure declined in '96. But going into the playoffs, I thought they had a fair-enough shot to repeat despite finishing 10-6. This especially after they slammed Minny. That immediate Green Bay squad with Holmgren at helm still had yet to beat Dallas, lost to them that MNF game, would have made for quite an anticipatory NFCCG match-up! I think the Pack would have won, especially with they being at home, but you simply never know.

Dallas vs New England, who they also beat in the regular season, I really would have liked their chances there.


And how about Dallas's division-rival in '96, the other Pennsylvania team?

Ray Rhodes...I guess I was the only one outside of Eagles-fans (and not too sure how many of them thought this), but I was saying 'Super Bowl' for the Birds going into '96! Maybe not that very season, perhaps a 'sophmore-jinx' setback in '96, but maybe the very next year.

Seeing what Rhodes' predecessor did...yes, he skippered one of the better or at least more-notable non-playoff teams ever followed by at least winning a playoff game in '92. But after that, it seemed a slow-but-sure-enough dismantling of-sorts of Buddy Ball anti-consummating into that closing 7-game skid/exit.

Now that seems like something that would take a few years to get back to winning ways. Yet Ray, with basically a no-name cast barring Ricky Watters, brings the Birds back to the playoffs! Wk#2 in the desert, enter Rodney Peete, Randall now done in Philly from there. Winning that first playoff game against a team on a 7-game tear and doing it the way they did! Yes, we all knew that Big D would bring them back down to earth the following week but still a first statement that looks like a Champ-to-be. And Rhodes WAS from the School of Walsh!

Well wrong I was! And the '95 Eagles WERE a minus-20 PD. Then again, much of that was three lopsided defeats they suffered earlier: the 21-6 opener-loss at home to Wyche's Bucs ("For who? For what?), that ridiculous allowance of Oakland putting up 48 unanswered, and Big D pounding them on that Monday Nighter mid-season!

But at least Philly did not allow a sweep! The famous stopping #22 those two plays in a row. IMO, Switzer got too much flack for that. I would have ran the same play again. 'What are the chances' the basic logic, and your RB is...Emmitt Smith! A great over-achievement by the Birds in beating Dallas even if the cracks were showing, simple as that!

They had the #4 defense in '95; Emmitt Thomas their DC. But 25th on the other side of the ball, the running game not being at fault. Remember, Jon Gruden was the OC.

As for '96, which this thread is about, they looked to pick up where they left off the year before. They started 7-2, split with Dallas again, but then lost four of their next five. That Thursday blowout at Indy, dropping them to 8-6, signaled with me that maybe I went too far in my initial optimism. They feast off two easy opponents to get in again as a wild card, get shut-out at San Fran, 14-0, and that was that.

[Ten Minute Ticker]

The argument that I see posted on this site a lot, and in this discussion specifically, is “the league is weak” used as a mallet to beat the allegedly overrated team over the head with.

I understand it as a point of comparison, but only to a point. What I rarely see acknowledged is that the supposedly overrated team does sometimes have a direct bearing on why some of its opponents were weak, statistically or otherwise.

For example, team stats and overall records for NFC Central teams were used against this Packers team. The Central
teams did have to play those Packers twice so of course their numbers are going to be low. Green Bay went 7-1 against the Central that season.

It seems a bit logically dubious to say a league is “weak” when one team is more dominant than the rest. It’s a sort of backdoor demerit for being that good.

Semi-related, I also think total yardage is a dubious stat in a team comparison context. It doesn’t take into account how much a team runs or passes the ball based on game context. Average per play, per pass attempt, per rushing attempt, is a lot more accurate.

[74_75_78_79_]

I don't remember what my Super Bowl guess was going into 1996. I guess I thought the Eagles would win the SB but not sure. Green Bay, I'm pretty sure, were looking to be favorites, they finally getting over the hump. I think I do vaguely remember that.

Does anyone remember what the 'experts' were thinking? What did all of you think at the time?

Jimmy Johnson debuting in Miami I think I had optimism there. I guess Jimmy had to take the one-step-back that year to make it 'his' team before proceeding forward which I guess explains their struggles. Problem is they return to being a playoff regular again in '97, but the next few years really no more successful than Shula's last few years with the Dolphins.