Who’re the best 5th-place teams, ’70-thru-’01?

[74_75_78_79_]

I know I just mentioned them on another thread, but the '89 Chargers (6-10) are truly a worthy mention! Their opener-loss at LA Raiders, 40-14, was their only lopsided defeat all season! All other of their nine defeats that season were by 7-pts-or-less. They beat Philly and swept KC.

In '91 they finished 4-12, eight of their defeats by 7-pts-or-less. They split with Raiders and beat the Saints. The Football Outsiders have mentioned them, basically calling them an average team in disguise of that very bad W/L mark.

Henning simply struggled at winning close games. Applying some fairness though, he had next to no offense at all. However - on the other side of the ball - the likes of Leslie O'Neil, Gary Plummer, Lee Williams, Burt Grossman (rookie in '89), Billy Ray Smith Jr, and Junior Seau (rookie, '91) helped to carry things respectability-wise in either both, or one of, those seasons.

Seeing how the Giants went from winning close games in '90 to losing close games in '91 makes me think that somebody like Tuna at HC (especially with Belichick at DC) would have forged those Charger squads into playoff-qualifiers in both '89 & '91 as well as '90.

[7DnBrnc53]

I know I just mentioned them on another thread, but the '89 Chargers (6-10) are truly a worthy mention! Their opener-loss at LA Raiders, 40-14, was their only lopsided defeat all season! All other of their nine defeats that season were by 7-pts-or-less. They beat Philly and swept KC.

In '91 they finished 4-12, eight of their defeats by 7-pts-or-less. They split with Raiders and beat the Saints. The Football Outsiders have mentioned them, basically calling them an average team in disguise of that very bad W/L mark.

Henning simply struggled at winning close games. Applying some fairness though, he had next to no offense at all. However - on the other side of the ball - the likes of Leslie O'Neil, Gary Plummer, Lee Williams, Burt Grossman (rookie in '89), Billy Ray Smith Jr, and Junior Seau (rookie, '91) helped to carry things respectability-wise in either both, or one of, those seasons.

Seeing how the Giants went from winning close games in '90 to losing close games in '91 makes me think that somebody like Tuna at HC (especially with Belichick at DC) would have forged those Charger squads into playoff-qualifiers in both '89 & '91 as well as '90.

I don't know why they gave Dan Henning an HC job in the first place. He wasn't that great in Atlanta.

I agree with you about the 89 Chargers, though. Close losses at Denver, at Pittsburgh, and at home against Seattle (Chris Bahr missed an XP after Marion Butts cut the lead to 17-16 in the fourth quarter on a 2-yard TD) ended up keeping them out of the playoffs.