Professional Football Researchers Association Forum

This one should be an even tougher exercise. Here are all 25...

Just SEVEN of these 25 actually made the Super Bowl (in italics), only TWO (in asterisks) actually WON it!!

'00 Titans
'01 Steelers
'01 Bears
'03 Chiefs
'04 Eagles
'05 Seahawks
'05 Broncos
'06 Bears
'06 Ravens
'07 Colts
'07 Cowboys
'07 Packers
'08 Titans
'09 Saints*
'09 Chargers
'10 Falcons
'11 Patriots
'11 Forty Niners
'11 Saints
'12 Broncos
'12 Falcons
'13 Seahawks*
'13 Broncos
'15 Cardinals
'16 Cowboys

Not going to both with listing them because I don't think many of these teams were really that great anyways. But the high increase in the number of 13-3 teams in this century as opposed to the previous one shows that the teams with good/great records now tend to not be quite as good as the teams with good/great records of the past.

Wonder if that is an indication that the quality of teams overall isn't as good anymore. I know that seems to be one negative of the salary cap era is that it has brought down the quality of team play.

Just had to edit OP, lol. I actually put '00 Titans in italics by mistake and - no - I did not do it on purpose. Ought to tell you something right there.

But yes, lastcat, the fact that just seven made the Bowl tells you something. Either 13-3 teams not being as good as they used to be and/or parity itself. It only made sense to separate these lists in two. Perhaps I should have set the 'dividing line' two years later at 2002, start of the 4-4-4-4 conference era (numerous teams with less wins eliminating the better-record teams as well as winning-it-all).

Wonder if that is an indication that the quality of teams overall isn't as good anymore. I know that seems to be one negative of the salary cap era is that it has brought down the quality of team play.

I've been thinking a bit about this lately. In regards to free agency, when it started in the 1990s the talk was it would usher in an era of parity. Every team would have equal opportunity to sign free agents, provided they have salary cap room. What's happened instead is that its more likely for a team to catch lightning in a bottle and have a "great" record for one year and fall back to earth the next. So we're getting more wild W-L record fluctuations from year to year with a lot of teams. I'd love to see a breakdown of the league average W-L difference (regardless of up or down) from the previous season throughout the years. That's something the crew over at footballperspective would typically do a study on.

ChrisBabcock wrote:

Wonder if that is an indication that the quality of teams overall isn't as good anymore. I know that seems to be one negative of the salary cap era is that it has brought down the quality of team play.

I've been thinking a bit about this lately. In regards to free agency, when it started in the 1990s the talk was it would usher in an era of parity. Every team would have equal opportunity to sign free agents, provided they have salary cap room. What's happened instead is that its more likely for a team to catch lightning in a bottle and have a "great" record for one year and fall back to earth the next. So we're getting more wild W-L record fluctuations from year to year with a lot of teams. I'd love to see a breakdown of the league average W-L difference (regardless of up or down) from the previous season throughout the years. That's something the crew over at footballperspective would typically do a study on.

What's interesting there is that you do get it with some teams, but lots of teams have been more consistent post 1993. And it doesn't seem like it's much of a mystery: Brady's Patriots, Big Ben's Steelers, Peyton's Colts, the Packers under Favre and Rodgers.... You start looking at the tables (PFR's Franchise Index is great for that) and the correlation between QB and consistency looks to be very strong. Lightning in a bottle comes when your QB is Chris Chandler, or the triple threat of Cade McNown/Jim Miller/Shane Matthews.

It is true that it is still the case that the most consistent teams tend to be the ones with the best qb's (same as it was in the '70's and '80's and '90's). However I think the difference comes in in the fact that it is much more difficult for those teams with the star qb's to put the total package together than it used to be. For instance the 2011 Packers went 15-1 yet they had one of the lowest ranked defenses in the league. How many 13-3/14-2/15-1 teams pre '00 had one of the worst defenses in the league?

Take the Patriots as another example. Yes it is amazing what they have been able to accomplish over the last fifteen years and will likely be something the league will never see again. However they have been doing it with mostly average defenses (they had stronger defenses back in the early '00's but then it seems when they started having to pay Brady and some of the other offensive stars more money that is when they started forsaking defense a bit). We never saw the '70's Steelers/'80's 49ers/'early 90's Cowboys forsake their defenses and they all consistently had one of the top rated defenses in the league.

It would be interesting to see how all the top teams of today would do in a league that was as dominant at the top as the was back in '70's/'80's and '90's. The Brady lead Patriots franchise has won five super bowls in the modern era. If they were suddenly transported back to the '70's/'80's/or '90's how would that change them. Would they have far more 10-6 type records or would they still consistently get real good regular season records but would simply have a much more challenging time getting to and winning a Super Bowl?

lastcat3 wrote: Take the Patriots as another example. Yes it is amazing what they have been able to accomplish over the last fifteen years and will likely be something the league will never see again. However they have been doing it with mostly average defenses (they had stronger defenses back in the early '00's but then it seems when they started having to pay Brady and some of the other offensive stars more money that is when they started forsaking defense a bit). We never saw the '70's Steelers/'80's 49ers/'early 90's Cowboys forsake their defenses and they all consistently had one of the top rated defenses in the league.

I think you're wrong about the Patriots' defenses. They've ranked in the top six (based on points given up) seven times in the last 16 seasons and they were first in two of those seasons, including 2016. Their defenses have typically been well above average. Only three times in that 15 years have they been worse than 10th.

lastcat3 wrote:It is true that it is still the case that the most consistent teams tend to be the ones with the best qb's (same as it was in the '70's and '80's and '90's). However I think the difference comes in in the fact that it is much more difficult for those teams with the star qb's to put the total package together than it used to be. For instance the 2011 Packers went 15-1 yet they had one of the lowest ranked defenses in the league. How many 13-3/14-2/15-1 teams pre '00 had one of the worst defenses in the league?

Yeah, exactly, that what makes it so interesting. Pre-salary cap you have some teams who were able to achieve consistency with great defense and running, and not necessarily stellar quarterback play -- Ditka's Bears and Marty's Chiefs for example. But that has been a less successful model post 1993.

I don't think the Patriots are a great example, because Brady has never been a particularly highly paid quarterback. But definitely the teams around all the other $20-25 million guys had to make hard choices about building their roster, and they are definitely unbalanced.

That said, it still happens -- the Pats and Packers have both had a top 5 (by scoring) offense and defense four times since 1993, the Cowboys and 49ers three times, the Colts and Falcons twice, the Chargers, Chiefs, Broncos, Eagles, Giants, Bears, Rams, and Seahawks all did it once. But a couple of those teams were the juggernauts built under pre-salary cap conditions, and we certainly don't ever see those kinds of teams that dominate on both sides of the ball for years at a time, like the 1970's Dolphins and Steelers, the 80's 49ers, or the 90's Cowboys. Those days are just gone.