The best 1990s NFL season?
Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2022 10:21 am
I won't make this one a 'rank-them-all', just what season you thought was the best of that decade and why?
I've already opined on here numerous times that I feel it was 1998! In my opinion, the last truly great NFL season-period! Elway's Swan Song. Marino's last Marino-like year. Packers & Forty Niners breathing their last breaths as true contenders in the form of that Classic Wild Card game (TO's "coming out"-party, Holgren's last year with GB, Rice's last great year in SF, Young's last full-season of course). The 'Big 3's last year together, Cardinals' first playoff win in 51 years and against them thus fulfilling Jerry McGuire's prophesy. Doug Flutie finally breaks through in the NFL, leading Bills from 0-3 to a surprise playoff berth! Randy's Moss's Rookie Season! Randall Cunningham reviving his career! Collision-course between those 15-1-to-be Vikings and defending-Champ, Denver, who start out at 13-0! Dirty Birds and Jets (Testaverde's best year) make it to the CCs with the former actually pulling off the upset and the latter being up, 10-0, at the half! In the end, the Vikings NOT appearing in that Super Bowl ('Elway-vs-Reeves'-hype, and Falcons also being 14-2, was just enough an alternative if however barely) and the game itself being pretty dull doesn't ruin all that's already been mentioned. An exciting season I still look back fondly of!
The very beginning of the decade still involved the same '80s stalwarts with Buffalo now added to the mix. Big D and San Fran would revive their rivalry like never before, being the 'top-2' teams each year from '92-thru-'95 (though it could be argued that SF was no better than Houston, Buffalo, or maybe even KC, in '93). Pack & Broncos declare supremacy the few years after that. As myself and others have said previously, the decade's final season - and the sudden key injuries early on (some career-ending) along with Elway now retired; new faces replacing old faces in the playoffs - makes '99 quite different from the rest. Bills/Giants SB notwithstanding, the decade seemed to start out as another decade of bad Super Bowls yet (Den/Atl SB notwithstanding) it ended on a hot, promising note into the 21th Century - with the promise being overall fulfilled to this day! Very few bad SBs since #8 got that "monkey" off his back!
What season is best, and why, in what I feel (JMHO) was the last truly great decade in NFL history?
I've already opined on here numerous times that I feel it was 1998! In my opinion, the last truly great NFL season-period! Elway's Swan Song. Marino's last Marino-like year. Packers & Forty Niners breathing their last breaths as true contenders in the form of that Classic Wild Card game (TO's "coming out"-party, Holgren's last year with GB, Rice's last great year in SF, Young's last full-season of course). The 'Big 3's last year together, Cardinals' first playoff win in 51 years and against them thus fulfilling Jerry McGuire's prophesy. Doug Flutie finally breaks through in the NFL, leading Bills from 0-3 to a surprise playoff berth! Randy's Moss's Rookie Season! Randall Cunningham reviving his career! Collision-course between those 15-1-to-be Vikings and defending-Champ, Denver, who start out at 13-0! Dirty Birds and Jets (Testaverde's best year) make it to the CCs with the former actually pulling off the upset and the latter being up, 10-0, at the half! In the end, the Vikings NOT appearing in that Super Bowl ('Elway-vs-Reeves'-hype, and Falcons also being 14-2, was just enough an alternative if however barely) and the game itself being pretty dull doesn't ruin all that's already been mentioned. An exciting season I still look back fondly of!
The very beginning of the decade still involved the same '80s stalwarts with Buffalo now added to the mix. Big D and San Fran would revive their rivalry like never before, being the 'top-2' teams each year from '92-thru-'95 (though it could be argued that SF was no better than Houston, Buffalo, or maybe even KC, in '93). Pack & Broncos declare supremacy the few years after that. As myself and others have said previously, the decade's final season - and the sudden key injuries early on (some career-ending) along with Elway now retired; new faces replacing old faces in the playoffs - makes '99 quite different from the rest. Bills/Giants SB notwithstanding, the decade seemed to start out as another decade of bad Super Bowls yet (Den/Atl SB notwithstanding) it ended on a hot, promising note into the 21th Century - with the promise being overall fulfilled to this day! Very few bad SBs since #8 got that "monkey" off his back!
What season is best, and why, in what I feel (JMHO) was the last truly great decade in NFL history?