1994 NFL season in retrospect
Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2025 3:32 pm
94 is such a fascinating year that's to me is either glass half full or glass half empty depending on your perspective
Glass half full- it was the 75th anniversary, the first year of the NFL on FOX era, the introduction of the 2PC, and plenty of memorable games (Bledsoe/Marino, Montana vs Young, Elway/Montana MNF, Barry Sanders vs Emmitt Smith, Jason Garrett on Thanksgiving, the Fake Spike). The emergence of guys like Faulk/Bledsoe, the revival of the Patriots, a competitive NFC Central
Glass half empty says that 1994 was essentially a DAL/SF coronation from day 1 to the point where it felt like these were the only teams that mattered regardless of the others, culminating in this nauseating SI article:
https://vault.si.com/vault/1995/01/16/d ... c-showdown
"Why did we have to mess around so long with all this extraneous stuff?
Of course, there had to be a Regular Season and Surprising Teams and Resurgent Teams and Disappointing Teams and Experts Calculating Which Team Has A Chance To Sneak In As A Wild-Card Playoff Longshot, and the myriad Pregame Shows and Postgame Wrap-ups and Hope Springing Eternal In Rust-Belt Cities Where Football Is So Much Like Life, and Franchises Looking To The Future and Where Will Georgia Take Her Boys and Blah Blah Blah.
But it was all Nonsense. Had been all season. Only two Real Teams existed: the Dallas Cowboys and the San Francisco 49ers. All others were mobiles hanging in The Classroom Where Football Is Taught.
The 49ers and the Cowboys played each other once this year, on Nov. 13 in San Francisco, and it was a Big Game. None of this Maybe The Little Team From Green Bay Or The Clever Team From Chicago Can Pull Off An Upset. No, these were Men Duking It Out.
thank god the swill has finally run off into the gutters where it belongs. The 49ers and the Cowboys are so far above all other NFL teams that it's a pity we can't turn their NFC championship matchup this Sunday into Super Bowl XXIX. Then that anticlimactic thing occurring in Miami on Jan. 29 could be some kind of postseason weenie roast.
Yes, there is an AFC, and a champion will also be declared over there this Sunday. But, really. The San Diego Chargers? The Pittsburgh Steelers? O.K., the Steelers are a rugged team, but they are not Terry Bradshaw-Mean Joe Greene rugged. And anyway, an AFC team hasn't won the Super Bowl since January 1984. As this reviewer's favorite critics, Beavis and Butthead, would put it, the AFC sucks."
Basically they acted like all the great games and fireworks were basically just a waste of our time and apparently nothing other than boring DAL/SF blowouts was 'real'. So apparently the week 1 Bledsoe/Marino all-timer was 'Nonsense' because it didn't involve THOSE teams. Like apparently Montana vs Elway didn't matter one bit because we weren't graced by the presense of THOSE teams. It was as if they thought the NFL solely revolved around those two teams which made me wonder why bother playing the season if these teams were allegedly so far above all teams because they basically violated the salary cap and somehow had what amounted to seemingly every NFC Pro Bowler?
Oh and an irony about 'the AFC sucks' is that the NFC outside of DAL/SF had essentially none of the depth that it once had (only one other team won 10 games and it took until the final MNF of the year) while the much maligned AFC had 5 10+ win teams
In fact, the NFC only went 27-25 in interconference matchups and if you take out the Cowboys/49ers, everybody else in the NFC went 21-23 vs the AFC
This wasn't like when 10-6 teams like the 91 49ers or 88 Saints missed the NFC playoffs. Heck if the Vikings won one less game the NFC would have had FOUR 9-7 playoff teams! People get on the AFC of 1989, but the NFC of 1994 was truly riding the coattails of those two teams (heck at least the 89 AFC playoff games were mostly competitive)
My point stands that 1994 is a hard season to quantify depending on your perspective. What say you?
Glass half full- it was the 75th anniversary, the first year of the NFL on FOX era, the introduction of the 2PC, and plenty of memorable games (Bledsoe/Marino, Montana vs Young, Elway/Montana MNF, Barry Sanders vs Emmitt Smith, Jason Garrett on Thanksgiving, the Fake Spike). The emergence of guys like Faulk/Bledsoe, the revival of the Patriots, a competitive NFC Central
Glass half empty says that 1994 was essentially a DAL/SF coronation from day 1 to the point where it felt like these were the only teams that mattered regardless of the others, culminating in this nauseating SI article:
https://vault.si.com/vault/1995/01/16/d ... c-showdown
"Why did we have to mess around so long with all this extraneous stuff?
Of course, there had to be a Regular Season and Surprising Teams and Resurgent Teams and Disappointing Teams and Experts Calculating Which Team Has A Chance To Sneak In As A Wild-Card Playoff Longshot, and the myriad Pregame Shows and Postgame Wrap-ups and Hope Springing Eternal In Rust-Belt Cities Where Football Is So Much Like Life, and Franchises Looking To The Future and Where Will Georgia Take Her Boys and Blah Blah Blah.
But it was all Nonsense. Had been all season. Only two Real Teams existed: the Dallas Cowboys and the San Francisco 49ers. All others were mobiles hanging in The Classroom Where Football Is Taught.
The 49ers and the Cowboys played each other once this year, on Nov. 13 in San Francisco, and it was a Big Game. None of this Maybe The Little Team From Green Bay Or The Clever Team From Chicago Can Pull Off An Upset. No, these were Men Duking It Out.
thank god the swill has finally run off into the gutters where it belongs. The 49ers and the Cowboys are so far above all other NFL teams that it's a pity we can't turn their NFC championship matchup this Sunday into Super Bowl XXIX. Then that anticlimactic thing occurring in Miami on Jan. 29 could be some kind of postseason weenie roast.
Yes, there is an AFC, and a champion will also be declared over there this Sunday. But, really. The San Diego Chargers? The Pittsburgh Steelers? O.K., the Steelers are a rugged team, but they are not Terry Bradshaw-Mean Joe Greene rugged. And anyway, an AFC team hasn't won the Super Bowl since January 1984. As this reviewer's favorite critics, Beavis and Butthead, would put it, the AFC sucks."
Basically they acted like all the great games and fireworks were basically just a waste of our time and apparently nothing other than boring DAL/SF blowouts was 'real'. So apparently the week 1 Bledsoe/Marino all-timer was 'Nonsense' because it didn't involve THOSE teams. Like apparently Montana vs Elway didn't matter one bit because we weren't graced by the presense of THOSE teams. It was as if they thought the NFL solely revolved around those two teams which made me wonder why bother playing the season if these teams were allegedly so far above all teams because they basically violated the salary cap and somehow had what amounted to seemingly every NFC Pro Bowler?
Oh and an irony about 'the AFC sucks' is that the NFC outside of DAL/SF had essentially none of the depth that it once had (only one other team won 10 games and it took until the final MNF of the year) while the much maligned AFC had 5 10+ win teams
In fact, the NFC only went 27-25 in interconference matchups and if you take out the Cowboys/49ers, everybody else in the NFC went 21-23 vs the AFC
This wasn't like when 10-6 teams like the 91 49ers or 88 Saints missed the NFC playoffs. Heck if the Vikings won one less game the NFC would have had FOUR 9-7 playoff teams! People get on the AFC of 1989, but the NFC of 1994 was truly riding the coattails of those two teams (heck at least the 89 AFC playoff games were mostly competitive)
My point stands that 1994 is a hard season to quantify depending on your perspective. What say you?