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  1. #25
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    Re: Ranking the dynasties

    Yeah, this article references that work, at the top.





  2. #26
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    Re: Ranking the dynasties

    Quote Originally Posted by JimZipCode View Post
    More articles to come over the next 3-4 weeks, write-ups on all the teams. I'll post back in here when the Baltimore teams come up (starting on Thursday, according to the schedule).
    Actually took longer than that, the lowest-ranked Balto team was higher on the final list (with DVOA adjustments) than on the original list (raw "dynasty points").


    No. 43: 1958-1959 Baltimore Colts

    Peak Dynasty Points: 10
    Average DVOA: 22.1%.
    Top-Five DVOA: 8.8%
    Championships: 2.
    Record: 18-6 (.750)
    Head Coach: Weeb Ewbank
    Key Players: QB Johnny Unitas, HB Lenny Moore, E Raymond Berry, T Jim Parker, DE Gino Marchetti, DT Gene Lipscomb
    Z-Score: -5.03

    I know what you're thinking -- how can a "dynasty" last just two seasons? It's certainly the question all my editors asked when they saw the list; these Colts are the only team to hit 10 dynasty points with just a two-year run. The system was set up to be agnostic about how long a team needed to be successful to be a dynasty, but two years does seem ridiculous. Back-to-back championships are always going to be worth at least 10 points, but you would think any team good enough to win back-to-back titles would also have some success in the years around it. Not these Colts. They were 7-5 in 1957, won back-to-back titles in 1958 and 1958, and then followed that up with 6-6 and 8-6 seasons in 1960 and 1961. Maybe in the modern era, that would have been good enough to win a weak division or earn a wild-card playoff spot, but not at this point in the history of the league. Heck, even if they had had six playoff teams in the NFL in those days, the Colts would only have scraped together one wild-card appearance in 1957. This really is a two-and-done team, stifled at the beginning by youth and inexperience, and at the end by injuries.

    Ah, but this is probably the /most important/ of any team we've listed to this point. The Colts beat the Giants in the 1958 NFL Championship Game, which is commonly known as the Greatest Game Ever Played -- it was voted the greatest game in NFL history as part of the 100th season spectacular. The game itself was exciting enough -- 12 future Hall of Famers on the field, a dramatic back-and-forth contest, Raymond Berry catching 12 passes for 178 yards, the first overtime game in NFL history, Johnny Unitas marching down the field in the two-minute drill, Alan Ameche plunging over the goal line, et cetera. But more importantly, the game was nationally televised on NBC, with more than 45 million people watching. This wasn't the first nationally televised NFL game, but before this, the rights were owned by the DuMont Network, which had only 18 affiliates, compared to NBC's 100-plus. This was the first really great game that the entire country got to see; it helped whet the nation's appetite for televised football. This led to ABC buying up the rights to broadcast games for the fledgling AFL, which led to the NFL finally getting all of its own regular-season games televised, and the massive expansion which took us from 12 professional football teams at the end of the 1950s to 28 by the beginning of the 1970s. Does that happen without the Colts-Giants title game? Not at that speed, at any rate.

    By comparison, the 1959 Championship Game where the Colts beat the Giants again is nearly an afterthought. The Colts' estimated DVOA dropped from 32.6% to 11.6% in a sign of things to come -- it dropped again in 1960, 1961, and 1962. 1960 saw Ameche, Berry, and Lenny Moore all suffer injuries, and Unitas' then-record 47-straight games with a touchdown snapped. Weeb Ewbank could never really pull those Colts out of their mediocrity, and he was fired after the 1962 season.

    Many historians group this two-year run with the late 1960s as just the Johnny Unitas era, which is fair. But that 21-19 record for three years splits these two titles off from the 1960s success. Add in the difference between Ewbank's more laid-back style of coaching and the more popular Don Shula, and I think it's fair to consider them two separate runs.





  3. #27
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    Re: Ranking the dynasties

    No. 40: 2008-2012 Baltimore Ravens

    Peak Dynasty Points: 10
    Average DVOA: 20.5%.
    Top-Five DVOA: 20.5%
    Championships: 1.
    Record: 54-26 (.675)
    Head Coach: John Harbaugh
    Key Players: RB Ray Rice, G Marshal Yanda, DT Haloti Ngata, LB Ray Lewis, LB Terrell Suggs, S Ed Reed
    Z-Score: -3.07

    Is Joe Flacco elite? Over the next 10,000 words, I will thoroughly and conclusive relitigate the argument, running through all the statistical and anecdotal evidence –

    – OK, no, I believe humanity has suffered more than enough of those conversations. Rarely has so much digital ink been spilled on a topic which eventually resolved itself fairly clearly. Patience -- the blogosphere does not have it.

    But you can see why Ravens fans were so excited that this young kid from Delaware was performing at adequate levels. Before 2008, the Ravens had had a negative offensive DVOA in nine of the previous 10 seasons. 2008 brought in Flacco, Ray Rice, and John Harbaugh, and all of a sudden, things turn around -- they had a -0.3% DVOA in 2008, and then were solidly in positive numbers throughout the rest of Flacco's rookie contract. You would think Flacco was elite too if you had had to sit through Kyle Boller and Trent Dilfer and Tony Banks and Anthony Wright and so on and so forth. The new and improved Ravens offense never ranked higher than ninth, and usually hovered in the high teens, but that's light-years ahead of what Ravens fans were used to.

    And even a modicum of offensive competence was all the Ravens defense really needed to dominate. The Ravens have ranked in the top 10 in defense in all but two years from 1999 to 2019. In that time, they've never wasted a good offensive performance; they've made the postseason every time they've had a positive offensive DVOA in the 21st century. These five years were no exception to the Ravens' defensive dominance, of course -- Ray Lewis was still performing near his peak, Terrell Suggs was the 2011 Defensive Player of the Year, and so on and so forth…

    – except for 2012, the freaking Super Bowl year. The Ravens defense fell all the way to 19th in the league, and the offense actually had to bail them out. Enter Flacco once again, especially in the postseason. Flacco's 618 DYAR in the 2012 postseason is still the third-most in DVOA history, and his 56.0% DVOA ranks very much near the top as well. In addition to the statistical dominance, Flacco also picked up folk hero-esque feats like the Mile High Miracle bomb to Jacoby Jones, and then a Super Bowl MVP performance in the Harbaugh Bowl.

    – and then Flacco was given the (at the time) largest contract in NFL history, after which it was quickly revealed that his small-sample size heroics weren't an accurate prediction of the future. Couple the salary-cap pressure of suddenly having to pay Flacco with the losses of stalwarts such as Lewis, Ed Reed, Bernard Pollard, Anquan Boldin, Matt Birk -- the list goes on -- and you have a very, very fast comedown from a great season. The Ravens missed the playoffs in four of the next five years, only really rebounding now with Lamar Jackson.

    If asked, I'm sure no Ravens fan would trade the 2012 title for anything, but man, one bad contract can really crush a team in the salary cap era. It makes the teams that keep a run of success going look all the more impressive in comparison.





  4. #28
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    Re: Ranking the dynasties

    interesting conversation for the off-season.

    I definitely think the Bills and Vikings were dynasties. I guess my definition is a little less obsessed with SB wins.
    four conference championships should be good for something. one or two is no big deal (Dan Reeves' Broncos?) but four is pretty impressive.
    Vikings had to beat some pretty good Ram and Cowboy teams (and the Lions were good back then)
    Bills shut out the Johnson/Marino Dolphins, among others.
    "Nothing stops these Baltimore Ravens. Beat them, injure them, shove them to the bottom of the standings, drag them into a hostile environment and mount a big lead, and they just keep trudging forward like nothing fazes them." (Bleacher Report)





  5. #29

    Re: Ranking the dynasties

    I mean, it was really 3 bad contract. Flacco, Rice, Pitta. All 3 combined were almost exponentially destructive.





  6. #30

    Re: Ranking the dynasties

    Quote Originally Posted by saintmatthew View Post
    I mean, it was really 3 bad contract. Flacco, Rice, Pitta. All 3 combined were almost exponentially destructive.
    Also poor drafting.





  7. #31
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    Re: Ranking the dynasties

    Quote Originally Posted by saintmatthew View Post
    I mean, it was really 3 bad contract. Flacco, Rice, Pitta. All 3 combined were almost exponentially destructive.
    I think the Flacco contract was the least "bad" of the three. Bottom line is you were going to have to pay Flacco -- a LOT. The narrative that it was expensive just because he won the SB I'm not buying. Even if the Mile High Miracle doesn't happen, a QB who wins a playoff game each of his first five years in the league was going to get PAID. And because of the cap situation with our overpriced veteran players at the time (Ray, Sizz, Ngata, Ed) they were not going to be able to sign him to a flat contract. Joe held all the cards. We couldn't afford the franchise tag, so either we had to come up with enough money to make him happy, or someone else would. Did the SB MVP up the price? Sure. But he was still going to be cripplingly expensive.

    Pitta and Rice I think they were bidding against themselves somewhat. And of course, those were two situations of really bad luck for the franchise. Just goes to show you that proactively locking up your young talent is not always the best way to go.
    "Chin up, chest out."





  8. #32
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    Re: Ranking the dynasties

    I think you're right, HotinHere. Flacco picked up a few million thanks to that Lombardi, but he was going to get close to that regardless.



    Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk





  9. #33

    Re: Ranking the dynasties

    They should have never given Flacco any contract.





  10. #34
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    Re: Ranking the dynasties

    Quote Originally Posted by HotInHere View Post
    I think the Flacco contract was the least "bad" of the three. Bottom line is you were going to have to pay Flacco -- a LOT.
    Right. The first big Joe contract was just the cost of doing business.

    But the second one, that was a mistake. It was obviously a mistake at the time. Should've just eaten that one bad year.





  11. #35

    Re: Ranking the dynasties

    Quote Originally Posted by Culex View Post
    Crazy too because Harbaugh coached under Reid. I honestly believe Reid is gonna end up a top 5 HC all-time when its all said and done.

    I wouldn't count out Belichick restarting a dynasty with someone else, also.
    Reid has been considered one of the best in the league who had not won a superbowl by many for many years.





  12. #36

    Re: Ranking the dynasties

    Quote Originally Posted by seraph View Post
    They should have never given Flacco any contract.
    No gm. In the league would have let Flacco walk out after his playoff run. The Ravens hands were forced. They should have structured it better instead of paying him next to nothing year 1 and 2 and then having it balloon





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