And here I thought it was the illegal filming of opponents practices and improper ball inflation that gave the Pats the edge...
I really wish you two teams would stop making yourselves look foolish arguing League Championships: Packers 13 Bears 9 Giants 8 THEN... Patriots 6 Steelers 6 And then you start arguing Conference Championships instead of Wins to "break a tie of 3rd place" Well.... Championship Appearances: Giants 22 - 8 wins Bears 19 - 9 wins Packers 18 - 13 wins *Patriots 11 - 6 wins Redskins 11 - 5 wins Browns 9 - 4 wins Rams 9 - 3 wins *Steelers 8 - 6 wins Cowboys 8 - 5 wins Broncos 8 - 3 wins So, in other words, the Browns are back to back Super Bowl wins away from tying the Patriots for 4th place... Here comes Baker...
If you factor out the early years when winning the title meant finishing with the best record...it changes things slightly.
Why would you factor out anything? It's the history of the league. The LEAGUE is turning 100 years old, not the Super Bowl trophy.
Re-read my original post, I said best of the Super Bowl era. I think it’s arbitrary to ignore pre Super Bowl era titles from history.
From 1920 to 1932 there was no championship game. I have a hard time holding those titles as being as important as the ones that came after....when you actually had to face another team with a trophy on the line in one game. In 1932 The Packers finished with the most wins but didn't win the title because they have a tie in their stands and the league title was determined by winning percentage excluding ties and after you factor out the Bears 6 ties and the Spartans 4 ties.....the Bears and Spartans ended up on top and played the first ever "playoff" game. I fully embrace the leagues total history.....but a title in 1928 isn't equal to a title in the Superbowl era.
You don't ignore them....but you can put weight on specific eras. It's a reasonable argument to say Superbowls have been more difficult to attain than championships from the league's early era.
I know exactly what you said... You are just like the Steelers fans, except they are worse because they actually existed well before the first Super Bowl. You like to avoid the fact the league existed before you did..The Patriots weren't around before 1970, therefore nothing that happened before 1970 matters. That's ridiculous on all levels.
You can discuss them separately, when you look at the history as a whole, Green Bay is the best no doubt. Had success in both pre and post SB era and the most titles. I’d never want them to rename the Lombardi to Belichick (name the CoY after him if isn’t not already named) as some have suggested.
That's a discussion I could get into. Not now, because I have to run, but I would be happy to discuss this later.
I meant to say you can put weight on specific eras...not can't. You can definitely discuss them separately and argue what era was tougher. I'm still in favor of the CoY being named after Chuck Knox. I agree with Green Bay due to the longevity and the success through time. I also have no doubt the Patriots are the greatest modern dynasty....I'd rank them right alongside the Edmonton Oilers of the mid to late 90s and the 1990s Chicago Bulls. The GS Warriors can piss off as basketball is irrelevant to me and they don't deserve to be in the convo.
So, if this train of thought is valid, why have a season at all? Besides money, what is the reason? We can call the New York Giants the best team in football in 2011, even though they didn't even muster double digit wins in the regular season at 9-7.... But hell, they must be the best team to play that year because they have a trophy to show for it. At least in the early days, the best teams in the league won the Championships. Not a team that got lucky against the best team in the league on any given Sunday(or Saturday) sending that team home. In 2007 the Patriots went 16-0, oh wait they weren't the best team that year though the 10-6 Giants were because they won the last game of the year. I understand winning the Super Bowl is a big deal, I am not downplaying that. But the best teams in the early years were the best teams in the league and deserve to be recognized as such. Having a trophy named after Vince Lombardi doesn't erase all the years of history for the other great teams in any given year.
You're making something out of my comments I didn't say. All I'm saying is winning a championship from 1920 to 1932 isn't the same as the championships that came after. Because....it isn't. The best teams in the early years may not have really been the best teams. We will never know because they weren't tested in a playoff format. Does the best team every season win the championship? Probably not. The best team doesn't always have the best record either. I didn't say anything about erasing any history at all. If you could point to me saying that I'd appreciate it....if you can't then back off because that very clearly isn't my point. If you think winning a title in 1925 is the same difficultly as winning a title in 2019....fine. Go on thinking that. But you're wrong. There's just as much luck in getting the best record. Every team has different schedules...different opponents. Home/Away plays a factor. Injuries play a factor. Time of day...weather....officials....and so on. Champions play their best when the most is on the line. That's what separates teams that will forever be immortal (Patriots) against teams that simply have really good regular seasons. The Giants beat an 18-0 team to win a title. They weren't the best team all season that year....but they damn sure were the best team on the field when it mattered most.
They really were the best teams, because they played ALL the other teams in the league back then. You were able to see exactly who the best team was. We NEED playoffs now, because it is impossible to play 31 other teams to decide it outright. With every expansion it gets worse, now they don't even play every team in their own conference every year. If it were up to me, play all the other 15 teams and your own division twice per year. That would give a better indicator of who the best team is in the AFC and the best team in the NFC..then take the top 4 teams, not 6 and have your playoffs. Culminating in the best team from each conference playing against each other for the trophy. I think proportionally they are the same. No one can compare two eras obviously. But what you consider obstacles in 2019 is much different than obstacles in 1925. Would you put the same emphasis on the Super Bowl if it were changed to a yearly tournament? What if all 32 teams simply went into a tournament and the season was decided by that tournament...The best team could be unlucky enough to lose the first round and be considered one of the two worst teams in the league. That's what I am saying about the playoffs now. There are 12 teams that make the playoffs...similar number of teams in the first decades of the NFL... The difference is, in the early decades they all played each other over the course of the season and the one with the best record was your Champion. Now it's one and done, a team gets eliminated with every game played. That team may be the better team on a larger scale...in other words, they could have beaten 10 of the other 11 teams, while the team that beat them could have lost 5 of those 11 games, yet on that particular day...that team loses and is eliminated. Baseball does the best at finding out the real champion of the league. I know you can't do that in football, I understand why it has their playoff system. But, in reality, in the NFL the regular season is fairly meaningless except for the fact the league makes so much money it can afford to have too many teams playing. In the early years, the teams had the best players in the country, because there were only a dozen or so teams playing. The eras are certainly different, but to call one better than the other is what is wrong.
Back in the day, they all played each other, that's my point. What you are saying above pertains more to today's game than the early years. I can't disagree with this, but at the same time, Any Given Sunday has meaning for a reason. Some games just have an outcome that would only occur once out of every 20 times played...that day could be in the playoffs and the better team goes home instead of winning a trophy. In my opinion the measurement of success is over a time period, not a 3-4 game abbreviated stretch. How is that relevant to what the Champions of the pre Super Bowl era accomplished?
