Super Bowl XLIII Running Thread

I found a workable strength-of-schedule factoring.

I will re-order my list when I get done going through all the skeds.

I will say that the 2008 Steelers did nudge just past the 2005 team.

And the 85 Bears still blow everyone away.

And the 1972 Dolphins got hurt again, obviously.

 

Simon, how are the 1972 Dolphins hurt? I would consider overall team defense and team offense stats. Plus, they beat an 11-3 Washington team that was pretty good.

Scored 385 points (27.5/g), 1st of 26 in the NFL.
Allowed 171 points (12.2/g), 1st.
Differential of 214 points (15.3/g), 1st.

 

Worst strength of schedule, as has been well documented.

The teams they played in the regular season (subtracting the Dolphins's wins from their records) went 70-108-4 in 1972.

 

1. sunday wasn't the first time i've ever watched the cat play.
2. i've never met manson, but i'm going to go ahead and suggest he's probably a cock.
3. that still was the dumbest post of the year.

 

Simon, just a suggestion I don't know how you can factor in. The '69 Chiefs and '68 Jets were reflections of two things. 1. The AFL was one hell of a lot better than the NFL thought, and 2. Lombardi's Packers were one hell of a lot better than everyone thought, and everyone already thought they were great. The '69 Vikings were dominant in what was an inferior league.

 

Super Bowl III.... most overblown and rated sports event ever perhaps.

 

I disagree. Look at the old line AFL teams' records in 1970:

Miami 10-4
Oakland 8-4-2
Cincinnati 8-6
Kansas City 7-5-2
San Diego 5-6-3
Denver 5-8-1
NY Jets 4-10
Houston 3-10-1
Buffalo 3-10-1
Boston 2-12

In 1970, the NFC won 2/3 of the interconference games and it wasn't as if that was a strong NFC that season. Minnesota, San Francisco, Dallas and Detroit were the playoff teams that year, with the Vikings going 12-2 with Gary Cuozzo at QB, he of the 7 TD passes and 10 interceptions.

And you have to factor out Miami and Cincinnati somewhat because both benefited in that they could build expansion teams after the AFL-NFL war was over (Miami had one year "in the war" in 1966) and with a common draft from 1967 on. They get points for being better than NFL expansion brothers Atlanta and New Orleans.

Of course Baltimore -- a NFL team -- won the AFC in 1970 and the Super Bowl.

It wasn't much better in '71. Miami, Oakland and Kansas City were the only AFL teams with winning records.

The AFL was inferior to the NFL at the merger, just not to the extent the NFL thought. It makes both Super Bowl III and IV the upsets they were, but the revisionist history that it proved the AFL was even with the NFL is just that.

 

Three quick points.

1. Perception is not reality, but the PERCEPTION of the 1968 Colts was that they were one of the strongest teams in history. The Jets were not regarded as the best team in the AFL. The Raiders and Chiefs split that regular season opinion. So that's why the upset was considered so monumental, and still is. The people who saw it were shocked.
2. In an 8 or 10 team league, where everybody plays everybody else, there will be a strong bell curve of records due to math, not necessarily the teams' actural strengths (although the Pats of that era sure sucked).
3. Had the old AFL survived intact in the merger, those Raider-Steeler games, like the Immaculate Reception, would have been Super Bowls. Pretty cool to imagine.

 

Minnesota, Pittsburgh and Dallas would have been brawling for one Super Bowl spot. The NFC would have been brutal.

 

Get this straight, since you don't seem to understand. When Jerry makes a move, I have to support it in some way because I have to support the team I root for. Do I agree with the move? Sometimes and sometimes not. That hardly makes me a Jerry apologist, it makes me a fan. Did I support the Roy Williams trade, yes and no. Do I like the fact that Jerry runs this team as if he were the coach, hell no. This last part is where you think I'm a Jerry apologist and it's simply not true. So I suggest this, cut your constant hounding of me and go find a new hobby because you certainly need one.

 

After Lombardi was carried off by Jerry Kramer at the Orange Bowl after II, the AFL/AFC won eight of the next nine Super Bowls.

 

The only thing you've posted in this entire thread that makes sense to me is that while the rest of us were watching the Super Bowl, you were watching your cat play.

Oh, and as might have been suspected by a reasonable human being using simple deductive reasoning, the word from Pittsburgh now is that the dude Harrison's beating down went after his family jewels prior to the acts that have been captured on his video.