I understand what thrillhouse is getting at.

However, we're just one year removed from 2 teams seriously challenging undefeated seasons. I think it's less parity and more that the QB position has never been better in the NFL. Brady, Manning, Brees, Rivers, Rodgers, Rothlisberger, Matt Ryan, Eli Manning. I'm probably leaving out some but all of these guys are really good to great. And it's a QB league now. Defense and running games just aren't as important as they used to be. If any one of these guys gets their offense clicking, they can make a serious run at Superbowl.

fixed

But the Pats also lost to the Steelers 33-10 in the regular season which by your logic says they had no chance anyway.

As for the '85 Bears...that team is more like a modern day parity-era one hit wonder than an Era Defining Juggernaut. The won one SB and never even made another one. Congrats, you are the '00 Ravens or the '02 Bucs...

Ryan and Romo aren't elite, Bob. Slow down, soldier.

I wouldn't say they're elite either. But they're very good and that just shows how deep the QB position is in the NFL.

hey don't slog my 85 bears in this discussion its all i got

no, because they were the team to beat all year. you gave me 2 12-4 teams, one of which was a wild card.

yeah, i agree - not elite, but the next level down

flacco should also be included on that level

Bradford and Josh Freeman aren't too far down the list either.

And fuck, Eil has a SB and Sanchez has been to two AFC championship games in his first two years.

This should probably go in the NFL thread, but oh well.

Deion Sanders...newly elected to HoF. All the merchandising, website mentions, etc place him in a Cowboys uni, and colors. Personally, I always associated him more with being on the Falcons. He played the same number of seasons for both Dallas and ATL (5 seasons), but from just breezing over stats, seems like ATL was more fruitful for him. Obviously, Canton is less team-centric than Cooperstown, but all the shirts that the NFL is selling say "Deion Sanders Dallas Cowboys". And, you can't even use that he played a SB with Dallas because he was pretty much a non-factor if I remember correctly. These are things I ponder...

agree that bradford and freeman are on the rise

but eli and sanchez (and roethlisberger, to a large extent) are riding the coattails of their talented rosters more than they are ever leading them with their arm(s) - the only reason eli isn't on the cuntler level of underachieving dog shit is because he played the three best games of his life on consecutive weeks during the playoffs when they won the super bowl

i pretty much despise deion, so i'd be fine if another team wanted to claim him as their HOFer

I don't know if I posted this eli story before but ....

My junior year in high school, some of our seniors needed to take the ACT at Newman (the New Orleans private school Eli attended). Long story short, Eli was late and the school held up the entire ACT exam for about an hour so Eli didn't miss it. Eli came in and kind of acted entitled to take it, which pissed our seniors off. Or at least that's what they told us.

About a week later, we play Newman in basketball. So we kind of plan that we're going to harass Eli. Eli was goofy and clearly hadn't grown into his body yet. He probably didn't deserve to play. I remember thinking, "man, poor kid has a lot to live up to but he's not athletic like his family and he's kind of forced into playing." We harassed him and he was visibly shaken by the taunting. I would have given 0% chance of ever playing college football let alone winning a Superbowl.

Hasn't that always been the case though? I mean, for every Dan Marino or Dan Fouts who was an all world QB in the talent department but all FAIL in the big game wins, there's a Jim Plunkett or Phil Simms who could do just enough to get his team over the hump.

true, though i'm not sure i'd lump simms in there - mofo had pretty much the best-ever super bowl by a qb

He had to throw in the wind!!! Or something.

Isn't that essentially what you said that Eli had? A magical 3-0 playoff run in '86? Otherwise, Phil Simms was 3-4 in the playoffs and a very average player.

you're right - i forgot how poorly simms played in other playoff runs

hostetler was the hot hand when they beat buffalo in the norwood game

Yeah, Hostetler.

Because back in the glory days that thrillhouse is imagining, the big games were won by juggernaut's led by legends like Hostetler, Doug Williams and Mary Rypien.

I think I'm too young to know if this was a real nickname or a typo, but that is hilarious (I do remember Rypien and his SB Redskins though).

It's a typo, but a good one.

I just find this whole idea of a dominant team and parity killing the NFL to be sports talk radio bullshit at it's worst.

I think every year is different and unique. The Packers had a laundry list of players go down this year and still held it together. Is it fair to say they weren't dominant because they lost so many players and lost a couple of games because of it? They can only play the competition put in front of them. Lots of things can affect how a season plays out. There are LOTS of "dominant" teams that didn't make it past the 1st round. To say a team that just won the Super Bowl is mediocre is laughable and without merit. Not only that but revisionist history of other "dominant" teams.

Don't even get me started on parity hurting the league. It just isn't true and the stats support that. The margin of victory in games is relatively the same as it was in the 70's, 80's and 90's as well as the amount of teams reaching the playoffs in back to back years.

Not to mention that, as a business model, it's breaking it's own absurd attendance and profit records every year.

The best team is still determined as the one who scores the most points? Absurd.

margin of victory and teams making the playoffs in back to back years are not indicators of the quality of play across the league or the quality of the top teams. and according to your argument, parity doesn't exist so why are you defending it?

What is your argument again that there is a "lack of quality of play" again? I thought it was no dominant teams. If that's true, then the margin of victories would be different in the oughts as compared to the 70's. And the same teams would be making the playoffs in back to back years.

Without looking at stats, the oughts saw the Pats win 3 superbowls and the Steelers 2. That doesn't seem that different than any other decade. Two teams won half the superbowls. And those teams also each lost a superbowl. So that means that two teams factored in 7 of the 10 superbowls. What is your fucking point? It really does seem like your clinging to any evidence that supports your nostalgia that Joe Montana is no longer beating the powerhouse Bengals.