interesting
Well, it’s official! “Patriots Week” is finally here and all this week we’ll be looking at the Steelers-Patriots matchup from a vast myriad of angles. That’s right. We have a veritable cornucopia of stats, insight and hype to help get you through this long week of anticipation.
Today, I was reflecting on the two Steelers championship losses to the Patriots in 2001 and 2004. As I was thinking about it, it also occurred to me that, other than the Steelers, the Patriots also beat the Colts in a championship game and a divisional playoff game as well.
“These three teams have been in the playoffs a lot lately”, said I. “Exactly how dominant are they in the AFC? The NFL? I wonder….”
Thus, this post was born! I decided to take a look at how the Steelers, Patriots and Colts stack up against the rest of the AFC. What I discovered was very interesting. The table below displays the vital stats of the top four AFC teams from 2001-2006.
2001-2006 NFL DOMINANCE
TEAM W-L(Avg) SB Champs Champ App Div Titles Playoff App
NE 11.6 - 4.4 3 3 5 5
IND 11.0 - 5.0 1 1 4 5
PIT 10.5 - 5.5 1 1 3 4
DEN 9.8 - 6.2 0 1 1 3
I included Denver just to illustrate how far the top three are from the rest of the conference. I would also like to point out that the only team in the NFC that has been better than a 9-7 average is the Philadelphia Eagles (11-5 average from ‘01-’06).
It is absolutely astounding how powerful the Patriots, Steelers and Colts have performed over the last few years. In fact, this year will mark the 7th year of their supremacy (6th for the COlts) as all three look to appear to win their divisions again. But how do they compare to the great AFC trio of the ’70s - the Steelers, Raiders and Dolphins? Surprisingly, they stack up very well.
Even though this season has not ended, there’s a very good chance that two of these three teams will meet in the AFC Championship and that one of them will make it to Super Bowl XLII. I have also taken for granted that all three teams will win their divisions, too (with fingers crossed). If that happens, here’s a comparison of the totals between the “2000s Teams” (Steelers, Colts and Patriots) and the “1970s Teams” (Steelers, Raiders and Dolphins). Please keep in mind that we’re also comparing only 7 seasons from the modern teams (2001-2007) and 10 seasons of the 70’s teams (1970-1979).
The 2000s Teams The 1970s Teams
Super Bowl App 6 8
Championship App 10 11
Division Titles 16 20
Playoyoff App 17 20
Pretty compelling stuff, isn’t it? Two things come to mind as I poured over this data. First, even in the age of free agency and salary caps, it is possible to put a consistently winning team on the field year in and year out.
Secondly, I don’t think I have heard anyone ever talk about these three teams in the same breath as those 70’s teams, but after looking at the results it’s plain to see there is an echelon of dominance that the Steelers, Patriots and Colts have on the NFL right now and it’s time we give them their due… even if some of them cheated ;-)
What do you think? Anything pop out to you when you see this? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
courtesy of statistic man
|