Which Franchise is the Greatest in the History of the NFL?

**packa7x** · 05-11-2012, 02:53 PM

Interesting point iwatt. I don't think anyone can really argue too much with putting the Giants there. After all...Landy AND Lombardi came out of there.

**iwatt** · 05-11-2012, 02:55 PM

Originally Posted by packa7x

Interesting point iwatt. I don't think anyone can really argue too much with putting the Giants there. After all...Landy AND Lombardi came out of there.

As I said, I might flip-flop, but the fact that Giants have never had a period of prolonged stinkitude is huge.

I hope we could clone Papa Bear....

**GoBigOrGoHome** · 05-11-2012, 02:58 PM

Originally Posted by iwatt

I don't lik judging eras differntly (giving them differnt weights).

A case can be made for and against each eras difficulty, as this thread has shown. All you can say is that during each era the field was even.

My personal rankings:

1- Giants (never faded to irrelevance, long history, multiple eras, great history of players)
2- Packers (13 is 13, and there era of futility was shorter than #3)
3- Steelers (the laughing stock era is a thing of the past, but it was a real thing).
4- Cowboys (this stings, but they were a model franchise for a long time, and they have a lot of followers and are always IMPRTANT in the media)
5- Bears (I hope we could forget the halcyon days and actually have glory days again, but the glory days were great. Just wished I was around back then

)

Got to give the edge to the Giants over the Pack because they never faltered. I can see why others would give the edge to the Pack, because some people weigh titles way too much IMHO. But the continual greatness of the G-men cannot be discounted. They have been a contender over every decade of existence, something nobody else can say.

The Giants, after losing to the Bears in the 1963 title game, went on a 20 year tear of suck. From 1964-1983 the GMen played 292 games winning only 100 of them for a 0.342 win% or a mere 5 games per season. The only teams on your list that have never decade-plus period(s) of futility are the cowboys and, to a lesser extent, the Bears..

**iwatt** · 05-11-2012, 03:00 PM

Originally Posted by GoBigOrGoHome

The Giants, after losing to the Bears in the 1963 title game, went on a 20 year tear of suck. From 1964-1983 the GMen played 292 games winning only 100 of them for a 0.342 win% or a mere 5 games per season. The only team on your list that has never had a prolonged period of futility is the cowboys.

Shows you what I know....

**GoBigOrGoHome** · 05-11-2012, 03:19 PM

Originally Posted by iwatt

Shows you what I know....

Three winning seasons in 20 years (9-5 in 1970, 8-6 in 1972 and 9-7 in 1981). When I was a kid and first started watching the NFL, the Giants were a non-factor. The NFCE (and to a large extent, the NFC in general) was ruled by the 'boys & 'Skins. The two games each season between those teams were always EPIC. The Eagles were a budding team with Vermeil and made the SB in 1980-81. But the GMen just stunk. And then there were the Cards...

**iwatt** · 05-11-2012, 03:33 PM

Well,

I'm going to develop a more comprehensive study for each team and present it as an article at some point, but I did take a look at these five teams

Code:

	Bears	Cowboys	Packers	Steelers	Giants
mean	0.566	0.570	0.548	0.501	0.535
SD	0.200	0.207	0.203	0.200	0.200
					
INDEX	0.367	0.364	0.346	0.301	0.336

What I did was find the mean winning percentages, then the the standard deviation. I found the mean-1 standard deviation. This represents the minimum winning percentage that leaves 84% of the seasons abocve it.

It's stat speak, and no very clean stat-speak, but let's say it's a measure of how good the team is (mean), and how little suckitude it has (variance)

In this case, the Bears ranks slightly above the cowboys, and for Curtis' sake the Steelers are the worst of the 5.

This is not the final ranking, but I guess I'll have to go ahead and say the Pack is better than the Giants...

**Andy Freeland** · 05-11-2012, 05:07 PM

Originally Posted by GoBigOrGoHome

The Giants, after losing to the Bears in the 1963 title game, went on a 20 year tear of suck. From 1964-1983 the GMen played 292 games winning only 100 of them for a 0.342 win% or a mere 5 games per season. The only teams on your list that have never decade-plus period(s) of futility are the cowboys and, to a lesser extent, the Bears..

Thanks for saving me a little research time. When I was a kid the Giants were never good and hadn't been good for a long time.

**packa7x** · 05-11-2012, 09:33 PM

The wisdom of the wise GoBig. I was born when the Giants were good and saw them lose a SB in 2000 when I was in middle school and again in 2007 just a few months after I graduated HS...they just won again a year before I graduate college...they've been pretty consistent my whole existence...5 appearances in my lifetime. It's easy to let that skew my view.

**GoBigOrGoHome** · 05-11-2012, 10:54 PM

Funny to think of the Giants like this. As an 8-year-old, I only knew of their existence from memorizing the standings posted in the paper every Tuesday. Beyond the tales of Joe Namath and SBIII, the Jets were also completely off the radar in the Upper Midwest back then. Once the Silverdome opened in 1975, the Lions were blacked out for most home games. In the 70s we always got the Cowboys & Redskins for our televised NFC games and the Steelers, Oilers & Dolphins for our AFC fix. The 4PM games usually featured the (LA)Rams or Raiders. In the early 80s the 49ers, Broncos & Chargers were heavily featured along with the 'Boys, 'Skins, Eagles, Bears, Raiders, Dolphins, Browns, Bengals, and, of all teams, the Seahawks.

Teams I then only knew of peripherally that we cannot escape in today's game:

Pats
Colts
Jets
Giants
Packers (even though they were an NFCC "rival" they were seldom televised here (Lions @ Pack would be on and if they were in town for Thanksgiving, we'd see them. But that was really it.)

I think I was nearly 20 before I ever saw a Cardinals game on TV (and that was only after Sunday night games began showing on TNT/ESPN).

**mikesteelnation1** · 05-12-2012, 01:06 AM

Originally Posted by Curtis

No. It does not seem reasonable. In fact, it makes no sense. Your new acquisition requires clarity.

I dont see how. I was pretty clear in the post you replied to. I'm assuming you got hit with autocorrect, and meant proposition, not acquisition. Dyac!!

I wouldn't expect you to agree with anything in this thread. Your posts have been crystal clear as to what you think about this thread (and not even close to understated). I'm not interested in a back and forth about it, when clearly your opinion has been clearly stated. I dont expect anything I say to change it... I'm not trying to debate if a towel is necessary or not.