Surely the opposite logic applies when it comes to successful teams, right? Can I just list the last 10 Super Bowl winners as evidence? Must have been the owners, right? Explain to me why it’s different with successful teams.
Well just as a couple crap seasons can be somewhat of a circumstantial fluke, so to can a couple of great seasons. It would take sustained success; repeated playoff appearances over many years, not just a single SB victory or even appearance as evidence of 'good' ownership.
I don't know what your definition for this is, but 16/32 teams have had a stretch of at least 3 playoff apps in 4 years over the last decade:
- Patriots
- Bills
- Steelers
- Ravens
- Bengals
- Texans (who were on your list of teams cited in your initial reply)
- Titans
- Chiefs
- Broncos
- Eagles
- Saints
- Panthers
- Buccaneers
- Seahawks
- Rams
- 49ers
If we increase it to 4 apps in 5 years , then 12 teams qualify. Over a third of the league, that made the playoffs 80% of the time, in a system where only ~43% of teams make the playoffs (before 2020 it was ~37%).
Take the Bears. They've been pretty awful my entire football-conscious life, except for that one year where they made it to the SB on the strength of a great defense, a once-a-generation return man and a quarterback who was just good enough to not fuck it up. It's basically a fluke season in the context of the last 30 years and says nothing about the ownership being good.
That's fair. It's an extreme example though.
Of course by that measure, Robert Kraft is a goddamn genius even though I've hated his guts long before he got the ol' rub n' tug down in Florida. Being a terrible person doesn't always go hand in hand with being a terrible owner. Kraft created the management that could build around Brady and do what they did.
Exactly my point. For every bad example, using the same logic, there's a good one.
For contrast, let's slide over to Dallas and the biggest ego in the owner's group. Here's an owner who has measurably fucked his team since Troy Aikmen retired by putting his thumb on the scale in terms of draft picks, coaching, and talent. And all it's gotten Dallas is successful broadcasting careers for ex players. And a lot of one-and-done Januaries. There's the saying of "always a bridesmaid, never the bride"; well for Dallas it's more like "always the flower girl, never the bride" since Aikmen retired. And that is squarely on Jerry Googly-Eyes Jones.
You're crediting the Cowboys success in the 90s to their players. Which I 100% agree with. But again, by the exact same logic, you should be placing the blame for the Cowboys more recent struggles on the players. You're giving Jones none of the credit when things go right but all the blame when things go wrong.
should-be sex offender Robert Kraft
I'm not sure what you know about the case that the police don't, because Kraft was not charged with anything:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/13/sports/robert-kraft-prostitution-patriots.htmlAnd a lot of one-and-done Januaries.
You're arguing on behalf of the Packers' lack of an owner. Using another team's playoff failures as evidence that the Packers are better off without an owner.
Surely you see the irony there? No team has choked more in the playoffs than Green Bay over the last decade. Dallas hasn't been to the playoffs as much, and they certainly haven't done a whole lot upon getting there. (Packers are 6-7, Cowboys are 3-5.) But in the last 10 years Green Bay has more postseason meltdowns than you can count on one hand. If we go back another 10 years, sure there's the championship in there, (what if that's a
fluke?) but in 2011 they had probably the most embarrassing one-and-done in NFL history, coming off a 15-1 season and getting ran out of their own stadium by a Giants team that barely made the playoffs. Plus Favre's blunder in 2007 and 4th & 26 in 2003.